Set your updaters to grab the latest Beta and you’ll find yourselves with VR2 Preview Release. We put a lot of time into this release in an attempt to tackle as many of the usability issues of the VR1 release as we could. (Steam users — VR2 should be available as a public beta on Steam sometime this weekend, as soon as Philipp gets it uploaded.)

Important Note: If you are trying to run VR2 on an X-Plane install that was previously running FlyInside’s plugin, you might experience a crash on startup. We suggest installing VR2 to a fresh copy of X-Plane on your hard drive. If you can’t do that, you might need to uninstall FlyInside and reset your X-Plane preferences.

EDIT: There is currently a known issue with the Thrustmaster HOTAS causing the sim to crash. We’re looking into this and once it’s fixed, we will release VR3 which will address this issue and possibly others should they arise in the next 48 hours or so. For now, if you want to use VR2, you’ll need to do so without your HOTAS.

I’ll enumerate the major headliner features/improvements and talk about them individually, but first, let me be clear what is NOT in this release. This release will NOT dramatically improve the performance or reduce judder for any VR platforms. The goal of VR2 is to address usability for all users.

New Features

3D Mouse is now a thing in X-Plane with VR! This had to be the single most requested feature from VR1 and we heard you loud and clear. Starting in VR2, the 3D mouse is now available. This is really helpful if you prefer not to use your VR controllers or if you are trying to fly a legacy aircraft that does not have good/any VR support. With the mouse, you should be no worse off in VR than you were with flying the plane on a 2D monitor.

The mouse can be enabled or disabled by using the new “VR Settings” tab in the preferences screen, or by binding the toggle-3d-mouse command to a keyboard key, joystick button or even a VR controller button to enable or disable it!

Laser Manipulation support has been added. In VR1, if you wanted to interact with something in the cockpit, you needed to place the tip of the controller on the manipulator such as the throttle and then click and physically push as if your hand was on the real throttle levers. This was and still is the preferred way of interacting with the cockpit elements because you are doing the exact things that a real pilot would be doing. It offers the highest level of immersion.

However, for some of you, this is not always possible because of ‘permanent’ physical limitations in your surroundings. I’m willing to bet, many of you have knocked cups of coffee off of your desks trying to get to that Cessna throttle! To help with this, we have created Laser Manipulation. This allows you to interact with manipulators using the controller from a distance. It’s always available, all you need to do is lightly and partially squeeze the trigger and you’ll see a green laser appear. Now aim that laser at the thing you want to interact with and ‘grab it’ by squeezing the trigger the whole way just like you would as if you could reach it. Once you’ve ‘grabbed’ the manipulator, interact with it intuitively. If it’s a throttle, just push your hand like you would. If it’s a knob, just twist your wrist. If it’s a switch, just flick your wrist. Laser Manipulation essentially just takes traditional manipulation and lets you operate at any distance or angle that is convenient for you.

Yoke Modes/Settings. One common complaint about Yoke interaction is that unlike the rest of the cockpit, the yoke behaved differently. Starting in VR2, there are TWO Yoke modes. The new default is ‘Realistic’ mode. In realistic mode, you interact with the Yoke/Stick the way you would expect. If it’s a Cessna yoke, pull/push it for pitch, or rotate your arm around the center of it to roll. If it’s the cyclic on the S-76 or the stick on the ASK21, just slide your hand forward/back and left/right and the stick will track you perfectly.

The other mode is ‘Ergonomic’ mode, which forces all yokes to behave the same. In Ergonomic mode, your wrist is used to control pitch and roll. The position of your hand means nothing so you can just rest your arm on an armrest and fly comfortably. In addition to the yoke modes, we’ve also added the ability to adjust the sensitivity of the Ergonomic mode so you can adjust it for greater control or responsiveness.

Lastly, you can enable or disable latching of the yoke. By default, when you click on a yoke manipulator, your controller will stay attached to it until you click again so you don’t have to hold down the trigger. If you disable latching, however, the yoke will behave like all other manipulators that end their interaction when you release the trigger. Yoke Modes, sensitivity, and latching options are all set in the new VR Settings tab on the settings screen.

VR Controller Customization is now possible, starting in VR2. Go to the Joystick tab of the settings screen and you should see any VR controllers that are currently powered on. You can configure them just like any joystick and add any X-Plane commands or axis to them.

There are some caveats: there are certain reserved VR axis and commands that must exist SOMEWHERE between your two controllers. Touchpad-X, Touchpad-Y, Trigger, and VR Menu for example. These do not need to be replicated across controllers (though they can be if you’d like) but they must exist on at least one. This allows you to use one controller to do VR specific operations like teleport and manipulator interaction, while you can use your other controller to control the rudder, brakes, weapons etc. You can also configure a free button to run VR commands like resetting your VR view which is incredibly useful to get back in the cockpit facing in the proper direction. You can also enable/disable the 3D mouse cursor or ZOOM.

VR Quick-Zoom has been added as a command that you can bind to your controller. When you press the button, it currently zooms your head in so you can read things in the distance a bit clearer. When you release the button, your zoom resets.

Windows Mixed Reality support has been added! Be sure to check out the VR docs as you’ll need to also install “Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR” to get it up and running.

In addition to all of these features, a lot of work has been done behind the scenes to improve the stability of the VR system but I must remind you that VR is still a PREVIEW. This is more like an Alpha test than a Beta test which means major pieces are still being added and improved rapidly. We’re listening to your feedback and doing what we can to create an amazingly immersive X-Plane world for you but there are still some rough edges to get cut on so it’s still wise and recommended to run VR2 on a dedicated install of X-Plane.

The one big usability bug we did not get to: the xPad will still float around when you teleport around the runway area. This will be fixed in a future preview or beta.

Oculus Judder – A workaround, at least for now.

