LeSving wrote:
And no help from my boys, because they seem to mean that with a laptop I have already lost it big time. They simply do not see the point of a gaming laptop, and who can blame them ? They also have laptops, at school and university, but for them it’s 100% pen and pencil (+ social stuff along with their mobile phones), and this is because of the form factor.
Funny because I kinda agree with them. In laptops you can get much less performance for the same money or the same performance for much more money than a comparable desktop PC. I’d say the price difference factor is about 1.5 to 2×. Also gaming laptops are usually quite heavy, defeating the very purpose of a laptop. I am a gamer and I have never owned a laptop. I don’t need a mobile PC for work, and all the mobile stuff I do at home now (mostly browsing, watching videos and checking E-Mails) can be done with a smartphone or tablet anyways.
Most non-gamers seem to have switched to laptops in the last 10-15 years, not seeing the point of a big PC tower and monitor taking up all their space in the office. But no laptop can give me the 24" display I have right now. I am oldschool in this regard, as long as I can buy desktop PCs, I will.
I also don’t build my own systems anymore, you can get a customized build of very good quality for very little extra cost. My system took maybe 70€ to factory-assemble, compared to the pure hardware component cost of about 1800€ that was miniscule and saved me a lot of time and bother. I occasionally switch single components like install another SDD or replace the GPU. Currently thinking about replacing my GeForce GTX 780 Ti with a 1080 Ti model, but not sure if this makes sense or the GPU will then simply be held back by my i7 4790K processor.
As for guidance on what hardware to buy, I am relying on Germany’s premier gaming magazine, GameStar , which I have a paper and online subscription to for almost 20 years now.
Timothy wrote:
but the resolution of the instruments was a million miles from being good enough for IFR.
It can work for steam gauges. EFIS aircraft just aren’t so good in VR at the moment.
MedEwok wrote:
Due to hardware development far outpacing software development for years now, my PC from 2014 is still sufficient even for an ardent gamer like me. But it did cost about 1900€ back then
I’m not sure it entirely has – I have a newer machine than this with a GTX980 and XPlane can make it struggle (especially with VR). I can’t max out all the settings on Elite Dangerous (which is mostly in space) either. Unfortunately the price for an upgrade to latest is more than the price of getting one of those new electronic ignitions on the plane :-)
It can work for steam gauges. EFIS aircraft just aren’t so good in VR at the moment.
I disagree. Yes, you can see the gauges, but you can’t see them with enough size or clarity for accurate IFR flying, and IFR flying is about accuracy (ILS approaches are flown with heading changes of 1°.)
Just to take a very simple example, you cannot read the subscale on a steam altimeter.
Sure, but the subscale is at the limit of the human eye resolution (at arm’s length i.e. the usual panel distance) and the eye centre resolution, working on a viewing angle of say 60 degrees (without head turning) is of the order of 200 megapixels. It will be some time before you see displays like that.
Peter wrote:
It will be some time before you see displays like that.
You don’t need complicated maths to figure out that we are really far from that max resolution on full VR visual range. However, there is a bit of eye tracking devices inside the new headsets prototypes, with some software tweaks they allow for full focus/resolution on where it matters, this will be a game changer but it is in its early days, but in few years it will be a standard part in many consumer products.
I agree that the potential is enormous, I am only reporting that it ain’t there yet.
There is a big risk of motion sickness though.
It takes the slightest glitches to get motion sickness on VR while on screens you don’t, turning your head without the world turning around you is not a pleasant experience ;)
I am not sure what you mean by glitches, but my experience is that I felt queasy for several hours after half an hour on VR, though I felt fine at the time.
From my own use, motion sick any time there is more than 50ms delay from your head movements and what the eyes sees due to small lags in motion/optic sensors and graphics, this happens a lot in my flight sims but not when watching the relax in forest video
Most of the time, you don’t notice it at any given time but you feel sickness after 15min of continuious use, if you don’t move your head and just watch you maybe able to cope with it for hours,
I guess we do feel the same when scanning instruments after moving your head while in IMC?
I think having two asynchronous VR sensors: head mouvement and eye movement will be an overkill for motion sickness in VR (no maths/software can predict what double pendulums do after 2 seconds)
