Community Question | Who Here Uses VR, And Why?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Sim racing is far more than just the simulations themselves - a long, wide and varied array of hardware can be used to enhance your experience, and one such device is VR - but who here uses it on a regular basis?

VR - otherwise known as Virtual Reality, brings with it the ability to place a driver right into the heart of a virtual racing cockpit. Adding an immersive 3D experience to the driving aspect of sim racing, the technology and immersion are no doubt impressive - but can come with a cost - namely loss of visual performance, high PC horsepower demand and the (potential) discomfort of wearing a headset for prolonged periods of time.

As with much in life, one has to weigh up the pros and cons and VR is no different. With that said, I'd love to know how many of us here at RaceDepartment regularly use their VR headsets when sim racing, and the reasons why they prefer it (or not) over traditional screens.

Fire away in the comments section and poll!

 

[mr.four]

Here's a wall-of-text, but... I remember getting a call from my friend telling me his HTC Vive just arrived and that I needed to come over and try it. I brought my PC because he didn't have any racing games and I knew I had Project CARS 1. I wanted to see how it performed on my setup at the time. The launch titles he had were exciting enough to try but I wanted to see what a racing game would be like (even though my wheel was at home). I think I spent 30 minutes looking around the BMW M1 Procar. There was attention to detail in the cars that I never knew existed.

I purchased the Vive later that night. I'm an early adopter and it was worth it.

I can't race outside of VR anymore. I want to say this to those who don't care about VR or it's not for them... that's okay. Some of us love racing but we may struggle with depth on a flat monitor. Racing in VR allowed me to use real-world perception. I'm in the car and seeing the full view and naturally knowing distances and calculating momentum in my head rather that I personally could not do on a normal monitor (I have an ultrawide).

I know exactly where another car might be when approaching a turn without any proximity indicators (I wish I could see other racers looking at me when I look at them LOL). I can stay within a few inches of other cars through turns or rock walls during a slide on an Argentina rally stage. My consistency is generally .250 per lap when practicing as I can see and nail every apex I mean to. Basically, what I'm getting at is that even if I'm not the fastest racer out there, I'm the fastest I can be for myself because of VR. I know it's not this way for everyone but I personally was hindered by a normal screen. Plus, the freaking immersion!

Let me also just say that visuals have really come a long way from the HTC Vive (and I modded in GearVR lenses which really helped). I now have a Valve Index and I love the way AMS2 looks in it. Crisp, sharp, good visual distance... and it's only getting better. I won't upgrade my HMD for a while (this thing was designed to be used for years), but I am excited to see what's next. Gabe is talking about neural interfaces. I'm not going to early-adopt that but I can't wait to see it.

 

[giga1tr]

Also 100% VR and i love it!

 

[Slapped]

There's a funny thing about poll options and me in that I always fit somewhere in between the options. I voted "Yes all the time" but that's not entirely true. I use VR way way more that occasionally, but I don't use it all of the time. So "Mostly use VR" would be appropriate for me

Anyway I'm a fully paid up member of the VR club - I've got a Rift-S, Reverb Gen 1, and a PSVR.

For me it's been a complete revolution in gaming, in fact I first tried VR way back in the early 90's in the Trocadero in London with the Virtuality system. I was blown away then with the immersiveness of the experience even back then, and have often wondered why it took so long for VR to really come to market.

For me personally the "being there" in whatever I'm playing trumps any loss in graphical fidelity. When considering VR I think you have to accept that the graphics will be last generation compared to flat screen gaming as two scenes have to be rendered for each eye.

I get why some people hate on VR - there are those that get severe motion sickness, and there are those that find the cost prohibitive. I can't help the former other than to say that with exposure it will get better, although personally I've never suffered with that, and trust me I've tried everything to make me vomit. For the latter all I can say is that it will get cheaper and honestly you need to check it out when it's at your price level - It really is a game changer IMO

 

[Michael Lowe]

I like many others have reached the point where I dont race unless its VR. I used to switch to flat screen, maybe for a bit of F1, then acc for a bit, and think you know this is ok. Then I move back to VR, and wonder what the hell I left for. Lol. I've done that about 3 times, no more, VR or nothing now.

I have a cv1, with a reverb g2 on pre order, and I cant wait for december. Aswell as driving i will be trying some flight sims too, as it seems we should be able to read text etc properly.

To those that havent tried to race in VR, try and find a way to try it, then start saving. Lol

Finally, for anyone like minded, i recently purchased IB cricket. What an awesome cricket batting experience it is.

 

[BillyBobSenna]

I tried VR in a demo at the Detroit auto show. You actually wore the VR while they drove you in a vehicle. The VR simulated the future vehicle interior and driving around off-road trails. I became sick within seconds. No VR for me.

 

[freytzouil]

VR, you need a strong PC and you have to spend a few hours of setting to get everything working properly.

Then a few more hours to get your mark and to get ride of that nausea feeling.

Then (according to me) it's a mind blowing experience, nothing else to say. I will never go back to any other setup.

no VR no game for me aswell.

