PC2 VR Guide - Setup, Settings and general tips

[QWASZX]

Sorry for the long post, I wanted it to be as detailed as possible (within reason) so you get all the information I can share, hopefully this will help you get the best experience.

This guide will first cover some basic tips and general points, please ask for more details if needed.

Following the below section is the PCars 2 specific settings I use currently, after ~7 hours of testing.

Please note that the following settings are based on my HW specs, and as such, are probably NOT suitable for all PC configurations out there. No set of settings will ever be, as there are a lot of variables and HW variations. I will however point out the more demanding settings which will require lowering as needed.

My specs are : i7 7700K, 16gb RAM @2400, 1080 gtx, 500gb SSD, Oculus Rift CV1

Let’s go on with the first section:

1) Try to keep your Sim PC clean of any unnecessary apps/games/Anti-Virus as their running services could potentially use much needed system memory, CPU, HD/SSD and that should be avoided when possible to free-up as much system resources as you can.

If you identify services running that you do not need, kill them before running the game.

2) Turn off HDR under Display options (if you have it on for your main monitor)

3) Make sure you use High performance as the default Windows Power option. Disable HD power off, Disable USB Sleep, set CPU to 100% always.

4) If you have the ability to over-clock your CPU and GPU, please make sure you do so to the extreme, however, safest point you can. (I am not responsible for any damage that may occur to your system as a result of OC).

5) Make sure your PC cooling system is running at Max speed, both CPU and GPU.

6) Disconnect any USB device that is not needed. Even modern motherboards fail to smartly handle the power distribution to multiple USB devices, which in turn could deliver less power to the VR headset port.

A few helpful tips:

1) To launch the game directly to VR mode, create a desktop shortcut and point it to steam://launch/378860/othervr (for the Rift) or steam://launch/378860/vr (for the Vive)

2) Locate your Oculus debug tool or install the Oculus Tray Tool, you will need it to keep track of your FPS. Just make sure you select Visual HUD-->Performance before launching the game.

3) You should prevent Oculus Home from running in the background as it will consume valuable resources. You might need to start Oculus Home manually one time and dismiss the Health & Safety warning so you get into the lobby. This will also prevent Home from launching automatically when you put the HMD on…
Right-click the Oculus shortcut -> Properties -> Compatibility and down at the bottom check the box "Run this program as an administrator"

Section 2 – VR setup (Windows)

1) Make sure you download and install the latest nVidia display drivers

2) Don’t optimize the game using Geforce Experience

3) Make sure you have the latest Oculus drivers

4) In the nVidia control panel make sure you set the options as in the attached screenshot

5) Make sure you set SS (Super Sampling) in either the Tray tool or Debug tool to 1.0.
We will control SS from within the game.

6) Launch the game!

Section 3 – VR settings in game

1) Follow the screenshots attached to setup Performance, Visual FX and Camera

2) Camera FOV in important to prevent most of the object pop-ins and flickering. I set both Cockpit and Helmet to 82.

3) When using the Helmet view, it is advisable to disable the Helmet from rendering as it will use valuable FPS

4) Settings with most performance impact are (in order of severity):
Super Sampling, MSAA, Render Frames Ahead, Enviro Map, Detailed Grass, Shadows/Reflections/Texture Res/Texture filtering

5) Tradeoffs you want to be aware of:
- Prefer Texture Resolution to Shadow Detail
- Keep Detailed Grass to low if you have anything other than 1080ti.
- Texture Res will be best at Medium to gain a few FPS, go higher if you can.
- Keep V-Sync OFF
- If you have a 1080ti go with 1.3 SS, others – keep this at 1.0-1.2
- Reflections is important, try to go up to High if possible

6) Using the Performance HUD, watch your FPS and Performance Head Room. You want a steady (as possible) 90 FPS, and a Performance HR of (-5%) to (15%).
Test at a few tracks, and with ~10 cars grid.

7) With weather set to other than Clear, do a few tests as well. Lower the Particle Level and Particle Density to gain extra FPS if needed.

8) You should only drop down to ASW (45fps) for very short periods of time, if at all... Again, HW specs related of course.

9) Lower the settings of greater impact first, if needed

10) Don’t set your screen resolution to anything more than 1080p. This has impact on performance. You only want to be able to clearly read the menus.