We do acknowledge that there is an inherent judder in the Oculus Rift that we do not see with the Vive or WMR. We do plan on investigating whether using SteamVR is impacting Oculus’ performance – it’s next on our todo list. The rearchitecting to be able to run this comparison has been done in VR2 but we don’t have data to make decisions yet.

We do suspect that this judder is made worse by the default use of Oculus’s Asynchronous SpaceWarp (ASW). If you don’t know what that means, I’ll give you a very brief explanation with some hand waving. The VR headsets want new rendered data fed to them 90 times per second. Games that cannot render their scenes at that rate would normally have a continuous perceivable stutter.

To solve this, all major headset drivers have created software algorithms that make predictions based on your head’s orientation (tilt/rotate) to predict what the missing frames would look like. For Oculus, this is called Asynchronous TimeWarp (ATW). Since we tend to rotate our heads faster and more frequently than we reposition our heads, ATW solves a big portion of the errors that would otherwise exist in predicting intermediate frame data, but not ALL.

Next comes ASW. ASW’s job is to solve prediction errors caused by repositioning your head quickly (sliding it forward/back or side to side rapidly). This works well (supposedly) but it has its limitations. ASW works well above 45fps, but below 45fps it tends to create more problems than it solves. These problems are surfacing in a lot of cases as the perceived judder Oculus users are experiencing. It is because of this that we recommend disabling ASW.

As I said before ASW is nice, but not necessary for an enjoyable flight since we tend to not make rapid position movements with our heads…unless you are head-banging to some good rock. There are several ways to disable ASW but this one is pretty straightforward:

After launching X-Plane with VR Enabled, go to C:\Program Files\Oculus\Support\oculus-diagnostics and run OculusDebugTool.exe and set Asynchronous Spaceward to “Disabled”. Resist the urge to touch other settings!

Important Note: This has to be done each time X-Plane is launched as ASW reenables itself by default.

About Chris Serio

Chris is an electrical engineer and commercial pilot who got roped into software development by Ben because misery loves company.

126 comments on “X-Plane Desktop VR2 Preview Released!”

  1. Thanks for the VR Quick Zoom. Great idea that will really be useful until the perfect HMD arrives that has 10x the current resolution and runs easily at over 100 FPS.

    Time for another copy of XP on my cockpit sim and then to see what you guys have been up to. Best thing to happen to X-Plane in the 12 years I’ve been a user.

    1. After a quick flight – love VRQZ. Perfect right out of the gate. (Looks at NAV map…. Oh, *that’s* where I am). Lost no more! The mouse seems a bit twitchy, but I do need a more stable platform and mousepad to fully evaluate. I didn’t check – but is there a command to toggle the mouse? Might be useful if there is not.

      Go Chris Go. You da man! 😉

      1. FWIW… I flew with a TM HOTAS Warthog and custom throttle. No TM throttle, no issues. The problem is apparently with the throttle only, based on forum comments.

      2. Yes, I second that. Just loaded VR2 and the mouse is indeed very twitchy. Maybe somewhere where we can adjust the sensitivity of the mouse?Otherwise the implementation in 3D is very good. Also tried the Yoke with my Vive Controllers, but with me it does not matter what box I select, realistic or ergonomic. Seems the only result I get is 2x ergonomic.
        I think its great that you listen to your users and letting them take part in the previews. Laminar cannot think of all the possibilties for controlling in VR, but maybe some user has a super idea which you can build on. Been doing alot of thinking myself as to controls in VR, and it is really not so easy getting a very usable result other than waiting for some VR type control gloves. Good result that I have been getting up till now is to set up the cockpit with my hardware controls at the approximate location that they are in VR and leaving the rest to the Vive controlers. Dumb Problem is still the hardware yoke and the desk its mounted to, getting in the way. Will see what your new implementations will bring to solving this problem. Was going to do some ortho and world2xp this afternoon, but looks like I will be exploring VR2 instead. Keep up the Fantastic work! I will most likely report back my findings and maybe bring in some new ideas…

        1. I forgot to mention in the blog post that the new realistic yokes will not work with 3rd party aircraft until artists enter the necessary data…so please try the yokes with only the default aircraft.

          1. Thanks. Good to know. It is actually your 737, but modified by Zibo (my favorite plane at the moment), so I guess I will try something else then.

      3. This is not obvious, but: if the mouse seems twitchy, change the size of your companion window. Biggger companion windows mean slower mouse movement speeds, because the space of the mouse moving across the companion window is mapped to the FOV of the headset.

        1. How is this done, Ben? The ginormous twitching duplicated cursor icon is headache inducing stuff 🙂 Although it sounds like this workaround will only address the twitching part.

  2. Cannot run X-Plane now…tried rebooting
    unhandled exception error at 0x00007FF68AE6C734 in X-Plane.exe
    0XC0000005: Access violoation reading location 0x0000000000000000

  3. Great job listening to the community!! I say this because I was one of the people requesting a “usable mouse” in VR. As mentioned before, it was my favorite combo in aerofly fs2.

    Now… after you deal with ATC, could we please have a weather system overhaul? 🙂

  4. Disabling ASW is not an option USE THE OCULUS SDK LET THEM DO THE HARD WORK DO NOT TRY TO MAKE YOUR ASW AND ATW SOFTWARE IT WILL ALWAYS BE WORSE

    JUST CALL Oculus and have them help you stop trying to do everything in house

    2. What exactly did you read that made you think “Laminar’s going to try and write their own frame prediction algorithm?” The next step is to evaluate what kind of improvement, if any, switching to the Oculus SDK provides.

      1. A TON your looking at 10 to 15 % gain in using the Oculus SDK along with MUCH Better support ATW and ASW along with all the fun stuff you get form using the 2.0 SDK like pulling in windows from the OS

        really CALL Oculus they will help you the gains over using Steam VR for Rift users are MASSIVE and both can be used side by side there really is zero reason not to since the you can get help from Oculus directly as well

  5. Would it be possible to add an option to disable yoke interaction and remove the green highlight for those who use physical yokes or sticks.

