Done with VR

[ShinyAndy]

I gave it my best shot, three months in, but I just can't get on with my Rift S! The immersion is incredible but it's too hot, the graphics are awful, it gives me eye strain and I'm fighting the vomit effect constantly. I also hate having to lift it up a bit so I can find my keyboard/mouse/drink/Haribo which then tends to smear the lenses even more. I'm constantly moving it around on my face to keep it in the sweet spot and just generally seem to spend more time fiddling than driving. Consequently I'm significantly slower driving with it, even though the depth perception is fantastic, but I've tried everything (FPS adjusting/massive industrial fans/short sessions/travel sickness tablets) but it's just not working for me in driving games. I've actually got to the stage of dreading it and avoid any potential races, whereas before I'd jump at the chance of a race or even just spend 4+ hours driving around LAC in something old and slow for fun.

Back in the day I had 3x32" triples but the large bezels drove me crazy and I don't really have the space for a large set. So, I'm thinking that I could go down a single superwide path with something like a Acer Predator X34P, or for even less money I could get two more AOC G2790s and go triple with my existing AOC (that have tiny bezels).

What's the current trend heading towards?

 

[Mascot]

I'm not sure going to a VR arcade is a good idea to see if it's for you. The fit of the headset probably won't be right, the IPD might be incorrect, and most people need time to acclimatise to VR.

It seems that almost all people find VR weird and nausea-inducing at first, so I imagine a lot of people come away from their first trip to a VR arcade with negative impressions, if that's indeed their first exposure to VR.

 

[ThugUK]

Good advice, an alternative to that is to get a used DK2, you can get one cheap, it is not so demanding on the hardware so it should work on what you have. It I will give you a good idea on what VR is about, give you a chance to see if you get over the period of discomfort. If you like VR you will be in a better position to choose the next VR set and if you don’t, just sell the DK2 with minimum or maybe even no cost penalty. That is how I did it back in the days, my CV1 is better, but DK2 was already a lot of VR fun for SIM driving.

Agree with this, except I would go straight for the CV1.
There are a lot of used ones around now at a good price.
You only need one sensor for sim racing, although when you have sampled it you will want more, so will probably end up getting another sensor and touch controllers too.
If its not for you then sell it on for what you paid.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Agree with this, except I would go straight for the CV1.
There are a lot of used ones around now at a good price.
You only need one sensor for sim racing, although when you have sampled it you will want more, so will probably end up getting another sensor and touch controllers too.
If its not for you then sell it on for what you paid.

Yes, absolutely, even better, at a slightly higher cost, but if you like it, you might want to keep the CV1, as while not being the best, is still close to what the best ( much more expensive) options offer today.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Why not Odyssey+ on sale for $250, if you are really interested to be impressed by VR?
Vive Pro, Index resolution, adjustable IPD, AMOLED screens, no fuss setup thanks to inside out tracking.
Getting outdated by todays standards headset with much worse image quality will serve more as a detractor from further VR use.

 

[ThugUK]

Why not Odyssey+ on sale for $250, if you are really interested to be impressed by VR?
Vive Pro, Index resolution, adjustable IPD, AMOLED screens, no fuss setup thanks to inside out tracking.
Getting outdated by todays standards headset with much worse image quality will serve more as a detractor from further VR use.

I don't think the Odyssey is available in all countries though.
In fact I am sure you cant get hold of it in the UK (although may be wrong).
It would be a good idea though.
I don't think it will serve as a detraction. I mean, how many CV1 users are still using theirs (like I am) and how many have upgraded? There is no detraction, there is more of a 'hunt for a better experience' than a 'turn your back on it'.

 

[HoiHman]

Well guys i have build a new PC based on a 9700K which i managed to overclock to 5,1Ghz

Just after ordering the new PC, i found out that i wasn't running a 4770, but a 7700K

So i was a bit afraid the upgrade to a 9700k wasn't big enough, but it turned out pretty good
According to the VRmark the system is in the top 1%




But ..... benchmarks aren't important.

What's important is that the upgrade has brought a significant improvement for racing in VR.
The Valve Index is, imho, less sensitive to running on lower super sampling rates, so instead of running SS at 2.0 or higher with the rift in ASW mode, i'm now running almost every single game at 150% SS but @90fps

Smoothing in SteamVR is not of the same quality as ASW from Oculus. I see much more artifacts (especially with heavy motion) and i don't perceive the "smoothed image" as smooth.

