VR Headset for Sim Racing

[Ravenger]

The headset with the biggest sweet spot is the Index, coupled with the larger FOV you find you don't have to turn your head as much to look around in VR.

The big problem though is the Index has pretty bad lens glare, and of course is lower resolution.

It's great for dogfighting in space and flight sims though as the vertical FOV is so large.

 

[Twinz]

I tried my friend's Index and, while I still prefer my Reverb, if I owned an Index the difference wouldn't be enough for me to upgrade to a Reverb.

 

[Ravenger]

The Index is also a lot sharper than the Quest 2 for PC VR despite the increased screen door effect, as it's an uncompressed image. I find the Index is much better for fast paced games, or for those which have a lot of detail because of this.

Some PC games just look bad on the Quest 2 due to the compression.

 

[Tykey]

The headset with the biggest sweet spot is the Index, coupled with the larger FOV you find you don't have to turn your head as much to look around in VR.

The big problem though is the Index has pretty bad lens glare, and of course is lower resolution.

It's great for dogfighting in space and flight sims though as the vertical FOV is so large.

the aero has the bigger sweetspot due to its aspheric lenses, about 85% of the image is sweetspot.

 

[Ravenger]

the aero has the bigger sweetspot due to its aspheric lenses, about 85% of the image is sweetspot.

Interesting. Though there have been reports that you get some distortion at the edges, but I think that has improved with software updates.

 

[Tykey]

Interesting. Though there have been reports that you get some distortion at the edges, but I think that has improved with software updates.

yes that's right the distortion has been fixed, atleast thats what the majority of users report, with software updates. to me it was never a problem even before the fixes, it's highly subjective.

 

[GMac11]

Hi again all! I apologise for abandoning my own thread temporarily but unfortunately got distracted by work and life!
Anyhow, just this week picked up a used Quest 2 locally for £190. I figured that gave me enough wriggle room to sell it if I don’t get along with it.
Pretty much spend most of this evening trying to get it up and running and got there eventually!
The VR is incredible but man do I feel sick as a dog now.
I went for Project Cars first as it was the only game I had that worked natively - it was good but it’s been so long since I played it I was well out of practice. I then went for Dirt Rally and after much faffing about got it running, that’s when the sickness kicked in after about 30 seconds. The circuits in Projext Cars were ok but the undulations of Rally Wales were just too much for a first attempt.
All in all I’m very impressed. I just need to dial in my settings for better graphics etc and fingers crossed I get used to the motion.

 

[Unseul]

Hi again all! I apologise for abandoning my own thread temporarily but unfortunately got distracted by work and life!
Anyhow, just this week picked up a used Quest 2 locally for £190. I figured that gave me enough wriggle room to sell it if I don’t get along with it.
Pretty much spend most of this evening trying to get it up and running and got there eventually!
The VR is incredible but man do I feel sick as a dog now.
I went for Project Cars first as it was the only game I had that worked natively - it was good but it’s been so long since I played it I was well out of practice. I then went for Dirt Rally and after much faffing about got it running, that’s when the sickness kicked in after about 30 seconds. The circuits in Projext Cars were ok but the undulations of Rally Wales were just too much for a first attempt.
All in all I’m very impressed. I just need to dial in my settings for better graphics etc and fingers crossed I get used to the motion.

Once you feel sick, stop until you feel completely fine. Personally, I've found in motion games like that (star wars for me), that running at higher frames helped a bit, but I don't suffer too badly anyway.

 

[Ravenger]

Yeah if you feel ill, stop immediately and come back when you feel better. If you push through you'll train your brain to associate VR with being ill, which is very hard to get rid of.

 

[GMac11]

Thanks! Yeah I wasn’t for playing any real length of time anyway, by the time I’d finally got everything up and running I just wanted to see it and satisfy my curiosity. I’ll have another stab at it tomorrow.
As I say, the track racing wasn’t too bad and since my main reason for getting the VR was for the upcoming F1 title hopefully it should be ok.

 

[melmac]

Thanks! Yeah I wasn’t for playing any real length of time anyway, by the time I’d finally got everything up and running I just wanted to see it and satisfy my curiosity. I’ll have another stab at it tomorrow.
As I say, the track racing wasn’t too bad and since my main reason for getting the VR was for the upcoming F1 title hopefully it should be ok.

In some racing sims what helps prevent VR sickness is locking the viewpoint to the horizon. It's in the settings of most Car sims.

 

[GMac11]

If you are going the Quest2 route, I would spend some time learning the ODT (oculus debug tool) to fine tune the settings. It makes the world of difference.

@GMac11 can you list your PC specs and your simracing games, as I should be able to start you off with some basic settings.

