VR

[Steve O'Malley]

I bought an Occulus Rift about 3 or 4 years ago and didnt like it. I think it was just about the only option at the time.

Have things improved?

Is VR much better than a wide screen?

Whats the best one to get at the moment?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

 

[smasha]

Had issues with my CV1 recently (well, system issues, not really VR related) so tried 2D racing again. My screen is good, it's a 50" 4k 2' from my seating position, but 2D racing after VR is bloody awful IMO.
Stereoscopic 3D and full 360 degree vision add immersion that no number of pixels can compete with, and everything feels alive in 3D where it feels flat and lifeless in 2D. It's speaks volumes that cockpits look infinitely more detailed in my 1080p Rift than they ever do on a flat 4k display, even ignoring the fact that you can actually look around them in VR rather than feeling like you're looking through a letterbox while wearing a neck brace like when viewing a monitor.
VR and sim racing are perfect bedfellows, I reckon - and I'm using outdated tech compared to newer headsets.

Interesting.

 

[anton_Chez]

Just because there is hardware available that costs a lot of money, to some, doesn't mean sim racing is a rich mans trade. There is absolutely nothing gained by limiting purchasing choices based on the lowest common denominator. If you cannot afford the best gear, perhaps be happy with the level of hardware you can afford, rather than begrudging those in the community that can.

So tired of these posts that complain about people buying high end hardware when there are more than enough options available at the very low end for those that are limited to it.

 

[Mascot]

I'd also be very interested to know how many of the "Ugh! VR looks awful" complaints are based on badly-configured specifications. My own settings went FUBAR last week during my PC issues and when I got the Rift working again some basic defaults settings were being used in CM and it DID look terrible. Badly aliased, flat lighting, overexposed... If that was my first impression of VR then I would have agreed that the IQ wasn't anywhere near acceptable. Luckily, when it's properly set up VR looks absolutely incredible, even on my own outdated setup. I can't even begin to imagine how it looks for somebody with cutting-edge hardware.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

I use both still. As a track-maker I use a 2D ultrawide screen to check over the quality of track I am working on, but when it comes to 'fun' rather than 'work' the Odyssey+ goes on as, even though it's nowhere near as sharp as 2D, the immersion is unbeatable for me. Nothing beats driving round a track that you have made yourself, looking at all the details, 'being' there (except, maybe, driving a car that you made yourself).

A 10-lap race in VR is my treat to myself at the end of a hard day's modding

 

[Mascot]

A 10-lap race in VR is my treat to myself at the end of a hard day's modding

...or as we like to say, three hours at Fonteny.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Just saw the specs for Intel's 10th gen chips and they are VERY incremental changes that are of course still 14nm technology. The pricing is "reasonable" at $488 for the i9-10900K and $472 for the i9-900KF.

The i9-10900K will have 10 hyper threading cores instead of 8 which is great for compression and NLE rendering, but doesn't buy us much of anything for sim racing.

The base DRAM speed is better at DDR4-2933MHz, so it may support faster over clocked DRAMS. It can meek out a tiny bit more speed, but nothing remarkable.

Most interesting is that it can single out a couple CPU's for Velocity Boost of 5.3 GHz with the rest at 4.9GHz. For VR that could be a good thing.

The bad news is that it requires a new socket and new MB and it uses more power. 125 up from 95Watts.

So if I were building a new system from scratch, sure. But not remotely worth an upgrade.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

How well that single core boost will work with OS moving processes around (by design)

 

[BrunoBæ]

The bad news is that it requires a new socket and new MB and it uses more power. 125 up from 95Watts.

Not bad news for me.
Im still running on an old server cpu Xeon x5670 on a 1366 MB.
And have been waiting a looong time if/when I should upgrade.
Maybe its time now?

 

[Allyngr]

We used a HP Reverb for about a month (iRacing and ACC) with a RTX 2080i card. We found...

pros

tracks looked very different - you really see the hills, dips etc in a way that makes you understand them. Accordingly very easy to drive quick on unfamiliar tracks

immersion incredible. FOV is perfect, car interiors look 3D and yes you can read all the dials. Mirrors are excellent, looking around the bend comes naturally. when Kids start Karting they have to be trained to move their heads - they become so use to having a fixed straight ahead view that looking around corners to the next doesn’t come naturally

motion sickness goes quickly and they you really do feel you are there. I found this really hard to understand until I experienced it

cons.

