Just tried AC in VR

CPU was different: i7700k@4,9 -> I have a complete new rig now. 1080ti with i7770k did not handle SOL in VR just fine - it used to be 45 to 75 FPS with a full grid.

 

So, got a Rift S couple of days ago. As someone, who returned my CV1 into the store, thought I'd write some impressions. With CV1 I was disappointed with the resolution, lack of clarity and excessive SDE. Especially considering the price point which was 739€ at the time. Back then, I felt that my 27" triples were better.

So, about the Rift S, compared to CV1:

- The resolution seems much better. Even when the increase doesn't sound a lot on paper. Probably due to LCD instead of OLED display. I can honestly say, the SDE isn't noticeable at all. Sure if you squint your eyes, you can see kind of gaps between pixels, but not really. I really can't notice it at all while in VR, not even momentarily. This is from someone who complained about SDE and resolution in CV1 a lot on various forums... With Rift S, I can finally read text without struggling, read the dashboards of cars etc.. It's great! It's still not even close to a flat screen accuracy and sharpness, but it's much better than CV1.

- FOV, feels similar to CV1. So kinda like diving goggles (or a racing helmet). Larger FOV would be cool, but it's enough.

- Audio, total, utter crap. CV1 headphones were pretty good. Now, there is no bass at all. It sounds like cheapest, smallest, crappiest matchstick box speakers from Walmart you could imagine. Nothing seems to fix it, they are just physically insufficient in power, sound quality and output. They are okay for some temporary stuff, but to get immersed into something like RaceRoom, own headphones over the Rift S headband are the only way. Seems this is their way the cut the price... I find this the largest downside of Rift S. It's kind of unacceptable really... setting up headphones so, that the chord doesn't get in your way (when you already aren't wireless with the Rift S) really sucks. The stock audio is absolute f****** garbage. By plugging your own headphones into the 3.5mm slot on the left side of the Rift S, it's fine though. But juggling with the touch controllers, HMD and your own additional headphones is not most practical. Especially if you have people over, and you switch players.

- 90 Hz --> 80 Hz. Honestly I don't notice any difference in feel. Works great.

- Headtracking works flawlessly. I also love that you can use the "passthrough" view, which is just the tracking cameras filming your IRL room. Easy to check where you are IRL, without taking the headset off. Setting up play space (with proximity warnings if you're about to hit an IRL object) is really easy and intuitive too.

- The chord. I don't like how it's placed on the left side, there should be another attachment point in the back of my head, so that the chord would drop down in the center of my back, not on my left shoulder. It's often noticeable, and gets more in the way. Small nitpick though

- No bundled games. Not even Robo Recall, despite touch controllers. Another way to cut the price. But it's fine, Steam sales are on at the moment. At least I'm not paying for something I wouldn't play

Overall I'm impressed with VR now. Mainly due to the increased sharpness and clarity. I can finally read text, without leaning forward or squinting my eyes. VR has finally won me over I guess.

I can still see upsides on Triple Screen, but I stored one of my 27" screens for now, and using just 2 screens for work stuff and other gaming. All my sim driving will be in VR (or single screen, if no other options like with Wreckfest) from now on. The immersion and depth perception is great, and the way you can place a car into a corner. For me it was also a way to save room/desk space. The break-up with Automobilista is heartbreaking, but luckily Automobilista 2 is coming. Or maybe I need to set up my triples up again, in addition. Not being able to drive AMS in months will be difficult.

Overall I can recommend the Rift S, the audio is a really big downside though. I heard Oculus is working on some software/driver update for the audio (or dunno if already released?), but I feel it's mostly hardware limited thing.

 

Thanks for sharing - I value real user feedback more than YouTubers who may or may not be sponsored. CV1 user here, and while I'm tempted by the S, the audio is putting me off.

Besides, I'm at the point where the SDE and low Res of the CV1 doesn't bug me anymore, but still tempted to upgrade.

 

I might have risked exaggerating, the jump in clarity isn't THAT impressive. Maybe 25%? It's notable especially in reading text, but distant road, scenery and distant braking reference points in sims are still a bit fuzzy. If you own CV1, not sure if it's worth upgrading. Resolution itself isn't that much better, but the seemingly smaller gaps between pixels of LCD display make it appear more seamless maybe? And there's also the headphone issue.

It's also about money, back then I couldn't justify 739€, for that money I expected a God's miracle, and when it was just "kinda neat" I decided against it. At 449€ easier to justify + reduced SDE. Also not needing sensor towers (that also take table space + one extra cord) was one upside.

Then there's the fact that I have a much better GPU now (1080ti vs. 980ti) which allows using higher pixel density. That might affect my impression too. But there's notable improvement even in apps with 1.0 pixel density

By the way, I ordered directly from Oculus and delivery was really fast, couple of days via UPS (free delivery).. also cheaper price than any store in Finland (479€ cheapest). The stores here also had weeks of waiting (not in stock)

 

@ShredatorFIN thank you for the review, glad that the rift S is allowing you to enjoy driving in VR.
Coming from a DK2, one aspect I love about CV1 are the good quality integrated headphones, so the S is not for me in its present stage.
Until the next GPU generation really outperform my present 1080ti/CV1 combo, the limiting factor being the GPU in my book, I am planning on enjoying what I have, which is not hard, I love it.

 

Thanks for your review. Did you try both AC and ACC?

 

No ACC yet. Been playing just RaceRoom and AC with Custom Shaders patch. Gotta test ACC later.

