VR versus triple-screen for Assetto Corsa

[Billy Pilgrim]

I have a triple-screen setup. It's great.

I've never tried VR. I'd like to read opinions from those who have experienced both to understand how the two options compare.

The downside of VR, I understand, is the screendoor effect. That's about the extent of my knowledge. I'm thinking fps may be better in VR.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Hi Flibbberflops


It looks worse than that picture, by a lot. I stand by it.


I had this discussion many times and when people respond with the arguments you just laid out, turns out its just a matter of what people interpret as being "god rays". Most people associate them with those light shafts coming out of bright spots, but they usually fail to realize that the god rays are just smaller instances of the bigger glare/smudge artifact, and in fact are always present and get worse the brighter the image is. in fact, its worse when the entire image is bright! (with no dark backgrounds).

This is what you call "god rays".

@ 25 seconds:

This is what happens when many god rays "bunch" together

@ 5 minutes

Low light source brightness

High light source brightness.

You cannot see the true black, color, or have any sort of clarity behind those smudges.

Now, according to your argument, If that black background was instead a white background, there would be no smudge. Well in truth, the brighter the overall image is, the worse the smudge/glare will be.

Like I said, I was so bothered by that glare at first that I nearly returned the whole kit. But now I don't even notice the glare or god rays, as weird as it sounds your brain eventually filters that stuff out and I can't recall the last time I was bothered by glare. Now, in a game like PCars2 that has night there can be some glare coming off the LCD display of race cars when it's dark out, but in normal light there's no issue.

I'm not trying to make excuses for VR, it's not something you can judge from looking at photos or videos on a flat screen or even from a couple firsthand experiences. It's not perfect and it's not for everyone but I just want to repeat that you can make your impression off the first time with VR because it takes several weeks to get used to. I put off VR for a long time because I heard these complaints about low resolution, screen door effect, and limited FOV but when I finally took the plunge and gave myself a few weeks to adapt to it I realized that, for me at least, all those complaints were overblown and greatly outweighed by the benefits. I'm just trying to share that for people who may be on the fence and concerned about the complaints some people make, give yourself a couple weeks to adapt and it's likely you'll also fall in love with it, but I'd also bet that after your first experience you will be less than pleased.

 

[Dan Costa]

If am more than prepared to have a sensible converstaion about what effect godrays has on the image. However, if your starting point is an assersion that an actual photograph is not a acurate representation of what is seen by the eye, then to be honest I have no time or faith for any counter arguement you may put forward.

I see people posting photo's of triple screens / widescreens all the time. Not once would they even think to suggest that such a photo is an inacurate reflection of what you actually see. To try to do so instantly destroys any credibility you try to convey.

Ever real car I have ever driven has some kind of windscreen glare. This happens in high contrast situations. Bright sunlight, Night driving, dashboard / Interiour mirror / interior lights refelcting on the screen... the list goes on. It is the unfortuante side effect of the windscreen (which is in effect a form of lense). Now if you wanted to be pendantic you could argue that such reflections are there all the time. Indeed I am sure that if i was a passenger of any car, driving at anytime I could sit there and point them out. The only difference is in some high contrast situations they are very visible. However, in most normal situations you can't see them, yet they are not noticed in a car.

I have mentioned time and again that if we are talking about VR in other genre's, I would take a different standpoint. However, Sim Driving in the day this is really not a issue. In the three years I have been showing VR to newbies they have indeed noticed godays in high contrast situationss. However, litterally no-one has noticed any form of godrays in Assetto corsa. However given that you won't accept scientic evidence such as a photograph, I doubt that 3 years of use and experience of the Dk2 and CV1 in AC will do anything to slow you down!

The photo is not accurate, it blurs the SDE into oblivion, removes aliasing and looks much better than what my eye sees when using it. So i guess our conversation does indeed end here.

cheers

 

[Dan Costa]

Like I said, I was so bothered by that glare at first that I nearly returned the whole kit. But now I don't even notice the glare or god rays, as weird as it sounds your brain eventually filters that stuff out and I can't recall the last time I was bothered by glare. Now, in a game like PCars2 that has night there can be some glare coming off the LCD display of race cars when it's dark out, but in normal light there's no issue.

I'm not trying to make excuses for VR, it's not something you can judge from looking at photos or videos on a flat screen or even from a couple firsthand experiences. It's not perfect and it's not for everyone but I just want to repeat that you can make your impression off the first time with VR because it takes several weeks to get used to. I put off VR for a long time because I heard these complaints about low resolution, screen door effect, and limited FOV but when I finally took the plunge and gave myself a few weeks to adapt to it I realized that, for me at least, all those complaints were overblown and greatly outweighed by the benefits. I'm just trying to share that for people who may be on the fence and concerned about the complaints some people make, give yourself a couple weeks to adapt and it's likely you'll also fall in love with it, but I'd also bet that after your first experience you will be less than pleased.

