Dirt Rally 2.0 VR = Best racing experience ever. Thank you, Codemasters.

[Apex Azimuth]

By glancing at the discussions/forums it would seem I'm in a minority that is absolutely thrilled with DR2 VR. (No, I'm not being sarcastic)

Dirt Rally 2.0 VR is the best racing game experience I've ever had. And my compliments go to the team at Codemasters for their work. It was worth the wait.

There's a little bit of Codemasters-Brand-Jank, but this is a very well committed VR implementation. The UI for VR was obviously thought about and tested, and the game's performance is fantastic in VR. It's clear to me that the VR team at Codies cares about their work.

I've played so much rally VR in the past couple days that I might have permanent VR "Raccoon Face" and I'm not ashamed. This is like some kind of new drug, and I haven't had this much fun in a racing game since I tried a FFB Wheel for the first time.


I'm sure many will ask what the secret is to making DR VR work well, so I'll offer some of what I learned to improve performance.

First, my system specs:

HTC Vive w/Deluxe Audio Strap
i7-6700k @ 4.4Ghz (OC). Hyperthreading and Intel Turbo Boost OFF
Nvidia RTX 2080, ~15% Overclocked
16GB DDR4
SSD
Thrustmaster T150 (It's fine, and the price was right :P)

Tips:

-Don't go crazy with SS. I just use 1.0, and 2xMSAA in game, and the game looks fine. If you insist on SS, don't push it higher than 150. I probably wouldn't go past 125.

-Shader Quality has the biggest performance hit, so if your system is so-so, that's the first place to go. You'll miss out on alot of details like specular highlights from wet surfaces, so try your best to keep it on high.

Disable/lower graphics details that don't really matter while you're driving, such as:
-Crowd, OFF. Huge performance impact, and they don't add alot to the experience for their cost.
Cloth, OFF. Unnecessary detail that adds to CPU latency and causes microstutter. You won't notice that it's gone while you're driving.
-Advanced Blending, OFF. FFS, OFF. Huge performance impact and offers next to nothing for VR play.
-Mirrors, OFF. They actually have a surprisingly large performance hit if you use in-car views, and you only need them for WRX (maybe).
-Ground Cover, OFF. This is a good compromise because you won't notice that it's gone while you're driving, but the performance benefit is huge.
Trees, Low/Very Low. They look fine even on low settings, and more tree geometry loaded increases likelihood of microstutter.
Object, Medium to Low. Same as above.
-Ambient Occlusion, OFF. It's a subtle detail even when you're not racing, and it has a high cost. Don't bother.
-Weather, LOW. High adds to microstutter, but doesn't had alot to visual fidelity.

Most of the rest is just up to personal preference, as they don't hurt alot performance wise, but I like to keep bells and whistles like God Rays and Chromatic Aberration off because they add nothing to the experience except distraction.


Settings you can crank with no issues:
-Textures. If your GPU is beefy enough for most VR things, you can crank up the textures and suffer no performance hit. No need to compromise here. I have 8GB on my GPU, and it rarely fills up.
-Vehicle Detail. Surprisingly I saw no performance hit by cranking this up.


Note about motion smoothing: In MANY situations I've found that motion smoothing should be either off completely, or forced on full time. When motion smoothing kicks on and off, there's a noticeable microstutter that can be far more distracting than reprojection.
If your system is fast enough to keep up with refresh rate by only a small margin, just turn it off. If a game consistently strains the system so it keeps up only sometimes, you're better off forcing motion smoothing on. The lack of stutters and freezes far outweighs the weirdness of motion smoothing.

[mrorange]

So it is Vive native this time? :)

[Olegovi411]

Messaggio originale di Apex Azimuth:

By glancing at the discussions/forums it would seem I'm in a minority that is absolutely thrilled with DR2 VR. (No, I'm not being sarcastic)

Dirt Rally 2.0 VR is the best racing game experience I've ever had. And my compliments go to the team at Codemasters for their work. It was worth the wait.

There's a little bit of Codemasters-Brand-Jank, but this is a very well committed VR implementation. The UI for VR was obviously thought about and tested, and the game's performance is fantastic in VR. It's clear to me that the VR team at Codies cares about their work.

I've played so much rally VR in the past couple days that I might have permanent VR "Raccoon Face" and I'm not ashamed. This is like some kind of new drug, and I haven't had this much fun in a racing game since I tried a FFB Wheel for the first time.


I'm sure many will ask what the secret is to making DR VR work well, so I'll offer some of what I learned to improve performance.

First, my system specs:

HTC Vive w/Deluxe Audio Strap
i7-6700k @ 4.4Ghz (OC). Hyperthreading and Intel Turbo Boost OFF
Nvidia RTX 2080, ~15% Overclocked
16GB DDR4
SSD
Thrustmaster T150 (It's fine, and the price was right :P)

Tips:

-Don't go crazy with SS. I just use 1.0, and 2xMSAA in game, and the game looks fine. If you insist on SS, don't push it higher than 150. I probably wouldn't go past 125.

-Shader Quality has the biggest performance hit, so if your system is so-so, that's the first place to go. You'll miss out on alot of details like specular highlights from wet surfaces, so try your best to keep it on high.

Disable/lower graphics details that don't really matter while you're driving, such as:
-Crowd, OFF. Huge performance impact, and they don't add alot to the experience for their cost.
Cloth, OFF. Unnecessary detail that adds to CPU latency and causes microstutter. You won't notice that it's gone while you're driving.
-Advanced Blending, OFF. FFS, OFF. Huge performance impact and offers next to nothing for VR play.
-Mirrors, OFF. They actually have a surprisingly large performance hit if you use in-car views, and you only need them for WRX (maybe).
-Ground Cover, OFF. This is a good compromise because you won't notice that it's gone while you're driving, but the performance benefit is huge.
Trees, Low/Very Low. They look fine even on low settings, and more tree geometry loaded increases likelihood of microstutter.
Object, Medium to Low. Same as above.
-Ambient Occlusion, OFF. It's a subtle detail even when you're not racing, and it has a high cost. Don't bother.
-Weather, LOW. High adds to microstutter, but doesn't had alot to visual fidelity.

