Make no mistake. To simulate a real life Hang Gliding experience will take some beefy hardware. You could try it with less, but we think you will be very disappointed if your expectations are as high as ours.
If you are not going to go full VR, you can substitute some of this hardware with cheaper and/or less capable parts. But, VR is going to be how you want to experience this.
I will describe our setup. Not a minimum or recommended setup. If you like our videos and would like that experience, you need to consider these specifications to be the minimum for that. If something better exists, then get that.
Computer
Get the biggest, bad ass, fastest computer you can afford. Whatever you get, it will not be enough in 2 years time. That is just how it is.
OMEN by HP 40L Gaming Desktop PC
• NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3090 (24 GB GDDR6X dedicated)
• 2 TB WD Black PCIe® NVMe™ TLC M.2 SSD
• 2 TB 7200 rpm SATA HDD
• HyperX 64 GB DDR4-3733 MHz XMP RGB Heatsink RAM (4 x 16 GB)
• 800 W 80 Plus Gold certified ATX power supply
• Windows 11 Professional High End
• Intel® Core™ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler (3.2 GHz up to 5.2 GHz, 30 MB L3 cache, 16 cores, 24 threads)
Graphics Card
The one and only place you should not skimp on. They are pricey, but the costs will come down as newer models are introduced. If you need to wait to get this level. Wait.
• NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3090 (24 GB GDDR6X dedicated)
VR Headset
Get the best ‘cheap’ option you can right now. This technology is in flux and will change rapidly in coming years. Get something suitable and plan on replacing it in about 2-3 years with some alien technology that will be available then.
- HP Reverb G2 Virtual Reality Headset
- Replacement and/or face cover plates
The Reverb is very high quality graphics, sound, controllers and microphone all in one package. It uses Inside out motion control so it does not require external location technology. You want Inside out. Built to work with Windows 10, and integrate smoothly with the HP PC, Intel CPU, and the NVIDIA GPU.
Experiment with other headsets at your own risk. This is not easy technology to get working and functional at this point. Do not say you were not warned. VR Boilerplate Warning,
Monitor
If you are not going use VR (or even if you are), then you should splurge on the highest quality gaming PC monitor that you can find. Try and get a 4K version, because, you are doing this for the experience. Not to edit XCEL spreadsheets.
Having two monitors is also a probably scenario as one monitor can be your desktop and the other mirroring your VR session. It is very hard to switch from VR mode to PC mode and you have to do that from time to time.
Headset/Microphone
While this is not a requirement to make realistic flying possible, but if you plan on flying with friends you will really want to pickup a good headset. We use Corsair. This headset is not necessary when flying in VR, but we do not do all of our flying in VR.
Head Tracking
We also use Infra-red head tracking devices when not in VR. That greatly helps create more immersion on 2D systems. It is highly recommended that you have one of these systems available as well. We use the puck.
Flight Controls.
Here is a place you do not have to spend much money. Any joystick will do for simulating hang gliding in a 2D simulation. In VR, you will use the hand controllers and/or joystick. I use a standard ThrustMaster HOTAS, but anything will do.
We have some other ideas for flight controls. Watch this space.
Final Costs
Did we scare you with that! Well that is for the realistic version. But we also support people using what they have. We think you should be able to fly your hang glider from anything from a phone app to a full blown real-life hang glider simulator. We want to help in that regard, but we are also going find out what the outer limits of the current and future technology. Because we can and someone has to. This is how Hang Gliding survives.