SimXR Review: A new Mixed Reality Solution for MSFS 

I am a long time follower of your channel and don't know how to thank you enough for all you have contributed to me and the flight sim community. I have spent many enjoyable (and at times frustrating) hours working through learning and using multiple monitors, Air Manager, Kobster, and recently the powerful new MR tools. I have always struggled to get VR working and MR is no different. SimXR looks easy but as usual I missed a step. In this case opening the MSFS toolbar and got nothing but pink filled shapes. Finally dawned on me and got it working. It is amazing, effectively pulling the physical flight controls into the sim. Wow. A finally note, kudos to you and Mark for acknowledging each others contributions, as well as the developer of SimXR. 👍 SteveC

Great vid Russ, I've been following VR ever since I built my home cockpit a year and a half ago. To me, mixed reality is the end game for home cockpit users when it comes to immersion. I agree nothing beats VR visual immersion, but sitting inside a fully built out home cockpit shell seeing every control/button/switch beats out a virtual cockpit any day for me. And then obviously, a mixture of the two.... perfection. That said, my idea of a perfect solution (for home cockpit users with a fully built out interior cockpit) is almost the reverse of what this app is doing. The idea I've always had in my head is that the pass through camera footage is the main view in the headset, and then you use the chroma feature to bring in the VR visuals from the game. In my mind, this would mean that a fully modeled home cockpit shell could essentially just put green screen/paint in all the window openings (where you'd typically have TVs/monitors displaying the sim visuals) and then the app would fill those areas with the visuals from the game. When I say it like that, it sounds simple, almost like you'd just need to reverse the logic in MR apps similar to this so that it chromas in the game footage instead of the pass through footage. Now obviously the one issue I'd see there is the virtual cockpit/exterior of the aircraft creeping, especially since it would be nearly impossible to get your home cockpit window cutouts to match perfectly to that of the model in the sim. This is where a visual of only the exterior environment would come in handy.... obviously can be done in xplane, but is still lacking in MSFS. If MS2024 comes out with networking capability, though, I could see where this could easily be accomplished by running two PCs and just making the interior/exterior of the flight model invisible on the PC providing your exterior VR views. I know I'm getting really deep there, but I'm always thinking of mixed reality and how it can be utilized by those with fully built out home cockpits. I know right now that's a VERY small percentage of sim users, but this tech is getting so close that I feel like a solution to provide VR exterior visuals when looking out the windows of a home cockpit shell while everything inside the cockpit is just pass through footage is right at our finger tips! Once again, great video, and hats off to these devs putting in all this effort to try make all this stuff a reality!

Availability for X-plane and DCS would be awesome!

Your's, and Mark's presentation from last week, have done a fair job of pointing out the pros and cons of this version of the software. I usually don't ever by version 1.0 of anything, but will give this a try.

Great review. It certainly makes MSFS so much more immersive. I hope they make a version for DCS World.

Great content for the community, Russ. Always intuitive and informative. I greatly admire your dedication to flight simulation and I have enjoyed learning from all the ground work you’ve shared over the years. Your contributions are priceless and greatly appreciate. Thank you for the path forward allowing the rest of us die hard simmers to fly right into the future! Take care.

Like you, I'd love to see a xplane version of this app. I've modeled my cockpit after your videos on Air Manager and the knobster. I've recently invested in a Quest 3 and would love to continue using Air Manager. Having a pass through option is essential. I use both MSFS and Xplane for different reasons. I'd love to get a free copy of this software!!

I got a Quest 3 for Christmas. I have used it a lot for race sims but was really frustrated in FS2020, not being able to see my controls, so hardly used it for flying. I will get this TONIGHT! I suppose if they can do this for FS2020 and Virtual Desktop, they might be able to make it work with any sim, maybe as a configurable feature inside Virtual Desktop. I have a button box I use in racing and have memorized all the switches but it would be better if I could see them and my keyboard. Thanks for another good video, Russ! :-)

I love MSFS in VR. Got a Q3 about 5 months ago and have really enjoyed it.