Most of the rest is just up to personal preference, as they don't hurt alot performance wise, but I like to keep bells and whistles like God Rays and Chromatic Aberration off because they add nothing to the experience except distraction.


Settings you can crank with no issues:
-Textures. If your GPU is beefy enough for most VR things, you can crank up the textures and suffer no performance hit. No need to compromise here. I have 8GB on my GPU, and it rarely fills up.
-Vehicle Detail. Surprisingly I saw no performance hit by cranking this up.


Note about motion smoothing: In MANY situations I've found that motion smoothing should be either off completely, or forced on full time. When motion smoothing kicks on and off, there's a noticeable microstutter that can be far more distracting than reprojection.
If your system is fast enough to keep up with refresh rate by only a small margin, just turn it off. If a game consistently strains the system so it keeps up only sometimes, you're better off forcing motion smoothing on. The lack of stutters and freezes far outweighs the weirdness of motion smoothing.

all grafiс setting is OFF?))And what after that? Drive that nothing can be seen?

[Baldrick]

Informative post Apex and I can vouch it still looks great with a Reverb with those settings ( I run with no MSAA). Keeping shaders to high has to be a priority as dropping to low it starts to look not so nice!

VR with DiRT Rally 2.0 is fantastic for driving. The menu system is a nightmare in VR though! Truly horrible.

[rfb]

Messaggio originale di Apex Azimuth:

By glancing at the discussions/forums it would seem I'm in a minority that is absolutely thrilled with DR2 VR. (No, I'm not being sarcastic)

Dirt Rally 2.0 VR is the best racing game experience I've ever had. And my compliments go to the team at Codemasters for their work. It was worth the wait.

There's a little bit of Codemasters-Brand-Jank, but this is a very well committed VR implementation. The UI for VR was obviously thought about and tested, and the game's performance is fantastic in VR. It's clear to me that the VR team at Codies cares about their work.

I've played so much rally VR in the past couple days that I might have permanent VR "Raccoon Face" and I'm not ashamed. This is like some kind of new drug, and I haven't had this much fun in a racing game since I tried a FFB Wheel for the first time.


I'm sure many will ask what the secret is to making DR VR work well, so I'll offer some of what I learned to improve performance.

First, my system specs:

HTC Vive w/Deluxe Audio Strap
i7-6700k @ 4.4Ghz (OC). Hyperthreading and Intel Turbo Boost OFF
Nvidia RTX 2080, ~15% Overclocked
16GB DDR4
SSD
Thrustmaster T150 (It's fine, and the price was right :P)

Tips:

-Don't go crazy with SS. I just use 1.0, and 2xMSAA in game, and the game looks fine. If you insist on SS, don't push it higher than 150. I probably wouldn't go past 125.

-Shader Quality has the biggest performance hit, so if your system is so-so, that's the first place to go. You'll miss out on alot of details like specular highlights from wet surfaces, so try your best to keep it on high.

Disable/lower graphics details that don't really matter while you're driving, such as:
-Crowd, OFF. Huge performance impact, and they don't add alot to the experience for their cost.
Cloth, OFF. Unnecessary detail that adds to CPU latency and causes microstutter. You won't notice that it's gone while you're driving.
-Advanced Blending, OFF. FFS, OFF. Huge performance impact and offers next to nothing for VR play.
-Mirrors, OFF. They actually have a surprisingly large performance hit if you use in-car views, and you only need them for WRX (maybe).
-Ground Cover, OFF. This is a good compromise because you won't notice that it's gone while you're driving, but the performance benefit is huge.
Trees, Low/Very Low. They look fine even on low settings, and more tree geometry loaded increases likelihood of microstutter.
Object, Medium to Low. Same as above.
-Ambient Occlusion, OFF. It's a subtle detail even when you're not racing, and it has a high cost. Don't bother.
-Weather, LOW. High adds to microstutter, but doesn't had alot to visual fidelity.

Most of the rest is just up to personal preference, as they don't hurt alot performance wise, but I like to keep bells and whistles like God Rays and Chromatic Aberration off because they add nothing to the experience except distraction.


Settings you can crank with no issues:
-Textures. If your GPU is beefy enough for most VR things, you can crank up the textures and suffer no performance hit. No need to compromise here. I have 8GB on my GPU, and it rarely fills up.
-Vehicle Detail. Surprisingly I saw no performance hit by cranking this up.


Note about motion smoothing: In MANY situations I've found that motion smoothing should be either off completely, or forced on full time. When motion smoothing kicks on and off, there's a noticeable microstutter that can be far more distracting than reprojection.
If your system is fast enough to keep up with refresh rate by only a small margin, just turn it off. If a game consistently strains the system so it keeps up only sometimes, you're better off forcing motion smoothing on. The lack of stutters and freezes far outweighs the weirdness of motion smoothing.

I would like to say thankyou for this post. VR for me was disapointing with poor performance and a poor looking game. I came across this post and copied the settings and wow what a difference ... now it looks good and runs smooth for me and I cant stop playing ( I am rubbish though ) These settings have transformed the game for me so thanks again to the poster.

[Andrew_WOT1]

After some back and forth tuning ended up with these settings. Getting smooth 90 fps on Odyssey+ with 200% SS on 1080Ti.
Game looks amazing. Thanks Codemastters!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WkBFxGIhZIin5J8rwJQLG1V2DjgVxstp/view?usp=sharing