VR support in Assetto Corsa 2016

Old news? The final implementation went live yesterday and the registry hack didn't work as expected.

 

What do you mean?

 

it didn't? I've been using it and seems silky smooth to me at 45fps

 

Asynchronous timewarp is not something that you turn off or on , I'm not sure where you got this info from but it's part of the native driver. It's always on in other words.

Here's the blog about it
https://developer3.oculus.com/blog/asynchronous-timewarp-on-oculus-rift/

Read the detailed blog how it works. Then scroll down to the ATW part.

 

ASW, read my post. Thanks

 

I'm sorry by 45fps in VR is heinously bad. I'm not sure how you deal with that. I'm not trying to incite you but when you turn your head quick it will stutter like mad. Going into
A hair pin is awful if your looking through the apex.

You should do all you can to reduce settings until your closer to 90fps. Even 60 isn't great when you're going into a turn wheel to wheel with someone. (Darting head back and forth)

If my setup dips into 45 for even a second I go reduce supervsampling, reflections then shadows. I'm on a monster of a machine 4.7ghz (6950x) and a titanX (pascal) overclocked by 15% ~ I can't run full world detail in VR nor post processing.

 

I understand that it is a good idea (ASW) to reduce the framerate in case the system can handle it at the moment but I don't know why it is reduced by 50%! (90FPS -> 45 FPS).
Maybe it has a technical background and it's the only way, but it would be cool if the system could reduce it from 90 FPS to 75 or 60 FPS for example...

 

That's the reason they have provided ASW; In theory, ASW should keep head-tracking butter-smooth even at 45 fps and there are videos proving that it works. Some say they can't tell the difference from 90 fps, others say they can; it may come down to how a particular system handles it. Of course, if a PC can't maintain 45fps or better, all bets are off.

I haven't tested it for myself yet but, it's not hard to do - just crank up graphics settings and monitor the FPS. It may not work 100% with every title, every PC config or GPU but, it can work wonders in some cases.

 

ASW is not just about head tracking. ATW was about head tracking only.

https://developer.oculus.com/blog/asynchronous-spacewarp/

 

Right, I should have said "one of the reasons" but, the end result is most noticeable with head-tracking - if that's wrong, things get bad quickly.

Ideally, our PC's could maintain 90 fps at all times in VR; ASW can make PC's that are on the fringe of being useful with VR work pretty well. That should lower hardware cost and bring more people into VR on the PC.

 

Is the DK2 still a good choice? What's your opinion?

Currently, I have a 24" screen and I can't decide what's the best option for me in order to improve my experience (FOV, immersion).
Going the bigger screen route (triples, TV) seems to be a waste of money, because I consider VR as the far better solution.
On the other hand, I'm not totally convinced of the 1st gen VR, e.g. still a visible (?) screen door effect. And I doubt that my 390X can handle a CV1 properly.

So, here comes the DK2 into play. You can get them quite cheap at the moment.
Only thing is...support is limited and the screen door effect is even worse compared to CV1.
I'd consider this entirely as compromise/interim solution. Plus, I don't need a GPU upgrade with the DK2 (I think).
Is the screen door effect really that bad? Can you read the gauges and labels in the cockpit for example? Or does the CV1 offer a far better visual quality? What do you suggest?

 

Im also looking forward to an answer to this.

 

Cannot speak for the CV1 as I do not have one, I bought a DK2 this summer and I 200% recommend it, yes you can see everything very well, actually better than a flat screen, since you will end up sitting in the car, the screen door is there, but once you drive you look trough it and the being there in 3D is just magical.
For me now if it is not in VR, it just feels like a game, nothing wrong with that, but for simulation it has to be VR or nothing and the DK2 will take you there.

 

IT IS STILL a good choice, yes for sure. I played AC with a DK2 for almost an year before buyng a CV1, but if I hadn't sell very (very) well the DK2 I probably still be using it.
I used to play with triple screens before, but once I used a DK2 I got rid of monitors.

A lot of pros, one of the cons is that CV1 is already there and it's better and you know it's there so, as I said before, you're gonna wanna have it. No doubt about it. It's just a matter of time.

 

Ok got the CV1 today. And sadly have to say I'm returning it. No way this competes with my 27" triples and TrackIR. Not even close.

If AC was about admiring car interiors, great. The interiors really come alive, and the resolution is enough for that. But that's about it. AC is about driving. Track itself.. nope. Resolution is horrible. I put pixel density from oculus.ini to 2.0 and maxed almost everything, because I could run that with just few cars on grid (probably due to ASW). To see what it can be at it's best... and have to say (this might not be popular opinion here) ... not much.

