DiRT Rally 2.0 DiRT 2.0: VR Update Now Live

[Paul Jeffrey]

Codemasters have released their free VR support update for DiRT Rally 2.0.

Available to download from either the DiRT Rally 2.0 Steam page or buy via the Oculus Store, a new update for DiRT Rally 2.0 is here - adding long awaited support for the inclusion of virtual reality to the game for the very first time.

When DR2.0 launched back in February, plenty of the community were up in arms about the lack of VR support for the title, which was particularly galling considering the very solid implementation Codemasters produced for the first DiRT Rally release - and now that situation has been fixed thanks to a major new, free, update for the title.

Having promised players that a post launch VR update would be brought to the DiRT 2.0 in the months after the game released, Codemasters have now come good on that promise - yesterday dropping the surprise update for players to download and use with immediate effect.

Initially expected to be exclusive to Oculus Rift, the new VR patch has a wider scope than first anticipated, adding OpenVR support to the title to allow different types of VR headset to be used within the game.

Also available in the new V1.7 update comes new liveries and the DirtFish location as a Test Drive location. To access the location select [Garage] from the My Team main menu, and then [Vehicle Options] and [Test Drive].

DirtFish is expected to be added to Freeplay in a future update. There are currently no plans to add it to Multiplayer and VR support for PS4 is not something under consideration by the studio.

DiRT 2.0 is available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC now.

Check the DiRT 2.0 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for news, mods and community discussion about this excellent rally game.

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[Neilski]

so i got rid of most of my stuttering by disabling turbo boost in my bios.

Huh? That's an odd one. What made you try it? (I can't recall it being mentioned in this thread.)
Any idea why it would have helped?

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Interesting indeed. By default turbo is single core, that might cause issues as Windows shifting load around.
ASUS has Mutlicore Enhancement feature that boost all cores to the same frequency on stock settings.
If you have that MB, check that it's set to Enabled or Auto.
Or just overclock CPU with the same multiplier for all cores.
One more thing, SteamVR on launch automatically switches Power Profile to High Performance and that boosts CPU to max clock. If you have thermal issues or insufficient voltage that might cause throttling, disabling turbo could have just lowered used voltage and temp.

 

[Laurence Dusoswa]

Just my 2 cents here for anyone struggling with settings for VR, especially WMR users:

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Forced reprojection, that's cheating.
Actually WMR implementation is quite good that makes it a decent options for those who can't hit magic 90fps number.
Just keep in mind some performance overhead it adds, if you don't have enough headroom pushing 90 fps, adding reprojection on Auto can make it drop under.

 

[Greg Latty]

Huh? That's an odd one. What made you try it? (I can't recall it being mentioned in this thread.)
Any idea why it would have helped?

I was browsing through the steam forum and I saw a post of a guy doing this and it helped. So i figured why not.. Not sure why it works though.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Two more tips:
- to start non VR, modify
Documents\My Games\DiRT Rally 2.0\hardwaresettings\hardware_settings_config.xml
and set vr enabled="false"
- while in the same file check resolution in <graphics card> section, if it's set to something like 4k you will see performance impact as it also controls screen mirroring in VR. I've learned my lesson after switching between VR and Screen and setting resolution to match monitor. Set to 1080p.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Are any of you finding the new contrast model a bit harsh?

I just read that you can change this.

Edit: hardware_settings_config.xml
Change <hdr level = "1.0" /> to something less like "0.1"​

I also found this breakdown of what each setting costs in terms of graphics processing interesting.
https://www.game-debate.com/news/26...breakdown-and-most-important-graphics-options

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Forced reprojection, that's cheating.
Actually WMR implementation is quite good that makes it a decent options for those who can't hit magic 90fps number.
Just keep in mind some performance overhead it adds, if you don't have enough headroom pushing 90 fps, adding reprojection on Auto can make it drop under.

Another option for WMR users is to switch to 60Hz mode. It will produce more fluid results than reprojection on quickly changing scenes like in this game.
Few things to keep in mind:
- In Win10 1903 you will lose some FOV, mostly vertical, but it's not that bad. I think it also changes aspect ratio to square, at least reported resolution shows that.
- You need to readjust SS numbers as corresponding resolution changes, you need to up it to get it back where it was at 90Hz.
- There will be some faint flickering on bright objects that takes a bit to get used to and overall slightly dimmer picture, you can increase in game brightness to compensate.

But that will give you 30% more headroom with fluid, non reprojected gameplay, not bad.

 

[Andre Marques]

For me, using the command -vrmode Oculus at the steam version and Oculus Rift gives me a musch better performance. I can play with high settings with some options turned off, ground cover, crowds e etc...
I'm hitting 90 fps with a gtx 1080 and R5 3600 but maybe the oculus store version is even better.

