DiRT Rally 2.0 DR2.0 VR performance tuning and visual upgrade mods

[mechsicko]

DR2 kinda runs like a pig in VR. There's also weirdness with gamma/brightness and things being blurry. Turns out these are largely solved. Between optimizing settings, a mod for brightness and another for sharpness it can look really good in VR and the mods have no noticeable performance hits.

First a guide for gfx settings to get the most out your system. There's guidelines for visuals or performance and explanations of what's being changed. Still relevant despite ui changes since it was made. Not mine but the best I know of.

Eye Accommodation Fix
This addresses the weird gamma/brightness thing that make day/sunset stages in Sweden a white-out despite brightness settings. This works by picking a different target in the fov to base brightness scaling from making it drivable under all lighting conditions like people playing on a monitor get to enjoy.

https://www.kegetys.fi/dirt-rally-2-vr-eye-accomodation-fix-v2-0/

There are separate settings for day/night, fog adjustment parameters and new vegetation shaders that get rid of the dot/grid dithering artifacts. Love the evening gloom and actual lighting variance this mod provides... having to actually turn my headlights on to see better as dusk rules.

I've found the stock settings in the accommodation mod make headlights too dim and canopy covered areas at dusk too dark, but it can be adjusted in the .cfg:

eye accommodation mod tweak:
luminanceMaxRange=1050
luminanceMinRange=600



Contrast Adaptive Sharpening/reshade
This CAS sharpening tool has only recently became compatible with VR. I would have never believed it possible, but it's like putting on glasses you didn't know you needed or running settings on ultra -instruments readable without leaning in, can read signs in the car's mirrors, the mesh windows of crosskarts or chain link fence sharp and realistic instead of a floating blur etc.

The Sharper Eye (CAS sharpening mod)

racedepartment keeps breaking my link so if the one above doesn't work repair this one by removing the spaces in necksismods because for some reason the naughty world filter keeps replacing it with ** https://www.ne xusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/46999?tab=files&file_id=191435

Technically a Skyrim mod but made to be compatible with most games and works great in Dirt Rally 2.0. It comes with presets for Skyrim so a few values need to be changed to make dr2 colors/brightness look right.

CAS sharpener tweaks:
Brightness=1.000000
Contrast=1.000000
Saturation-0.850000

@obo made an additional .dll to accompany reshade. He discovered a load order issue with the eye accommodation mod and his dll shim makes them work together, detailed in this post along with a link to his mod https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...-and-visual-upgrade-mods.200905/#post-3372288

If anyone knows of any other really good tweaks or guides I'm interested. Also, if anyone knows of or stumbles on to some particularly good settings for the mods above, or other mods that make the game run or look better please post them here.

 

[moogleslam]

This sim is both the most fun I've had racing in a few years, and the most frustrating at the same time. I have never got it running quite where I want it, and am constantly tweaking settings. HP Reverb, 2080 Ti, and i9-9900K. I probably have dozens of questions still, but I'll stick to a few for now:

1. I've been running the VR accommodation fix for a few weeks, but eventually, I disabled the vegetation shaders (overrideVegetationAtoC=0) because it was causing so much tree pop up, which was worse than the mesh/dithering on trees. In hardware_settings_config_vr.xml, I had tried increasing trees lod="0.75" to crazy high numbers like 5.0, and that improved it, but didn't solve it entirely. Is there another solution? Just now I'm remembering there are two other settings next to that, but I have not tried to change them: maxlod="0" meshes="true". Yes, setting that last one to false does kinda seem like an obvious fix, but maybe the alternative is worse EDIT: Just tried meshes="false", and certainly doesn't make it better; worse if anything. EDIT2: So I think I've found a solution to the tree popup after enabling vegetation shaders (overrideVegetationAtoC=1). I've got trees lod="2.0" (can maybe go a bit lower) like I did before, but the other thing I had to do is turn of AA entirely. Sounds weird, and I've bumped up Steam SuperSampling to make up for it to some degree, but now I've got zero mesh on trees AND zero tree popup! Edit3: Strangely, another solution is to run 4x MSAA, and with this, you don't need to change trees lod=. 2x MSAA won't work, but off or 4x will. Weird.
2. Also in hardware_settings_config_vr.xml, there's a line I'm really curious about which is <graphics_card rating="2">. Is this actually doing anything? Makes me think that the number is related to a hidden preset.
3. Is it my imagination or do some graphics settings do absolutely nothing in VR? For instance, what is the setting called Track supposed to do? I'd think it would be related to the actual detail in the track surface, but whether I have it at its lowest or highest, the track surface looks like a blurry mess.

