Best VR graphics settings

Best optimal settings for almost any setup:

Game Launch

If you are using Oculus then choose to launch the game
on Oculus mode instead of launching with SteamVR.

SteamVR is known to have performance problems with Dirt Rally 2.0 VR!

Basic Graphics

Ultra low end potato pc (GTX970):
Multisampling: CMAA
Anisotropic filtering: 8x

Low end pc (GTX1070):
Multisampling: 2xMSAA
Anisotropic filtering: 16x
*2xMSAA is not enough to get rid of jagged lines with low resolution headsets like Oculus Rift. Please experiment with 4xMSAA to see if your system could handle it.

High end pc (RTX2070): MOST OPTIMAL CHOICE
Multisampling: 4xMSAA
Anisotropic filtering: 16x

Ultra high end pc (RTX2080Ti):
Multisampling: 4xMSAA
Anisotropic filtering: 16x
*We are not going beyond 4xMSAA even given the GPU power to do so, because 4xMSAA is enough to get rid of jagged lines and 8xMSAA will only add blurriness to already blurry looking game.

Advanced Graphics

Ultra low end potato pc (GTX970):
Shader Detail: High
Texture Detail: Low
Reflections: Low
Screen Space Reflections: Off
Shadows: Medium
Night Lighting: Off
Ambient Occlusion: Low
Advanced Ambient Occlusion: Off
Particles: Off
Advanced Blending: Off
Weather: Low
Crowd: Off
Cloth: Off
Mirrors: Off
Vehicle Details: Low
Track: Low
Object: Low
Trees: Ultra Low
Ground Cover: Low
Skidmarks: On
Motionblur: Off
GodRays: On
Chromatic Aberration: On
Bloom: On
Light Streaks: On
Lens Dust: On


Low end pc (GTX1070):
Shader Detail: High
Texture Detail: Low
Reflections: Low
Screen Space Reflections: On Replay
Shadows: Medium
Night Lighting: Off
Ambient Occlusion: Medium
Advanced Ambient Occlusion: On
Particles: Low
Advanced Blending: On
Weather: High
Crowd: Low
Cloth: Low
Mirrors: Off
Vehicle Details: Low
Track: Low
Object: Low
Trees: Ultra Low
Ground Cover: Medium
Skidmarks: On
Motionblur: Off
GodRays: On
Chromatic Aberration: On
Bloom: On
Light Streaks: On
Lens Dust: On


High end pc (RTX2070): MOST OPTIMAL CHOICE
Shader Detail: High
Texture Detail: Low
Reflections: Low
Screen Space Reflections: On Replay
Shadows: Medium
Night Lighting: Off
Ambient Occlusion: High
Advanced Ambient Occlusion:On
Particles: Low
Advanced Blending: On
Weather: High
Crowd: Low
Cloth: Low
Mirrors: Low
Vehicle Details: Low
Track: Low
Object: Low
Trees: Ultra Low
Ground Cover: Medium
Skidmarks: On
Motionblur: Off
GodRays: On
Chromatic Aberration: On
Bloom: On
Light Streaks: On
Lens Dust: On


Ultra high end pc (RTX2080Ti):
Shader Detail: High
Texture Detail: Low
Reflections: Medium
Screen Space Reflections: On Replay
Shadows: High
Night Lighting: Low
Ambient Occlusion: Ultra
Advanced Ambient Occlusion:On
Particles: Low
Advanced Blending: On
Weather: High
Crowd: Low
Cloth: Low
Mirrors: High
Vehicle Details: High
Track: Low
Object: Low
Trees: Ultra Low
Ground Cover: High
Skidmarks: On
Motionblur: Off
GodRays: On
Chromatic Aberration: On
Bloom: On
Light Streaks: On
Lens Dust: On

Brightness

Set to 1.5
This increases quality at night drastically, and overall looks more natural.

Editing files

Lets edit some files to make everything more stable, and to improve visual clarity:

1. Go to your Documents folder

2. Open folder My Games

3. Open folder DiRT Rally 2.0

4. Open folder hardwaresettings

5. Open file hardware_settings_config_vr with Notepad++

6. Search for fullscreen="1" change it to fullscreen="0"

7. Search for resolution width="???" height="???" write those values to somewhere in case you need to revert back. Now change the values to something smaller than your monitors native resolution, so the desktop-mirror becomes a very small window. I set mine to width="800" height="600".
*Just for the record, changing this value does NOT change the resolution your headset works, this value here only affects the desktop mirror size.

8. Search for supersampling="1" and change it according to your pc performance:
For Ultra low end potato pc (GTX970): 1
For Low end pc (GTX1070): 1.1
For High end pc (RTX2070): 1.5
For Ultra high end pc (RTX2080Ti): 1.8
*I very strongly recommend experimenting with supersampling value
to find the correct sweetspot for your system. When experimenting, make sure the GPU doesn't hit 100% usage in game, aim for 70%-80% GPU usage. Supersampling is a resolution multiplier, higher value results to clearer picture.

9. Search for taa="1" change it to taa="0"
*taa is a form of anti-alias that will only make the game look blurry, that is why we set it to 0

10. Remember to save (Ctrl+S)

Now with the fullscreen disabled Dirt Rally 2.0 wont mess up your monitor resolution when launching it, as it will otherwise force your VR-headset native resolution to your desktop monitor, the effect of this is more catastrophic with multi-monitor setups. All that was causing the game to crash if you wanted to do anything on your desktop with VR virtual desktop or by alt+tabbing.

Gameplay Tips

- Go to Preferences and set "Co driver end stage audio" to OFF. Otherwise the co driver will absolutely annoy you to death with his patronizing lines about your driving skills after every race.

