Virtual Reality - 5 Things I Like (and 5 Things I Don't)

Editor's Note: Apparently the "Bundle" with the Xbox One controller has ended recently, but it is still available at most places for $399, just without the controller!

Hi there, what is the karting game you play in this video?

Set playback to 1.5x, you’re welcome

It loses a whole star at least from me because of how big of a hassle it was to get the fucking thing to work!! Sensors not being read, usb ports not working with it, problems downloading steam vr games, and now I have to get another graphics card even though it said on the box that my gtx 1060 was enough.

I understand the experience but does this actually enhance your sim racing skills? Also what was causing you to jerk up and down in your chair? Lol like I know my feedback is strong but it looked rough.

He span a go kart lmao

When we have wireless 8k perfect tracking and 144 hz it'll be pretty dank

i have the rift with the two sensors but not the xbox controller, cost me £349.99 from argos. For elite dangerous, racing sims it is fantastic. The problem is distance, for elite its not a problem because space is black mostly, in racing sims that is a problem. You can fix this by up super-sampling, and getting rid of some other settings. I find ss improves allot and i can get bye the distance blurriness, close up in a cockpit of a space ship or a racing car is well fantastic, doing corners is fantastic, in Asetto corsa i was in a 1966 Ferrari doing the 1966 track, i was leaning into the bend with the OR on monitor i was not and my racing line was affected, while in vr it improved massively. As for games with movements like skyrim vr, and fallout 4. Uggh i hated it, and got motion sickness, so i stopped playing the games, that said fallout 4 was terrible in its vr support. . It also depends on games and how well the devs support it. If you get a bad port like FO4 your going to get sick. Is it worth it, YES but use with caution, and be sensible. I must state in Asetto corsa the monza track was blurry on monitor at distance, so its vr has its ups and downs. Comfort wise the OP is correct, the foam is not good for long distance sittings. You can get replacements but they are pricey

*exacerbate

As many have said, there is no turning back for me from VR. Even more, VR brought me back to sim-racing.
I can enjoy like never before.
As for motion sickness, everyone react differently, I am lucky to be very moderately afflicted at first.
And, most important, you can train for it. Try short session at first. The more you use it, the less you'll feel it. I can use it for 2h+ session without any problem.
It's funny to see people buying an Oculus, trying right on a very heavy VR experience, getting sick and re-selling it : there some very good deal to be made from those people.

I recently tried VR for sim racing as i really wanted to invest in it to upgrade our set up. So glad i did as it was one of the most overated and worst things i have tried. The so called 'Screen Door Effect' was abismal and almost made it undrivable. Yes you can look around the car and to the corners but whats the point since they are so badly pixelated. I wouldn't swap this for my single screen let alone a triple screen set up. For me its probably 2 generations away from being usable.

Excellent review.

Cost wise... I think getting a good triple monitor setup is way more money. And having a good pc is a must for sim anyways. 399 is an insane value for all you can get with this system. It comes with tons of free vr titles that include some real quality production material. If you are okay with fiddling with computers, go for it.

What stand are you using? I bought a Next Level Racing stand and I have a lot of deck wobble. I am looking for something more solid.

I'm not even sure I could sim race anymore without it being in vr. Screen door effect isn't that bad, especially after using it for a while. I have to make myself see it now. 1st day or two I was getting motion sickness but now I can go hours at a time and it doesn't bother me a bit. VR and sim racing are a match made in heaven.

he wants to just stomp this thing down doesnt he? however............................

Nice review William. I finally had a chance to demo a Rift. The immersion is great, but the screen door effect is quite pronounced. I currently run a 27 inch 3D stereo monitor with nVidia 3D Vision, plus a TrackIR head tracking system. Where I sit, I have a 40 degree field of view, so at 1920 pixel HD, I have 48 pixels per angular degree. With the Rift at 1080 pixels over 110 degree field of view, the resolution is 9.8 pixels per degree. So, I'm used to seeing 3D stereo at almost 5 times the resolution of the Rift. A VR headset would need something between 4k and 8k per eye to match the nVidia 3D shutter glasses. So, the VR headsets have a way to go to match the older technology. And as you say, people would need some heavy duty video cards to run high resolution headsets. But, if people can adapt to the screen door view, the Rift is really pretty good. For some games, you might not even notice the pixels. The immersion is really quite convincing. But, if you're searching for tiny objects in the distance, like in a racing game or combat flight sim, high resolution is really needed.

One of the most complete reviews in general. Bravissimo!

The screen door effect is extremely blown out of proportion. Once you put it on and start gaming it practically disappears. The immersion from VR is amazing especially in cockpit games like sim racing. I don't think I could ever go back to racing with monitors again!

Earlier last year? Touch was released at the end of 2016.

Was $600, is now $399 = $300 price cut? Wot?

Seeing the screen door effect in your video really made me sad. No idea it was that bad.