setup before each session became onerous. Sometimes it was literally three hours of tweaking settings, rebooting, reinstalling. There is a continual dance between the game, steam, WMR and Nvidia control panel. You would expect this to be a one time issue, but in a month this never got better / easier and is the reason we withdrew

being cut off from the room. Because of all the niggles with settings, you are continually taking the mask off and on to change or fix something. You can’t see the stream deck or other peripherals, nor the keyboard or mouse. We never used crew chief at the time but I imagine that would have been very helpful. I can’t see any system being truly useful until they start installing cameras that enable you to flick to the real world environment without taking off the headset

the Reverb was really fussy. If you didn’t have spotlights pointing directly at you it would get lost and you would get the vomit inducing effect of the world moving when you move.

when we moved to three (27inch) monitors we were shocked at how immersive it still was. There was a period oF adjustment to the motion sensation, there was still the ability to look around corners and all of our above Cons were removed. you don’t get the same sense of environment, it’s harder to be quick and it’s no where near as immersive, but it is stable, and not fussy.

In many ways we found VR was superior for sim racing but in terms of seat time, the instability just made it a toy rather than a useable training tool. Oh and in terms of money, reverb was much cheaper than three monitors plus a simlab stand.

 

[RCHeliguy]

VR nausea in a sim can be reduced greatly with a motion system and transducers.

As a prime example Dirt Rally would cause almost everyone who tried out VR to get nausea. After I added an NLRv3 almost everyone could drive as long as they wanted. I'm basing this on about 20 friends who have come over and tried it out. I've had a couple outliers. My son never seemed to have any nausea even without motion and I've had a couple people who still had an initial reaction but who haven't spent more than 15 minutes in the rig.

It took me 5 days of 20-30 minute sessions to get over the nausea without motion.

With my Valve Index I've had zero tracking issues and has been very reliable from a software and driver standpoint. I run 120 fps almost always with VRSS and it looks great. I put the headset on, press the center VR button one in game and everything runs perfectly until I'm done using it.

I have tweaked my Nvidia settings, but that is a one time deal. I haven't touched since I set up VRSS. I don't do anything special when I start up SteamVR. I simply right click on the Steam icon in my task bar and select Start SteamVR. That's it and I have nothing else to mess with. It just works reliably.

My startup sequence is now fairly quick and takes about 2 minutes from boot to being in the game.

Computer boot
SimHub- tactile software comes up automatically
NLRv3 - motion software comes up automatically
VRS - Virtual Racing School telemetry logger comes up automatically
Trading Paints - iRacing Livery comes up automatically

I have a dedicated trackball mounted to my rig that I use for navigation.

I start up Steam VR
I start up Crew Chief and enable it
I start up my SimuCube 2 software and enable full torque for my direct drive steering
Then I start up iRacing, pick a race or practice.

I press the VR center button, and I'm ready to go.

I designed a button box specifically for VR use.
It has a cup holder for a camelbak water bottle with a bite tube which is great for drinking in VR without any spills.
My smart phone is there in case something important comes up.
There is a VR headset hangar which is very handy and I believe a must for anyone racing in VR.

For Dirt Rally 1 or 2.0 which requires a keyboard for navigation, I've got large button box controls.

The large oversized controls work very well in VR.
The top left 4 way joystick is for seat adjustment.
The red button to the right is for Recover / Return to pit / exit
There is a large ignition switch, and a large green start button.
The silver button is HMD center.

The lower right 4 way joystick is for arrow keys.
It has an Enter and ESC button to the left and a Cancel button to the right.
The momentary switches above it are for menu navigation.

I almost never use any of the lower left buttons. All the critical stuff I need while driving is on my wheel, like the pit limiter button etc.

Even past that, my rig lives in the corner of my media room and it only takes me another couple minutes to pull it over to the center of the room, drop the retractable casters, plug a single power cord into a wall socket, turn on my tactile amplifer, plug in the single USB connector and put my VR headset on the hangar and then sit down put on my seat belts and gloves and start the startup sequence I listed above.

I have a keyboard on small table that I can slide over next to me, but I very rarely need it for anything.

 

[GeekyDeaks]

Oh and in terms of money, reverb was much cheaper than three monitors plus a simlab stand

I have the reverb and this was the reason I went for it. Had a pretty tight budget and I don't have a suitable rig to bolt everything onto.

setup before each session became onerous. Sometimes it was literally three hours of tweaking settings, rebooting, reinstalling. There is a continual dance between the game, steam, WMR and Nvidia control panel.

Know what you mean about the faff and taking the mask off periodically, but I'm wondering if things have improved recently since I rarely have to restart OS/WMR/SteamVR between games/sessions, but I have read several post with people experiencing similar problems as you in this area. Fortunately for sim racing the number of buttons is manageable so I can keep the mask on for longer and have the mouse in an easy to reach location, but I haven't figured out a good setup for something like ED yet due to my reliance on third party websites for game info and using the keyboard. I don't stream though. Not sure I'd have gone with VR if I did

the Reverb was really fussy. If you didn’t have spotlights pointing directly at you it would get lost and you would get the vomit inducing effect of the world moving when you move.