Using the cable and a decent GPU you want to be looking at native res through the oculus software (1.7, all the way to the right) and then in the ODT something along the lines of 1.2 (helps with shimmering in the distance like grandstands), ASW disabled, link sharpening on and bitrate set to 300mbs (if you have the cable). Then switch on the performance HUD and check where the performance graph is. You want to be going no lower than the middle of amber ideally. If you are in the red, start by dialing back the fps (72, 80, 90, 120), then the pixels per display to 1.0, then the native res.

Unfortunately even with a 3090, you can't do 1.7 at 120hz with 1.4 SS. Even though I tried it, and it looked absolutely sensational the performance dropped through the floor. That said, you can get something very acceptable, and VR is all about the immersion. It's really quite something hammering an F1 car around silverstone, although my favourite is the Ferrari 488 around red bull ring. Can spend hours doing laps around that track.

C:\Program Files\Oculus\Support\oculus-diagnostics\OculusDebugTool.exe

You need to launch this each and everytime and keep it running whilst you game

Thanks for posting this previously, gave me a good starting point for my setup.
In Project Cars I’m only getting around 40fps which is of course far from ideal. Lowering the Oculus s/w to 80hz and 1.3 (I think) and ODT at 1.0 I am able to reach 60fps but this is a peak, at times it will still drop off closer to 40fps.
I’m not averse to lowering the resolution/quality to get higher FPS but the distance shimmering is really off-putting so I can only go so low.
Bearing in mind I’m running a GTX 1080 what should I realistically be aiming for by way of an upgrade to run at say 80-90fps in the highest possible quality? I’m thinking along the lines of a 3070 standard (or ti if needs be). I also don’t mind going AMD but I can’t see anything that out-performs the base 3070, unless I‘m not looking in the right place?
More generally, Also, is there any way to play a game and NOT have it mirror on my monitor? I’m not sure if it causes much of a performance hit but it surely can’t help driving unnecessary pixels?
I’m quite happy with the Quest 2 however I can definitely see now why so many people say get an improved strap, the standard one really isn’t up to scratch - and that’s when seated. I dread to think how they expected it to stay in place while moving!

 

[glenimp617]

Thanks for posting this previously, gave me a good starting point for my setup.
In Project Cars I’m only getting around 40fps which is of course far from ideal. Lowering the Oculus s/w to 80hz and 1.3 (I think) and ODT at 1.0 I am able to reach 60fps but this is a peak, at times it will still drop off closer to 40fps.
I’m not averse to lowering the resolution/quality to get higher FPS but the distance shimmering is really off-putting so I can only go so low.
Bearing in mind I’m running a GTX 1080 what should I realistically be aiming for by way of an upgrade to run at say 80-90fps in the highest possible quality? I’m thinking along the lines of a 3070 standard (or ti if needs be). I also don’t mind going AMD but I can’t see anything that out-performs the base 3070, unless I‘m not looking in the right place?
More generally, Also, is there any way to play a game and NOT have it mirror on my monitor? I’m not sure if it causes much of a performance hit but it surely can’t help driving unnecessary pixels?
I’m quite happy with the Quest 2 however I can definitely see now why so many people say get an improved strap, the standard one really isn’t up to scratch - and that’s when seated. I dread to think how they expected it to stay in place while moving!

The shimmering is a pain isn't it. To get rid you need to increase the override which hammers your fps. Even on my 3080Ti I could only go so far. In the end I gave up and bought a pico neo 3 headset which is miles better imho for pc vr. I could really ramp up the settings and still got higher fps. In fact, I'm at 1.5x ultra and sat at 90fps constant. Not a hint of shimmering. That's iracing though, not pcars.

Unfortunately I've had two, both with dead pixels. Not sure if I could try a third one or not.

It's a tricky one this, because VR headsets are only going to get more and more demanding as they bump up the resolution and fov. I'd buy the best gpu you can afford, and have a think about the pico. It's much less demanding, whilst having a much better picture (proper displayport cable). You might be able to reach native 72hz with high enough SS to reduce the shimmering to a level you are happy with. That's a good experience.

Shaders are your enemy, and the first thing to reduce when looking for fps.

This was a solid 90, and I wonder if I can push it even higher

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[GMac11]

The shimmering is a pain isn't it. To get rid you need to increase the override which hammers your fps. Even on my 3080Ti I could only go so far. In the end I gave up and bought a pico neo 3 headset which is miles better imho for pc vr. I could really ramp up the settings and still got higher fps. In fact, I'm at 1.5x ultra and sat at 90fps constant. Not a hint of shimmering. That's iracing though, not pcars.

Unfortunately I've had two, both with dead pixels. Not sure if I could try a third one or not.