Speaking of, can anyone give good tips for optimizing performance for VR via Content Manager? I'm trying to run 1.5 pixel density. What are some of "must have" options and what options are heavy on VR performance? I'm probably running too high settings or otherwise wrong settings right now (mostly my old triple screen settings, which were pretty cranked), since I'm dipping below 80 at times in merely 12 car fields

Another question, anyone know why AC doesn't seem to output sound from other devices than Win10 Default audio device? Even when I try to switch it via CM. I select Rift S headphones from CM, but the sound still comes from the Win default device (unless I set Rift to that). I have 2 soundcards (onboard is dedicated to Simvibe), which has worked fine both in the same time. But now that there's third audio device involved (Rift S) it seems to cause problems (because I don't want to make Rift S as my Default audio device, not very practical in daily desktop use )

Edit: By the way, found this in Rift S Windows audio options:



Bass boost I didn't have it enabled when I wrote my impressions. But haven't noticed a big if any difference. It's hard to "take more" from something that just isn't there.

If you have wireless headphones to put over Rift S, it will be easier. Or just a very short 3.5mm cord, that is just enough to reach headphones, so it won't get in the way.

 

Thanks for the insight,
I have one laying around for 7 days now, but you know, the hazzle to update my system to Win10 wasn’t very much of a motivation...
Well, hopefully this weekend I get my arse up...

 

Alright now tried ACC and well..

VR in AC1 and RaceRoom is just better. ACC is very blurry, albeit the colors and the lighting is very realistic, the sound is very immersive but the blurriness... Rift S improved clarity doesn't really shine here. I tried several settings, supersampling 200% + no Temporal/FXAA + sharpening cranked to 300% seems to give clearest image. But it's still far off from AC or RaceRoom. And the performance in general is bad. Constantly in ASW projection, even when rest of my settings use the "Low" preset (only things I changed from Kunos "Low"settings was the AA options and sharpening filter)

Maybe if I'd have RTX 2080ti, but... don't think I'll be playing ACC very much, if at all If I will upgrade my GPU it is a different story, but I think it will be with next generation after 2080 Ti, not now.

 

What a pity, my inferior card seems to take good usage of ACC; I hate when similar hardware display such different performance. Thanks for your testing.

 

Hmm maybe I need to try different settings, still. Of course supersampling 200% will hit hard the performance, but I need to find if there's another way to fight the blurriness.

 

Please share your settings for 90fps ACC.

 

I hardly see 90fps, maybe one car at certain points of some tracks.
I have 45fps ASW on about 99% of time, except heavy scenarios with rain, night, 30 cars or tricky parts like sector 1 @ nurburgring.
pd 1.5, antialising ktaa I think @ epic, shadows very high too.
I will share them later when I get home. today is the first day I edited the engine. ini file but just pasted the new lines, didn't even start up the sim

 

Oculus Tray Tool: PD 1.5

In-game settings:
BASIC
Resolution scale: 100%
View distance: epic
Shadows: high
Antialasing: epic
Antialasing type: temporal
Effects: epic
PP: epic
Foliage: low
Textures: epic
Mirror distance: 200 mts
Mirror quality: mid
Mirror resolution: mid
Opponents visibility: all
VR Pixel: 100%

ADVANCED:
Materials quality: high
Temporal Upsampling: disabled
Bloom: off
Volumetric fog: disabled
Foliage lod quality: very low
HLOD: disabled
Advanced sharpen filter: enabled

Motion blur: only external cams

 

There's no GPU nor headset to make ACC look as sharp as AC in VR. Some will tolerate the blurriness more some less, some will tolerate 45FPS better some have more struggles with it. It's more or less how much you're willing to lower the bar.

 

I've had my Index coming up to 3 weeks. I tested quite a few sims out both racing & flying. Strangely RF2 & raceroom perform really well, I seem to struggle with performance with ACC & AC. AC is heavily modded & i was reliant on ASW in my cv1 but steam motion smoothing is really not very good at all imo. I decided to keep the index though as otherwise its good for all the other games. Blacks are really poor, i must be sensitive to it as many say it's not that bad to me it just looks grey & you lose depth in darkness. Hopefully the LCD thing will not become a trend & they can get better oled screens in future vr headsets.

 

hi @ShredatorFIN, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

One question: what about the fixed ipd? it's the thing that held me buying the S, since on the CV1 I have it at the maximum width (71 iirc)

 

For me it has felt fine pretty much out of the box. I tried to measure with a ruler in front of a mirror, but it's hard to say exact millimeters, I was very close to the ideal 64, perhaps a bit under. For 64 mm it would be perfect, small deviation should be okay but otherwise I'd test Rift S somewhere before purchasing.

I haven't used the software level IPD adjustment (it's at default 64mm) but I have understood that it's not as good as being able to manually adjust individual lenses. It will help a bit though, somewhere I saw someone with 67 mm IPD who was happy with it (after software adjustment). Don't know how 71 would feel. The software solution cuts and moves the halved images I guess, to work around the single LCD display. I don't know why it's inferior to two separate lenses, but I have heard that's the case. No idea how much inferior

The min software IPD correction seems to be 58.0 and max 72 in the Oculus settings (in 0.5 millimeter increments). But I don't know how the 72 will actually look

 

its so nice and most of them just **** of bye bye!

 

very nice video about the Index, very informative, well documented.
And the reviewer does not have an annoying voice.