What do you race on most in terms of screen format?

[Elaphe]

It's exactly what you're explaining that's holding me back from buying a VR headset. As I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I'm afraid I'll spend more time tweaking and optimizing the game's views and ergonomics than actually driving it. Approximately how long does it take to install and then regularly start a race with VR? (I don't know if this question makes sense)

One of the advantages of VR is that you don't have to care about "the game's views and ergonomics". When you are in the car, you just have to press the button for centering your headset view and you are ready to go. The only concern is to be sure that your computer can handle the requirements to keep the framerate to the max all the time. I have a Pimax headset, which is not a user-friendly headset to setup and use, and I can tell you it's as simple as launching the Pimax software, waiting for the base stations to find my headset, (optionally) launch Steam VR and Virtual Desktop (to see your Windows desktop on the headset), launch AC, and press GO (supposing you already have setup the game to use VR, Steam VR or OpenXR). If you have enough lighting on your room and are not all surrounded by reflective surfaces, you should not have problems of tracking. The main problem you will find is screen fogging, which can be fixed with fans pointing at your face.

 

[Elaphe]

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[haramont]

One of the advantages of VR is that you don't have to care about "the game's views and ergonomics".

Thank you for your response. I've looked into how it works, and I must say that apart from the initial setup, "it doesn't seem" very complicated. A good video that explains how it works on Assetto Corsa with a common headset.

The resolution of the headset seems very different from one model to another. But a resolution like in the example above, 3840x1080, is slightly lower than 2K 2560x1440, so I should be able to keep my current settings. Am I wrong?

The thing is, like many people here, I've spent endless time tweaking the video settings for each of my games to achieve excellent visuals on the screen, and specifically on Assetto Corsa, on which I spend a lot of time playing. Just take a look at what the community offers on Overtake to realize how obsessed we all are (the vast majority at least) with attention to detail. I don't really want to start from scratch because of VR, searching for the best visual/FPS/usability compromise, if you know what I mean. And then I often take breaks to adjust something outside of the game (Alt+Tab, Alt Esc, Ctrl Shift Esc, ...), is that planned?

The other point that holds me back is that current games are not exclusively made for VR. Let me explain. If I take, for example, the Codemasters F1 series which now offers VR. I notice that since its inception with F1 2010, the game has been available on consoles and PC. For 15 years, nothing has been done to optimize the PC market (still no mouse menu, for example), even less for those who play in cockpit view (the HUD is not paginated) it's an exterior window to the cockpit that also serves for the T.Cam view. So, if they offer VR, it's just to increase or not decrease the number of product sales. Nothing will be developed if it can't be used on all platforms. That's also why the FFB (Force Feedback) is not as refined as in other simulations, it's just a very basic force feedback that suits controllers and wheels. So, I don't see why they would do for VR what hasn't been done for PC gamers, who are more numerous. If we assume that nothing extra will be developed for VR, we end up having to manage dozens of buttons outside the virtual enclosure. It's not very practical, it seems to me. I don't see how one can find pleasure in fumbling on their wheel or desk searching for this unusual but essential command. The question is, does it often happen that you have to take off the headset to search for a command? Does it happen without thinking, or is it extremely annoying?

If a game is exclusively designed for VR, then everything will be designed so as not to have any interactions with the outside other than what your hand commands should allow. For example, a bare wheel without frills would be enough to provide force feedback, all buttons would be virtual and accessible visually without necessarily having a presence in the real world. Is that the case? To my knowledge, there is no editor brave enough to propose a game exclusively designed for VR. I feel like it's like laserdisc, just a step before something more user-friendly. What do you think?

And the last point, and not the least, is that when I bring my coffee cup to my lips, I won't see the drowned fly on the surface, and that terrifies me.

You own a Pimax, the resolution is very high according to this infographic, and the price...too. I imagine that the processor and graphics card that go with it are of the same level. So, I apologize for my indiscretion, but basically, are we getting close to 3000 euros worth of VR gear? Did you start with cheap VR gear and were disappointed, and then invested much more afterwards? Or did you start directly by buying high-end gear?

Thank you for holding on until here.

 

[SharkVA]

Thank you for your response. I've looked into how it works, and I must say that apart from the initial setup, "it doesn't seem" very complicated. A good video that explains how it works on Assetto Corsa with a common headset.

The resolution of the headset seems very different from one model to another. But a resolution like in the example above, 3840x1080, is slightly lower than 2K 2560x1440, so I should be able to keep my current settings. Am I wrong?