Sure, but please dont mistake my deserved criticism of the current tech with the experience it provides. The current tech is both terrible and great. Anyone who uses one can idenfity with this sentence. Just lets not give the IQ issues a free pass because the experience is sufficient and somehow "emulates" windshield glare or whatever. People should know what to expect before buying it.

 

[Flibbberflops]

The photo is not accurate, it blurs the SDE into oblivion, removes aliasing and looks much better than what my eye sees when using it. So i guess our conversation does indeed end here.

cheers

Not forgrttig it magically removes godrays too!

 

[Mascot]

I must be one of the lucky ones who never notices god rays when racing. I never notice the screen door effect either, or the lower-than-ideal resolution of distant objects. I guess I just get totally immersed in the VR experience and wonder how the hell I ever got into sim racing when a 2D screen was the only option..

*shrugs*

 

[Dan Costa]

Not forgrttig it magically removes godrays too!

I dont know what your problem is. See you at the race track.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Just lets not give the IQ issues a free pass because the experience is sufficient and somehow "emulates" windshield glare or whatever.

I never said anything like that. I said the glare/god rays were so bad at first that I seriously considered returning the whole thing but that after a couple weeks my brain edited that out and I honestly do not even see them anymore. So I'm both agreeing with your statement and also clarifying to other people that this is something you don't notice after awhile and is really not something to make a big deal about or declare it as a reason to avoid VR because you literally don't even see it after awhile.

People should know what to expect before buying it.

And that's exactly what I'm doing, trying to let people know that a lot of this stuff that people are making a big deal about isn't really a big deal and most of it you don't even notice after a few weeks. I refrained from buying into VR for a long time because I heard all this scary stuff about poor resolution, bad glare, etc. but once I gave myself time to adapt to it I now see that none of that stuff is an issue and I shouldn't have put it off for so long. VR is a very unusual thing and I've never experienced anything like there where I was pretty disappointed at first but then literally sat back and watched as my brain adapted to it all. YMMV.

Anyway, I've said all I have to say on this topic. To people on the fence, I recommend listening to the people who have actually used VR for more than a few weeks and most will tell you that you adapt to all these issues and they become non-issues. It's a wonderfully immersive experience that not only rekindled my passion for sim racing but also got me playing non-racing games for the first time in a decade.

 

[dud]

Now I feel challenged to take a photo of the rift view that represents what I see.

Might be a challenge. I suspect that if I close the aperture to something resembling the size of my retina I won't get enough light without too high ISO. Faking to be an eye so that the parallelized output of the Rift (or it is 60cm distance emulated?) is captured in a good representation could take some work.

 

[Neilski]

enough light without too high ISO

what's wrong with longer exposure?

 

[Dan Costa]

Now I feel challenged to take a photo of the rift view that represents what I see.

Might be a challenge. I suspect that if I close the aperture to something resembling the size of my retina I won't get enough light without too high ISO. Faking to be an eye so that the parallelized output of the Rift (or it is 60cm distance emulated?) is captured in a good representation could take some work.

Focus the camera on the screen (the SDE pattern must be clear and focused). The picture being displayed on the screen will appear the way its being rendered.

Maybe use a long f-stop (10 or higher) with a slow shutter (to enter enough light) and low iso (to avoid noise). This will make the resulting picture have more focus across the entire image.

 

[dud]

I was hoping to capture a moving picture. But you are right, why not give it a shot with a standing picture for now?

 

[Dan Costa]

Its the same as a photo. Disable camera autofocus and manual focus the SDE and start shooting the video.

Heres one with the DK2 (edit: it seems to be the DK1)

 

[Insert Coin]

Just some terminology explained, FYI: Understanding the Difference Between ‘Screen Door Effect’, ‘Mura’, & ‘Aliasing’.

 

[Mascot]

Its the same as a photo. Disable camera autofocus and manual focus the SDE and start shooting the video.

Heres one with the DK2:

Bloody hell - my CV1 looks orders of magnitude better than that does.

 

[Dan Costa]

Bloody hell - my CV1 looks orders of magnitude better than that does.

Actually this is the DK1 I think. The original oculus.

DK2 is very close to CV1 with the added benefit of having clear optics and a RGB screen instead of the mediocre pentile.

 

[Brandon Wright]

I tried taking some pics through my headset with my iPhone last night, it's surprisingly difficult to capture good images of it but I got a few that I think do a good job of showing what I see. Seemed like the center of the image would come out crisp but around the edges it would get a bit blurry on the photos. Also, the camera was picking up some vertical bars/distortions that are not visible when you have the headset on. These were taken in iRacing which is the best looking sim in VR on my system.

