Just got Oculus Rift

[Reggietx]

Hey all.
Just picked up my Oculus CV1 last Monday, gotta say, it's a game changer. All discussions about FOV, resolution, etc, aside, I'm blown away. I've been playing with a triple widescreen and Track
IR5 and was quite satisfied. The big screens and TrackIr5 seemed to be plenty enough and I enjoyed many hours of racing with no urge to expand further. Then I saw a VR green screen video and had to head out to the local Best Buy ( no endorsement, btw ) and bought a CV1 cold, because they didn't have a demo on the floor, and only two were available at the time. Talk about weak willed. Took until two days ago to iron out the little problems that always pop up, and as of today, it is working almost flawlessly.
The immersion is total, all visual flaws disappear as soon as you roll out on your first drive. It only gets better with other cars on track. You can see your lines and apexes so much better, and looking at other cars near you is really awesome. Everything changes. Everything! Just finished a Truck race at Spa, Whoo boy, I think I like it better than some cars! Then I ran the Truck around Lake Louise just for giggles. Unreal. It's too bad the darn thing is so expensive, it really is the way to go. I am running a GTX1080 ( another weak moment ), and have taken down the triples. 90+fps, no problem.

 

[JamesU]

I've been looking at both the Vive and Rift for a little while and i'm edging towards the Rift for many reasons.

Can you just let me know your specs and what you're running at in AC? (Settings wise)

I'm running

i5 4980k
XFX Radeon R9 390 8GB
8GB Ram.

 

[Mark Saunders]

I'm running pretty much the same as you James with the Rift, as below. I further endorse the above statements that it is a complete game changer for immersion, especially when racing side by side. In terms of Rift vs Vive, the Rift has an all round higher quality headset in terms of the actual view port but the Vive allows for better and more accurate room scale (and had touch controllers but the Rift equivalent will be out before the end of the year). That said, I live in England so our room sizes aren't exactly massive. I can move around the 6ft*6ft floor space I have available without issue with a Rift but if you have a larger play space, the Vive will give you less headaches.

In terms of VR in general, for normal games, it's very much a first generation product. There are issues which rule out certain types of games for most people i.e. FPS games/fast motion and AAA developers aren't going to chase after this until more headsets sell.

That said, when it works, it's truly phenomenal and the best types of experiences for it are all cockpit based. Therefore, I bought Elite Dangerous and race in AC with it and it's properly stunning. I managed to justify the purchase as I'm developing for it; most people will have to justify it based on the number of hours they will use for it. If you race a lot with VR compatible titles, that will ease your choice.


There are a few issues with it though; there is an option for supersampling in the rift which basically just renders at a higher resolution and then down scales and it's a big big difference in reducing issues with blurriness. I've found it needs to go at minimum of 1.5x which means instead of 960*1080 per eye, it's having to render 1440*1620, as well as the higher frame rate required, and the need for rendering to two places at once (the extra monitor render is something daft like 0.5% increase so can discount that). So if you're currently used to 1080p 60Hz, you can imagine the extra processing overhead and thus, how much the options will need to be tuned down.

As a result of this, for hotlapping, 90FPS is easy with settings mostly on medium but with online 22 car races, I have to drop a number of settings to low and still off the line for the first couple of sectors, I just put up with 45FPS as more cars are around me. It's far from ideal but it really does require that much extra grunt. I run the below settings but I should mention, I'm aiming them toward 22cars and as much stability as possible. I know some of them can go up a fair amount.

i7-3770,
16GB 2Ghz RAM (iirc),
MSi R9 390 8GB.

2x AA <-- massive graphical difference, must stay on.
Medium world detail
Medium shadow resolution

Low smoke generation
Tick show smoke in mirrors
Disabled post-processing

Normal mirror
Tick high quality mirror
Medium reflection quality
Low reflection rendering frequency

 

[JamesU]

Thanks for that dude.

To be honest, i'm gonna get it regardless of how many games i have. Even if i play it just for AC then i'll be happy.

I do have Elite Dangerous too, so i could give that a blast.

I think the best thing for me to do is buy the rift, then see what needs upgrading if i really feel the need!