I'm racing a lot with the CV1 and Assetto Corsa and I'm loving it very much!
The reprojection from Oculus works now so good, that its no problem if your grafics card could only render at least 45 fps during online races!
I see only very little jitterings or such at all. If there is less render power needed while driving the game renders 90 fps until it switches back to 45 fps. I'm using a i7 4790 with a gforce 970 gtx clocked at 1420mhz and it's working realy fine. But later I will also upgrade to a 1070 or 1080.
I'm locking forward for future headsets with 4k or even 8k just for the display, to get rid of the screendoor effect. But for now, racing with these actual headsets is already really great and your driving will improve massivly espacially for races with a lot of cars around you and your tight positioning at corners will improve too. :)

Good work :)

450,- with the touch controllers here in austria via amazon. well i guess thats the days, lets order this before sanity kicks in...

VR Cover extended(long) face pad works great for eyewear. I just got mine, yesterday.

Almost bought a Rift, spent several days trying to decide between it and a 1080 ti. I ended up going with the 1080 ti and keeping my triples. Probably for the better because the time I was trying to make this decision was about two weeks before they dropped the price on the Oculus Rift and I would have been pretty bummed. I'm paying close attention to VR tech, and when its up to snuff I'll go for it, but I don't think its ready yet. (yes I have actually used VR)

What I've heard PSVR has less visible screen door effect than Oculus thanks to different subpixel composition even though it has probably even lower resolution.

Sim Racing Paddock - there is a FREE alternative to VorpX, it's called Depth3D :-)
With VorpX & Depth3D you can play older games like GTR2 or RACE 07 / WTCC / RACE INJECTION in VR - and because they are so old you can supersample the sh*t out of them to smooth the visuals and eliminate the screendoor effect.

Don't get fooled by Primax's stats. 4K and 8K sounds good on paper but the Primax VR glasses have massive input lag and no head tracking so you can't even use them for racing games, they are only decent for watching movies or slow paced video games (adventures/RPGs, visual novels, puzzle games)

What karting game did you play in this video?

I find that driving a real car is almost as realistic as driving in vr!

Do I even need xbox controller for PC use?

ASW works fine in forward facing motion. ASW struggles with fast motion... I.e looking sideways while driving.. scenery can have artifacting... But it is so fast that the next frame corrects it and you don't see it anyway.

What it does do though it's compensate for nearly half the gpu load and gives you 90fps when you need it.

And it works very very well

Being the TV technology fanatic that I am. To me it is the same argument as 3D glasses - in other words, when you go to sit in whatever chair you sit in to go sim-racing, does the "immersion factor" override all other negatives you might have, and so you nd up reaching for the Rift headset more often then you don't? (for the record, I don't own one, so I would have no idea)

Hey, William thanks for the video! One interesting topic to test while you are still covering VR is how true that VR users claim that they have gone faster as far as lap time is concerned? Is it a placebo effect?

Best piece for Sim (and gaming) gear I have bought in the last 10 years.

Just got my bundle last week. Spot on review, 100% agree with you thoughts! Screen door really sucks. But once you get used to that, I am having a hard time to go back to my triples!

I tried the psVR on pc with assetto corsa (using trinusVR)
the screen is lock to 60Hz and yes, 60fps in VR are just not enough
I also tried the same game with oculus and vive and it'is amazing (in this case just for few minutes, so I don't know if a long session will cause motion sickness)

In Italy the Oculus boundle is 449€, still expensive but hell yeah, i'm already buying it! ;)

hey man great video. I love my rift but i was curious what your AC video settings were.

Running with ASW is FAR better than the alternative (dropping frames). ASW-simulated 90fps is much less nausea-inducing than dropped frames, so I can accept the artifacting that comes along with it. Ideally, your graphics will be set to a place where it only rarely has to kick in anyways.

Try the Vive with frame drops and you'll appreciate what Oculus is doing with ASW more. The ATW found on the Vive just can't compare, and dropped frames in the Vive end up hurting my eyes and head a lot.

gosh that CXC rig flexing

Excellent! You pretty much covered everything, except I don't think you mentioned the benefit Motion rigs have with VR in driving/flight sims. Having a motion rig helps reduce VR sickness. For me my brain gets tricked into thinking it's real, but when certain forces are applied like braking and accelerating, I get a bit dizzy. Motion rigs move with the forces, therefore reducing the VR sickness

Been viving it up for a long while now. I approve even in motion simulators.

Personally, I can't (or don't) want to return to 2D (monitors) sim-racing. The 3D VR experience is so powerful that returning to 2D is not an option for me any longer. VR is to Sim-racing what cheese is to pizza -- without the cheese, are you really eating a pizza? Thanks for the video, and BTW, I run the NVidea 980ti and with some tweaks available from Oculus Research, I maintain a 90 fps rate with IRacing over 95% of the time. Yes, I have some graphics settings turned down or off, but they don't effect much when racing and the eye-candy graphics are still very, very good. I plan to purchase the next generation NVidea card when it's released in the future. Doing every other top-rated card word well for me...cua

Tip: Set playback speed to x2..

Another point about motion sickness, it's really subjective. I don't get motion sick, but I do get mild headaches after an hour. Some people cannot spend more than 10 mins, some people can play for 2 hours. It's really, really cool tech, but it's not for everyone :) It messes up with your sense of balance, so if you're easily sea sick or car sick, might be a rough ride.