Open letter to kunos regarding oculus rift support

Hi friend,
I make my own his words
I was very disappointed with Kunos when paruo to give VR support. I began to pay more attention au pCars, which is a good simulator but does not have the content of AC.
I have a DK2 and the value that came'll keep a good time with it.

 

AFAIK they said they plan to support Cv1 before the first devices are in the hands (heads) of the comsumers.

 

Not sure they said that actually, think it was more along the lines of "we will update to the latest sdk when the rift officially launches" and it will be basic support at that.

Would love to be corrected though.

 

Fair enough. kunos has under 2 months then lol. I don't believe it

 

Been a long time AC gamer/racer and got on as much as I could (3 - 4 times per week).
Only EVER played it using the DK2 and didn't really care that I couldn't access all the settings etc, or that I had the floor wiped with me by better players, as the experience was what counted IMHO.
In fact I played more TT than actual races probably.
I held off upgrading to W10 and SDK0.8 due to the incompatibility issues..... until I decided to bite the bullet in Nov last year.
Since then I have tried to play AC only TWICE and just cant get away with it on a regular monitor.
In fact I used to visit these forums several times per day (not post, just visit) and also try and DL new tracks daily too.
Since I cant play AC in VR I only come here about once every few weeks or so.

My point being, having tried VR there is no going back (for me, if not most), so I can feel peoples frustration about lack of support since we lost extended mode.

 

I think there's a way to get SDK 0.5 working on windows 10. Apparently it's easy if you upgraded, slightly harder if it was a fresh install.
You need to use the runtime switcher which is quite simple.

I am holding off on my win 10 upgrade and doing it when I upgrade my PC with a fresh install. I'm not waiting for kunos anymore, pCars does everything I need. AC is the better sim though, so i'll come back to it only when it's updated. No chance i'm going back to my 19" square monitor after VR!

 

Last I checked and tried, W10 and older SDKs was impossible on fresh installs.. which is why I reinstalled 8.1 + upgraded. No issues since, also using Runtime Switcher. For 0.4.4 for AC + 0.8 for other updated games.

 

My CV1 isn't due till June. Even if they haven't got it sorted exactly by March 28th, I trust it will have all worked out come June for sure.

 

I had 0.601 working with 0.7 also installed using a batch file to switch between the runtimes.
The 1511 update for Win10 broke extended mode on my system permanently though

 

This is exactly why I'm avoiding any further updates on my Win10. I already made the mistake of doing a clean install.. only to realise this breaks extended mode. I had to reinstall old OS + upgrade, now avoiding the 1511 update as this basically does a clean install.

 

I'm going to maintain a dual-boot system for some time and it seems that was a good decision where the DK2 is concerned.

I tried Pcars last-night with the DK2, my first time using 0.8 on Win10. It ran really well although, I didn't try pushing the AI very high. The menus are pretty functional although, I had plenty of options for extra stuff using the triples when I lift the DK2; things like tuning Simcommander. It all worked pretty seamlessly.

 

Just commenting that I am another DK2 owner EAGERLY awaiting compatibility for runtime 0.7+

 

I'm currently using DK2 on my updated win10 (1511, 10586.104) using the switcher (0.5.0.1 / 0.8) without any issues

 

So according to a post in /r/Oculus, Kunos have received some Rifts. So I suppose from now to March 28th they'll be working at implementation, hopefully.

 

they have higher priorities than oculus support atm, and I think stefano said it will be him that does it (i.e. 1 guy who is working on ac 1.5 code, supporting the console bring up etc), so I think we will be lucky if he even decides to look at it as a weekend project rather than "working on it from now till the 28th"

hopefully it isnt a huge undertaking for them to update to SDK 1.0, even if they just have the same level of basic support, itd be awesome to be able to play AC on the 28th.

 

It's not just supporting SDK 1.x that we need. Cause even if they would - ok, less pain with switcher, etc... - but leaving things as they are now (with no menu, no chance to loading setups, ...) it won't be any better.
What it takes is also a change in the GUI, that I don't know if it would be done by @Lord Kunos himself. I guess this is the reason why we don't have access to menus right now, because of the UI.

I'm using the DK2 since 10 days now and I have to say now I'm more enjoyong the game. Not just because of the Rift, but 'cause I'm less obsessed with setups, laptimes, improvements... I'm more enjoying driving.
I admit is frustrating when you drive a car and you're overtaken by the AI cause in the straight you're on limiter in 6th gear and can't even modify the gears lenght, but that is... I thank them for the early support, that already makes AC the best, immersive, VR experience so far.

 

Well general SDK1.0 support will definitely be better than what it is now.

But I agree that they really need to do more. They will really be underestimating VR's impact on the sim racing scene if they dont.

 

Oh yeah I am aware that supporting the SDK alone won't mean job done, ultimate VR title, but given the constraints, I would still be over the moon if they were able to bring us the current level of support but for CV1 on March 28th. I know the dk2 guys probably wouldnt be so happy with that as they have been waiting for ever, but it's kind of irrelevant seeing as it was dev kit and all that. By the sound of it, pcars still isnt the best experience in terms of driving, but it has the menus working and so on... id still take AC with driving and no menus any day.