  6. Firstly let me say thank you, as someone who has only headset I was desperate for mouse support.
    I came to submit a bug report as get this error,
    0:06:21.331 I/OVR: Initializing VR Subsystem.
    0:06:21.408 E/OVR: SteamVR failed to init with error 105 (VRInitError_Init_InterfaceNotFound): Interface Not Found (105)
    0:06:21.408 E/SYS: +——————————————————————————-
    0:06:21.408 E/SYS: | SteamVR was unable to initialize:
    0:06:21.408 E/SYS: | Interface Not Found (105)
    0:06:21.408 E/SYS: | Error code 105 (VRInitError_Init_InterfaceNotFound)
    0:06:21.408 E/SYS: |
    0:06:21.408 E/SYS: | (vr_hardware_steamvr.cpp:295)

    But see you have now edited in there is an issue with Thrustmaster Hotas and of course that has to be my Hotas but is this the same issue?
    With VR1 I could get into the VR hangar without issue but of course could go no further because of no mouse support.

    Hoping this is the Thrustmaster issue and for a quick patch so I can finally experience the VR you guys have worked so hard on.

    1. PS
      Forgot to mention that SteamVR appears to working fine in background and I get the error when checking the setup VR hardware box which I assume is how I initialise VR?
      I get the error whether starting Xplane with steamVR running or attempt to initiate from X plane (Where SteamVR appears to startup and run fine but no VR)

  7. Using the touch controllers when the 3d menu is displayed when pressing the trigger button should the menu be removed?

    On 11.20vr1 that did not happen and makes trying to set views very difficult.

    Thanks Bill

    1. Some menu options will remove the menu. Others (like replay) will not as it’s likely you won’t be done with the menu just because you hit rewind, fast forward etc.

      1. If you are trying to adjust your seat position with View > Move > Forward I would think the menu should remain. With 11.20vr2 on a Vive it does not but using 11.20vr1 it remains.

  8. Thanks for the updates and continued dedication to VR. I have found a performance drop from 40 down to 30 FPS in VR and 70 to 50 FPS in 2D? Same flight / settings etc. (Observation not a bug report).
    Regarding the Oculus Rift, I have sensed an underlying tone towards this HMD since the beginning of X-Plane VR. Considering it is the most popular HMD, ahead by 6 % in sales over the Vive and the third most popular HMD ever (PS4 VR and Google Cardboard are ahead) it makes no sense to force its users down the Steam VR route. 45 FPS is adequate for flight, this is true, but the Rift was designed to run at 90 FPS with ASW. It has been done before and works as it should for X-Plane and 2 other very popular (but much less realistic) flight Sims, undertaken by a much smaller company. I know it is all early days, and nothing has been ruled out, but I sense this is all we will get for Oculus owners with X-Plane.
    This is a step forward for the guys who wanted a mouse in the cockpit, I was happy with my 2 suns, flywithlua (it has gone?) and smooth flight. Thanks for allowing me to make my comments.

    1. I just spent several weeks restructuring the code in order to investigate the Oculus issue appropriately. As the blog post says, this is our next top priority. I’m not sure how any of this translates into a tone that we’re looking to ditch Oculus users.

      1. Thanks Chris for your reply,
        I know how fickle customers can be with products and have first hand experience with software development and customers – (pain in the butt in reality).
        I was not implying that the Oculus would be ditched in any way, but you have created your own headache by not including the Oculus API.
        Unless there is some corporate agenda with SteamVR (or others) that is above our pay grade, I see no other reason not to include the API and move on, the Oculus devs have done the work already for you. I am all for VR in any format, and I want to see it succeed on all platforms as it has so much potential for everyone.

        Thanks

        1. Using ONE API. Debugging ONE API. Isolating ourselves from having to stay on top of changes and updates (N) APIs. The corporate agenda is to not waste precious developer time re-implementing VR each time a new headset comes out, and you can rest assured they’re going to be coming out steadily. We were able to support the WMR so rapidly because Microsoft wrote the driver to make it work with SteamVR for us. That’s incredible leverage for us to let manufacturers do the hard part.

          1. Oh Chris, you’ve lost your sense of fun. I, for one, look forward to coding EVERYTHING TWICE! I’m hoping users can find more APIs to suggest we try. The more times we can re-implement the wheel, the better.

          2. “Oh Chris, you’ve lost your sense of fun. I, for one, look forward to coding EVERYTHING TWICE! I’m hoping users can find more APIs to suggest we try. The more times we can re-implement the wheel, the better.”

            Ben you came across as dismissive in the VR1 comments?
            I have voiced my opinion, it has been discussed and we should look forward to the future and move on.

          3. ONE BAD API that IS VERY SLOW with the most fordable hardware CALL OCULUS GET THERE HELP WHY DO YOU NOT LOOK TO FREE OUT SIDE HELP? same with nVidia they have TONS of dev support AND YOU DONT USE IT

          5. I see what Ben and Chris mean. Every piece of software outside of Laminar brings in an uncontrollable source that can effect X-Plane negatively. Sure as an OCULUS guy you want your HMD to get the best support. So do the Vive guys, and so do the WMR guys. Which would mean supporting 3 outside software interfaces. And if one of them updates something, it possibly means updating X-plane to get it working again, because the update broke something in its connection to X-Plane. Updating which then may break the interface for the VIVE or the WMR HMDs, or both. We can see it live – X-Plane gets an update, and suddenly your favorite aircraft has problems, or your plugin won’t work like it did. With software this hugh and complex, a simple small change can mean that something goes wrong elsewhere. So setting oneself on a common denominator, saves on development. No one says that Steam is the greatest thing in the world, but it works, and works for all the headsets. You want better ATC, better Ai planes, better weather, and better whatever? Then any programming that saves man hours will benifit those things. Laminar is a small bunch of dedicated programmers (not a big heartless company) trying to bring out the best simulator alive. Which company asks what their users want by bringing out previews to test? Which company gives us a Christmas present like VR1 on Christmas day. The 25th! , a holiday! Not the Martin’s, not the Tails, and not the FS-2ers! I fly using Steam, and cannot complain. X-Plane VR is fun and so immersiv and it works. I think that when we get to Vulcan, the things will also change for the better. Patience, and let the team continue with their Fabulous work… Just my ten cents… I’m a Vive user, but want to see all headsets advance. That’s why I hate the exclusive stance that Oculus takes. Glade they gave up their battle against revive that makes Oculus games run on Vive headsets. VR neads less me is better, and less this only works on the Rift, and more this is for all. Only this way the VR community as a whole can grow. And that benifits us all.

