Its a pity they wont do VR. I was playing another game the other day and i was in the cab of an inanimate Steam Loco and it was amazing even just standing there!
Without {tactile} VR gloves that allow you to grab controls, shovel coal into the firebox, the experience is still 'fool your mind'? VR gloves are still out of financial reach us average mortals
check out derail valley and oculus. occulus does have a basic recognise your fingers move in some apps
The voice is there, but its the quiet pariah in the corner no one looks at for more than an hour. I think there are a lot who would like VR, even at DTG but the horsepower needed would be significant to get good experience, and the potential customer base would need to be significantly larger than it is
Would it though? Fallout 4 runs VR and you can almost run that on a potato. Are DTG being over cautious with the player base? You say the player base would have to be larger but then there is a sizeable VR player base already out there and would it be unreasonable to assume new players might be tempted to come in to TSW if it had VR? If they are going on just surveying the present TSW customer base they will never implement VR but if they tried surveying say the VR customer base then maybe they might get something to think about? Just a thought.
If you build it, they will come! It's baffling to me that everyone's always banging on about immersion, but mention the most immersive way you could possibly experience the driver's seat of a train and nobody wants to know.
Your last sentence kind of supports what the surveys have kept saying. People who have vr headsets would want vr. But mist tsw players don't have vr. I remember users in the f1 games banging on codemasters to implement VR. They finally did it in f1 22 but it hasn't gotten alot of attention really because only a small portion of the playerbase has vr headsets. I am not against vr even though I play on console but I guess DTG would have to decide to make something for a small portion of the playerbase. It shouldn't be a priority in my opinion though
So here is my two cents, I do have a reverb G2 and I love playing with it! DCS, Flight Simulator, F1 22. I don't want to go back to the screen for those games. So I would love to be able to play TSW in VR. I can't think that it is too complicated to get it running VR as the UE4 does support it. Comfortability is another question, but when you ask me like in F1 22 for example I don't need VR controller support or such thing.
For "it cant be too complicated" re-read previous posts of mine on this very thread, just to avoid me repeating myself and upsetting everyone TL;DR - kinda is. but not necessarily because of the raw tech itself. Matt.
Like your posts saying how RailDriver and other tech would be fully supported? RD is a mess at the moment. As for VR listening to other companies that did it (I am not an expert) but they said the most complicated thing to overcome were the actual controls but then there is a halfway house with that, You could use a controller say with a headset to give the experience but then we know that mapping controls are not really DTG's strong point. But like Tallboy says it should not be a priority.
I know Matt wants it personally so we have someone in our corner. We gotta be patient. PS5 is getting VR isn't it, so that could change things, however the PS4 VR wasn't barn storming, although I don't know the figures. One day!
As much as I love VR and would also love to see it in TSW, I'm afraid there are many many basic things to put right first
VR no longer needs the mega PC's it did when it first launched, they've come on a long way since then, but the demands of VR haven't really gone up - plus VR has added new tech like async warping which means you can even get away with *lower* framerates without it actually looking like it's low. I remember playing Flight Sim in VR a long time ago, my old laptop ran it quite badly, and in VR it was terrible - like 20fps. But it was perfectly enjoyable, because using the async warping thing, it virtualised it up to the required 90fps so that head movements were perfectly smooth and just updated frames when they were available. Was it ideal? no. Was it playable and enjoyable on way underspec hardware? heck yeah. I don't see hardware spec's as a real problem on VR these days tbh, and you can quite significantly dial some settings down under VR and not really see much difference except FPS is improved. Matt.
Don't forget that the implementation of FSR (which is now available in Version 2.1) would also help VR a lot on the performance side ;-)
I would absolutely love to be any part of a test pool for an alpha/beta build for VR, even if its a little rough around the edges. I realise i've been quite vocal about some recent decisions with the franchise but for me VR would drastically change my opinion/take on how things have been. I think generally speaking, the usual teleport or walking mechanics would be fine that you see in most VR titles along with either augmenting some of the animations of getting into a cab by slowing them down OR just simply teleporting you inside the cab would work for most people. It would allow you to still walk about the cab in theory, although from a technical standpoint i understand VR space doesn't always translate well to a moving surface. I'd even settle for a compromise of trying a build that plonks you in a cab from the main menu, just to get that experience of sitting in the cab. I think the next big hurdle would be how to work the controls. I think to begin with, simply using a controller would be the best bet unless you're very comfortable with the keyboard controls which I would imagine anyone who's played this and TS enough generally know where to find the keys without having to look. That said i think the ultimate goal would be to perhaps introduce the motion controllers. Hopefully with how the already present slider mechanic works, pointing a controller at a controller surface (throttle/brakes etc) would be a case of "pull trigger in" and then use the touch or thumbstick to then move said control? You could move the controller itself but i imagine this could cause problems depending on the orientation of the controller. I think for buttons, simply just pointing and clicking would be fine with some haptic feedback (if controller based). Lastly with UI, I would simply bind it to the viewport/HMD as I know some Race Sims like Project Cars 2 do or attach it to a plane in front of the player. I know ETS2 also does this to an extent and expects the user to use a mouse and keyboard still to navigate the menus and such. Whilst in some eyes that might be a tad tedious, it's a small tradeoff given the level of immersion you gain.
