My VR Settings and Process

[i4Gott]

Someone asked for this, so here it is.

I am not an expert, but I have a well defined process for the games I play in VR. This started back in my iRacing days. There are things that I dont know or understand except that when I changed it, it altered my FPS to point where I didnt like it. Here are my settings for getting PC Cars 3 to run well with pretty good FPS and results.

My process is that I start everything at zero and one items at a time, I adjust each setting until it meets my needs. Since I race 100% of the time in VR, the items that are important to me may differ from you. This is what is important to me while racing in VR and these are the settings I use to get there. Anything extra is just a bonus.

I can run at night in a thunderstorm and get 72.5 FPS. It flips back and forth really fast between 70 and 72 depending on what is happening or track. Some tracks are a lot better, but on average, its pretty steady at 72. To test, create a custom event. I use Knockhill Tri-Oval with 15 cars, night, thunderstorm. This track keeps all the cars close by and will give you a run. If you can do well here, other tracks will have no issue, at least thats what Ive noticed. If it turns out you can run in a thunderstorm, then move the weather down and restart. If it turns out your computer cant run a thunderstorm at night, then avoid those races in VR. No shame in that. I do not use Steam VR. I only use Oculus Rift S,i7 3.6, RTX 2060, SSD, 16GB, G29.

My priorities are numbered starting with 1 and it is the most important.
1. Maintain as close as possible to the FPS of 80. Lowest I am willing to sacrifice is 65. This provides a sense of speed and gives best reaction time.
2. Ability to read the curbs as far as possible. This is a judgement call for me. I dont have a ruler to give a precise distance, but I want to be able to make out the curbs as far as possible. When I race, I am looking at the curbs ahead of me, not the one I am on. So the further I can make out the curbs, the better. I will tell you, its pretty dam far for me.
3. Ability to read the sign markers as far as possible. This is a judgement call for me too. Again, I dont have a ruler to give a precise distance, but I want to be able to make out the exact number on the signs well in advance. I dont want to have to guess what sign is next or the one I passed. I want to visual read the number and react based on what I saw.
4. Details on the track for brake markers, visual cues, etc. This is dependent on each track but I use these along with the sign posts and curbs to make alterations while racing.


Here are the things I dont care about and will turn off because they do not contribute to me being faster, consistent, or accurate.
1. Texture resolution. I am not checking out the decals on the other cars while racing. Other cars are a silhouette to me, more like a blob. I am focused ahead of them and the track. Most of the time other cars are in my peripheral and are blurred. Why wasted FPS to see some pretty little texture. Its not Elite Dangerous, its racing. In Elite Dangerous, textures are important, but not in racing. Lower quality textures will do very well for further items away; the things I really need to see. Those items are mostly shapes and colors. Its not like you will be reading instructions on how to change a tire with the textures that far away. Dont waste the resource.
2. Crowds. This is only important during the victory lap and your waiving to the masses. Really, turn that crap off. Are you here to race or see Chuck's pearly white teeth?
3. If possible, turn off stands. Unfortunately, PC3 does not have this option like iRacing.
4. Reflections should be turned to low or off. Once again, you are here to race, not to see your reflection as you pass someone. If you are looking at reflections while racing, your slow. You should not be focusing on the details of the reflection. They should just be there, hence the reason for low.
5. Car detail should be as low as possible. Are you staring at your dash, no your looking out the window. Your peripheral and ears will tell you when to shift. Stop wasting resources on crap your not looking at while racing.
6. Grass, turn that crap off, unless you plan to drive in it or cut it.

The NVIDIA Control Panel and Oculus Rift S settings are the only items that are consistent for all of my games. I play 99% of the time in VR. If you want to get the best results. Do the same.

NVIDIA Control Panel Settings
Image Sharpening - Sharpen 0.50, ignore film grain 0.17, GPU Scalling checked
Ambient Occlusion - Performance
Anisotropic Filtering - Application Controlled
Antialasing FXAA - Off
Antialasing Gamma Correction - On
Antialiasing Mode - Application Controlled
Antialiasing Setting - Application Controlled
Antialasing Transparency - Off
CUDA GPUs - All
DSR Factors - Off
DSR Smoothness - Off
Low Latency Mode - On
Max Frame Rate - 80 (Match your HDM)
Multi Frame Sampled AA - Off
OpenGl Rendering GPU - Pick your Card
Power Management Mode - Prefer Maximum Performance
Shader Cache - On
Texture Filtering Anisotropic Sample - On
Texture Filtering Negative LOD - Allow
Texture Filtering Quality - High Performance
Texture Filtering Trilnear Opt - On
Threaded Optimzation - Auto
Tripple Buffering - Off
Vertical Sync - Off
VR Prerendered Frames - 1
VR Variable Rate Super Sample - Always On

Oculus Rift S Settings
Graphic Preference - Prioritize Performance (Since I already know I will be using supersample and such, there is no reason to use prioritize quality. I cannot tell visually the difference between prioritizing quality over prioritizing performance except that performance is less strain and I can get more FPS. Why waste when you cant tell.

