Ultrawings 2 has arrived on Steam - reviews and impressions

[RuneSR2]

According to the developers, the PC version is the original version with different assets for both islands and planes compared to the Quest version - so PC and Quest version are not the same:

"[...] we developed the game first for PC then ported to Quest. The Quest version and PCVR version don't share the same island (or aircraft) assets."

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1485140/discussions/0/2954914688110010409/

After seeing some videos showing the Quest 2 version, the game has indeed been massively improved for PCVR. The recommended system requirements are:

RECOMMENDED:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070 or equivalent
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 7 GB available space

Fun thing, devs originally stated a RTX 2070 as recommended gpu, but just changed it to GTX 1070. I did write in my review on Steam - and maybe they read it... 🤔

"Using an oc'ed RTX 3090 I'm getting solid 90 fps using Valve Index res 500%, so not sure why devs recommend a RTX 2070. Seems like a GTX 1070 will be more than fine."

Getting solid 90 fps with res 500% (an utterly extreme res of 45 mill pixels per frame combining both eyes) would indicate that I have tons of gpu power to spare in this game, and the game could have looked so much better if it was designed to use modern PC gaming rigs. That said, the game does look nice, and there are dynamic shadows. The sunlight looks great, and you do get the feeling of flying. Compared to Ultrawings, the sequel has more beautiful water, and polygon levels for the islands look similar. I only played Ultrawings using Rift CV1, because that game does not work with Revive. Using the Index, the much bigger fov - and res 500% - do provide a great and extremely sharp (no jaggies) experience.
Still would have loved more polygons for the islands and cities, but ultimately the game is fun and I look forward to getting back into the cockpit. The game works great with Index controllers.

The game is here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1485140/Ultrawings_2/

Devs told me that native Oculus drivers are supported - so SteamVR should not start if you start the game from Oculus Home - I have not yet tested that, will do later with the Rift CV1. The game is not available in the Rift Store, but will be there maybe next week.

I took a few screenshots - Index res 500%, but scaled down to 1024 pixels width: 

Nice texture res

Also nice texture res here for the gun - but not for the ground

Controllers correctly identified - and work great

Water looks a lot better than Ultrawings 1 (the original game)

Boat aren't high-poly, but look nice nonetheless - you can see the dynamic shadows from the plane

See the relatively detailed dynamic shadow cast by the plane onto the runway

The sunlight looks great in the game - and some may get the idea that this game isn't for those very prone to motion sickness 😉

More sunlight on the wing - and the view distance is vast

Even if devs say, islands have different assets than the Quest verison, everything is very low-poly

You've got day and night time in the game - here shadows are getting longer as the day ends, and this does look great

 

You do get guns and can shoot down other planes - and also stuff on the ground 

 

My rating probably 4.5/5. Screenshot by the devs:

[RuneSR2]

Amazing - the game actually fully supports native Oculus drivers - and SteamVR does not start! 🤓 

The game even correctly found my beloved Rift CV1 Touch controllers! 

The Rift CV1 ss 2.5 cannot compete at all against Index res 500%, but it's not bad with the CV1, and it may hide some low-res textures and low-poly assets slightly better than the Index. Here's CV1 ss 2.5:

I think the sound was better with the CV1 than Index due to more bass. The game now becomes integrated with the Oculus Desktop app - quite awesome: 

Having native Oculus support is very important to me - my 10 year old son can't use the CV1 without native support. I never disconnect the Index, and Index takes over everything needing Steam drivers or OpenXR. My son uses glasses inside the hmd, and he does not get to scratch the Index - but now my son can try Ultrawings 2 tomorrow with the CV1, and he did ask about it today 🙂 

SteamVR may cause games to perform up to 30% worse than using native Oculus drivers, so getting native Oculus support should be awesome for all Oculus hmd users. 

[RuneSR2]

Btw, the game is growing on me, took a few more shots, but this time Index res 500%:

Just to show the water - looks like real waves or close - you do not get such water quality at all in the Quest version

High poly plane assets for the PCVR version - looks great!

Some sunlight reflections are so bright you'll want sunglasses, lol

A dogfight - I'm close to turning upside down - yup, did feel that in my stomach, but no problem 🙂 

 

[TomCgcmfc]

@RuneSR2  Best thing for me is that both Ultrawings 2 and Wanderer were both freebies I got yesterday with my VivePort annual Infinity subscription.  Free to keep as well thanks to their Spring 2022 festival (even though it Fall down under, lol!).   

Even better is that it includes Oculus native so with my Q2/rtx3090 I don't even need to run it through SteamVR.  Really looks a plays fantastic with my Q2 wireless with Air Link.  So now I have this I don't need to use my cross-buy to download the Rift store version (which still is not out yet anyway).

