Sim racing is a perfect gaming format to experience with VR, but some in the sim community are very pro-VR while others are holding back. Have your say in the comments below on whether VR is for you, and why.
A good Virtual Reality sim racing experience is hard to beat, but technical limitations and limited developer support has slowed the growth of VR. So, we want to hear from you. Is VR worth having for sim racers in 2021?
While the global stats on its use on Steam puts the percentage of VR in the single digits, most sim racing polls put the percentage of users who at least own a headset in the 25-35% range. Even with this high level of VR owners, many high-profile racing franchises such as F1 and WRC have yet to implement official VR support. Other sim titles like Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2 and RaceRoom have supported VR for years, and are enjoyed by thousands of sim racers around the world.
For many in the community, VR is the only way to sim race. This crowd even has a slogan: “No VR, No Buy”. Undoubtedly, there aren’t any more immersive or exciting ways to experience sim racing visually than to virtually control the head of the driver. The first sim racing experience in VR is something most people don’t quickly forget. Sitting virtually in cars most of us will never get to drive in real life at a track most of us will never get to experience is undeniably cool.
Contrast the above list of pros with some known shortcomings of VR, and you end up with a divided set of opinions. Among those who have tried VR sim racing and moved on, two of the common complaints are that the video appears grainy and the frame rate is too low. Both issues can be mitigated with higher end hardware, but the cost of such hardware is prohibitive to many. A byproduct of a lower framerate in VR is often motion sickness. Motion sickness can occur in VR at any frame rate, but it’s more common with sub-90 FPS experiences, and makes Virtual Reality impossible for some.
It’s also possible that we’re only in the infancy of VR, and the next generation will improve the visually quality and frame rate even on affordable GPUs and HMDs. Other than flight simulators, no gaming format takes advantage of a VR view quite like racing simulators. If the demand for VR continues from racing gamers, the developers will hopefully look to make support more commonplace in future titles and improve the experience in kind.
So, we want to hear from you. Do you use VR? What keeps you coming back or keeps you away from VR, and what do you think the future will hold for VR sim racing?
A good Virtual Reality sim racing experience is hard to beat, but technical limitations and limited developer support has slowed the growth of VR. So, we want to hear from you. Is VR worth having for sim racers in 2021?
While the global stats on its use on Steam puts the percentage of VR in the single digits, most sim racing polls put the percentage of users who at least own a headset in the 25-35% range. Even with this high level of VR owners, many high-profile racing franchises such as F1 and WRC have yet to implement official VR support. Other sim titles like Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2 and RaceRoom have supported VR for years, and are enjoyed by thousands of sim racers around the world.
For many in the community, VR is the only way to sim race. This crowd even has a slogan: “No VR, No Buy”. Undoubtedly, there aren’t any more immersive or exciting ways to experience sim racing visually than to virtually control the head of the driver. The first sim racing experience in VR is something most people don’t quickly forget. Sitting virtually in cars most of us will never get to drive in real life at a track most of us will never get to experience is undeniably cool.
Contrast the above list of pros with some known shortcomings of VR, and you end up with a divided set of opinions. Among those who have tried VR sim racing and moved on, two of the common complaints are that the video appears grainy and the frame rate is too low. Both issues can be mitigated with higher end hardware, but the cost of such hardware is prohibitive to many. A byproduct of a lower framerate in VR is often motion sickness. Motion sickness can occur in VR at any frame rate, but it’s more common with sub-90 FPS experiences, and makes Virtual Reality impossible for some.
It’s also possible that we’re only in the infancy of VR, and the next generation will improve the visually quality and frame rate even on affordable GPUs and HMDs. Other than flight simulators, no gaming format takes advantage of a VR view quite like racing simulators. If the demand for VR continues from racing gamers, the developers will hopefully look to make support more commonplace in future titles and improve the experience in kind.
So, we want to hear from you. Do you use VR? What keeps you coming back or keeps you away from VR, and what do you think the future will hold for VR sim racing?