The thing is, like many people here, I've spent endless time tweaking the video settings for each of my games to achieve excellent visuals on the screen, and specifically on Assetto Corsa, on which I spend a lot of time playing. Just take a look at what the community offers on Overtake to realize how obsessed we all are (the vast majority at least) with attention to detail. I don't really want to start from scratch because of VR, searching for the best visual/FPS/usability compromise, if you know what I mean. And then I often take breaks to adjust something outside of the game (Alt+Tab, Alt Esc, Ctrl Shift Esc, ...), is that planned?

The other point that holds me back is that current games are not exclusively made for VR. Let me explain. If I take, for example, the Codemasters F1 series which now offers VR. I notice that since its inception with F1 2010, the game has been available on consoles and PC. For 15 years, nothing has been done to optimize the PC market (still no mouse menu, for example), even less for those who play in cockpit view (the HUD is not paginated) it's an exterior window to the cockpit that also serves for the T.Cam view. So, if they offer VR, it's just to increase or not decrease the number of product sales. Nothing will be developed if it can't be used on all platforms. That's also why the FFB (Force Feedback) is not as refined as in other simulations, it's just a very basic force feedback that suits controllers and wheels. So, I don't see why they would do for VR what hasn't been done for PC gamers, who are more numerous. If we assume that nothing extra will be developed for VR, we end up having to manage dozens of buttons outside the virtual enclosure. It's not very practical, it seems to me. I don't see how one can find pleasure in fumbling on their wheel or desk searching for this unusual but essential command. The question is, does it often happen that you have to take off the headset to search for a command? Does it happen without thinking, or is it extremely annoying?

If a game is exclusively designed for VR, then everything will be designed so as not to have any interactions with the outside other than what your hand commands should allow. For example, a bare wheel without frills would be enough to provide force feedback, all buttons would be virtual and accessible visually without necessarily having a presence in the real world. Is that the case? To my knowledge, there is no editor brave enough to propose a game exclusively designed for VR. I feel like it's like laserdisc, just a step before something more user-friendly. What do you think?

And the last point, and not the least, is that when I bring my coffee cup to my lips, I won't see the drowned fly on the surface, and that terrifies me.
View attachment 753895
You own a Pimax, the resolution is very high according to this infographic, and the price...too. I imagine that the processor and graphics card that go with it are of the same level. So, I apologize for my indiscretion, but basically, are we getting close to 3000 euros worth of VR gear? Did you start with cheap VR gear and were disappointed, and then invested much more afterwards? Or did you start directly by buying high-end gear?

Thank you for holding on until here.

Very thoughtful dive into the subject, but maybe a bit of over-thinking. VR is much like the hobby itself, you can enter it on a budget level and have some fun. You'll be sinking thousands into it by the time you're trying to squeeze every last pixel and piece of advantage out of the different hardware available. I started in 2016 with the first preorder batch of the Vive because hey, it's the stuff I dreamed of as a child.

I stuck it out with the Vive until 2023 when I migrated over to a Vive Pro 2, and yes, the newer gen headsets are a massive step forward on the visual fidelity front. Getting to your point about spending thousands, I found my 10GB 3080 did not have the stomach for the 3400x3400 per eye resolution I wanted to run the VP2 at, so on to a ridiculous 4090 I went. I'm a frugal man at heart, but as much joy and fun as I get out of spending a couple hours here and there in a VR HMD, racing around the world's best tracks in some of the world's best cars...still a hell of a lot cheaper than scratching my itch with a real track machine.

It's not for everyone and VR, even on the latest and greatest hardware, is still far from perfect. Like most things, it's a battle of compromises and what you can extract from it. In terms of immersion, I have yet to find a better medium to enjoy sim racing on. If the bulky HMD on the head feels cumbersome, it's easy to think of it as a racing helmet. If I struggle to find the buttons, rotaries and switches on my wheels and button box...it's a matter of muscle memory and repetition.

I can state with certainty that those who wish to dabble with VR by getting cheap early-gen HMDs will be missing a lot of the enjoyment. While the Vive was fun and the awe factor was fresh, making out things more than 100m down track or little items on the MFD were no easy task. Higher resolution headsets are practically a new experience with the ability to see every fine detail on your in-car displays and make out every car and turn on the track ahead. All of those little things come together to build a complete experience. In titles that have well thought-out VR, say AC CSP and AMS2, the tiniest little details like "real" mirrors that adjust the picture based on the viewing angle almost subliminally make the experience so much more believable. In a rig with a good base, motion simulation, high resolution HMD and a nice set of isolating headphones...it's easy to get lost in the experience and feel like you're sitting inside of a real machine when you start focusing on the driving/racing itself.

