Discussing Unreal

I try to keep in mind that a) VR wasn't even implemented at the start and b) neither was triple-screen, and a final solve for that technical limitation magically appeared with no advance notice.

I assume that they're working on it in the background, and we'll only know when all the bugs have been worked out and a proper fix shows up in an update. The performance made huge increases on the last update for instance, and that wasn't even promised.

 

As far as cost I’m fairly certain a Sim-Lab triple monitor stand shipped to Australia for instance would cost about as much as a Rift S

 

Steam hardware survey is all steam users (not just sim racers) so not accurate. An open voluntary poll is also inaccurate as a disproportionate number of concerned users would reply. A smaller sample would be more accurate if completed by a selected random sample from all owners of the game. That wouldn't be possible here as even all forum users would likely include a higher ratio of vr players vs overall. Kunos would know the numbers however, it would be interesting.

 

I think we're losing the important point here folks. Polls, whether accurate or not are completely irrelevant in the context of this discussion are they not?

This discussion centers on the Unreal Engine and how the game runs on that engine.
If a game offers a VR option, then VR users are as entitled to critique that performance, put forward any issues they face, express their dissatisfaction at the fact that it's not working as well as it probably should be etc etc etc, without being made to feel irrelevant or as though they're asking for something that is totally unreasonable. Be that 1 user, 100 or 100,000 users, they've paid their money for a product that lists VR as a feature, which makes it a selling point. Regardless of how many people use it, every single one of them are as entitled to hold a view and express it as anyone who uses a singe screen setup.

 

The reason I asked for statistics (which we obviously don't have in a conclusive way) is that the poster I reacted to said VR represents a "large number of users". I would say "large part of a group" implies 20-30%, so at least every fifth guy. And I seriously don't see that in the real world, outside forums which are specific to people spending an inordinate amount of time and money on specific titles.

 

Happy New Year GCC.

I guess that's my point though. All you're doing there really is dismissing the feedback of those playing in VR, yet the game was made and advertised to include VR and should therefore be able to run at a decent, playable quality in that environment.

The fact of the matter is that the performance of UE4 in VR, without the optimisations mentioned, is below poor. Regardless of whether someone thinks that VR represents a large number of players, or your deifnition of what constitutes that large number of players, the issues remain and frustratingly, the fixes are there but aren't currently being used.

 

I think the best thing is someone from Kunos tell how the situation is in the real vr unreal engine world

and so we stop speculating

 

Without being dismissive, I think we need to remember that a small team needs to dedicate their time to cater to the vast majority of customers initially. I don't think anyone wants vr optimisations ignored, but that this is what is being considered with the discussion.

 

Nope. Obviously there are some people who report okay gameplay experiences with VR; and some who have huge problems or perceive the performance as sub-par. While the later group should definitely not be ignored, there doesn't seem to be any objective yardstick that says "Kunos sucks at doing VR". I'm sure if they could do it with justifiable investment they would do it even better, but that's where the point about user base comes in. And if that "great Unreal VR" is indeed a separate code branch then it's pretty easy to see why those optimized rendering paths are not being separately managed for an userbase which, for alle we know, might be less than 10%.

 

Ok, lets go with 20%.

I have no idea how many copies of ACC have been sold, but lets make a conservative guess (and for easy of me working things out) of *100,000
So 20% of that makes 20,000 that use VR.
At the current (Steam) price (prior to sales) the sim is **£35 (£34.95 actually), so that equates to £700,000 (20,000 x 35).
Now tell me (not aimed at anyone) its not in the studios interest to support VR

*Assetto Corsa sold over 1,400,000 copies (as of 2017) so maybe not a bad guess that ACC sold around 100,000.
** I understand that not everyone paid £35, some paid more and some paid less.

 

I'd would be very surprised if less than a 1/3 of sim racers, IE: ACC, AC, RF2, R3E,use VR goggles and the number is going to be bigger in 2020.
With such a large number of driver using VR as their preferred way to enjoy SIM racing, the days when VR could be ignored or even not taken seriously are long gone.

VR is not growing for economical reason, it is growing because once you enjoy all the being there, in the car, on the rack, real 3d driving, going back is not even an option, no more than going back to a game pad is an option after driving a SIM with a wheel.

 

Well, if the Studio can spend the same amount of time and money on building another hypothetical feature which hypothetically would get four additional other users signed up for each VR user that doesn't, then no, it isn't.

First you make up a number, then you build your second sentence on the made up numbers of the first as if it were any kind of fact... Not really a good solid argument there.

Look, no one is arguing that VR users shouldn't get the best possible experience out of this title. I personally just find the posturing towards Kunos with made up, inflated "sales arguments" a bit tiring to read. I believe Kunos knows well their user base, and what they can sensibly do with their given funds to make most people mostly happy.

 

I’d be surprised if it was even 10% as I still feel the outlay is quite high and the technology reasonable immature, it would be interesting to know. Have any official figures been published by the other games?

 

I used a lower number that a poll made among sim racer produced, so they are not made up number, they are based on an existing 2019 poll.
Where are your numbers? Why don't you do a poll right here among ACC user of what is their preferred hardware, keeping in mind ACC is not optimized for VR yet, as you need a lot of GPU power to get an average result, compare to any other SIM? Afraid reality does not match your fantasy vision of what ACC driver are actually using?

 

It's not the amount of people you ask, but it's the margin of error that determines if the data is accurate.

The margin of error in a sample = 1 divided by the square root of the number of people in the sample.

 

The margin of error doesn’t determine whether or not the data is actually accurate, it just determines the likelihood of it being accurate. The more people that take part in a poll, the smaller the margin of error and the more accurate it’s likely to be so the number you ask is very important. If you have a user base of 10,000 and only 100 people take part in the poll, unless you’re very lucky the chances of the results being in any way representative of all users is slim at best.

I’m still struggling to understand why you think Kunos would decide not to use a function built into the game engine to optimise the game if it was easy to do. If people are opting not to buy the game because of problems with VR optimisation and there was a simple fix, it would make no sense whatsoever not to use it. It’s obviously not as straightforward as it appears.

 

Your poll is as valid a base of decisions as the Steam statistics showing less than one percent VR users. Reasons were explained the last two pages.

Again, I understand and do not deny your wish for your best personal gaming experience. But please stop the posturing as if your personal view/opinion/wish would in any way correlate with any kind of realistic market research and you were in a position to educate the developers on their best business decisions.

 

If you would see both titles through the lenses of a VR Headset, the better looking and performing one is R3E.
I avoid to race ACC in VR, prefer triples here, the blurry picture in ACC is really bad. AC is the best VR experience in racing sims so far.

 

I really like AC in VR but think that Pcars2 is a better VR experience. For an older game they got it right.

 

Just to clarify, I am talking VR only.
AC is of course a better sim and also better for sim racers due to the content that can be downloaded etc.
However, Pcars2 does VR much better.
Not only does it look better, its also easier to navigate (using either 'view to select' or mouse), where AC I cant even get it to open on my ultrawide as it not only insists on opening on my main monitor (which is a distance away from my rig), but also shows the UI at a smaller resolution making selections a bit of a guess work.