Driving is all about anticipating, looking into distance. Not about admiring your car, not looking at where you are, but where you're going. Which is just a pixely mushy mess in CV1. I can count the pixels in the tail lights of car in front. I can't see braking points and distant corners at all. No way I'm gonna pay 700+ euros for this. Imo VR is not ready for simracing, or anything where long distance vision matters. You get the sense of depth, but what it gives in immersion, it takes too. And there is very notable screen door effect, although more like the game was printed on denim cloth. It's not AC related, this happened in DiRT and the Oculus demos too. Small gaps between pixels, but it's clearly visible all the time. Reminding you it's not real, but a low resolution display of a peripheral. People who claim they don't notice it, are really make-believing themself or need glasses. Sorry. I don't have even 20/20 vision and I see it all the time. You get totally wrong impression out of YouTube videos hyping VR, they are screen capped which is much crisper and without SDE.

The edges on left & right visible didn't bother me, it's like using scuba diving goggles. Or racing helmet, almost. But with 27" triples I can see more to the sides, and quicker (not having to turn my head at all).

Headtracking works flawless, quality and look of CV1 is very nice. Nice packaging.

The problem is the resolution. For some games where everything is very close, and you don't really have see a road 100-500 meters away, it could be very impressive indeed. Like something with extreme heights, like "Climb" using Crytek. There the crappy resolution won't be issue, everything is either very close, or ambient distant scenery that player doesn't interact with.

DiRT Rally was slightly better, because the visibility isn't that important as in circuit racing. But still the same problem. I'm going to wait for CV2, IMO virtual reality isn't ready to immerse anyone, except people who want to turn a blind eye to obvious issues. For someone who comes from single screen gaming + without TrackIR can be worth it, for me it's not worth it. Over time it bothers you less I'm sure, but first impression is the only genuine one IMO.

CV2 will probably revolutionize gaming, and sim racing. CV1 is interesting step to new direction, but more steps are needed.

 

@ShredatorFIN interesting perspective ( pun intended) and proves that depending on what matters to you most, VR in it present stage might be a revelation or not.
When you state "Driving is all about anticipating, looking into distance" funny that you would prefer a flat screen(s) to a 3d vision to see the distance, as 3d is the only way to actually "see" the distance, although I agree that the 3d in present VR state ability to see distance is mitigated by the pixelisation.
I hope others who did not like VR and reverted to flat screen shime in, to help those of us that are still undecided.
@ShredatorFIN you might want to stick to it a little, as most of us did not find the right set up for optimum image quality in one day, and I know that for me what I see now in my DK2 is way better than in the first days. It will never be the resolution of a flat screen but can switch from a little discomforting to more than good enough. Also you enjoyed flat screen for years, VR is a change and all the advantages might take you more than a day to sink in.

 

Well, possibly I didn't find yet the perfect settings. But initial impressions are very mixed, and if I'm not totally blown away by 700€ product it's a bad sign for me. Compared to my flat 27" screens I got for pretty cheap and already own.

 

Well, that's exactly what I said when I tried it on the first time a few months ago!!! Fast-forward to today, I'm no way using monitors again for sim racing I think this is the biggest problem with the adoption of VR today, people are used to have razor-sharp images on their monitors, and not willing to trade that for what VR offers today.

As for the screen door effect, it is notable if you want to notice it, it's not if you're not I still can notice it when I force my brain to focus on seeing it. However with the time I spent in it my brain simply filters out that noise...

 

2 questions:

1. If using Virtual Desktop, is it possible to play AC without having to remove the goggles in between races?
2. What needs to be done to have a head less driver, in some MOD cars, like the amazing Cobra from @the_meco , the head is there and interfere with the vision in VR.

 

I can see how VR image-quality is a let-down coming from monitors, even more-so if you have triple-high-res monitors with head-tracking and 3D to boot. For those of us that have looked forward to VR for so long, most of us are thrilled to have it now and Cv2/CV3 may not be much better in regard to image quality; most people well versed in VR are saying that is 5 years away at best.

Generally speaking, CV1 has improved image quality and overall smoothness over DK2 as it's more refined. The SDE in DK2 is considerably more noticeable than in CV1; I can easily look past it using the CV1. For some people, they can be fixated on certain details and simply cannot accept the current VR-hardware limitations - period. The best way to know for yourself is to demo one before buying or try to buy one with an exit path should you decide to take it back within a certain period.