Myself and a good friend do live on opposite sides of the planet. He in Hawaii, me in Germany. We used to fly together real GA planes, he owned a share of an Bonanza V-Tail and so we enjoyed flying together. Now, retired we share our flying using MSFS and it is impressing being physically on opposite sides of the planet to fly together and see each others planes. He already started to deal with VR with a Quest 3 google and he was missing what you are showing in mixed reality can be achieved. So, if I happen to be one of the lucky winners I would pass the tool to him.

Great vid Russ! I'll keep an eye on this addon for sure. The feedback you shared on how to improve the tool is spot on!

As a student pilot I love this idea, I always use MSFS to try what I learn at flight school in the safety of my home to hone my skills, but having mixed reality looks really awesome and I hope more people especially real life pilots, get behind this and help it grow so more aspiring pilots can get their wings.

Thank you Russ for this video and for all the other previously published VR-related videos. Always very interesting and informative and presented in a serious way, not just as a game. It makes me discover new things in this field and makes us want to try it. You also add comments that may allow the creator to work on certain improvements. Always looking forward to seeing your next topic.

It is amazing how far we have come already. I cannot wait. Currently building my simpit f16 for DCS. With this technology advancing as fast as it has I can only imagine the 270 degree screen will be a thing of the past.

This should have wayyyyyy more views! I just kept watching and watching and watching. You kept my attention for beginning to end. Great hones review!

Just love how quickly the MR market is evolving and I am excited to see what the future holds. Thanks for your info and testing these products out for us!

That seems so cool! Cannot wait for it to be fully developed.

Well done, Russ! This one is so encouraging about the evolution of MR flight simming. Keep it coming--three cheers!

That one thing is a childhood dream! I‘m so happy to see those possibilities growing! Definitley i have to try SimXR!

You’re right, this has come a long way in a really short time. What has kept me from upgrading my xplane sim from a 26” monitor and a couple of last generation iPads is space and cost. Looking forward to see what the next level brings.

I’m a IFR rated pilot and use my sim to stay proficient and get familiar with new approaches. I have been designing and building my own simpit using fusion 360, 3d printer, mobiflight, and air manager for the last two years. I, like you think the more realistic the sim experience is the more the training can directly cross over to real world experience. I’d love to be able to use VR while also using my real world cockpit. Being able to use approach plates, manipulate real world switches, dials, etc while in vr would be a game changer. Thank you for pushing the flight simulator experience forward.

Thanks for the review. I have the virtual-fly GA1. I think MR would definitely have a positive impact. I agree that I don’t want to have big screens. I have one 55” with plans to add two more unless I can configure a MR set up. By the way I joined the flitesim kick starter based on your review Fabian’s webinar. I’m really looking forward to that!

Thanks for the information. I'm still learning VR and am extremely interested in learning more about it. I am also looking at upgrading my headset in the very near future. Any and all new software and hardware is always appreciated. Thanks to you Russ and Mark for the videos. And a shout out to Roy for developing this app.

this is what we need. a good MR . having no outside view has kept me from using VR thank you for the efforts russ!

This is amazing. I was starting to build my Sim.. and it´s true what you say... Having 3 55-inch monitors takes up too much space. With mixed reality.. all comes into one great place!

Hey Russ, Thanks again for all you do in our community! I think resetting that system up every time I want to fly would be a royal pain. I agree, it’s come a long way. I still do not have a VR headset. I’m still using three monitors that you helped me set up in XPlane a few years ago, except I have upgraded my center screen to 4k. My only problem is my RTX 2070 super does not support the monitor. I would love to afford keeping up with Technology, but can’t justify that expense. I have to upgrade little by little. I have seriously upgrade my simulator though with FlightsimDIY stuff that I have 3 D printed and created great products from scratch with roughly only $350. I am interested in VR but I just keep telling myself my the panels are good enough. Some day my friend… Wil

Thanks Russ for yet another great video. I’m about to downsize to apartment living and MR may be the way to save space by removing my triple monitor setup. I would love to try SimXR, if you get my drift 😁😁

This is what I have been looking for. Will make SimPit usage much more enjoyable. Thanks for sharing.