 

[moogleslam]

So after my EDIT2 above and success with solving tree mesh AND tree popup at the same time, I moved onto trying to improve general performance since the sim still has stutters ever if I put every single setting to its lowest for testing.

I installed OpenComposite Runtime Switcher (OpenXR) and OpenXR Tools for Windows Mixed Reality. Now, the game won't start unless remove d3d11.dll from the eye accommodation fix out of the folder. Any solution to get both to run at the same time?

 

[mechsicko]

So after my EDIT2 above and success with solving tree mesh AND tree popup at the same time, I moved onto trying to improve general performance since the sim still has stutters ever if I put every single setting to its lowest for testing.

I installed OpenComposite Runtime Switcher (OpenXR) and OpenXR Tools for Windows Mixed Reality. Now, the game won't start unless remove d3d11.dll from the eye accommodation fix out of the folder. Any solution to get both to run at the same time?

Maybe the dll that changes the load order of the mods that was intended to get eye accommodation and reshade working at the same time will work here too? Link can be found in the op

 

[mechsicko]

My dirtrally2.exe doesn't seem to be loading dxgi.dll, so it's not activating ReShade for me. Did you have to rename it from the bundled files? I'm using the latest DR2.0 version from Steam, with the archive contents extracted into the DR2.0 directory.

It does seem to be linked to d3d11.dll so I think the vr eye accommodation fix is getting loaded OK.

Hey man, been a while hope all is well. There are folks using OpenXR these days to get DR2 to run better, but wanting to have eye accommodation work as well since it's kinda vital but they don't work together out of the box. Unfortunately your dll shim you made for reshade/eye accommodation doesn't work for it either so I'm not sure if it's a load order thing or the shim is addressed to reshade specifically.

Was wondering if you might be able to modify the shim to work with openxr or if it's possible to make one for it that will? I'm a hardware guy so when it comes to computer touching as far as I'm concerned, people like you that can whip 1's and 0's into doing something useful are basically wizards.

 

[Teussi]

Hey man, been a while hope all is well. There are folks using OpenXR these days to get DR2 to run better, but wanting to have eye accommodation work as well since it's kinda vital but they don't work together out of the box. Unfortunately your dll shim you made for reshade/eye accommodation doesn't work for it either so I'm not sure if it's a load order thing or the shim is addressed to reshade specifically.

Was wondering if you might be able to modify the shim to work with openxr or if it's possible to make one for it that will? I'm a hardware guy so when it comes to computer touching as far as I'm concerned, people like you that can whip 1's and 0's into doing something useful are basically wizards.

+1 to this. Tried allso get the eye accommodation to work with opencomposite, but its no go. in Opencombosite website they say to disable all the other mods. If it's possible it would great to have openxr + toolkit and eye accommodation work at the same time @obo

 

[Teussi]

This sim is both the most fun I've had racing in a few years, and the most frustrating at the same time. I have never got it running quite where I want it, and am constantly tweaking settings. HP Reverb, 2080 Ti, and i9-9900K. I probably have dozens of questions still, but I'll stick to a few for now:

1. I've been running the VR accommodation fix for a few weeks, but eventually, I disabled the vegetation shaders (overrideVegetationAtoC=0) because it was causing so much tree pop up, which was worse than the mesh/dithering on trees. In hardware_settings_config_vr.xml, I had tried increasing trees lod="0.75" to crazy high numbers like 5.0, and that improved it, but didn't solve it entirely. Is there another solution? Just now I'm remembering there are two other settings next to that, but I have not tried to change them: maxlod="0" meshes="true". Yes, setting that last one to false does kinda seem like an obvious fix, but maybe the alternative is worse EDIT: Just tried meshes="false", and certainly doesn't make it better; worse if anything. EDIT2: So I think I've found a solution to the tree popup after enabling vegetation shaders (overrideVegetationAtoC=1). I've got trees lod="2.0" (can maybe go a bit lower) like I did before, but the other thing I had to do is turn of AA entirely. Sounds weird, and I've bumped up Steam SuperSampling to make up for it to some degree, but now I've got zero mesh on trees AND zero tree popup!
2. Also in hardware_settings_config_vr.xml, there's a line I'm really curious about which is <graphics_card rating="2">. Is this actually doing anything? Makes me think that the number is related to a hidden preset.
3. Is it my imagination or do some graphics settings do absolutely nothing in VR? For instance, what is the setting called Track supposed to do? I'd think it would be related to the actual detail in the track surface, but whether I have it at its lowest or highest, the track surface looks like a blurry mess.

What supersampling you use in steamvr with MSAA OFF? really cant stand the shimmering when turning MSAA OFF. Even the 100-120 SS wont get it as good as currently MSAA 4x and supersampling 75%

 

[moogleslam]

What supersampling you use in steamvr with MSAA OFF? really cant stand the shimmering when turning MSAA OFF. Even the 100-120 SS wont get it as good as currently MSAA 4x and supersampling 75%

I think I was at about 170% in SteamVR with my Reverb G1.

I've made some further discoveries and changes, which is mostly covered in my Edit3 above, but I'll elaborate here. I've basically found 2 solutions to the mesh trees vs tree popup, so you don't actually have to deal with either:

1. Eye Accomodation Fix, AA off, high SteamVR SS to make up for lack of AA)
2. Eye accommodation Fix, 4x MSAA, low Steam SS (to allow resources to go to 4x MSAA)*

*Note that this will not work with only 2x MSAA; you will still get tree popup with that. Something definitely seems broken here because Off or 4x MSAA eliminates tree popup, but 2x MSAA doesn't?!?! That doesn't add up.

Neither are perfect, but they're both a lot better than dealing with mesh trees or tree popup. The issue with #1 is that while the overall image is really sharp due to SteamVR SS, as you say, you can get some shimmer/jaggies without AA. The issue with #2 is you can't run high SS in steam at the same time as 4x MSAA, so then you lose that overall sharpness.

If someone got the Eye Accommodation Fix working with OpenXR, that would gives us a bit more FPS to work with, or even better, if someone got Eye Accomodation Fix working with fholger's vrperkit, where we can use fixed foveated rendering, we'd have a huge amount of additional headroom, then could really solve all the issues at once.

EDIT: I initially posted this with tree lod = "2.0" as part of the solution with AA off, but I don't think that's needed any longer. Will test later to be sure.

 

[moogleslam]

Trying to get this sim to run well is going to be the death of me.

I seem to have caused eye accommodation fix to stop working. Even a fresh download and extract into the DiRT Rally 2.0 isn't enabling it again.

Think I could have done something to disable it with OpenXR, or with OpenComposite which does download it's own dll's somewhere?

Any ideas?

 

[Teussi]

Trying to get this sim to run well is going to be the death of me.

I seem to have caused eye accommodation fix to stop working. Even a fresh download and extract into the DiRT Rally 2.0 isn't enabling it again.

Think I could have done something to disable it with OpenXR, or with OpenComposite which does download it's own dll's somewhere?

Any ideas?

If nothing else works, uninstall and install dirt again. Remember to delete my documents --> my games --> dirt rally 2.0 also.
Had to do this once, cant remember what i fcked up then

 

[moogleslam]

This is a bit off topic, so I'll just link to my reddit post about it. I've discovered the source of all my stutter issues:

 

[Teussi]

This is a bit off topic, so I'll just link to my reddit post about it. I've discovered the source of all my stutter issues:

Nice find! I try also this fix later when i have time. Thanks in advance @moogleslam
EDIT: Please report after you done more testing your results!