The control issue is only really an issue on PC, but that seems to be where most of the dev and testing gets done at DTG, which is probably why VR is seen as quite a big hurdle. Maybe a tech demo on PSVR would get people on-board to see how well it worked without having to optimise for every platform initially?
There is hope Unfortunately here is not allowed to post youtube video links but search for "Ready or Not VR" from User SixtyAteWhiskey and listen carefully Or check Preydogs Universal Unreal VR Injector on Reddit. Lets hope this can work properly
I'd be curious but I dont think PSVR would be the way to go initially for testing. There's much more options for Devs to test for via PC and I imagine testing branches are harder to carry out via the PSVR platform, potentially more hurdles to get beta software onto a PS5 etc whereas I think that limitation is removed via Steam either via how their updates work or down to the fact you can activate beta builds via steam alongside being able to load back the original game. Could you clarify the control issue specifically on PC? I feel like i covered most in my previous post but if I've missed something let me know.
My thinking was just that the PC players tend to use keyboards which are obviously not VR friendly. Every PSVR user is already used to playing on a controller so wouldn't need to adapt their play style at all to get straight into it. There are also far less variables - PSVR is PSVR so there should be far less variance between systems than a million different PC and VR headset configurations.
Very VERY interesting! I did wonder if this was something that could be done by a third party and this looks extremely promising, considering it's essentially bruteforcing the game into VR etc. Once the release is made public, I can assure you I will be giving it a go and if i can i will try to capture it to share with others. Hopefully with more people trying it, providing its not insane to setup, it might get more people onto the idea of wanting a VR option developed.
True! That said, it's about £15 or so for a cheap gamepad for basic functions etc - hopefully it wouldn't be too gargantuan a task for DTG to code some basic motion controller support. If i remember correctly i think there is a framework which only needs tweaked profiles per brand of controller for VR. I guess one plus about devving for the Ps5 initially is that its a constant system with no variables, that said though the Unreal Engine is very flexible and most people who game in VR tend to have average or above average (if not high end) gaming rigs.
The most interesting point i again that modders seem to have better knowledge or interest on Unreal engine then the devs itself..... WIth Assetto Corsa and the SOL-Mod was the same.... finally mod community shows up how insane the game engine is (of Assetto) and what possibilities were hidden.Even the devs which has developed their own engine didnt know that. Lol So i guess with UE is the same thing. I am really excited about the UE injector and if this will be released i will test it too. Lets hope this will be the initial move.
I've joined the Flat2VR Discord which i think is where the modder resides so I'm hoping to hear by the end of the month when the mod is ready. By the looks of it, it would appear it has a high chance of working albeit some weird UI bugs but even just getting a glimpse of how the game renders in VR will be amazing!
I think half the battle is not so much they dont know but they’re so worried about losing a customer base by showing off what better hardware can do.
I am slightly worried that TSW and TS generally has an older playerbase, to some degree, and that this is (while not sounding ageist) holding back some aspects of development. VR is definitely going to be something that goes hand in hand with any major simulators as it is already. DTG just need to try and get ahead of the game here I reckon. At least implement it natively now so that latterly when VR is widely adopted, the game is basically ready to go. For now if i have to settle for a mod, then so be it.
Personally speaking, I don't think it's about that. I wager the issue with VR is that 66% of DTG's customers (in TSW's case) are on console and the vast majority of those don't have VR (that's assuming that a) it would even run in VR on a console and b) DTG would make it compatible with those VR systems in the first place). Now add that the number of PC TSW players owning VR headsets is probably also not that big and the fact that VR continuously ranks last in DTG's surveys and you already have more than enough reasons why the bean-counters would never approve of developing VR as long as other things can be done, which attract players on all platforms. Just my 2 cents.