So I tried this last night and yes it is pretty amazing at what it does and I'll still be buying it to support the developer, but unfortunately it really doesn't work that well unless you have a full on cockpit replacement like Russ has. To be clear I have no idea how this actually functions on a technical level but aside from the general clunkiness (like the windows not saving state) the killer for me was the fact that you have no control over where the real world is placed relative to the sim cockpit. You can carve out a hole in the sim then you see whatever is "behind" it. You can't for example carve out a whole where you want it, then decide how that maps to the real world camera by translating the image or anything. For me that mean that in order to see my HC Alpha and Bravo, based on their real world position, I apparently had to carve out a hole right in the middle of the console, blocking a whole bunch of sim gauges. If you have a setup like Russ where you basically have an entire cockpit in the real world, either through physical controls or a panel system like he does, then this wouldn't be so bad because you could just replace the whole cockpit in sim. But if you only have pieces, it doesn't really work out. Now again, I do NOT know how this actually works, but the fact that it stabilizes the passthrough feed so that what it exposed remains consistent to the sim, IE you see your controls parallel to the sim console when look around, it would seem to me that it is doing something to manipulate the feed to align it? If it is doing that then the ability to move the feed would seem possible no? I'd just like to be able to expose a section of my choosing and then move the exposed camera image up or down to align with the real world controls, rather than having to make the hole at the position of the real world controls.

Thanks Russ. Please stay engaged for supporting of the spare Mixed reality engagement at Flight simming. You are my Beacon for actual Status and what gets possible. I agree totally, that the Mixed realy approach can help to save Money and Room-space by only real Panel usage and transfer the rest of the surrounding Cockpit to only a VR Headset istead of inversting into multiple Monitors. All the Best for you and Allways happy landings to You 🙂

This will also solve the problem I have with writing down IFR clearances (it’s annoying to peak through the corner of my headset). This mixed reality tool can really be a game changer for VR pilots and opens up a lot if possibilities for hardware integration with VR usage. I have the SimHaptic software and it’s also really well done, works great with my buttkicker gamer 2.

Russ as always I enjoy your content and your videos. I love MR and can wait for it to mature.

Another outstanding video Russ. You're definitely one of the trail blazers when it comes to mixed reality.

This is awesome. Would pay. I am new to VR FS. And I am working out the kinks for my new Meta 3. I am going all in on FSVR and love the content. Thanks for all these videos.

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen done in VR in a long time!!!

8:56 true words.. thanks to the Developer and thanks for this video. Mixed reality is a gamechanger for flightsims!

Thanks for the video and early review. This kind of software is really the next great step in accessibility in flight simulation. I'd love to give it a go

Thanks Russ for pushing the technology out, I would like to see video on paths to flight simulators. Maybe VFR,IFR,commercial or $$,$$$,$$$$$, I’m about $5000 into a simulator wondering if I’m on the right track

I believe you are correct in your assessment of the potential benefits of mixed reality. It is THE game changer for staying proficient at home.

It is getting there! I think the major technical hurdles are being overcome. The apps are in the "fit and finish" stage.

Wow, I sure would love to add this to my setup using my Quest 3, it looks like it works very well, and it would be helpful to not have to try and see the buttons and switches on my honeycomb alpha through the nose opening anymore!!!

Great video, didn't even know this existed! So might try to start experimenting with virtual flightsimming after 15 years of building old school hardware B737 home cocpits.😊✈

This is an impressive use of AR tech and I feel like this might be the future of games and applications.

I'm following these pass through apps very closely. I use MSFS but also use DCS and IL2. would love to see pass through apps that work for them as well. I would love a free key please.

+1 for implementation in X-Plane. Hope the developer is watching.

Another great video Russ. The only problem that I can see Russ is you are using a full physical panel with your MR. Most Flight simmers don't have that so cannot achieve the same realism that you are experiencing as the dial, buttons, switches etc. will still be in VR and not MR. Other than that it looks very promising.

Almost there! Things really are getting so realistic... So great that it can be affordable too!

Awesome! Like you, I can't believe how fast development is occuring! Please count me in to enter for the keycode. See you at Flight Sim Expo?

Very promising. This is only the beginning.

