Our Samsung Odyssey (+) first impressions, tips, and tricks...

@fearlessfrog can undoubtedly explain this better, but I’ll give it a shot.

There are 3 major APIs for VR equipment and software, Oculus, SteamVR (HTC Vive), and Windows Mixed Reality or WMR (Samsung Odyssey and Microsoft). DCS is developed for two of them, Oculus and SteamVR.

Steam wanted WMR owners to be able to purchase SteamVR titles, so they developed a SteamVR interface for WMR. So to use your WMR (Samsung Odyssey) headset with DCS, you must install Windows Mixed Reality for Steam.

With me so far? Good. You don’t need any Steam titles, just WMR for SteamVR. However, since many of us have Steam titles that use VR (Battle of X), it’s not really much of an inconvenience. When you launch SteamVR and then DCS, the latter will interpret your WMR headset as a SteamVR device.

Just to make things interesting, there is Revive software which allows you to play Oculus titles with the HTC Vive headset. Revive, interprets a Samsung Odyssey as a SteamVR device, allowing SO & SO+ owners to play Oculus titles.

PS: in writing this post I discovered the somewhat irrelevant, but perhaps interesting fact that HTC headsets use Valve developed OpenVR, an API for using SteamVR with Vive headsets. Now my head officially explodes.

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THAT was precisely the hole in my understanding. I’d continue the analogy by expressing my gratitude for having it filled but we know how the snickering class would jump all over it.

Thanks a million, @chipwich!

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I arrived home from a week long trip to find my O+ had been delivered! That resulted in me staying up until 2am of course!

Right now I am seeing a definite pros and cons list… I love the brighter display with almost zero screen door effect. I do find the headset rather bulky and far less comfortable than the Rift. It might break in a bit with some more use though.

I flew the Harrier in DCS on the free flight mission, where the sun was setting. Truly stunning to behold in VR with no screen door effect. I’m going to have to work on the settings a bit more before I am happy with it in X-Plane though.

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Yeah…comfort is the big thing. I should be getting my WidmoVR lenses this week hopefully. And remember, that back strap is supposed to be way low on your head, it sort of acts like a lever…and the forehead strap can be softened a bit with @fearlessfrog’s suggestion of a head/sweat band. It sounds odd…but I grew into mine over the period of two weeks. I will be anxiously awaiting the VR Covers O+ products…as far as I know the original O (OG) stuff does not really work with the O+…

Well, for a start I didn’t have the back ‘strap’ low enough. So fixing that certainly helped.

I had VR Lens Lab lenses in my Rift, and I was able to secure them in the O+ with no problems. They work great.

Performance wise in DCS I’m fairly impressed. One of the things that would bug me with the Rift was the way it struggled in a fly by. The aircraft would ghost as it went by the camera. With the O+ that doesn’t happen at all.

I’m having issues in X-Plane with not being able to move the mouse cursor when in VR (that never was a problem with the Rift). The brighter displays are great though!

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Are you on the latest Windows 1809 version? That seemed to clear up a lot of the ‘headset has the mouse focus, don’t need to press Windows+Y key’ issues for me:

If it’s not rolled out then you can force it from the ‘Update’ link in here - Download Windows 10

Great… Thanks for the info. I’m forcing the Windows update now. I’m currently on 1803 I think.

My first impression: Meh. I’ve only tried X-Plane. The gauges are less readable for me. In my very trusty and familiar 407 I am unable to read the digital engine analog digits without zooming. With the Rift they were easily readable. I do get how the Rift’s SDE might create an illusion of crispness. And maybe that’s the case with me. All I know is that with the Rift I am seeing “75%” and with the O+, I am seeing “myum, myum, myum” until I lean in close. I have tried the Global resolution of 180% using SteamVR’s “Video” settings tab and I have also tried moving that back to 100% (deselecting manual) and using an application setting for X-Plane of 180%. The jidders are significant just as they were with the Rift with ASW enabled. Disabling “Advanced Supersample” and the two reprojections solved it back to smooth just as disabling ASW did with the Rift. The other issue is with the hand controllers. It is way too easy to hit the “Windows” button which exits me out of X-Plane and into WMR Home. I’ve been using the controllers for flying in X-plane for awhile now and this is sort of a deal-breaker. Otherwise they are as precise and comfortable as the Rift controllers. I’ll give it another day. (As of this writing I have only messed with it a few hours.) I have to make a decision to return it soon as I will be leaving the house for 5 weeks.