The heave motion of the SFX100 induces more artifacts when motion smoothing is activated because of the frequent up/down movements of the HMD. Also since i have been racing on the monitor @120Hz there's no going back to 45fps smoothed frame rates for me anymore.

So the goal was to get 90fps even with 20-35 AI cars on the grid. I'm happy to say that i have managed to get a stable 90fps in AI races in a number a VR racegames with a lot of performance tuning.

FPSVR (steam app) has helped a lot. So is for example RaceRoom VR still CPU limited and PCARS2 is GPU limited.

The image in the Index is far from perfect, especially compared to the 49" Samsung, But it is at a point that it's acceptable, so is the performance, even in single player AI races.

My main gripe with VR, being performance has been solved. In a week or two i even plan to not autostart FPSVR anymore, so i'm not focusing on VR performance at all.

i'm not done with VR,

I still enjoy "pancake racing" especially for casual racing. The image quality, comfort and performance are still better than in VR, but when i want real immersion, i race in VR.

 

[GFJunky]

I've just upgraded to a Index, but cannot get it to work on my rig at the moment :-( Headset tracking dies as soon as you start either the Simucube or SFX.

 

[metalnwood]

I've just upgraded to a Index, but cannot get it to work on my rig at the moment :-( Headset tracking dies as soon as you start either the Simucube or SFX.

Have you added the ferrite that has been talked about?

 

[GFJunky]

Have you added the ferrite that has been talked about?

I've just been reading about this for the Vive, I assume it works the same for the Index. With the Index do you wrap the cables between the PC connections and the 3 way splitting junction around the ferrites or the single cable between the headset and splitter? Does it need to be all 3 cables or is it just the USB that gets wrapped?

Cheers

 

[anton_Chez]

I've just wrapped the single cable on the HMD side of the breakout connector. 2 winds gives me no grey screen until I touch the sides where the sensors are. You can touch the parts on the side that are more toward you on the HMD, where the face cushion connects. There are no sensors there and therefore no grey out.

You may need to play with the amount of winds depending on your setup. I like having the length so I did as little as possible.

 

[GFJunky]

Cheers, ferrites ordered.

 

[RCHeliguy]

i'm not done with VR,

I still enjoy "pancake racing" especially for casual racing. The image quality, comfort and performance are still better than in VR, but when i want real immersion, i race in VR.

Good to hear! I spent a couple hours today in VR learning LimeRock with the 488GT3 and the experience was excellent. I had all the iRacing graphics settings turned up and the 2080Ti was only running 65%. CPU's weren't pushing too hard either. That was also at 150% SS.

 

[wajdi]

Yes. iRacing is very good with VR... I have the 2080ti and can’t run full setting in rfactor2

 

[RCHeliguy]

Yes. iRacing is very good with VR... I have the 2080ti and can’t run full setting in rfactor2

It's apparently very good with the SC2 as well, so I'm a very happy camper right now!

 

[HoiHman]

Good to hear! I spent a couple hours today in VR learning LimeRock with the 488GT3 and the experience was excellent. I had all the iRacing graphics settings turned up and the 2080Ti was only running 65%. CPU's weren't pushing too hard either. That was also at 150% SS.

Iracing has a very good VR implementation.

The GPU / CPU are only pushed with full grids.

Lot's of games where i was having performance issues run fine on track days. But a full race grid, starting at the back, thats a whole different story.

 

[anton_Chez]

I spent a couple hours today in VR learning LimeRock with the 488GT3 and the experience was excellent.

Funny, I was doing the same thing a couple of days ago. It's a nice circuit. Chicane variant?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Funny, I was doing the same thing a couple of days ago. It's a nice circuit. Chicane variant?

I was doing the full course. Looks like that is the track variant that showed up last night when they switched to LimeRock for the coming week. I'm still working on getting my timing right. I think I need to get my lap time under 50 sec to be competitive. The NLRv3 likes iRacing pretty well too, however I've been tweaking the pitch curve a bit on this track. The transition seemed a bit abrupt when hitting the uphill and going over the crest. Maybe that's realistic, but it seemed like it should have been a bit more gradual to me. LimeRock is definitely a bit bumpy in a few places. I'm learning not to keep it floored over the crest or the engine over revs and the car breaks free. I just rotated my Sprint throttle pedal two holes toward me so I don't feel like I'm reaching as far for full throttle.

