Combat Flight Simulators Games And VR, Which HMD Is Better?

Let’s start this article with a question: What’s the best HMD for combat flight simulators such as DCS World or IL 2 Great Battles?

In my VR career, I’ve tried some of the VR headsets on the market, such as my very first one, which was the Razer OSVR HDK 1.3. Then I moved to the Original VIVE and then I moved to the Oculus Rift bundle with Touch controllers.

As many of you can tell the best HMD for simulators (driving and flight) it’s without any doubt the Oculus Rift, talking about the old generation of VR HMDs. I’m talking about those times, where the WMR HMDs were just a rumor around the internet and the VIVE Pro was even not set to be ever released.

I’m a huge fan of Military Flight Simulators since back in 1998 on the Commodore Amiga 500 Plus, and my very first one was: F/A-18 Interceptor published by Electronic Arts.
I know this is a kind of ancient history about videogames and talking about VR, it was a dream for many simmers, just a nice dream which now, became reality or even better Virtual Reality.

Now that dream is real and the market offers: many valid Combat Flight Simulators, many interesting HOTAS, pedals and joystick controllers and Virtual Reality Headsets a pure joy for the dreams of that little kid many years ago.

Ok let’s get straight to the point now!

DCS World:
Without any doubt this is the king of combat flight simulators, ranging from WW2 era planes to ultra modern multirole jets such as the F/A-18C, with an insane attention for details such as interactive cockpits, professional flight models, weapons and systems simulation and so on.
By the beginning of the year 2018 it has received an important engine upgrade which brings multi terrain support, mission editor upgrades and for sure a brand new renderer involving in a major overall graphics improvement which sadly led to a significant performance drop, compared to its prior version.

Sometimes I’m having performance problems resulting in stuttering and low FPS with my latest tech “NASA rig” based on I7-8700K @5.1Ghz, 32 GB RAM @4200Mhz, MSI GTX1080TI Gaming X and my dear old Oculus Rift CV1 after that update and I’m not the only one, according to various topics on various forums and comments on Youtube.

IL2 Great Battles:
This is a very fun simulator based on WW2 era only and VR in this simulator is implemented flawlessly, this simulator does not have the same maniacal attention for some details which DCS has such as fully interactive cockpits, but it’s indeed a one to have and play hard if you like WW2 or even WW1 (flying Circus is behind the corner) combat flight simulators, graphics are stunning even in VR, planes flight models are realistic and it’s a lot of fun playing this sim especially in VR and every time you’ll gonna play this simulator in VR i’m sure you’ll be wowed at least once every single match you’re gonna play even after months or let’s say years talking about graphics and immersion.

Said all of this, so:
What’s the best HMD for combat flight simulators such as DCS World or IL 2 Great Battles?

Well it’s up to you!

What you need in this kind of games is: less SDE possible, more clarity as possible and more resolution you can get and all of this just for being able to spot your enemy on the distance in the sky and on the ground and for easily reading the gauges, HUDs and MFDs inside your cockpit.
And of course, just like all of the VR games out there, you need a smooth and stable performance.