Of course it also looks very good with my Vive Pro (etsy lens mod and Index controllers).  I can add just about 500% visuals and still get 90fps but for me, anything past 200% does not make much difference.  Again, maybe this is another made for lcd screens because I do not see much benefit with my VP1's AMOLED screens.  I'll probably will only play this with my Q2 wireless for now.  Sooooo much nicer than the Quest store Q2 version (does not support Q1 native though).  The Quest store version takes up 1Gb of diskspace while the PCVR version takes up 4Gb, so lots more/better textures and dynamic shadowing.

Definitely the best arcade flying sim out there imho.

[RuneSR2]

Fully agree with the LCD benefits in this game - at least for the CV1, the SDE does make it difficult to clearly see distant objects, even with ss 2.5. The Index really clears up the image for distant objects - and with the higher Quest 2 res, your image may be even better. 

The game seems to load some assets in split seconds, for example when approaching new islands, but otherwise this game has really been smooth with res 500%. I'm still in the beginning of the game, maybe performance will drop in later levels - but res 500% isn't wasted, even if somewhat overkill, lol. I'll be able to live just fine with res 400% too 😁

[RuneSR2]

Still having fun - a few more images:

Still loving the awesome light

The Comet

Just flying over some small island - you get to purchase new airport locations and thus travel the map

Here I'm visiting the big city 😁

Looks like a very tiny version of New York - even got its own statue... 

 

You'll get random time of the day and random weather, so repeating a mission might never be totally the same experience

Hard to show here, but all the windows in the tall buildings reflect light

These by no means are ultramersion textures, but check out the pink/orange-ish building to the right, it has some finer texture details (hard to see)

  

Another building, again far from impressive textures, but better than I anticipated

Shadows cast by buildings and my plane

 

Love some free flying, and there are also tons of missions to complete

The tallest building in town 🙂 

[RuneSR2]

Devs just wrote that physics in the game are made for 90 fps/Hz. Thus the game only works correctly in 90 fps. Did experience some kind of artifacts or strange micro-stuttering in 120 and 144 Hz, which did not feel like normal motion smoothing artifacts - but I'm using Index res 500% so I thought I was pushing my luck too much in 120 Hz, lol. I guess incorrectly updated physics indeed could explain these issues. 

In short, do keep the game at solid 90 fps 🙂

[TomCgcmfc]

Thanks for that mate.  I've not had any problems with my OG Vive Pro since it only does 90Hz anyway, lol!  Like you said earlier, UW2 really does not take up too many resources (esp. with with a rtx3090) so I was able easily increase SteamVR visuals to 500% and I still had lots of headroom.  However, I could not see any significant differences in overall clarity, including distant objects, above 250%.  Maybe a combination of my VP1 amoled pentile screens, and/or my +60yo eyesight?  In any case, my VP1 at 250% does look very nice and blacks do look a little more black compared to my Q2/rtx3090 but there's not a lot in it imho.  The Q2 FOV is not as nice but it's something I can live with for now. 

I'm running my Q2 at 80Hz with all games/sims now.  This allows me to max out the Q2 native res (and even add a little SS on top with some apps).  Maybe I'm not that refresh rate sensitive and/or the Q2 screens have faster response times, but even going to 90Hz I do not see any improvements, even with fast racing sims (no ghosting/blurring).  Could also in part be due to the very fast encoders and 24Gb Vram with our rtx3090 as well.  I never had any problems with my older/returned Rift S at it's native 80Hz refresh rate either.  Gaming monitors seem different to me since I can see a lot of improvement with racing sims in 2D with 120-144Hz compared to 80 Hz.  

I can crank up my Q2 SS with OTT up to 2.0x (roughly 400% SteamVR visuals) without any problems.  But there isn't any significant differences beyond about 1.5x, just a little higher latency beyond that.  This roughly translates to about 200% SteamVR.  Together with my Q2's almost zero SDE this looks a little better to me than my VP1 and together with the freedom of playing it wireless with Air Link from the comfort of my TV lounge room lazy-boy recliner. makes it my preferred way to play UW2 (also Google Earth VR and VTOL VR btw).  Cheers.

[RuneSR2]

I can see that this thread now has gotten 213 views in here, which is nice - but probably will not help the devs much. Devs deserve some credit for making such a great game for PCVR, so I thought I'd help them get some more attention. Also thanks to Tom for the Reddit support - close to 30k have seen the Reddit post now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/u5id43/ultrawings_2_steam_is_awesome_and_supports_native/

Hope that many will support the devs!

[RuneSR2]

Deleted - just thought I had found the first review of the PCVR version, but it turned out to be another review of the Quest 2 Android version, sadly.