That’s it guys, hope you enjoy this.

Feel free to ask anything.


D.

 

[Oops]

@QWASZX I can't thank you enough for sharing your settings, they are just what I was looking for I have spent a few long nights trying out differing settings of my own I was getting there with the frame rate but the headroom was doing my head in , nothing I seem to do had any effect until now I'm running between the -5% to 15% in your guide
I think preventing Oculus Home from running in the background is a big help for me process-wise.
so a big thank you

 

[QWASZX]

@QWASZX I can't thank you enough for sharing your settings, they are just what I was looking for I have spent a few long nights trying out differing settings of my own I was getting there with the frame rate but the headroom was doing my head in , nothing I seem to do had any effect until now I'm running between the -5% to 15% in your guide
I think preventing Oculus Home from running in the background is a big help for me process-wise.
so a big thank you

You are most welcome.
Hope you enjoy it.

Oculus Home not running in the background surely saves a few FPS. But please follow the rest to get the full potential.

Feel free to check back with me when needed.

 

[Rx4speed]

Your World Movement setting is not correct. The in-game description is misleading. When set on '0, this is viewed locked to the horizon and you will notice a lot of body movement in relation to the horizon. This is good if you have a motion rig, like the ones from Simxperience. When the car 'leans', you are sitting in your seat in front of your computer and your body does not move as it would in a real car. A motion rig simulates this.
In VR and with triples, however, 100 is the setting you are looking for, although some may prefer a little movement, as long as they don't get sick. I run 70-80. There is a great app for this stuff made for Assetto Corsa. It's called RealHeadMotiion Maybe someone will make one for PCars2

 

[QWASZX]

Your World Movement setting is not correct. The in-game description is misleading. When set on '0, this is viewed locked to the horizon and you will notice a lot of body movement in relation to the horizon. This is good if you have a motion rig, like the ones from Simxperience. When the car 'leans', you are sitting in your seat in front of your computer and your body does not move as it would in a real car. A motion rig simulates this.
In VR and with triples, however, 100 is the setting you are looking for, although some may prefer a little movement, as long as they don't get sick. I run 70-80. There is a great app for this stuff made for Assetto Corsa. It's called RealHeadMotiion Maybe someone will make one for PCars2

I should have been more clear on this..
These settings (and some others) are purely subjective, and are what I am used to.
Locking to horizon is what made me stop having motion sickness at the beginning, so I stick with it.
In regards to simulating real movement, you are correct.

 

[JoelGL]

...(snip)..
3) You should prevent Oculus Home from running in the background as it will consume valuable resources. You might need to start Oculus Home manually one time and dismiss the Health & Safety warning so you get into the lobby. This will also prevent Home from launching automatically when you put the HMD on…

TL,DR. If I turn off Oculus Home, image won't show up in my Rift. I'll review this later.

 

[QWASZX]

TL,DR. If I turn off Oculus Home, image won't show up in my Rift. I'll review this later.

Make sure the Oculus service starts up with Windows, easy and fast way to do this is to download the Tray tool and select Run at start up+start Oculus service on boot.

 

[Boneboys]

Set Oculus Home to start as admin for all users (option at bottom of Oculus properties page) you must start Oculus once, then close.
The game will then load in VR without having to open Oculus.
If you want to load from a Desktop link you must use a link from the steam.exe (main steam folder),,,not a link from the PC2 game library.
The target line for a Rift should read (If Steam is on C: drive) :

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" steam://launch/378860/othervr -silent

Tried & tested in Nvidia Control Panel 3D Settings.
These two have helped most in sustaining 90 FPS (+ or -).

1. Texture filtering negative lod bias set to clamp
2. Multi frame sampled AA = on

Also (as noted) Texture filtering quality = High Performance
*******************************
@ OP, one thing I do not understand your reasoning is this !

3) When using the Helmet view, it is advisable to disable the Helmet from rendering as it will use valuable FPS

Now why would I want to stop the helmet from rendering if I choose the helmet view ?
The sense of immersion while wearing a Rift or Vive with the helmet view selected is a stroke of magic from the game Devs and something I recommend to any that wear a VR headset.

For those cars that do not support a closed drivers helmet then choose the cockpit view.

Might help, might not

 

[QWASZX]

Now why would I want to stop the helmet from rendering if I choose the helmet view ?