I get this when first putting on the headset. It had a tendency to completely lose the tracking and requires a reset of the view. There have been instances in game where it's lost it, but I can count them on one hand. I only have a central diffused light in the room.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

WMR has flashlight feature that let you see surrounding without taking headset off.
Why do you need continuously tweak everything?

And for the buttons, I just have most used keys mapped in VoiceAttack.

 

[James Webb]

I had a Cv1 and found it to be ok. Purchased Rift S when they came out and couldn't get on with it at all. Not sure if it was the low Hz. But the feeling sick came with it.
Now back to CV1 and that's fine.
Can't do 2 hr endurance stints with it have to revert back to triples.
Index one day but to expensive atm.

 

[Old & Slow]

The Odyssey +is a great headset but its headphones and sound quality are lacking.
Bought a good set of IEMs, In Ear Monitors, and installed Razer's Surround Sound software.
Incredible difference!

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Can't disagree more, they are high quality AKG speakers, but we all have different points of reference and sound signature preferences.

 

[Chrhun]

I've started using my travel headphones (Beoplay H9i) with the Rift S, they fit fine and they cancel all the noise the seat mover and tactile equipment make. These headphones are quite expensive, but I think cheaper noise cancelling headphones should work as well in this use scenario.

 

[onearmedbandit46]

WMR has flashlight feature that let you see surrounding without taking headset off.
Why do you need continuously tweak everything?

And for the buttons, I just have most used keys mapped in VoiceAttack.

Agreed. I use the Vive Pro and that has cameras that allow you to see what's going on outside of your headset (never used that function though), I never have to change settings now I've got it perfected for me, and the only buttons I need are mapped to my wheel or mouse. I only have the use of one arm and still this works for me.

From whoa to go it takes me no more than 5mins to get into a game and I have to retrieve and plug in my headset and wheel every time. Everyone's mileage varies but I'll never go back to pancake sim.

 

[aeonblack6]

Agreed. I use the Vive Pro and that has cameras that allow you to see what's going on outside of your headset (never used that function though), I never have to change settings now I've got it perfected for me, and the only buttons I need are mapped to my wheel or mouse. I only have the use of one arm and still this works for me.

From whoa to go it takes me no more than 5mins to get into a game and I have to retrieve and plug in my headset and wheel every time. Everyone's mileage varies but I'll never go back to pancake sim.

Vive Pro here as well and I couldn't agree more. Any problems I have ever had relating to using VR in sims has nothing to do with VR tech (or hardware in general) and everything to do with lazy implementation from developers. It's no different than using a wheel or any other peripherals; the first time you use it, you have to calibrate and set things up, but after that you just turn it on and go. My biggest complaints these days relate to nitpicky things like "why can't anyone else see my head moving? I want people to see me nodding or shaking my head!

 

[gmkump]

I don't know how one gets used to VR sim racing and can go back to static monitors. I agree that motion sickness can put off some, but I have a traction plus and v3 motion setup and I never, ever, get nausea from this setup. Now during cool down lap and if I step out of the cockpit with the VR headset still on and stand behind the cockpit, I'll start feeling the nausea due to my non-movement on solid ground.

This is true for all VR. You can get nausea on first use after an extended leave of absence from it, especially 1st person view games with controller movement. The key is not to quit, but take a break, don't play longer than an hour at a time. After a few days you acclimate and the nausea will go away and it won't impact you at all. Really, it is like training your inner ear to ignore your true physical environment and you do acclimate.

For sim racing, with motion cockpit, there is just absolutely no nausea at all (for me anyway). Your inner ear is feeling the motion as your eye registers it, so it is all good. I had a friend who did get nausea, but I think this is more to the fact that they refused to allow themselves to immerse into the experience. They refused to believe they were "there" in VR, and anchored themselves in the "real" world. This causes conflict with inner ear and visual input. Motion cockpits help, but if someone just absolutely refuses to believe the inputs to your brain, you are susceptible to nausea regardless of setup. At least this is my theory. They complained about nausea, leaving me perplexed.

Still, you cannot beat VR for immersion. Being able to look around your simulated environment cannot be beat, even with three 65 inch 4K monitors. The visual quality is great (I'm using Rift S with Valve Index on order). I've considered spending on three monitors so I can do non-VR racing sims, but I always purchase software that support VR first, regardless.

 

[RCHeliguy]

@gmkump I am VERY curious about how your traction plus works with VR. Do you use the software compensation from NLR, the open source tracking sensor solution, or no compensation?

I'm also curious how the queues for under-steer feel.