What exactly does VR do to help you drive well?
Here goes, its a divisive topic.. because if you have a machine that cannot deliver clean crisp smooth VR, the experience is VERY different.. puke-a-tronically different..
it adds natural view, you can look around corners the way you normally would, and yes I know that on triple screen this is somewhat covered to your peripheral vision, but unless your triple setup is 3 X 40' monitors and you are INSIDE the screens, its still only a close second place.. things like looking into a corner are simulated on screens of course, but are highly unnatural because it looks with the wheel, so when you hit SS's its just weird, like you are drunk. You are INSIDE the game, you cannot look over the monitors, around the monitors, you cannot even see your real steering wheel, you see the cars one.. You cannot even see your wife looking at you disapprovingly wondering why she is married to a grown up child playing car games.. if setup properly in a sim rig, the wheel, the drivers arms, are your wheel and your arms. the immersion is complete. (or as complete as it will get playing like this), the whole car interior exists, its not just a bit of a thing you see when you hit the look left/right buttons.
then of course, the big ticket sale, FOV.. no dicking around to get it right, its already right. the sense of speeds is perfect, exciting even..
All added up, I can practice a track till I cannot squeeze an extra 0.1s out of it, hop in vr and consistently knock 1-2s more off in my first run, and then improve. going back to screens i slow down again. Overtakes can be a LOT closer, depth perspective is a lot better.
its like drugs and sex.. you cant explain to someone how good it is if they have never done it. But. I tried.
Triples, the best "lean" in any game I have, see after hell corner and into the top, now if you could add anopther set of triples above and below these three you would be getting close to VR perhaps.
in VR, the view is static, all the motion is from my actual head. (in game, from my perspective in my brain, the horizon is dead flat, the motion is on the screen mirror). Note that because of how VR mirrors the view the perspective is incorrect in this clip, so do not judge on that.
Caveats: The downsides are that currently VR tech is quite low resolution, compared to 3 x 1440p monitors, and all added up, the cost of a triple stand plus 3 monitors rivals the cost of just VR (the card required to run either is still the same, expensive). The visual experience on triples is still better (with my current tech)
Not all VR is born the same, the tracking from my Oculus is just rubbish, my view keeps drifting off sideways etc. but from my Vive FAR better.. rock solid. Gave the oculus to my kids. Vive is a lot more expensive though.
Wearing a heavy ass helmet on your head can distract from immersion (arguably it can feel like an actual helmet on your head), as it can get hot and sweaty in there, and if you wear glasses can be awkward.
Not all games support VR well, PC2, AMS2 can do VR very well, madness engine is good at it, the vr in ACC and DR2 is spectacular, -IF- you have a machine that can run it at high to ultra settings (4.5ghz+ CPU and 2080ti min spec), but other games with lesser graphics, like AC, KartKraft, are passable if you have graphics mods, then games like RF2 for example are just crap, no matter what you try, i prefer rf2 on screen. (more the pity..)
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