          6. here is the thing Oculus WILL GIVE YOU SUPPORT why will you not take it? they will HELP YOU WITH YOUR CODE you just have to ask

            unlike steamVR where you own your own why do you not want help from people with LOADS more time working VR?

          7. Will they tie my shoes for me if I’m feeling really incompetent that day? Sometimes I’m not even sure how I manage to get the computer turned on.

    2. Hey Chris, it’s pretty clear what you are trying to do, and very much appreciated by the majority I’m sure. Unfortunately there are always some people who post worries first without really thinking it through. Stick with it, you guys are doing a great job.

  9. Sorry to leave 3 replies but want you to have as much info as possible. I had SteamVR beta installed and reverted back to normal SteamVR and all worked okay. I tried this after unplugging Thrustamster Hotas in case there was an issue with that. Just wanted to report the error I was getting appears to be down to using a SteamVR Beta version.

  10. Hi Laminar,
    Today I’ve tried VR2, (with a not supported way Google Cardboard). Any way I’ve reported some bugs just in case I wasn’t the only one with them. I’ll write them down here just in case.

    I’ve achieved better FPS in VR with this release. That’s GOOD!! 😀

    First the simulator crashes when it tries to launch smartcopilot plugin and also does with X-IvAp (0.4 didn’t try an older one).
    In my system, when I enter VR I can’t disable it by clicking in the Disable VR Headset button, also in my monitor rendering (not the vr googles), I can’t click easily the 2d windows that some plugin pop up.
    Also I can’t enter to the Menu pressing the ESCAPE key. Menu just doesn’t appear.

    Sorry about my English if it isn’t clear enough!

    Thank you for the update!

    PS.: 3d mouse works but is a bit trick to click some things and do some stuff. Things like moving the X-pad, there should be a way to override profundity to move objects farther o closer to the viewer. But it’s clearly in the right path!, great 3D Mouse alpha!

  11. Hi,

    Currently I have multiple Flight and Space Simulators installed on my PC and I must say that all of them but XP11 implement the Oculus Rift SDK.

    While the native VR experience in XP11 is very promising, I must say that my experience with SteamVR as an Oculus user has been, to put it mildly, very bad. Crashes, stutters, hang-ups, blue-screens, VRserver and multiple SteamVR errors have been a daily occurrence for me.

    I do not have all the needed data, but it seems that Oculus users are the majority in the XP platform. Are you guys considering implementing the native Oculus SDK as well?

    As I said, I have multiple games and simulators that offer me the alternative to run using the native SDK without dropping SteamVR support. Perhaps that is an easier solution than trying to tackle all the existing Rift issues?

    Thanks

    1. Yes and I’m willing to bet none of those applications support the HTC Vive or the Windows Mixed-Reality headsets…which many of our customers have. As we’ve said, comparing the performance of SteamVR with the Oculus SDK is next on our todo list.

      2. They do actually.

        Please note that none of these Flight Simulators mentioned were bought in the Oculus Store, but rather on Steam or directly through the vendor`s website. Even though they work on the Vive, they also chose to support the Rift SDK natively, nevertheless. I have also read that the next version for the other major simulator (to be released in the next week) will add support to WMR devices.

        I believe that supporting the Oculus SDK and SteamVR should be a good strategy to have, as this would allow both Rift users and all the others to have a good experience.

        Thanks and looking forward for the next releases.

        1. I have to say, its true, the native oculus sdk (running a rift ) does run rings round steam vr for both stability and speed, just grabbed Oculus Native Arizona Sunshine this weekend and its notably a helluva lot smoother than running the Steam VR version with Oculus suport, might be that steam abstraction layer slowing things down a little that is not required with the native SDK.

          another one to take a look at to see how this use of native sdks and be fused in one product is , dare i say…. Aerofly FS2, runs like brown stuff of a very shiny and highly polished shovel, but it does not have the global suport that XPLANE has in terms of addons, scenery and comunity.

          i seam to recall that flyinside uses native sdk’s as well

          1. The way I see it, If you have a VR headset then you are hooked, there is no going back, and I for one will go with whichever Simulator works best with my headset, I have no choice, I am not being bitchy, but the choice is really out of my hands, If I can’t get decent performance in a Sim I simply can’t use it and have no choice but to look elsewhere.

            Having said that, I have had a pretty good experience, so far, with the way X Plane does things, maybe I’m just lucky, it’s not a seamless and requires a little more work to get it running smoothly than Elite Dangerous or DCS which don’t use Steam VR for Oculus Rift’s.

            I think people are a little confused as to why Laminar decided to go down the route they did when other sims did not, I see the logic behind it being easier for you guys to code for, but from an end user that has never had to deal with SteamVR before, it seems strange, to me, not to you guy’s, I understand that.

            And I aslo understand that you are sick hearing the same complaints about SteamVR, but realise that most people, including me, have never seen this implementation of VR before, not your fault, but certainly not mine either.

            And I understand from your writing that you are looking at the benefits of using the Oculus SDK as well in terms of performance, performance is only one aspect however, there is also customer perception and customer satisfaction, and maybe it would have a placebo effect for some people to have Oculus supported by it’s own SDK ?