 

[MarcG]

50% off on Steam currently, with an Oculus CV1 is the consensus to still buy on Oculus Store for better direct performance? If there is no difference I may buy it, but would prefer a bigger sale if I'm honest as I won't get much time to play!

 

[cerebralvortex]

50% off on Steam currently, with an Oculus CV1 is the consensus to still buy on Oculus Store for better direct performance? If there is no difference I may buy it, but would prefer a bigger sale if I'm honest as I won't get much time to play!

Steam version has no native support, so it suffers a big FPS hit. I would certainly not buy the Oculus store version .. Hopefully the steam version will be playable as it should with Oculus at some point, be it with a hack.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

For me, using the command -vrmode Oculus at the steam version and Oculus Rift gives me a musch better performance. I can play with high settings with some options turned off, ground cover, crowds e etc...
I'm hitting 90 fps with a gtx 1080 and R5 3600 but maybe the oculus store version is even better.

Do you launch from Steam Home?

 

[blanes]

If you read the new VR faq just posted few hours ago you will realise that CM have shafted Oculus HMD owners who supported them by purchasing the Steam version upon the announcement of VR many months ago.

Link - https://forums.codemasters.com/topic/41687-dirt-rally-20-vr-faq-performance-guide/

It is clear they want to market two distinct versions, Oculus and the rest via OpenVR with each being mutually exclusive. Steam version will never run as well as the Oculus store version unless or until they allow Steam to implement the Oculus SDK and the current language CM is using indicates that is unlikely.

This is all fine as it is a business decision, however the lack of transparency by not informing their VR supporters is not good. Poor communication ? But CM surely knew an Oculus owner would have thought twice about a Steam purchase back when VR was announced if they knew it would only have the OpenVR api and not the Oculus SDK ?

All Steam VR sim racing titles that I own include an Oculus version as standard. I do not own any Oculus store race sims. This departure from the norm was never made clear and the original Dirt Rally had both Oculus and OpenVR included so it was reasonable to expect the same.

Thanks Codies, give yourself an uppercut ! If only it was known you were going to do this the choice would be there and the anger unjustified.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I don't think it has anything to do with Codies but FB sponsoring the whole VR conversion.
Obviously they want at least Oculus owners to keep in their walled garden.
We are lucky that they allowed OpenVR implementation, that was actually quite a surprise.
OpenVR is open SDK and Oculus is free to implement their own driver same as WMR did instead of relying on default Oculus implementation provided by Vive. But why would they?

Thanks for the FAQ link.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Tried to record my current settings.
Let me run stable 90fps on Odyssey+ with pretty good eye candy on i9-9900K and 1080Ti.

 

[Greg Latty]

Tried to record my current settings.
Let me run stable 90fps on Odyssey+ with pretty good eye candy on i9-9900K and 1080Ti.

Awesome.. going to check those out.. how much difference does it make visually with ambient occlusion off. I heard that saves a lot of fps

 

[Deleted member 197115]

You won't notice any.

 

[Fregis]

Helped for me reduce "lag".
Open SteamVR -> open settings -> go to Developer> unmark "Starts SteamVR when a VR application starts -> close SteamVR.
It still launch SteamVR in start, but different way, i guess it same like command "-vrmode oculus", but that didnt work for me

 

[Blamer]

Tried to record my current settings.
Let me run stable 90fps on Odyssey+ with pretty good eye candy on i9-9900K and 1080Ti.

Thanks for sharing them.
Do you know how can I reduce the 'popping in' of the trees?

 

[Libor Lecko]

If you read the new VR faq just posted few hours ago you will realise that CM have shafted Oculus HMD owners who supported them by purchasing the Steam version upon the announcement of VR many months ago.

Link - https://forums.codemasters.com/topic/41687-dirt-rally-20-vr-faq-performance-guide/

It is clear they want to market two distinct versions, Oculus and the rest via OpenVR with each being mutually exclusive. Steam version will never run as well as the Oculus store version unless or until they allow Steam to implement the Oculus SDK and the current language CM is using indicates that is unlikely.

This is all fine as it is a business decision, however the lack of transparency by not informing their VR supporters is not good. Poor communication ? But CM surely knew an Oculus owner would have thought twice about a Steam purchase back when VR was announced if they knew it would only have the OpenVR api and not the Oculus SDK ?

All Steam VR sim racing titles that I own include an Oculus version as standard. I do not own any Oculus store race sims. This departure from the norm was never made clear and the original Dirt Rally had both Oculus and OpenVR included so it was reasonable to expect the same.

Thanks Codies, give yourself an uppercut ! If only it was known you were going to do this the choice would be there and the anger unjustified.

As an Oculus VR user, owning Steam version, I don't know who is the bigger bastard, Oculus or Codemasters?