Wow... I was waiting for this day to come. It will be nice to get rid of my current 3-monitor setup. I use the Flight Velocity Evolution panel and enjoy it. This will be best of both worlds, I think.

I love that so many people are experimenting with this all of a sudden. Hopefully we can make some solid gains in the MR simming world! Sadly it means using the Quest 3 vs my Aero which is by far my preferred simming headset. Wonder if I could get something like this working on the AppleVision Pro with the new chromakey experimental stuff in ALVR. Maybe at some point because that would be amazing.

This is amazing, the ability to create curved panels is incredible, the fact that it's a direct add on for msfs is a bonus for sure (going into reality mixer to adjust the boxes is a huge pita) I ended up getting your hand tracking mod working, but was never able to disable the hand pointers, and found that I was constantly randomly clicking on stuff in the cockpit. Were you ever able to get the cockpit interface while using hand tracker disabled so a mouse can be used successfully? Thank you for your pioneering work in this area. No need to select me for the promo, I already bought it 🎉

Not being able to see my hands and my quadrant has been one of the things that frustrate me about VR. I am so excited to try this software

I've been experimenting with MR since I saw your video from a few months ago. I'd love to give this ago.

Just the video I am looking for, especially when new to simm vr and mixed! I see the value of mixed panel if you have controls.

looking forward to try this on my quest 3 soon. thanks for the video!

The tech is really coming along. I suppose the disadvantage of mixed reality is not generally being able to join a guest in your sim. I'll probably stick to my plan for a 270° wraparound screen for that reason, and use mixed reality by keying into a projected single colour. Assuming I ever find time to work on the project 😅

This is getting so close to,the dream of an easy and effective MR solution. My C172 G1000 cockpits will be a dream to fly in MR.

It’s awesome 👏 nice work .. the only issue I see with mixed reality is that your limited to one cockpit or plane type

Still a bit clunky to setup each time you open it, but a real game changer for using VR with sims. Was happy to help the developers and hopefully it get better in the future.

I love VR/MR, but the biggest issue I have is the virtual wand selector with the handsets. They are so imprecise and difficult to use accurately. Surely they can come up with a better way. At least make mouse use optional in all VR applications. I don't think I have ever seen anyone use the handset pointers without shaking. A seriously flawed system. Loving you work on finding better MR options. Thx.

I agree about the control options, I've be playing with different solutions, openkneedboard etc, and this is the best to date. But setting the pass through sections is too time consuming. I understand the problem with remembering the positions is an ASABO problem, but fine movement controlls with a keyboard would be really useful. I would also like the ability to toggle the passthrough on or off with a switch on the yoke.

Fascinating! Thanks for these insights and your dedication to this topic.

Thanks for the video. Loving the new experience. Hopefully will get to try it out!

Very thorough as usual! I look forward to trying this out.

I've been using this app for a few weeks now and the #1 issue is having to setup every flight, and getting the panels lined up properly because it drives me nuts if they are off even a little! Though I cant fly without it now

Great... ill try this in my virtual Cockpit! Great training for my PPL

Another good one Russ, thanks.

Always great information! Thanks Russ!

n its been a hour and its already 19 comments! love that. i really would like to try the software.

Flat gamer: man I am so tired. Played 3 hours of fortnight straight. Then my mouse stared acting up. Couldn't be bothered spending 15 mins to fix it again so took a break 🫤 VR gamer: ya man I am tired too. Spend 3 hours setting the VR for MSFS. But got to play it for 15 mins so it was worth it 😎

Wow!! Loved the video!!

Thanks Ross, really great video. I can no longer afford to fly privately, so the last 2 years have been a dream come true flying with my VR system. It's so close to the real thing its crazy...but not being able to scratch some notes on a pad, or read a chart just drives me nuts. Now...things are getting real. I'm dying to upgrade from my G2 to one of latest headsets and was hoping the new Crystal light was the answer, but it doesn't have pass-thru. So, now I'm thinking the Quest 3, as I want MR more than anything else. In all of the Quest 3 videos I've seen, the MR looks a bit 'wonky'. I don't know if this is what you are seeing inside the headset, or if it's just a video capture problem? Do you find the Quest 3 visuals quality, including MR, pleasing to use and hence would recommend purchase? Or, are you dying for the next evolution? Love your channel!