 

[haramont]

Hello SharkVA

Thanks for the very informative and interesting feedback. I admit that I was going to take the plunge and just buy a cheap headset to start with, but your feedback tells me that I'd better opt for something more qualitative. I'm well aware that it's pointless to over-analyze a situation when it's more a matter of “coup de coeur” or passion. That too much pragmatic reasoning will cause me to miss out on something huge in terms of immersion. But what can I say, these are the times, we have to buy “responsibly”. If I can make the mistake of buying a game for which I've finally let myself be tempted by the sirens of marketing, it will be more painful to realize that I've fallen for something that, once the surprise effect has worn off, will end up sitting on the corner of my desk more often than on my head. Especially now that you've convinced me that if I aim low, I won't get the pleasure I'm looking for. Your experience is invaluable. I hadn't realized that the resolution advertised on the headsets was for one eye only. Indeed, two times 3400x3400 per eye is far from trivial... So, with just the headset, it's either immersion in wide open spaces with no detail, or making do with a more polished image on a single monitor. In the end, I know I'll get there, but I'll wait until I've changed configuration to enjoy the best experience.
The Vive Antique is rated at 2160 x 1200 per eye, and you say that's not enough to see the dials on the dashboard? !!!! Whereas many gamers make do with HD or 2K, which are very close but, it's true, on much larger surfaces. How can a concentration of pixels on each eye fail to give a highly detailed image? Is it a question of optics?

 

[SharkVA]

Hello SharkVA

Thanks for the very informative and interesting feedback. I admit that I was going to take the plunge and just buy a cheap headset to start with, but your feedback tells me that I'd better opt for something more qualitative. I'm well aware that it's pointless to over-analyze a situation when it's more a matter of “coup de coeur” or passion. That too much pragmatic reasoning will cause me to miss out on something huge in terms of immersion. But what can I say, these are the times, we have to buy “responsibly”. If I can make the mistake of buying a game for which I've finally let myself be tempted by the sirens of marketing, it will be more painful to realize that I've fallen for something that, once the surprise effect has worn off, will end up sitting on the corner of my desk more often than on my head. Especially now that you've convinced me that if I aim low, I won't get the pleasure I'm looking for. Your experience is invaluable. I hadn't realized that the resolution advertised on the headsets was for one eye only. Indeed, two times 3400x3400 per eye is far from trivial... So, with just the headset, it's either immersion in wide open spaces with no detail, or making do with a more polished image on a single monitor. In the end, I know I'll get there, but I'll wait until I've changed configuration to enjoy the best experience.
The Vive Antique is rated at 2160 x 1200 per eye, and you say that's not enough to see the dials on the dashboard? !!!! Whereas many gamers make do with HD or 2K, which are very close but, it's true, on much larger surfaces. How can a concentration of pixels on each eye fail to give a highly detailed image? Is it a question of optics?

It is indeed a matter of optics and distance. The screens are VERY close to your eyes and require special lenses to focus the image. Classically fresnel lenses as an example and more recently, arguably superior "pancake" lenses. Pixelation is far more apparent at the same resolutions when the relatively small screens are damn near touching your face. As far as resolution goes, the 3400x3400 per eye is after making use of steamvr supersampling in the ~1.4 range. There's a LOT to digest out there about VR, supersampling, barrel distortion, etc. VR headsets typically advertise one of two ways (or both), the combined width of both screens x height or the width of a single screen x height. I believe the stock resolution of the Vive Pro 2 would be 4896x2448 or 2448x2448 per eye. 2448 x 1.4 = ~3427, which is where I'm sitting currently with the ridiculous 4090 driving it.

I'm no fan of Meta or their VR ecosystem, but will readily admit the Quest 3 HMD presents a very compelling entry purchase into VR thanks to its relatively high resolution, pancake lenses and reasonable cost without the need for extra tracking equipment like base stations.

End of the day if you can get a good deal on an inexpensive HMD from a previous generation, it would probably serve you well as a barometer for whether or not you will even enjoy and be able to adapt to/tolerate racing in VR. The "antique" (love it haha) Vive leaves plenty to be desired in 2024, but it's still serviceable and still plenty capable of providing a fun time.

This dude has a lot of comparisons on his channel of "through the lens" examples. Does a decent job of illustrating the type of distortion/fidelity/pixelation/legibility issues I'm attempting to convey: