Hello,
I’m trying to turn my pc into a VR flight simulator for the lowest cost possible.
My current setup is not terrible but not great either:
Win 10 Pro
AMD Phenom IIX2 1055T 2.80 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Video: GTX 560 1 GB
Monitor: Toshiba 32 in LCD.
I also have a copy of MS Flight Sim X (with joystick and throttle)which this machine runs just fine and, if possible, would like to use this in the VR flight sim.
Obviously I’m going to have to purchase additional software and hardware but again, I’m looking for the best combination of what to purchase without breaking the bank.
For example, Oculus rift wont work on my current setup but I also don’t think it will work with MS Flight Sim X so if I were to that route I’d have buy everything.
Any thoughts on how to get a VR flight sim at decent cost?
But yeah, if you’re looking at VR and the very next word you use is “cheap”, well, pick one. The tech on PC is high end and expensive, and the console versions will never support something like what the Vive is doing on that video.
If you wait for a holiday sale, maybe look on ebay for a used Steam VR/Vive you can probably build yourself a VR PC (~$800) and a Vive (maybe used for $600+) for a total of $1,400.
Yeah, not cheap. If you can grab your old drives and move your win pro license and reuse your case maybe you can do $700 for the PC. That’s still $1,300 optimistically.
PC VR is evolving, and next year we’re likely to see a cheaper, better version of the Vive, and possibly Oculus, not to mention tons more software to play with.
I’d wait, or see if you can freelance/part time it on the weekends for a month. I once made $1,000 at one of those Banquet halls in like two weekends
EDIT: It looks like the app that adds VR to Flight Sim X is also available on the rift. And if you’ve already got a flight stick setup, then you’re good to go and the Rift is cheaper at $500. But still very expensive, especially if you’re basically having to do a major upgrade of your PC.
Thanks you, Kinthalis. I didn’t realize I could use my current flight sim with both vive and oculus. I’ll need to upgrade my pc regardless of which one I choose so I’m going to start comparing prices/options and check out the reviews for both of them.
Thanks again for the information… it is much appreciated.
Here’s a reddit thread on requirements for the Oculus. Your system is older but slightly better than their not recommended “absolute and utter minimum requirements” of
Video Card: GTX 650 / AMD 7750 desktop GPU or better and newer
CPU: Intel i5-750 / AMD FX-4100 or better and newer
I suspect you’ll have to upgrade the video card, at least. You might possibly be able to get away with using the same CPU. There’s some reports of people using Phenom II processors with VR, but you’ll probably be very CPU bottlenecked.
What kind of frame rates are you getting currently? The manual for the VR plugin for Flight Simulator X says that you can expect your frame rates to drop to 80-50% of what you get without VR.
Thanks, Enilno. I like that the thread you linked to has some builds included that I can definitely compare to my current setup.
I’m not in front of my current FSX at the moment so I dont know the exact frame rates. I do know it is pretty smooth with almost every setting on ‘high’ but I also know with a VR setup I need to upgrade almost everything… I may end up with an entirely new machine. Oh well, at least I can still use my windows 10 and the joystick.