Now's your chance to vote for VR (DCS World in VR is insane, this simulator needs to be doing the same, its next level, your really driving the train, not looking at it on a flat screen), unfortunately its the bottom choice, so people not knowing how awesome VR is will prob leave it there and this makes me sad https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TSWwinter22 This is what DCS World feels like in VR (video still doesn't do it justice),train sim world needs it, it will not reach its full potential without it
That's primarily because a mouse is even more unfriendly. If there were a usable way to interact with on-screen controls I'm sure we would jump on it
I found dcs with a wireless oculus really good. Effectively siting in a chair, wire free, and moving the throttles myself etc. Very immersive
Of course in VR the only true way to do it is with the proper motion controls by moving the actual controls in 3D Space. However, that said, mouse in VR isn't *that* bad but really your best options are proper motion controls (which every VR system has) or a game controller. Either work perfectly well. Keyboard is quite unpleasant for VR. Matt.
Yeah VR and a keyboard is unpleasant - I can deal with it if I know the buttons well enough but motion controls are a near must for good immersion. If anyone is fluent with C++, let me know as the mod API is in C (according to mod dev, any other language can be bound to it too apparently). I can put them in touch with the mod dev who can potentially either let anyone interested have access to the mod early to work on motion controls specific to games or alternatively when the mod is released publicly. Side note: hope you had a lovely Xmas Matt!
In the latest survey, 7% of respondents (survey is still open) already own VR hardware. 4% of respondents have positioned VR support as #1 in the potential features list, 62% placed it last.
While I do own VR equipment, and have enjoyed using It on derail Valley, I don't feel like it should be part of DTGs development, as I believe they should focus on other aspects.
I own VR since few years (different hardware, actually G2) and in this survey i didnt positioned VR on first place because other things were more important which have to be solved first. If the basics like performance and bugs would be sorted out so i would place VR on a higher rank.....
For sure, I hope it comes officially one day as I know they'd like to make sure it passes a certain quality and comfort threshold. I do think they are in a prime position to potentially market lead with the feature given they are using the UE engine and are kinda dominating this area of simulation in the railway world. ============================== I'd be curious if they'd be willing to potentially work with modders to help ease it in from a game engine level, but I realise thats a big ask and could present its own problems. That said, it looks like the mod will likely be pretty self sufficient and cover most areas of concern. Some initial problems I did see where that markers for the cab controls and route locations/stops might get skewed completely in the mod. I seriously doubt DTG would be able to put time aside to making this easier due to other developments but I think to get over that hurdle, the markers would need to be in the 3D rendered space rather than on the 2D hud/UI space. Again, will need to see once the mod is released and all glitches noted down. I wonder if someone could mod in a task list or if DTG could maybe add in a task list option so that modders dont have to implement an entire new marker scheme. This is all very up in the air and I'm simply just having a case of keyboard diarrhoea and mentioning my ideas to you all.
I getchya. I guess I am more thinking that I'd rather it got implemented soon regardless so that at least once its in the latest builds, it can be improved on by either DTG/the community and gain more functionality along with the improvements to the game. I'd even settle for DTG adding in some basic engine components and allowing advanced users to be able to launch the game with some launch options/console commands. Again, I dont know how easy that is to implement from a software/dev position. At least at that point it's a feature that is an afterthought until more dev time can be devoted to it and fleshed out. In some ways, providing the game is actually playable, it would encourage people to route learn etc instead of relying on markers. The only markers I've seen that DO work are the position markers at platforms which I thought was quite interesting. Again, as said previously, we just need to wait and see what the VR injection mod brings as luckily it does plant the UI (follow this link to the thread with the preview video) on a flat surface in front of th player.
This game is based on Unreal Engine 4 which is able to work in VR. Best example for that is the racing sim Assetto Corsa Competizione. Kunos, the devs of this sim didnt have any experience before with UE4 (they used their own engine before) and they showed that its possible. I have to add that UE4 is not the best in the performance discipline in comparison to other racing simulations in VR but they started, sure they had their struggles but they sorted it out and now it works fine. TSW3 is on the same engine so i dont see any problems to implement it. But as ive said in my previous post, TSW3 need first to be better concerning in performance. Dont know how DTG will handle TSW3.... in my opinion this should be a good base, increase the performance, sort out the scenario bugs on existing game and dlcs. When this is sorted out, then it make sense to add new stuff like VR and from time to time a new dlc. Improvement work should happen in parallel to keep the player base or make it even bigger. It would be good to keep the "normal" users and add VR as an option so this users which have the hardware so they can play in VR. And everybody is then happy In my opinion VR would be a great immersion push and would attract new players too. I can say from my own experience with racings sims.... ive tried few years ago VR and i dont want to drive on a normal screen anymore. I am aware about people which have problems using VR but then they have the possibility to play the "flat variant".
I too do sim racing on Assetto Cross Competezione and can only use VR due to, not just immersion, the fact it helps to gauge distance into corners etc and being able to look out my window/mirrors to see where I am positioned etc. Totally agree with you though!
Exactly. In case of TSW3 the real proportions could give a better feeling about this big machines. This always give an extra portion of immersion. Guess only we (the VR users) can understand that.