 

[mechsicko]

This is a bit off topic, so I'll just link to my reddit post about it. I've discovered the source of all my stutter issues:

Whoa.. I think you may have stumbled onto something here with the Nvidia 3d settings/shader cache increase. I gave it a go and it was night and day smoother, no more inexplicable hitching. Thought I was imagining it so loaded up a few scenarios that are notoriously bad, Argentina night and Monaco night/snow. There's a few turns and areas in both locations that turn into a stuttering mess and it was super smooth, even after I cranked up a bunch of other settings in game after seeing how low the penalty is on most stuff from that chart.

 

[Teussi]

Whoa.. I think you may have stumbled onto something here with the Nvidia 3d settings/shader cache increase. I gave it a go and it was night and day smoother, no more inexplicable hitching. Thought I was imagining it so loaded up a few scenarios that are notoriously bad, Argentina night and Monaco night/snow. There's a few turns and areas in both locations that turn into a stuttering mess and it was super smooth, even after I cranked up a bunch of other settings in game after seeing how low the penalty is on most stuff from that chart.

Did you go with which amount? 10g, 100g ?

 

[moogleslam]

Hi guys, update from me. I briefly tried some stages again last night, and I could not replicate the completely smooth experience I'd had the night before, and the stutter was back. That was mega frustrating. How could it work one night, then not the next, despite zero changes to my PC, drivers, the game, etc. I don't think I even restarted or shut down my PC in that time, so the only difference was only restarting WMR/SteamVR/DR2. I had the "well no one is going to believe me now" thought enter my mind, so mechsicko's post confirming my finding's were very reassuring. Now I'm curious though if the smooth game play will persist for you, or if the stutters will come back like they have for me.

After the stutters returned, I tested a lot more things, including setting them to 10GB, off, deleting the shader folder itself, and nothing worked. I also ended up updating my graphics card drivers, and even went and tried OpenXR again, along with the OpenXR Toolkit. Tried removing reshade again, tried removing the eye accommodation fix again. Stutters at all times unless Shaders were set to Low in game.

I think we can conclude there's definitely an issue with Shaders, and it's certainly not that they're just too demanding for our CPU/GPU. Because two of us have now got the game working perfectly after the NVIDIA Control Panel Shader change, (albeit, briefly for me), it's more clear that something is just broken. Are they not being stored correctly, is the storage space too small, are they being fetched too often, too little, too late, are they becoming corrupted, or maybe corrupted through a specific set of circumstances, maybe initial creation is good, but something goes wrong when they're used the next time, etc......? I really don't know, and finding the answers to any of that is probably beyond my expertise.

One thing I did notice about Shader Detail = Low is that the game only looks horrendous when this is set in conjunction with 4x MSAA. If Shader Detail = Low is used with no MSAA, the graphics still have a huge step down, and look pretty bad/outdated, but at least it's not a total visual disaster when used in conjunction with 4x MSAA.

Another thing is I've been testing almost exclusively at the Germany Waldaufstieg stage because I just joined a club and they're running it this week. That's the first half of Oberstein. The first sector or so of Waldaufstieg/Oberstein is where I experience more problems than possibly any other stage in any other country. Therefore, it's very easy for me to see the performance issues here. That said, I did have this stage/sector running flawlessly after I first set Shader Cache Size to 100GB, even with lots of other settings turned up.

Super frustrating. More so because it might very well be truly out of our hands, and can only be fixed by a Codemasters programmer..... but we don't know that, so I keep torturing myself by trying to fix this for good lol.

I'm probably going to have limited time for testing anything else over the next 3 weeks as my family will be visiting. Will keep an eye on this topic. Good luck.

EDIT: As soon as I start thinking about this, I can't let it go. Not sure how relevant this is, but I don't know why Shader Cache Size is not listed under NVIDIA Program Settings for Dirt Rally 2.0 because I've seen this as game specific for many other games.

 

[mechsicko]

Did you go with which amount? 10g, 100g ?

