I keep thinking about how I don't want to take up the space with some triple-monitor mayhem, and in fact am still just getting everything unboxed after a move, and never set it up at the old place. So I'm totally going to spend some time at a normal desk with a 23"-ish monitor in front of me.
But once I start putting together a better location than at the general computing desk... is VR "there" yet? I saw J.G.'s using an Oculus headset, so that bodes well...
I don't think it is 100% there yet. It is getting very close, though. The big thing is going to be lowering the buy-in price of the equipment
Half Life: Alyx was released recently. It is solely in VR and it is programmed well enough that a teacher did a math lesson with markers and a wall. You can throw a ball, have it bounce against a wall, and catch it reliably. From a programming standpoint it kind of blows me away how far they've advanced.
But it will require something else to push it through to become a standard and to get people to program it properly
VR is borderline there for Sim racing. If you ask people what they would prefer, ignoring space/budget concerns, the split between that and triples is probably 50/50 right now. Maybe leaning more toward VR.
One thing I have brought up many places: your field of view on a monitor (although distorted slightly) can be much greater than a lower end VR headset. I'm not sure what games allow you to distort FOV in VR. You can't glance left, right, or down in VR, you must move your head. Pimax has an awesome FOV though!
That said, I haven't tried the Index yet, but it sounds like it might be the ideal solution. 20deg more FOV than Vive, but also supports much higher refresh rates.
Summary. IMO VR is just about there. Certainly a ton easier than dealing with multiple monitors, especially if you use your desk for other things besides sim gaming. I'm hopeful that each headset will go through another iteration in the next year all FOV and refresh rates will increase.
Also, not sim related, but a lot of VR games are crazy fun. Beat Saber, even on standalone VR (Quest) is just amazing.
VR instead of regular screens isn't there yet for productivity or office work, but holy cow, it looks like quantum leap in immersive first-person gaming experience.
Here's an in-depth intro to Half Life: Alyx for those of you who haven't heard of it yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7q5L9B-ZhE
First few minutes of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEtgF7YTkLY
The view from inside my Oculus in iRacing is almost identical ao the view from inside my helmet. Although the slight screen door effect with VR is suboptimal, for me, it turns a driving sim into a worthwhile tool instead of a game. Just the ability to move your head in a natural and instinctive fashion is HUGE.
For a serious user yes it is.
Get a index and a RTX 2080TI and a 8+ core CPU with some speed and a good M2 drive and it will blow you away. Its 3K+ USD to get there though. This assumes you already have pedals and a wheel.
My Oculus Rift S with a 1060ti is about 80% of what I want.
I was on a single 29" ultrawide monitor without the room/budget or computer to run triples but still picked up the Samsung Odyssey plus when it went on sale at the beginning of last summer. I used my laptop at the time with iRacing and with everything turned way down it could pull it off for mostly practice sessions throughout the summer (I didn't have a lot of time for it then). What blew me away right away was the elevation changes which all became life like and real, the hills were alive! In the fall I upgraded my PC during black Friday (i7-9700k all core overclock to 5.1 GHz with a 2070 super) and now I can turn up a lot of settings and the resolution and hold 90 Hz everywhere while it is super smooth.
Samsung is due to release a new headset and have been discounting the Odyssey Plus so it is a pretty good deal. I think it still stacks up pretty well against the Rift S, especially when you consider the price. Both use inside out tracking which works very well for sim racing and saves more cost and setup (no lighthouses needed). Some people do have comfort issues with the Samsung but for me it isn't an issue, it also has mechanical IPD adjustment which makes it more adjustable to different faces. I'll leave it to you to research what headset makes the most sense though for your budget.
If a really super clear, high detail image with lots of eye candy is important to you then monitors are the way to go. If a real life full scale world where you feel like you are actually sitting in the car, where you can actually see the elevation and apexes is important then you can't beat VR. Your FOV will be smaller with VR (unless you are using a Pimax) and you will need to move your head more compared to triples but that is not unlike sitting in a car with your helmet on looking through those apexes.
VR setup can be a bit interesting to get going, as I'm using a Windows Mixed Reality headsets I need to run the WMR software along with Steam VR, they both work pretty well and aren't bad to use but it is not as straight forward as monitor setup to get working (but it is worth the effort).
If you can try it out somewhere that is a great way to go (maybe wait until Covid-19 has passed).
Adam
Oh, also we use VR professionally at work and commonly say this: 60% of the time it works every time.
I want to commit to VR for my video game racing rig i just built (i7-9700kf, 2070 super, Obutto Ozone, and g920 because I had it already) but I just can't. When I was working on flight simulators for my everyday job, we were testing out VR headsets as a viable solution to reduce the footprint of a full sized flight sim rig. Some customers see space savings just as critical as time, energy, and so on. Anyways, I just about ralphed for almost all the headsets we tested. The refresh rates were terrible and causing serious nausea in most of us, screen door effects were terrible, and at the time it was deemed a no go because of that. Was it immeserive-holy E36 M3 yea. Was it better than a dome or wrap around screen? It depended on the airframe. This was like five years ago though. I'm interested in trying VR again; but, I would have to do something like the pimax 8k and I aint got the money for that.
Lots of good input in here though. Seems like I built a machine capable of running a decent VR setup.
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