EDIT: Dialing it in a bit by managing the two Steam PD settings to get a per eye setting that matched the Oculus–Thanks to posts above. Seems better than my initial impression. Not giving up yet.

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Yep, do fiddle and let us know if we can help. One way to look at it is that if you bought a new monitor at 1440x1600 but then preferred the old 1080x1200 one as clearer and looking a better resolution then something would be up, at least enough to fiddle with for a bit. :slight_smile:

How you doing with comfort? Do you have Samsung Compatible Head? :eyes:

I certainly concur. I’m liking some things about the new headset, but other things not so much. The Rift was very easy to use with regard to settings. Kind of like a Windows vs Mac thing I guess. The Mac isn’t as capable, but it just works, whereas the Windows machine is more capable but you have to dig deeper into the settings to get the most out of it.

I’m trying very hard to love it. Right now I am really liking the brighter screens and reduced screen door. I am thinking I need to fire up the Rift again, to see if I can now live with the lower resolution displays. If I can, then I’m seriously considering returning the O+ .

I’m in the same boat. The shimmering effect in DCS is a gamebreaker unless I can fix it. I’m torn, though, because Il-2 BOX is way better in the O+.

My issue is really with the controllers. I am trying to learn as much about the 757/767 as X-Plane can teach me before leaving for training in a few days. It is no fault of Samsung but the controllers are not fully compatible with X-Plane. That certainly will change soon enough but I am not sure I can wait.

Don’t you just remap the button presses in X-Plane? Either than or click down the joystick on a WMR controller, and then use the SteamVR ‘Controller Remap’ page. I’ve not used it, because didn’t find anything wrong with using WMR in X-Plane from the defaults it uses (maybe the zoom button needs to be added as a binding?)

EDIT: Or did you just mean that plane doesn’t support VR that well, rather than WMR?

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It’s not that simple. But I can assure you that I have done everything within my skillset to make the WMR controls work. They won’t with the 757. At least not fully. Fortunately this has made going back to the Oculus a complete no-brainer. The O+ looks great. The Oculus SDE is a bit of a jarring experience to return to after several hours of such a dramatic leap. But it was only SDE that was noticeable. Otherwise I found the Oculus display to look great, even better once I went back. Without question, instruments and labels were easier to read (with a PD of 1.7 using the Oculus Debug tool). I am not dissing the O+. I think it is a superior device to the Oculus by a small margin. And if the current version of X-Plane and the Just Flight 757 were able to fully play nice with the O+ controllers, I would keep it. But that’s not the case so in the box she goes.

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WMR via the Steam bridge shows your controls as these, so maybe that will help:

Anyway, it sounds like you’ve had some stuff tried and I can see that would be frustrating. If bought from Microsoft around Thanksgiving, I think (on mine at least) I’ve got till January 31st to return it if I want.

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Thanks @fearlessfrog. Actually FlightFactor has made their “special” controls Vive compatible for quite some time. The hitch is that there is no 100% faithful way to make the O+ controls mimic either the Oculus or the Vive. It actually wasn’t frustrating at all. Setting up the O+ for general use and DCS was pretty easy because you all paved the way. X-plane with the O+ was tough but only because of my specific and admittedly peculiar needs. Returning to the Oculus was also easy and honestly, something of a relief. Time well spent I think.

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I think the bit I was confused about was that I’ve seen and used the SteamVR controllers remapper, so not sure why that isn’t working for you:

It sounds like exactly what you need?

Here’s a guide (although just from a quick google, it might not be any good but it had some pics :slight_smile:) - How to create custom keybindings in SteamVR | Windows Central

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Well I didn’t want to get into it too much but the problem is that the O+ controllers have one less button because Steam takes over the hat button and uses for its own purposes. It is probably true that by using the above app I could trick X-Plane into thinking that the O+ controller is a Vive. But frankly I am not impressed enough with the O+ to make the effort. So it’s all good. I am happy to have the $299 back. Many thanks as always for the help.

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I’m sure we will find another place for you to put that $299… :smile:

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Nice review of one of the first WidmoVR lenses I’ve seen posted in the wild:

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