            Who knows, but the atmosphere in some of these replies is a bit nasty to be honest, everyone here wan’t X Plane to be the best it can be, that’s in everyones best interest, including the guys at Laminar Research.

            And finally, thank your for the work you have done so far in implementing VR in such a solid way, it really is a game changer.

  12. Great job guys! VR is really coming along.

    The idea for the push to zoom is exactly what we need. Coming from using FlyInside this feature becomes a must very quickly.The issue is that with “zoom” you your hands stay in the same spot so it becomes a bit awkward to use controls. For instance if I want to change the coms or use the gps, when I zoom in, I lose the sense of where my hand is. It would be nice if your hands always stayed 1:1 based on your view.

  13. Thanks to the VR crew! But…
    1. Where exactly are the Mixed Reality “VR Docs”? I’ve been running Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR since VR1…is there an update? and;
    2. Since “Enable VR Hardware” is now missing from VR2’s Graphics tab, do we simply launch VR by activating the SteamVR button in Steam, now?

    Thanks,
    Chas

  14. VR is getting so good.

    When using realistic yoke and Latch mode unchecked, letting go of the yoke should return the yoke/stick to it’s neutral position, not remain locked where you let it go.

    Thanks for all the hard work.

      1. Not so sure. In flight, the real yoke will stay where you let go if the plane is properly trimmed; and so wll a force feedback sim yoke: neither has a “neutral” position (unless you want to call that the full forward position it takes, say in a 172, under the weight of the elevators when the engine is off).

  15. AA seems to be broken Tried at 2 airports reset preferences. If I select none or most doesnt matter, AA doesnt change, neither do frame rates. This is normal non VR

  16. I freaking love you guys. These previews rock. I do hope you use oculus sdk but hey, if you manage it on steam it makes perfect sense. Keep up the good work chaps and chapettes. (simulated pat on the back) well done

  17. Thanks for the update. My observations so far:

    – FF A320 no longer works in VR2. CTD however/whenever you try to load it. I love the touch controllers but was really looking forward to the mouse support for aircraft that are not yet VR compatible, primarily this one.
    – Enabling mouse cursor works but I’m seeing a huge cursor icon flashing right in front of me in one eye, and the actual small one in the other eye.
    – ‘Disable VR Headset’ button doesn’t work when in VR mode with mouse cursor enabled (take the headset off in VR mode with mouse cursor enabled, try to click this button with the mouse, nothing happens).
    – Seems the default key assignment has changed for several of the touch controller buttons/axis. E.g. can no longer pan around the exterior with the hat switch, this switch seems to have changed to a teleporter. No major issue as can reassign them all, but slightly frustrating.

  18. IVAO PILOT CLIENT is crashing X Plane after this update .,

    Not sure if its X Plane related or IVAO

    Works in 20VR1 and STOPS in 20VR2

      1. PS: I had to remove X-Ivap, but it’s also crashing when quitting X-Plane… quite unstable this release!

  19. Dear sirs!
    First of all I’d like to thank all of you, LR and Community, for great job!
    Finally we have mouse support and I can fly C172 without punching my hardware yoke trying to reach knobs located under virtual yoke.
    45 fps is ok. No problem to disable ASW either. As per FlyInside, it’s enough just to remove its folder from the Plugins folder of XP.
    But I have the question regarding the resolution. Seems like it is quite low at the moment. Is there any option to make the resolution higher? There was such possibility in FlyInside (one can easily edit some cfg file) and VR was more “readable”, but the price was FPS of course. Here, in “native VR” I can hardly read the text on panels and need to lean to the dashboard each time or use zoom, which is a bit annoying.
    Thanx in advance for your reply!

    1. If your GPU is bored, you can increase the VR texture size by adjusting the supersampling slider in SteamVR. That will help a bit with the readability of things.

        1. If you’ve got the GPU budget for it, go for it. If you see your GPU usage pegged at 90%+ you’ll want to back it down a bit. Most people that tinker find themselves under 2.0x.

          1. Nah it was a joke 🙂 I contacted you for a clarification of what you meant by “forcing ASW off”, and you said it was the scotch talking 😉

  21. By the way, gentlepersons, I am one of those Tm HOTAS Warthog owners…let me know how I can help.

    Chas

  22. Hi guys, I can see why it’s taken so long to get this update & great job listening to the community.
    I just love that zoom , also looks to be running smoother.
    Off to have more flights.
    Thanks

  23. Great update, I love the option to turn on the realistic yoke controls, all controls feel so right at the moment! One thing I would really like to do is to change the thumbstick behavior so that I can fluently move the camera around the cockpit and aircraft with them (I’m not prone to motion sickness). The controller configuration suggests that this should be possible, but it won’t work when I change the thumbstick axis to view/camera movement (as stated in the release notes). Please make it so we can use those axis in flight mode for something else.

    My wish to unlock the yoke when releasing it still stands, the current behavior is realistic when on the ground, but in the air the yokes should be free to move (and have some center spring based on the airflow around the control surfaces or maybe because the controller has a center spring like in the Airbus(??)). This way we should be able to trim the aircraft for short moments of hands free flight which becomes mandatory when we get to display charts and stuff in the virtual cockpit.

    Also, very good to hear that you are investigating the Oculus Rift performance issues. Keep up the good work and thanks for all the time you take to make this product great.

    1. Bind your axis to “General Left/Right/Up/Down” commands and see if that helps. You can absolutely move the camera around with the thumbstick. We can/will set it so that the yoke recenters itself on release but it won’t be affected by the winds like in real life. That’s not a feature that’s on our radar at the moment.

      1. Well I do seem to be able to bind the axis to digital commands (like move view left slow) which is enough for me for now. It would be nice if we can move the view using an analog axis in the future, so that if you move the stick a little bit, the view moves slowly.

        Another nice to have for the future is to be able to map both sticks (one axis for left and right, one for forward and backward, one for rotation and one for up and down). The sticks should switch mode when pressing the menu button then to be able to control the menus.