Thanks Russ I’ll be trying SimXR today

Russ - awesome work as always. I have been using this for my iPad pass through. One quick question - it appears your Airmanager worked fine. Have you tried making a G1000 PFD work in conjunction with VR and MR? I tried to use a hollow out MR panel to make it work, but perfecting the shape of the hollow was almost impossible. I might try by using two boxes - one for each side of G1000 airmanger panel. The soft keys aren’t as important… until then I am hoping for a better solution!

If Asobo would all panels to have a pisition memory, as each time going in and out of VR moves every open window, then SimXR would be excellent. Asobo, if youre watching this, pls add panel position memory. My first 3-5 min each flight is setting up my windows in VR. Sky4Sim, VFR map, Comms, etc

Great video Russ, keep up the good work :)

stunningly beautiful

Fantastic as always, Russ!

I really whould love this

Thanks for the video! I would like to try SimXR with my rig.

How are you getting your secondary displays to run in VR? Are you using third party apps like Air Manager or just right Alt click and drag? I use the right Alt key and instruments like MFD, glass cockpit only work on second monitor in 2D and stop working in VR. Then I can't use it in MR.

Thanks Russ! Another informative video.

@RussBarlow Great video. So interested in the Mixed Reality stuff. As a real world pilot who loves VR, I really want to be able to replicate what I use in cockpit in my PA32R300, which is an iPad on my left knee running Foreflight (particularly for approach plates) and then a jot pad on my right knee for frequencies/clearances etc. I'm really keen to see if the Quest 3 and SIMXR have enough resolution and minimal distortion, to be able to operate the iPad on my knee (real world). Is this something you could try and explore on a future video? Currently still on a HP Reverb, but kind of want to know what Mixed Reality headset I need to get to get sufficient performance/resolution for this setup to work.

Great demo. How are you aligning your virtual cockpit position to simpit? Just keep resetting position until it aligns?

Very interesting, thank you. I have always avoided using VR in MSFS just because I have peripherals which I need to be able to see and interact with (Honeycomb Alpha and Bravo, Stream Deck, X-Touch, tablet with Navigraph Charts) - MR seems to solve that problem. However, one other thing which is holding me back is my desire for better peripheral vision than I'm getting from my current monitor. I don't know if I should go for an ultra-wide monitor or VR. Could anyone tell me what total resolution I could expect from, for example, a Quest 2 or Quest 3? (I have seen 'per eye' resolutions - e.g. the Quest 2 has a resolution of 1834 x 1920 per eye, but I don't know if that equates to an overall resolution of 3668 x 1920 or if there is any overlap. Likewise, the Quest 3 has a 'per eye' resolution of 2064 x 2208 - does that give a total of 4128 x 2208?) Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is amazing!

Thanks for your Videos.

Hi Rusd, keep up these great videos. I was wondering what your take is on the Somnium VR headset. I did reserved a spot to purchase one with pass-through video and eye tracking. I would love to hear what you have to say about them or am I better off just purchasing three 65" tv for less $$$. Thank you.

I also just discovered the simxr software, looks stunning. One thing; is it possible to hide the pink edges??

Nice. Now If I can get something like this working on DCS.

This looks great

Man this what ive been looking for

Very Cool. I only fly in VR and this would be awesome. I love my quest 3. Only question I have is how easy and clear is everything to read?

Thank you!

Very cool!!

It doesn't work with link cable :(

Good video . Pass through is the way to go for us cockpit builders.Its only going to get better. But unfortuntaley I have a Pimax Crystal and the pass through is an Unusable Joke! Well what should I expect for $2000.00 Thanks for your input.

I wish I could get these working with the index.

Great video like always. I have a dofreality h6 motion platform and the window does not stick to the real-life instrument, if the motion chair tilts the widow does not keep up with the instrument. I assuming there would be some type of tracking on the instrument for it to stay locked onto when the chair moves. What are your thoughts? I can make the window much bigger so the instrument stays within the window but loses some of the illusion/realism.