 

[Chrhun]

I got back into simracing because of VR. The immersion is just amazing and VR works for our racing sims just so well. It's hard to explain and you other VR users know it, but it's just so immersive - I've found myself blocking the sun coming through the windshield with my hand!-) My rig is now built only for VR, there is no monitor on it.

It does require powerful hardware. Together 10850k and 3080 can now power the Rift S well in any game, but we'll see with the Reverb G2.

 

[robopirate]

I tried VR in a demo at the Detroit auto show. You actually wore the VR while they drove you in a vehicle. The VR simulated the future vehicle interior and driving around off-road trails. I became sick within seconds. No VR for me.

Well that's one hell of a first VR experience - I think the problem is that you easily get sick if you see movement you don't control. If you actually turn the wheel yourself your brain anticipates the movement you see so you won't get sick that easy when driving yourself. Give it a try again, I'm sure you'll see what I mean!

 

[bullet800]

I tried VR in a demo at the Detroit auto show. You actually wore the VR while they drove you in a vehicle. The VR simulated the future vehicle interior and driving around off-road trails. I became sick within seconds. No VR for me.

First time all people have motion sickness. After 5-6 hours VR immersive just amazing! I never back to flat screen.

 

[mr.four]

Hell, I had lucid dreams for 2 weeks after trying VR. What's really weird is that experiences I've had in VR can sometimes feel like a memory of actually being there rather than being in the room you were in playing a game. It's down to the game and whether it immersed you enough to get you to believe it for a bit.

 

[Two Hands]

Yes. If a sim supports it I always use it. Once I tried it I couldn't go back. The immersion is part of it but I also noticed that my laptimes and sense of other cars improved massively when I started using VR. Being able to look into an apex and look around for other cars is incredibly useful.

It's also a pleasure getting to "sit inside" these cars I will never have a chance to actually be in.

The only real drawback is that you can get a bit sweaty. Having some fans on and ac in the summer and maybe a couple rags to wipe sweat off in pitstops combats that though.


Edit: worth throwing it out there. I still occasionally play older sims that don't support it. I love vr but I don't have to have it to enjoy a sim. The original automobilista and old simbin titles come to mind.

 

[RaceNut]

I took a break from racing in VR until I upgraded to the Valve Index (from CV-1). Since then, I race in VR almost exclusively. The only times I don't is if I'm testing features / updates / tuning hardware or troubleshooting issues. Otherwise, I use VR for Racing whenever possible.

 

[Andy-R]

I've only raced in VR since I got my headset 3 or 4 years ago now I guess. I have the Oculus CV1, it is a blurry mess, feels like it slow cooks my eyes, an hour using it in summer and I feel like I have heat stroke and I can't read marker boards (or even see them clearly) until I'm right on them but there's no way I could race on a flat screen again! Not that I do much racing these days as there aren't any decent current gen sims with cars I'd want to drive. I occasionally hotlap GT4 in ACC but the cars and tracks are meh.

 

[Alex Butters]

I use VR 100% of the time, I love the experience of completely leaving the “real world” for a couple of hours. (Also, my monitors are not particularly good!)

 

[Alfredino]

I... don't like it at all.

I have tried three, two of them in local exhibitions. All three make me dizzy after several minutes.

The other reason I don't use them is that VR adds nothing to the feeling of realism (but it adds immersion). Rather they even remove it. The higher the speed, the blurrier you see everything. With VR everything looks more clear regardless of your speed. To put it simply, VR makes its user lose points when simulating a ride in a racing car.

I find the options to look left or right better when resorting to one of the two options takes away your visibility from the front.

 

[Slapped]

First time all people have motion sickness. After 5-6 hours VR immersive just amazing! I never back to flat screen.

That's wrong IMO - I personally never experienced anything remotely vomit inducing, even from the first time I tried it. I honestly think that those who experience some form of motion sickness from VR are in the minority and, like you say, most can overcome it with exposure.

 

[Oleg466]

I always drive in VR if games support it.

 

[Nevini]

Thought I would take a punt back in 2014 with an Oculus dev kit, I was simply blown away.
Numerous upgrades later, various headsets and 3 generations of video cards its now starting to get there.

However you do need a 3090 or higher and a HP reverb G2 (both still on order)
Worth every single penny, I would happily pay double for the VR kick.

Having to make do with a 1080ti and rift s, I want my new toys YESTERDAY.

VR is like crack cocaine. ( both are super nice, however one will kill you )

 

[Antmerino]

I will never go back to three monitors. But I think the developers need to improve the VR in their games, for example in rfactor 2 and raceroom

 

[PurgerUK]

VR + motion simulator + sim racing a match made in heaven. AMS used to be my go to sim but stopped driving it within a few days of getting VR. I do some room scale VR gaming as well but quite happy to play non sims in pancake mode. As far as motion sickness goes early on I had a few occasions feeling a bit wobbly but never with cockpit type games where your brain can do a better job of overriding missing signals from your inner ear.