- Easy way to increase acceleration speed is to buy "Unlock Tuning" for a vehicle, and before the race go to "Tune Vehicle" and choose "Gearing", and set "Final Drive" to smallest value, all the way to the left side. Remember to save your edit.

- It is very beneficial to go to your Control settings and bind "Reset View (VR)" to some easily accessible button.

- Go to Preferences and set "Resume countdown" to ON. This adds a 3 sec countdown when exiting menu mid-game.

- When upgrading the motor, the first unlocked motor upgrade is the one that gives the biggest increase to power and is always worth to buy, but after that, its best to not buy any motor upgrades until last upgrade is unlocked, this saves you a lot of money and doesn't have that big of a negative impact to gameplay.

- Disable HUD completely from "OSD Settings" for more immersive VR experience.

- My personal favorite vehicle to just have fun is Audi Quattro S1 E2 (Groub B, 4WD) This beast has 550hp, and accelerates like a rocket even in gravel with it's four wheel drive and Turbo.

- Go to VR Comfort settings and set "Full view during crashes" to ON.
If you crash you need to feel it you wimp!!

Settings In Depth

- Shader Detail: Low shader setting will make the game look like a cartoon. Always use High setting.

- Texture Detail: The difference between Low and high are not visually that noticeable.

- Reflections: Reflections in VR will quickly tank the performance, anything higher than Low should be avoided.

- Screen Space Reflections: This setting causes big performance hit and graphical errors on the outlines of objects, best to have it turned Off or On Replay.

- Shadows: High resolution shadows in VR will quickly tank the performance with little to no visual benefit, that is why anything higher than Medium should be avoided.

- Night Lighting: This setting changes the amount of shadows that your vehicles headlights will create when hitting objects like rocks, road signs and trees. Having this on is very performance heavy at night time, and can cause stutters.

- Ambient Occlusion: This setting makes different areas darker or lighter depending on how light hits that part.

- Advanced Ambient Occlusion: Same as Ambient Occlusion.

- Particles: Low setting will give a nice dust trail for the vehicle, higher than Low setting will only add leaves that fall from trees. High particle count in VR can cause stutters.

- Advanced Blending: Trees and objects at far will appear smoother and more realistic.

- Weather: Affects the amount of visible raindrops.

- Crowd: Higher settings are known to cause stutters.

- Cloth: Affects roadside flags. Little to no visual difference between Low and High.

- Vehicle Details: Higher than Low setting is known to cause stutters.

- Track: Little to no visual difference between Low and High.

- Object: Little to no visual difference between Low and High.

- Trees: Little to no visual difference between Ultra Low and High, even render distance and textures seems to be the same, only seem to affect the amount of dynamic sway in the wind.

- Ground cover: Low setting leaves huge bald spots to ground, so do avoid using this setting. Medium covers 100% of roadside with grass/vegetation making it the most optimal choice. High setting will only add excessive amounts of density to grass, possibly resulting to stutters.

Feel free to ask anything in the comment section below

[DogMeat]

THANK YOU! Jesus I thought I was going crazy...

Thank you Super Sampling saved my life!

[ryansaur]

sick!

[=sMu=]

Please always remember to disable the HDR functionality in Windows (Display Settings => HDR => Off) to avoid black screens in any virtual desktops, especially the Oculus Virtual Desktop is sensitive to this.

[6Pack]

Hi @aquabot

Try deleting the "hardware_settings_config_vr" file and then verify game files.
You can verify game files by going to your Steam library and then click Drift Rally 2.0 with right mouse click, go to properties, go to files, and choose verify game files. This will download new fresh stock file with original settings in it. I hope this helps.


When uninstalling Steam games, the local settings are usually left somewhere on your pc, usually under Documents folder, just so that next time you install the game it remembers all your settings. So the changes you have made were still saved on your pc even after you previously "uninstalled" the game.

If re-downloading this one specific file wasn't enough, you can also try deleting the whole Dirt Rally 2.0 folder under Documents -> My Games. And then verify files in Steam, so it can re-download stock version for all settings.

[aquabot]

when i changed my desktop mirror to 800 x 600 in hardware config vr, the desktop mirror stopped working. I was getting a black screen, and i tried changing the fullscreen value to 0, 1, and 2 to no avail. Uninstalled and resinstalled the game 4 times now and the desktop mirror options aren't even available in vr mode anymore. Currently the mirror is of the upper left corner of one of the headset monitors and changing the value seems to do nothing. This really sucks - i want company to be able to see the game while i play and vice versa but it looks like i permanently ruined this game with no way to fix it.

[L.P]

Thank you

[=sMu=]

Virtual Desktop (App) only functions with SteamVR. To play Dirt 2.0, you need to initiate Oculus Link and, through your Oculus Virtual Desktop, launch the game from your Steam library, selecting the Oculus mode in the subsequent window. Once you've done this initial setup, the game will be added to your Oculus library, and you can launch it from there.

[6Pack]

RB98, you could try running Virtual Desktop in administration mode and see what happens.

[6Pack]

Hi RB98

If you are talking about the paid Virtual Desktop app in Steam, i don't have any experience with it, sorry.

I recommend dropping a comment in Virtual Desktop forum if someone have had similar issue, Also VD-developers will see it and maybe address the problem. https://steamcommunity.com/app/382110/discussions/

[RB98]

Hello, thank you for this lovely guide!

This is probably a long shot, but I'm having difficulties when utilizing Virtual Desktop. I want to run my game in Oculus mode despite owning it on Steam, however when I try to launch it from Steam using the Oculus SDK it tells me it can't find my headset and Virtual Desktop can only find the Steam version. Do you have any ideas? I saw your mention of performance issues and I've noticed the occasional stutter that concerns me.