It's a tricky one this, because VR headsets are only going to get more and more demanding as they bump up the resolution and fov. I'd buy the best gpu you can afford, and have a think about the pico. It's much less demanding, whilst having a much better picture (proper displayport cable). You might be able to reach native 72hz with high enough SS to reduce the shimmering to a level you are happy with. That's a good experience.

Shaders are your enemy, and the first thing to reduce when looking for fps.

This was a solid 90, and I wonder if I can push it even higher

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

That Pico Neo looks very interesting indeed - I wish I'd seen that before I bought the Quest!
The shimmering must depend on the game also - for me it's barely noticeable on Dirt Rally.

Finally had a decent run on pCars this evening and I think I'm sold on the VR, definitely have the bug now.

Out of interest (if you're allowed to mention) where did you actually buy your PN3? I've only found one website that appears to be based in Europe. Actually never mind, I found a direct link from a YT video - why it doesn't show up on Google is beyond me.

 

[glenimp617]

That Pico Neo looks very interesting indeed - I wish I'd seen that before I bought the Quest!
The shimmering must depend on the game also - for me it's barely noticeable on Dirt Rally.

Finally had a decent run on pCars this evening and I think I'm sold on the VR, definitely have the bug now.

Out of interest (if you're allowed to mention) where did you actually buy your PN3? I've only found one website that appears to be based in Europe. Actually never mind, I found a direct link from a YT video - why it doesn't show up on Google is beyond me.

Yeah, the Pico has only just come out. Literally in the last week. IIRC there is only one UK seller. They are good as well, ship next day.
Considering it comes with a much better strap with the battery in the back not the front, and the cable, it's good value.

 

[Twinz]

IRacing isn't a good benchmark for graphics because it's probably better-optimized (visually) than any other sim on the market.

It's not the prettiest, but it will run on a potato GPU and still look pretty good.

Project Cars 2 can be one of the best-looking sims, but it requires a lot more graphical horsepower.

 

[GMac11]

So I’ve tried a bit of tweaking and what not and I just can’t seem to get either pCars or Dirt Rally to run at any sort of decent frame rate.
Oddly enough pCars is actually maxing out my 8600k CPU (overclocked to 4.8ghz) with my GTX 1080 sitting at around 70% - according to Task Manager anyway.

Dirt Rally runs anywhere between 40-60fps with the drops to 40 very noticeable. But most peculiarly is (again according to TM) neither my CPU nor GPU are under any great strain, usually around 50/60%.
What settings should I be looking at? As I say, I don’t understand how I can’t get DR to run any better considering it doesn’t appear to be maxing out my hardware.

 

[glenimp617]

It's not the encoder holding it back is it? Just a shot in the dark

What's the lowest resolution you can go to in Oculus. I'd stick that on lowest at 72 and see how it goes

It won't look great but you need to see what the fps is

 

[GMac11]

It's not the encoder holding it back is it? Just a shot in the dark

What's the lowest resolution you can go to in Oculus. I'd stick that on lowest at 72 and see how it goes

It won't look great but you need to see what the fps is

Forgive me, but what you mean by the encoder? As in, is there a setting I should be looking at?

Anyhow, I had a good dabble today and I now have pCars sitting between 60-72fps with the very odd drop sub-60 in particularly challenging situations. I currently have the Oculus App at 1.2x, any higher and I’m back into the 40’s. I think what was causing me issues yesterday was mainly the ASW - I set it to ‘Off’ as you recommended but I didn’t realise it defaults to ‘Auto’ every time the app is loaded.
The remainder of the settings are fairly much as you suggested.

I think what’s beating me overall is pCars is just such a demanding game to run. I actually reverted to my monitor and I can barely hit 100fps whereas I can get well over 120fps on F1 2021.

I have a few different options going forward. For not much cost I can upgrade my CPU to the i7 9700k as that’s the highest I can get that will fit my current motherboard. I am also sizing up a RTX 3070 of some description.
The final option, as you pointed out, is the Pico Neo 3. This may still necessitate a 3070 purchase but it should in theory demand less from the system as a whole - so no CPU upgrade required.

 

[glenimp617]

@GMac11 The GPU has to use some of it's power to encode the video signal from the quest, as it doesn't have a proper displayport cable. That knocks the fps down, and I believe the 10 series cards aren't that efficient at encoding so you might be facing a double whammy. Nothing you can do about that, it's just a shame facebook never gave it a proper port. That's what I really like about the pico, not only is the picture quality better, the fps are also higher.

Might be worth seeing if you can wait it out a few months and try to pick up a second hand 30 series at a good price.....unless you are within the window of returning the quest and giving the pico a try.