        Recentering the yoke on release will be more than enough for now, maybe 3rd parties can develop wind affecting the yokes some day.

        Oh and please allow to disable yoke (or even all control) highlighting (or fade it away after a few seconds). Thanks again.

  24. Oculus vr running great after update, the mouse addition is
    I now seem to have shadows from scenery even though the checkbox is unticked, this will decrease fps ?
    Can not click the disable vr blue button when I want to come out of vr
    Very happy with update so far, keep it up

  25. Well done guys/gals on enhancements to VR!

    When I was ready to take off in 172, my plane went left and turns out that left brake is pressed by itself while right brake is at resting (off). I am using CH Products rudder. Checked rudder setting/calibration and they are all correct like in past.
    Tried various aircrafts and they are all same.

    When I press down the left brake, the left brake (in the VR 3D cockpit) very slowly coming to off position (it is like axis is reversed but settings showing correct axis).

    Anyone using CH Products rudder in vr2? Do you have similar issues as mine?

    3. I’m not happy with my CH pedals. They often will suddenly just not work, or not work correctly. Have to unplug them from the USB port, and then plug them back in. Then everything is fine again. It’s frustrating, as I start taxiing, and then realize that the rudder won’t work or the whole setup is onesided, forcing me to crawl behind my desk to unplug, and plug in the pedals (I’m using Windows 10). Maybe try that before filing a bug?

  26. My Thrustmaster T16000M and HOTAS combination work fine with this release.

    I think the laser seems to be “de-tuned” from the controller action, i.e. the same twist of the controller touching the knob seems to have more effect than when the laser is on the manipulator. Still trying this out.

    Mouse icons seem huge. Any way to make them half that size? They do seem to be “drawn” on a different “layer”. Possibly that layer doesn’t support finer resolution?

    Overall Im very pleased with the VR implementation so far at this stage.

    1. The mouse is drawn “above” things because if we draw it at the correct depth, it gets embedded inside of the objects and you can’t see it clearly. We may introduce an adjustment for the size of the cursor though. I’m not sure.

  27. One curiosity strikes me, Chris. While these releases seem to have the flavor of a beta, and people are reacting (good and bad) like they are a beta, what is the difference in LR’s position between the VR preview concept and the next version beta concept? Lots of people are also expecting these VR releases to have other non-VR elements improved, it seems. What I’m wondering is are we going forward on two paths here? Is VR a solitary development process by itself that will eventually be merged back into the main sim development path? In other words, when will the real VR beta’s begin? (And what’s currently happening to the core sim?) Thanks for your efforts and patience. If I had any aged scotch, it would be yours! 🙂

    1. “Preview” is literally that. It’s like tasting the cookies while they’re still raw because who doesn’t like cookie dough?! Once we stop shifting datarefs, APIs, and architectures, we’ll go into Beta mode where things start to get locked down except for bug fixes. Ben and I have been VERY disciplined about not letting non-VR things into this release because we want it to be public and stable as fast as possible. Introducing flight model changes and various other things that are being worked on would only extend the test time.

      1. Right – there’s a pile of NON-VR stuff sitting on the sidelines waiting for Chris and I to stop screwing around with VR. The rest of 11.20 isn’t a huge amount of change – it’s not like 11.10.

  28. Greetings to all,

    I’ve been a hobby simmer since ms flight ver 1.00, and x-plane has always been personally viewed as the real thing engine-wise, with always missing rough edges.

    My comment is a bit off-pitch, whereby as VR is now becoming a dangling fruit, and since it is having a bigger impact and demand on the existing OpenGL based engine, regardless of it being optimized for performance or not …

    question is … isn’t it time that we start seeing vulkan as the next major update? (after Stable VR and ATC ) .. would be happy with an answer that sheds some light on speculated timeframe for that.

    Keep up the good works.

    1. Every step we take internally gets us closer to Vulkan. It’s like doing a spring cleaning when you know you’re going to be moving to a new house that same year. You organize your stuff with the future-move in mind to prepare.

  29. I can finally ditch my saitek yoke and rudder pedals! This will take a bit of training to figure out the best controller bindings, but it’s just so easy to trim for level flight, flare landings, etc. using motions that coincide with real life when using the controllers. x-plane’s preview implementation is getting better with each release.

    HDR is working better and the immersion is just fantastic! Keep it up.

    1. I would ditch the yoke (I did the same in favour of the Oculus Touch controls), but I would keep those rudder pedals as the Touch controllers won’t allow you to properly control the rudder, especially in heavy crosswind conditions.

      It’s great isn’t it? I’m sitting on an empty chair in my room with just some rudder pedals in front of me and I’ve never had so much controls in front of me (virtually)! Those dreams from the 80’s are finally getting real!

  30. It’s me again.
    Been doing some experimenting. The Laser thing does not work for me, as it is too sensitiv and I have a lite handshaking problem (probably result of two older strokes that I had) which makes matters worse. What I do find good is that with mouse control the mouse wheel lets me scroll in to the panel (havn’t found and got working the thing with the zoom button yet), making the reading and also manipulation of the controls very good. Maybe one could map this to stroking the pads backwards and forwards on the VR controllers like using a mousewheel, as the pads are only used after you call up the menu or when you press them for teleporting (not sure how this could be done on the Oculus touch, as I am not sure if they have something like the Vive pads). This would resolve the Desk getting in the way problem with control hardware, as you zoom in -> then the controls are right in front of you to manipulate and not behind the yoke where you cannot get to them because the desk is in the way. You are basically bringing the impossible to reach controls to you, and not using some type of wobbly extension to get to them (Hope my explanation is clear enougth). Works with the mouse making it easier with the twitchy mouse to manipulate something, but the VR controllers are left out of this type of manipulation in the zoomed mode. Would be great if they cold be used also. At last I can read everything in the cockpit and if the VR controllers would work in this zoomed mode, I think the controlling would be almost perfect! With this zooming I also found another effect: if the mouse pointer is in the middle of my sight, it often kind of follows my headset movement (don’t know if this is wanted, but if not, it is a very, very good bug). Which makes me think that maybe a kind of crosshere type control hooked to the headset – in that you look at something – would be another type of control possibiltie (controlling in VR is a very, very complicated subject!). Activate it by some type of button (maybe the almost not used Vive grip buttons – no idea what the Oculus controllers have) or have boxes to activate a laser mode or a crosshere mode which then uses the trigger buttons -> half press select, full press manipulate + half press crosshere, full press manipulate). Just an idea. Looking and manipulating with the mouse in the zoom works good for me with the knobs, and still somewhat twitchy with the switches. In normal view the mouse is too sensitive, but the large view gives you a lot of room to work with any shakes you might have… 🙂
    Just some inbetween ideas – now back to testing your great creation some more…