This one shows the track surface and surroundings pretty well, pay no mind to the blurry text at the top. That dash looks a bit blurry too but that's just a result of trying to get a photo through the headset, it's hard to get the camera to focus on something that close and to keep the image lined up with the camera.

Here you can see the dash and some of the black boxes. Yes, there's an ever so slight blur around some of the edges but for the most part it's pretty crisp and clear and very easy to read. I think this photo best demonstrates what I see through the headset and most of the screen looks this crisp and clear. You can see a slight screen door effect on the driver's thumb but that's about it.

On this one you can see off into the distance and even stuff way up the track still looks fine. You can also see the text along the top of the screen is very legible (even though it seems to have a slight blur on the pic which is just an artifact of trying to take a phone pic through the headset). What I see with my eyes is a bit sharper than on this pic.

And keep in mind these are iPhone pics taken through the HMD so they don't look quite as good as what I see with my own eyes through the HMD but I think they do a pretty good job of demonstrating the point. You can see there's virtually no detectable screen door effect, stuff in the distance is not a blurry mess, and text on the dash/HUD is very easy to read.

 

[Mascot]

^^ Yep, I'd say that's a pretty decent representation of what I see in many ways, although (as you say) the actual view in the headset as viewed by my eyes is clearer, crisper, and more in focus. Add binocular 3D, natural depth of field and proper object separation to that and the effect is obviously much, much better in the headset.

I'm starting to think that a lot of the naysayers are possibly using badly-adjusted or faulty headsets, wrong IPD, using underspecc'd PCs, bad graphics settings, have underlying eyesight issues (using the headset without prescription glasses on perhaps?) or have fogging on the lenses (I often hold my lenses in front of a mildly warm fan before first putting the headset on to eliminate condensation on the cold lenses from a warm face).

I simply do not recognise some of the complaints in this thread and find it hard to understand how some people seem so against the greatest development in sim racing since the FFB wheel..!

 

[Brandon Wright]

^^ Yep, I'd say that's a pretty decent representation of what I see in many ways, although (as you say) the actual view in the headset as viewed by my eyes is clearer, crisper, and more in focus. Add binocular 3D, natural depth of field and proper object separation to that and the effect is obviously much, much better in the headset.

Yeah, the binocular 3D vision and depth of field is impossible to capture on a photo or video and IMO those are the two biggest things that make VR great for me. It all feels very real, objects have depth and size to them, you totally forget about the real world and get lost in the virtual world.

I'm starting to think that a lot of the naysayers are possibly using badly-adjusted or faulty headsets, wrong IPD, using underspecc'd PCs, bad graphics settings, have underlying eyesight issues (using the headset without prescription glasses on perhaps?) or have fogging on the lenses (I often hold my lenses in front of a mildly warm fan before first putting the headset on to eliminate condensation on the cold lenses from a warm face).

I simply do not recognise some of the complaints in this thread and find it hard to understand how some people seem so against the greatest development in sim racing since the FFB wheel..!

Agreed, especially on the IPD. As I've said, VR isn't perfect but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be and overall I find it to be an immensely enjoyable experience that literally changed gaming for me. For anyone doubting, look at my pic above with the steering wheel/dash and if you can live with that picture quality than you'll be pleased with VR because what I see through the HMD looks a bit better than that. Those pics were taken on a Rift CV1 running off an i7-6700k cpu and a regular 1070 gpu.

 

[Neilski]

Thanks for the still pics Brandon. They actually look pretty decent. They also remind me that when LFS got a VR capability, Scawen spent bloody ages mucking about with the graphics to make it look better, including sorting out corrections for the chromatic aberrations (which seem quite noticeable in the shots above, so maybe AC doesn't do a correction?).

The video above was so horrifically bad that I couldn't believe anyone could enjoy driving with it! (Then I realised it was the DK1, and that it wasn't very representative of the real view anyway...)

 

[Cote Dazur]

Ant attempt to show what it is to be in VR by showing a picture is not useful in my point of view.
All I have is a DK2 on an average gaming PC and what I see in VR is nothing like those pics. Let’s forget for a second the you are there feeling, the fluid 3D experience and concentrate just on clarity. Because everything is so big in VR, the details in cockpit view only is amazing, you will see details you have not seen on a screen. Same for the scenery. This all lets try to make a pic is just wasting time and misleading.
All that is needed is put goggles on your head, not so difficult, this is 2018 after all.
If you don’t like what you experience, stay on a monitor and keep missing on the best thing, beside FFB wheel that ever happened to SIM driver.