Unreal engine 5 performance in VR

[commandant.brioche]

Was unreal engine 5 designed with VR in mind?
I'm not sure if it's the case or not with ue4 but ACC performance is far from great in VR

 

[BrightCandle]

This is a big concern because UE4 even when it run well for VR games look terrible because it was always deferred rendering. I don't know if UE5 has a forward+ renderer and what the cost of switching it is. I suspect UE5 continues with its focus on making console games and hence will have the same problems.

 

[steevee]

Forward Shading Renderer in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.0 Documentation

Looks like forward rendering is supported in UE5

 

[StefanoCasillo]

Forward Shading Renderer in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.0 Documentation

Looks like forward rendering is supported in UE5

Forward Rendering is also "supported" in UE4.. all you have to do is actually read the article you just posted to find:

Known Issues & Common Questions​

The following features are not supported while using the Forward Renderer:

• Screen Space Techniques (SSR, SSAO, Contact Shadows)
• Dynamically Shadowed Translucency
• Translucency receiving environment shadows from a Stationary Light
• MSAA on D-Buffer Decals and Motion Blur

The first line is basically everything essential to render a car paint that doesn't look like it's coming straight from 2005.

 

[BrightCandle]

forward!=forward+ its an important distinction. Besides large swathes of Unreal Engine don't work in Forward rendering mode so its pretty worthless, doesn't look like its changed. So expect VR on Unreal 5 to continue to be a problem.

 

[gamma123152]

There is no word on VR yet. If there is no VR or if there is bad performing VR like ACC has, then this game will be a disaster.

It's proven by ACC that UE implemented without forward rendering isn't the engine+rendering choice to choose for a race sim, because of the limitation that StefanoCasillo described here.

In 2022 the focus must lay on perfect VR performance, without this the sim will be doomed from the start, no matter how good the rest is. So let's hope that they choose from the start for UE5 with forward rendering. Then it could be good. The first gameplay video looks great, so there is hope that they are working on something good!

 

[Olivier Mandavy]

Why support VR? It is only 1% of the sales

 

[gamma123152]

Why support VR? It is only 1% of the sales

You're trolling here right?

The last poll on RaceDepartment showed that ~40% of the sim racers use VR. And that was ~1 year ago. It's probably now ~50%+ and growing.

 

[gamma123152]

Update guys... From a post of: this newspost reply from "Wolfzz": https://www.racedepartment.com/news...acing-simulator.623/?page=7#ams-comment-34210

"RENNSPORT uses Unreal Engine 5, after starting development in 2020 with the previous Unreal Engine 4.".

In that case we can all forget about good VR support, so we can forget about Rennsport.

Because if they started with UE4 then they started with deferred rendering instead of forward rendering and continued with it probably. Deferred rendering is a disaster for VR users(see ACC). Yes it's an assumption of me at this point, so it's still possible that I'm wrong, but I don't think that I am since everything looks like deferred rendering right now.

I give up on Rennsport for this reason.

Let's hope that AC2 is the next big thing with focus on VR, if not then I will keep enjoying AMS2 and a little bit RF2 too (great in VR too with OpenXR toolkit+OpenComposite).

 

[Deleted member 197115]

You're trolling here right?

The last poll on RaceDepartment showed that ~40% of the sim racers use VR. And that was ~1 year ago. It's probably now ~50%+ and growing.

Petty sure it's opposed and the number dropped. Judging by myself and a few I know.

 

[gamma123152]

I know that you're on the anti-VR side, because you're mainly driving ACC from what I understood. With ACC you don't really have a choice, since that title is extremely terrible in VR, for that reason I don't drive in ACC anymore, it's not worth it for me. That game simply doesn't work properly with VR. All other sims are since the last 2 month's WAY better then they ever were before, this because foveated rendering+OpenXR+FSR/NIS are all now finally working in almost all other race sims.

In AC/AMS2/RF2/DR2/iRacing(haven't tested the last myself) foveated rendering/Openxr/fsr/nis finally works, it gives an performance gain from 30% to 100% depending on the title on my Reverb G2 (100% only with DR2, because of the bugs that it had with SteamVr, the combi FSR+FR+SteamVRbypass(OpenXR) doubled the performance(maybe even more, I went from ~50% res with low settings to 100%+4xMSAA high settings)).

So I expect VR to grow even faster from now on once this knowledge is spread in the community. Hereby comes the fact that the Nvidia 4000 series is getting nearer, this is also mandatory to get the max out of the VR glasses, the 3090 isn't able to run fullres/settings on the Reverb G2 for example. Once the 4000 series are out, ACC in VR will be great too I expect. But this knowledge(OpenXR+FF+scaling) isn't really spread yet, it all takes time.

But even if it's dropped as you assume(which I don't assume, VR is the future for sim racing and is more alive then ever from what I read in the community, if you're able to look past ACC then deep in your mind(difficult to ask you, as ACC enthousiast, I know) you know that too, especially now that the 4080/4090 are going to get released within a year), and it's now 33% as you maybe assume.. Even then it's still a HUGE part; a third of the serious sim racing community is a huge amount. A number that cannot be ignored. 33% or 50%, who knows, but even if it's 25% then it's still a huge number that a sim racing developer can't ignore. It's then a quater of their market. So I don't get the point that you're trying to make here at all?