Oculus Debug Tool
Asynchronouse Spacewarp - Disabled
Distortion Curvature - High

I change all the settings to low or off first. I then will go to the VR portion and turn on super sample. I adjust this until its pretty good and in combination, adjust super sampling in the performance settings. Once these two are good and there are no dips in my FPS, I will start adding, adjusting, move up, move down, and so forth for each setting until I am happy with the overall look and feel. This is a long process for me, but worth it. I learned a long time ago, there are no magic settings. Everyone's computer is different. Some games are optimized really well, while others are not. Such as this one.

PC3 In Game Performance Settings
Resolution - 1152x648
Windowed - Yes
Texture Resolution - Low
Texture Filtering - Anistropic 4X
V-Sync - No
Super Sampling - High
Reflections - Low
Enviroment Map - Medium
Car Detail - Low
Track Detail - High
Shadow Detail - High
Mirror Quality - Standard
Motion Blur - Off
Detailed Grass - Off
Particle Quality - Low
Particle Density - Low
Rendered Frames Ahead - 1

PC3 In Game VR Settings
Gaze Control - Off
Super Sample - 1.4
Recenter on Boot - Off
Recenter on Race - Off
Camera Near Clip Plane - 50

PC3 In Game HUD Settings
All off except - Mode Information, Notifications

PC3 In Game Gameplay Settings
Handling Assists - Professional, Manual, all off

PC3 Car File Settings
In AppData/Local/Slightly Mad Studios/Project CARS 3
You will want to edit two files.

GraphicsConfigOculuxDX11 File (Some of the settings in game do not stick. So they are changed here in the file. The items I change are listed below.)

<prop name="EnvmapReflectionDetailLevel" envmapreflectiondetaillevel="0" />


oculussettings File (Some of the settings in game do not stick. So they are changed here in the file. The items I change are listed below.)(World movement is changed for personal prefrerence. FOV ensures the exposure changes is same as the Oculuss Rift S FOV, which is 90 degrees.)

<prop name="HideCrowds" data="true" />
<prop name="VSync" data="true" />
<prop name="OnlyPlayer" data="true" />
<prop name="LimitCars" data="1" />
<prop name="NearZ" data="0.05" />
<prop name="GForce" data="0.15" />
<prop name="WorldMovement" data="0.3" />
<prop name="exposureFOV" data="90" />

Enjoy.

[CunkFeatures]

I bet that looks nasty

[i4Gott]

Originally posted by tomtalk24:

I bet that looks nasty

Great feedback. Good job at being helpful to others. Sorry that you feel the need to make comments that do nothing but maybe pick yourself up because your such a great person.

[Faust]

Thanks for the input! Sucks that this game is so much worse than other racing sims in terms of VR optimization - Project CARS 2 is 'easy' to run at 90 FPS. I'm personally willing to get a lower FPS and let spacewarp handle the mess, but I'm going to try some of your suggestions and see if I enjoy the experience more with a better FPS without spacewarp and with lower graphics settings. I also have a guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2212372999

[i4Gott]

Originally posted by Faust:

Thanks for the input! Sucks that this game is so much worse than other racing sims in terms of VR optimization - Project CARS 2 is 'easy' to run at 90 FPS. I'm personally willing to get a lower FPS and let spacewarp handle the mess, but I'm going to try some of your suggestions and see if I enjoy the experience more with a better FPS without spacewarp and with lower graphics settings. I also have a guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2212372999

Yeah, I agree, we shouldnt have to do this much effort to get a decent run of FPS. Good guide you have btw. I think there are some optimization issues that are causing conflicts in the coding of the game. It was strange through my process how different things affected the outcome where in other games it would not have been a factor as great it is in PC3. One example is the reflection. You can have it turned max and turn it to zero in the settings, and visually it will look the same, but the FPS result is different. Something is not connecting right.

[FlatChillLance]

to both of you, thanks for putting in the effort for the rest of us lazy bums. you both have helped me have an enjoyable VR experience with this mess. love the game, just need them to fix the VR issues

[Bombzey]

Great work guys in the base build we have, hopefully we have some VR optimization in the next patch, fingers crossed.

[Pelzgurke]

Thank you for your efforts.

[Grocs]

Thanks for the guide. Going to try some of these settings out. :)