I'm dying to try out my SC2 to see what all the fuss is about. I hope my wheel arrives soon! I'm getting pretty pumped in general. Really enjoying this!

I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy learning how to tweak the car's setup too, but I'm sticking with fixed setup races for the time being. I still have a hell of a lot to learn. I may sign up for VRS later on, but I have to see how this season goes I'm currently in a little lull for billable hours and have time to play, but it looks like things may get crazy over the next few months.

 

[GFJunky]

Whoop, I can confirm 4x FT240-31 ferrites with the headset cable wrapped 3 times has mostly fixed my Index. Still dies if you hold the headset but not a problem in normal use. Thanks for the advice.

 

[AlexN]

Well guys i have build a new PC based on a 9700K which i managed to overclock to 5,1Ghz

Just after ordering the new PC, i found out that i wasn't running a 4770, but a 7700K

So i was a bit afraid the upgrade to a 9700k wasn't big enough, but it turned out pretty good
According to the VRmark the system is in the top 1%




But ..... benchmarks aren't important.

What's important is that the upgrade has brought a significant improvement for racing in VR.
The Valve Index is, imho, less sensitive to running on lower super sampling rates, so instead of running SS at 2.0 or higher with the rift in ASW mode, i'm now running almost every single game at 150% SS but @90fps

Smoothing in SteamVR is not of the same quality as ASW from Oculus. I see much more artifacts (especially with heavy motion) and i don't perceive the "smoothed image" as smooth.

The heave motion of the SFX100 induces more artifacts when motion smoothing is activated because of the frequent up/down movements of the HMD. Also since i have been racing on the monitor @120Hz there's no going back to 45fps smoothed frame rates for me anymore.

So the goal was to get 90fps even with 20-35 AI cars on the grid. I'm happy to say that i have managed to get a stable 90fps in AI races in a number a VR racegames with a lot of performance tuning.

FPSVR (steam app) has helped a lot. So is for example RaceRoom VR still CPU limited and PCARS2 is GPU limited.

The image in the Index is far from perfect, especially compared to the 49" Samsung, But it is at a point that it's acceptable, so is the performance, even in single player AI races.

My main gripe with VR, being performance has been solved. In a week or two i even plan to not autostart FPSVR anymore, so i'm not focusing on VR performance at all.

i'm not done with VR,

I still enjoy "pancake racing" especially for casual racing. The image quality, comfort and performance are still better than in VR, but when i want real immersion, i race in VR.

Glad to hear you got it working! The Index has been a great upgrade for me - I was able to spend several hours in it with no headache or sickness thanks to the higher resolution. I agree that SteamVR’s version of ASW has very noticeable artifacts... I find it uncomfortable to look at, while I had to look very closely to spot artifacts on the Rift. To the point that I simply disabled it, because it was kicking in when not needed on frames that were close to being over budget.

 

[RCHeliguy]

What I've noticed with the Index is that it is improving with the software updates, but somethings are still a bit weird.

For example the audio used to not come up on it's own and once you started SteamVR you would need to open up Settings -> Audio click devices and then the Index headphones would show up. However the microphone was always there. Now I find I can open SteamVR, open CrewChief and the "radio check" comes through over the headset almost every time. So that's much better. My SimHub connection to the MB sound card also comes up properly most of the time, but every 4th time or so I have to open it up and reconnect it to the sound card.

Currently if I boot up (NLRv3 & SimHub & VRS boot up automatically) Then I manually open SteamVR, Crewchief, and iRacing most of the time it will come up great. However if I've been playing other games and say drop down from 144 or 120 to 90fps and then open up iRacing sometimes it will come up stuttering and "in the orange" in SteamVR, say 9-10ms (orange) instead of 4.5ms( green).

It appears that "sometimes" Oculus Revive it being triggered, so there may be other things interacting with this.

I still think Oculus has their software sorted better. I never had an issue with the audio or inconsistent performance and the Oculus software would come up by default after booting saving a step.

I love my Index, but I'm also expecting that the software will continue to improve in terms of reliability and performance. The reality is that it sometimes it takes me an extra few clicks to get things working correctly or once in a while a reboot and this is only for running racing sims. For everything else it seems to have no issues.