  32. Got the thing with the “quickly zoom in” working on my Vive grip buttons (Set quick zoom from the VR control set to button 2 on the vive controller in joystick configuration). Superb! Now if only I could manipulate the thing I zoomed into with my Vive contoller without using the laser mode (VR controls schould zoom in also), it would probably be perfect! But I also found using the mouse wheel gives me even more zoom (helpful in reading the 737 FMC buttons). May have to construct a type of small table where I have both lying on so I can use both (controlling in VR is still a complicated subject before they construct VR gloves!)….

  33. Hey guys

    I really love you for implementing such a fantastic feature for XP!

    Thank you for the hard work and the immense time that you need for programming such a great thing. There are now two things that are restless dying for me:
    1. FSX
    2. Flyinside

    All I can say is, XP and VR is an absolutely fantastic combination, it is the future of Simulation. Such a big market!

    The next years will be soooo interesting. You gave us a real platform to fly so many aircrafts around the worldy at any time!

    Thank you!
    Marco

  34. Fantastic work guys. A big step further compared to vr 1. In vr 1 I had a constant wobble. Now everything is running smoothly. The performance and graphics seem to be much better. I’ll send you a box of German beer.

    There are some things that I noticed.

    1. The mouse is permanently visible and is in front of the eyes. Every time I have to move the mouse out of sight. But after a head movement it comes back into the field of vision.

    2. Warnings (for example, in case of faulty scenery) appear at the bottom right. You have to squint to hide the message with the mouse.

    3. Popups of plugins such as world traffic, are difficult to close. The mouse seems to be offset here. You have to click around for a while until you hit the right spot.

    4. I can not perform the calibration because I can not press the “calibrate” button with the mouse. Both tried, with and without 3D mouse.

    5. I don´t know if it is a fault on my side. But I get the message …..”FlyWithLua\Internals\SavelnitialAssignments.ini:67: attempt to concatenate a nil value” and …..”FlyWithLua/Internals/FlyWithLua.ini: 308: attempt to compare number with nilalue”. I´m not a coder so I don´t know what it is.

    Well done.

    Greetings from Berlin

    1. I don’t know what the FWL message is – that’s something you’d have to ask the plugin developer.

      The mouse intentionally stays within your field of view – turn it off to hide it – you can’t lose it off screen.

    2. I feel like number 3 is valid even for “default” popups. It’s not very easy to close and the “button area” seems to be slightly offset.

  35. Hi guys! Avid VR fan here. The HOTAS bug you are aware of, luckily 🙂 But there is a bug that makes LUA not work. It outputs “FlyWithLua/Internals/SaveInitialAssignments.ini:68: attempt to concatenate a nil value” and “Resources/Plugins/FlyWithLua/Internals/FlywithLua.ini:308: attempt to compare number with nilalue”..

    A user over at x-plane.org said that if he removes the batteries from Touch controllers and remove the “preferences” folder, LUA will work again. That the manipulators are the cause of the error.. I hope there is a way for you to fix this for VR3? Because the majority of us VR users are using LUA to get a decent framerate above 45fps.. We have spent a considerable amount of time to make it playable.. And understand me correctly: Your VR implementation is PERFECT.. We just have to be able to keep the LUA script working whilst you’re improving the engine for performance 🙂 LUA is our workaround to get a fluent framerate experience.

    1. I found a workaround by editing settings.txt instead of using LUA scripts. So I’m set for now 🙂 But it would be cool to have LUA working again.

      1. I‘m adding this here, because Laminar might not have recognized it and it might be very interesting to them as it improves FPS drastically without noticeable visual impact in VR (and only there you almost can‘t see the difference):

        (kudos to the user keem85 in the X-Plane forum):

        Open settings.txt inside resources folder (open it in Notepad++)
        -Go down to line 227 and find this “SETTING_1 renopt_draw_3d_04 4 reno/LOD_bias_rat 1″….
        The number “04 4” means “Maximum object setting”, where “LOD_Bias_rat 1” means that you can see all the objects FAR FAR away.. The higher the number, the lesser you can see objects in the distance..

        Now, Try this: “SETTING_1 renopt_draw_3d_04 4 reno/LOD_bias_rat 9″… Where the 9 is a much shorter range..

        Try it, thank me later 🙂

        EDIT: On a monitor you would see this difference quite substantially.. Because you are presented with every object only 1 meter from you.. But in VR you will not notice it 🙂 Objects are visible quite far anyway, even with a distance of 9.
        EDIT2: Set your slider to maximum, because that is the setting we changed, ofcourse.

          1. What I meant: you can almost not see the difference when you change that option! Probably because of the resolution of the HMD and the scenery far away can‘t be seen anyways.

  36. Fantastic effort guys!

    The way you listen to X-Plane users and take on board their observations is a real lesson to other developers.

    Thank you once again.

  37. I just tried the latest update. I seemed to get much less judder (on an Oculus) but I am not sure if I used the exact same graphics settings as before. I am also very glad that you can now teleport without having to press the controller joystick which makes teleportation much more convenient for me. I was going to suggest that you let us select controller menu items by pressing the trigger as well (for some reason I really hate having to press the controller joystick) but realized that this is now already possible – so another big thanks for that.