I set it to 100gb for now. I only drove for less than an hour but it was fantastically smooth, even with everything pretty much cranked while driving combos that have sections that normally turn into a slide show.

I have an Index and found with the hmd at 120hz I can get DR2 running at >60fps and have it look gorgeous (3600/3070). So long as it's smooth it's glorious, if there's any hitching at all though it doesn't matter how many fps it says you're getting it's miserable. The hitching problem is why I stopped even trying to get good fps and instead opt for making it look as good as possible without dipping below 60, which reprojected to 120 is plenty comfortable.

Imo dumbing it down makes it look atrocious just to get solid 90 and then it hitches even worse than it does at 120hz, which always made me suspect some kind of clock sync issue on top of whatever other issues there are

Hi guys, update from me. I briefly tried some stages again last night, and I could not replicate the completely smooth experience I'd had the night before, and the stutter was back. That was mega frustrating. How could it work one night, then not the next, despite zero changes to my PC, drivers, the game, etc. I don't think I even restarted or shut down my PC in that time, so the only difference was only restarting WMR/SteamVR/DR2... -snip-


EDIT: As soon as I start thinking about this, I can't let it go. Not sure how relevant this is, but I don't know why Shader Cache Size is not listed under NVIDIA Program Settings for Dirt Rally 2.0 because I've seen this as game specific for many other games.

The only thing I can think of that would explain the inconsistency after upping the limit is the cache filling up and getting back to the same stack overflow mode that make it stutter. Anyhow, I hope you do keep plugging at this, I'll keep posting what I discover if any

 

[mechsicko]

-snip-

EDIT: As soon as I start thinking about this, I can't let it go. Not sure how relevant this is, but I don't know why Shader Cache Size is not listed under NVIDIA Program Settings for Dirt Rally 2.0 because I've seen this as game specific for many other games.

I've put some more hours across more days in on DR2 and the smoothness persists for me.. started pushing in Aus for some wr's and managed 2 (H2 rwd, Chandlers Creek/rev wet ^_^ and three or four P2's on other stages). Shader cache limit was a game changer for me. It seems to have smoothed out SteamVR in general, when I'm in other games and even demanding environments like Bag End everything is smoother and somehow looks sharper.

 

[kjracing81]

Looks like a fix for eye accomodation and opencomposite has been made!

GitHub - mbucchia/dr2vrfix-openxr: This project allows the use of the Dirt Rally 2 VR eye accomodation fix v2.0 with OpenComposite, the WMR OpenXR runtime and OpenXR Toolkit.

This project allows the use of the Dirt Rally 2 VR eye accomodation fix v2.0 with OpenComposite, the WMR OpenXR runtime and OpenXR Toolkit. - mbucchia/dr2vrfix-openxr

github.com

 

[Teussi]

Looks like a fix for eye accomodation and opencomposite has been made!

GitHub - mbucchia/dr2vrfix-openxr: This project allows the use of the Dirt Rally 2 VR eye accomodation fix v2.0 with OpenComposite, the WMR OpenXR runtime and OpenXR Toolkit.

This project allows the use of the Dirt Rally 2 VR eye accomodation fix v2.0 with OpenComposite, the WMR OpenXR runtime and OpenXR Toolkit. - mbucchia/dr2vrfix-openxr

github.com

If anyone have time to test this, report here!! I will not have acces to rig before weekend, so any feedback would be nice.

 

[kjracing81]

If anyone have time to test this, report here!! I will not have acces to rig before weekend, so any feedback would be nice.

I have tested, works perfectly for me on G2

 

[mechsicko]

If anyone have time to test this, report here!! I will not have acces to rig before weekend, so any feedback would be nice.

Haven't tested it fully as I'm still on SteamVR but I'm using the new .dll's and they work the same and didn't break anything. This means I can switch back and forth from openxr to steamvr without much hassle, important to me because I use SteamVR a lot outside of DR2 and have over 100gb of environments/destinations/homes from the workshop!

The shader cache increase has continued to provide a smooth experience in DR2 and SteamVR. Even after cranking up a bunch of settings in DR2.. honestly I've never had it look and run this good at the same time before.