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I believe my AC VR guide is still pinned on CSP discord, and ACC VR configs had seen heavy use by the community. Just a reference point so you don't assume.
Life is easier and better looking on Ultrawide, no matter the sim, ACC, AC, R3E, DR2, or AMS2.

 

[gamma123152]

I believe my AC VR guide is still pinned on CSP discord, and AC VR configs had seen heavy use by the community. Just a reference point so you don't assume.
Life is easier and better looking on Ultrawide, no matter the sim, ACC, AC, R3E, DR2, or AMS2.

"I believe my AC VR guide is still pinned on CSP discord," So? What's your point with that? I know that you was active in VR also regarding ACC too, but no matter how popular your tweaks are/were, they aren't good enough for ACC. That's why you moved to pancake, because you simply couldn't get it right and I couldn't get it right either in ACC. ACC is simply flawed with VR. Regarding AC: They are outdated if you didn't add foveated rendering to that, no idea if you did or not. I wouldn't care either because I have my own settings. I don't understand what "your AC tweaks in Discord" have to do with this subject at all, what are you trying to prove here? I think nobody knows.

"Life is easier and better looking on Ultrawide, no matter the sim, ACC, AC, R3E, DR2, or AMS2."
For you it is, it's your personal obsession. For me ultrawide doesn't even get a little bit close in for example AMS2/AC and DR2. And that's the case for many many others. That you prefer Ultrawide is up to you, but VR users don't care about that, it's just your personal thing. I see sim racing moving more and more to VR(except ACC of course). This was also proven by the last poll on RaceDepartment. Your assumption isn't proven with numbers and you still didn't make a single point in this thread, your gut feelings are based on nothing and don't contribute to this topic in any way.

As I said, and you don't seem to understand this so I explain it to you again: Even if it's going down with large amounts(it isn't, but you just have a gut feeling about it somehow...) then it would still remain to be a huge portion. Fact is that there are many VR users in the sim community, if this is 25%, 40% as the last poll said or 50% doesn't really matter as I explained to you earlier. Because even IF it's just a quater then it's still a huge amount of sim racers, so you're wasting space here once again.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Grasshoppers.

 

[StefanoCasillo]

I know that you're on the anti-VR side, because you're mainly driving ACC from what I understood. With ACC you don't really have a choice, since that title is extremely terrible in VR

still one of the most played and commercially succesfull racing game to date.. which automatically invalidates your premise that VR is some kind of "must have".

 

[BrightCandle]

still one of the most played and commercially succesfull racing game to date.. which automatically invalidates your premise that VR is some kind of "must have".

If that is your reason I hate to tell you this but there are currently 8229 players in Assetto Corsa and 2497 in Assetto Corsa Competizone. By those numbers if it was entirely about VR then VR players outnumber monitor players 4 to 1.

ACC is not one of the most played racing games, its probably third behind iRacing (10k players apparently) and AC of the sims, excluding games like Formula 1 which has 7807. Even CarX Drift Racing has more players at 3027! Its not the top played racing game, not by a long shot.

Good VR support absolutely matters to a game and UE5 is a bad base and deferred rendering especially is. We learnt from ACC that having VR support != usable VR support.

 

[StefanoCasillo]

ACC is not one of the most played racing games, its probably third behind iRacing

"third" is one way to say "one of the most played racing games"

 

[Olivier Mandavy]

Let's say, today, the VR is a nice to have.

At the moment if you want to use VR in a simracing game then go for AMS2.
And also R3E, old game but the VR works pretty well.

 

[gamma123152]

"third" is one way to say "one of the most played racing games"

So you completely missed his point? His point was mainly the first part: "If that is your reason I hate to tell you this but there are currently 8229 players in Assetto Corsa and 2497 in Assetto Corsa Competizone. By those numbers if it was entirely about VR then VR players outnumber monitor players 4 to 1."

I respect you a lot StefanoCasillo because I know who you are and what you contribured to simracing (more then everyone here probably). But there is zero logic in what you say/conclude here.

You have no idea how much players ACC would have had if it had close to perfect VR support as AMS2/AC1/iRacing has for example. I don't play ACC because of it's bad VR support, and I know many others that also don't play ACC for that single reason only. Maybe ACC would have had 2 or 3 times it's player base with proper VR support, who knows? You don't know this and I don't know this either, but I think that BrightCandle made a great point here and your conclusion is simply flawed here.

Fact is that good VR support in 2022 is mandatory simply because a huge numer of sim racers are "VR only racers".

 

[Deleted member 197115]

If that is your reason I hate to tell you this but there are currently 8229 players in Assetto Corsa and 2497 in Assetto Corsa Competizone. By those numbers if it was entirely about VR then VR players outnumber monitor players 4 to 1.

ACC is not one of the most played racing games, its probably third behind iRacing (10k players apparently) and AC of the sims, excluding games like Formula 1 which has 7807. Even CarX Drift Racing has more players at 3027! Its not the top played racing game, not by a long shot.

Good VR support absolutely matters to a game and UE5 is a bad base and deferred rendering especially is. We learnt from ACC that hacing VR support != usable VR support.

My experience that ACC VR was just as serviceable as AC, and much more consistent in different conditions when in AC weather conditions and especially night could throw performance out of the window completely and would require separate settings altogether to still maintain fps target.
Plus we all know that AC enjoys higher player base because of the variety of content including some nice mods, but if you are serious about GT3/4 racing, the quality is just not there, ACC just walks over it.