    Here are a few thoughts after some test flights:

    * The new Yoke mode is much more intuitive to use. But in that regard I would like to suggest one more mode – some sort of hybrid mode so to say. In this mode you could move the yoke in and out by moving your hand forward and backward and rotate it by rotating your wrist (so basically use the realistic mode for pitch and the ergonomic mode for roll). I would imagine this to be the best of both worlds.

    * In a reply to my comment on a previous blog post you mentioned you considering something like double-click-to-“latch” on. This might still be a very useful feature to have.

    * When the mouse is enabled could you hide it after some time of inactivity and show it when the mouse is moved again?

    * It would be nice if the manipulator highlight when approached by a controller could be a bit less obtrusive. Maybe make it blue and more translucent – or event better don’t make it a box but highlight the controls outline (the latter might be hard to do I guess).

    I really like where this is headed – great work from all involved.

    1. Re: mouse hide – yeah, I was thinking about this – X-plane _has_ built-in mouse hide, but the constant small rotations of the HMD make x-plane think the 2-d mouse is constantly vibrating, which disables the hide.

  38. Is the VR2 update available for steam users? I’ve been checking all weekend and I am wondering if it’s just me that can’t seem to download it?

    Thanks, and great work!

    1. It’s not on Steam – we held off on posting it because it has so many crash-related issues. We’re going to get VR3 up ASAP and put that on Steam.

      (Basically as soon as we have something that doesn’t crash for 24 hours, we’ll put it on Steam.)

  39. I wonder: VR is nice, but it seems a _lot_ of hours were spent on it, and I’m afraid VR will delay the next release of X-Plane 11 (with other features and bug fixes) significantly.
    Is it possible to make a temporary “fork” (branch of separate development) of X-Plane 11 that deals with VR enhancements only? So users interested in it could try the alphas and betas, while the other users could try the rest without having to wait for VR to become ready for release. It will also take the time pressure from the VR code: You _can_ make a new release while the VR code ist being in development (on a separate branch).
    I’m aware that maintaining a second branch is extra work, too, but just in case you decide to pospone all that stuff for X-Plane 12, the separate branch would be the correct starting point.

    1. Everyone’s got some feature that they want to put ahead of everyone else. You’ll have to just trust that our decisions are what’s best for the majority of customers. VR is important to non-VR customers because it forced us to start modernizing our rendering engine…which benefits everyone.

    2. That’s kind of what the VR previews are. One of the points of calling them VR previews and not 11.20b1 was to let other users use the relatively stable 11.11.

  40. OCULUS TIP…

    To permenantly set ASW off and not need to keep set it every time you start XPLANE install OculusTrayTool, it “fixes” the ASW setting keeping it at what you select.

    also install the plugins FlyWithLUA ( //forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/38445-flywithlua-complete-edition-for-x-plane-11-windows-linux-mac-os-x-version/) and 3jFPS ( //forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/38085-3jfps-wizard-enjoy-smooth-flying/ ) to dynamically modify detail settings on the fly (source SweViver //www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmp9u9s0Ds )

    I have XPLANE running fairly decently on an overclocked i5 7600k @ 4.8ghz with an EVGA 1070 SC and oculus rift, I mainly fly from aerodrome to aerodrome over Spain in either the Skyhawk or a Uno MkII ( //forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/40515-uno-ultralight-mk-ii/ ) and stay away from the major airports though, also have hd mesh v4 ( //www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-11-hd-mesh-scenery-v4/ ) scenery installed.

    hope it helps out a few of us with less than killer hardware

  41. I reported two bugs through the bug reporter for 11.20VR2.
    – unable to turn off ground shadows.

    – missing roads and autogen.

    Turns out it was caused by the python interface installed to run xEconomy. My bad! Should have tested this more thoroughly before reporting. Posting it here for the info of Ben and Chris and also for other testers who may have the same issue.

    1. It might be worth noting that the python interface is not the only plugin with the effect of freezing graphic options and preventing autogen buildings from drawing.

      For me, XPUIPC was the root cause.

      1. I have the autogen and road problem, too. XPUIPC was the cause too.

        And a wish : in future would it be possible to get charts and aircraft check lists out of a file onto the xpad ?

        Thx for your work guys !!

    1. Maybe someday. It seems like _not_ the most important thing – we’re already using hardware instancing/stereo viewport. At this point our performance priorities are (1) CPU side, (2) fill rate (especially as HMD screens scale up) and only (3) vertex throughput.

  44. found another performace tip for oculus rift.

    right click the oculus app on desk top or in the start menu, properties/compatibility/ check run as administrator

    this will stop oculus home running when steam vr starts, also it stops the headset auto starting oculus home when you out it on or something trips the proximity sensor,

    you have to run oculus home manually from then on or remove the run as administrator check when you want oculus home to start by itself

    might not with with UAC dissabled though…

  45. It`s me again.

    I can´t see any lights except for the airports and no sun anymore. Is it just me?

    My five-year-old daughter wanted to share my joy and put on the headset as good as possible. She accidentally changed the view on the touch and was suddenly outside the aircraft. She screamed in panic that she fell off the plane and fell into tears. So good is the graphics in VR. Well done guys for that:))

    I tried to get back into the cockpit and touched the thumb stick at first. This crashed X Plane.

    I know that many asked for a simpler teleportation. But the negative side is that you have to be careful not to touch the thumb stick accidentally. Already happened few times to me resulting in finding me in different position like looking at the cockpit door, or sitting behind the FO chair.

  47. Curious what other people are using as far as GPU…

    My machine:
    i5 3.3 Ghz
    GTX 1060 3GB
    MSI MOB

    VR2 is completely unusable due to extreme lag… Everything seem to load fine but when I move my head around it’s extremely jumping and laggy…

    Anyone else experiencing this?

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