If I remember correctly, if you disable the helmet in helmet view, you do still get the visor. This helps with FPS. But I could be wrong as I wrote that note to myself at the beginning of testing, a few days ago.

It has taken me a lot of time to both research and create this guide - I am still testing out more settings, mainly in the nVidia control panel.
I surely did not cover everything.

Also, creating a desktop shortcut and pointing it to the address I mentioned works flawlessly...

 

[JoelGL]

Scanning through this again, any reason not to lower resolution further, perhaps to 1280x720? I can still read menus fine with this in windowed mode. Unless it has no major bearing, then I can go back to 1920x1080. Just thinking it might help, though in other sims like AC, I believe this mirror resolution has no bearing in performance.

Also, you sure Camera angle settings have an effect on the VR view?

 

[JoelGL]

Your World Movement setting is not correct. The in-game description is misleading. When set on '0, this is viewed locked to the horizon and you will notice a lot of body movement in relation to the horizon. This is good if you have a motion rig, like the ones from Simxperience. When the car 'leans', you are sitting in your seat in front of your computer and your body does not move as it would in a real car. A motion rig simulates this.
In VR and with triples, however, 100 is the setting you are looking for, although some may prefer a little movement, as long as they don't get sick. I run 70-80. There is a great app for this stuff made for Assetto Corsa. It's called RealHeadMotiion Maybe someone will make one for PCars2

Yes, this is very subjective. I've always used RHM in AC w/ triples, but with the Rift, I couldn't find good settings that don't cause sickness so I don't use it. So in PC2 I also have it at 0. I'll perhaps try it again, first with low value.

Re your suggested settings, do you notice noticeable sharpness w/ Clamp? Also, for Texture Filter Quality, why 'High Quality' and not 'High Performance', if we're talking about better performance?

 

[QWASZX]

Scanning through this again, any reason not to lower resolution further, perhaps to 1280x720? I can still read menus fine with this in windowed mode. Unless it has no major bearing, then I can go back to 1920x1080. Just thinking it might help, though in other sims like AC, I believe this mirror resolution has no bearing in performance.

Also, you sure Camera angle settings have an effect on the VR view?

As I mentioned, 1080p is the highest I recommend setting the resolution - lower as you can, while still being able to read the menus clearly is advisable.

I chose to disable all camera movements. FOV does help with pop-in of objects, so yes, I feel it does have an impact.

 

[Boneboys]

Re your suggested settings, do you notice noticeable sharpness w/ Clamp? Also, for Texture Filter Quality, why 'High Quality' and not 'High Performance', if we're talking about better performance?

Ah, yes you are correct, my mistake please read High Performance.
With clamp active I did notice a difference when setting MSAA to low from medium and dropping SS to 1.0 rather than 1.2 (or 1.3) the boost in FPS was real, SS is the real killer in this game.

All this is subjective and really depends on what is happening in-game and in reality if ASW kicks in and you stay at 45 FPS the game runs very well, all things considered.

As for the guide, it's a good starting point, I have a GTX 1070 so some things I am running on low/med.

Thanks.

 

[Dennis Johnson]

Thank you,
I tried the settings mentioned above and they really helped a lot. I am for the most part staying at 90 fps. Headroom is around - 5 to 10% though. But this is much better than I was getting before

 

[QWASZX]

Thank you,
I tried the settings mentioned above and they really helped a lot. I am for the most part staying at 90 fps. Headroom is around - 5 to 10% though. But this is much better than I was getting before

You are welcome! Enjoy it.

 

[MSKbeans]

I got an fx8350 and gtx 1070. Using the debug tool for me sucks, tells me don't bother playing if try to hit 90 FPS all the time or close too.
Raise the settings so get 45 with asw in the rain 14- 16 cars around you.
I'm at 1.5ss. Pixel density med and high. Shadows off reflections low. AA 16/4 times respectively.
Rest settings, play with them till get good visuals.
I even stream.
So unless you want to be an FPS monster, "MUST HIT MAX FPS" pointless your not getting the best from your system.

 

[Keith Gregg]

Excellent stuff!!!...many, MANY thanks

 

[QWASZX]

Excellent stuff!!!...many, MANY thanks

You are welcome! Enjoy it.
Hoping to get a few more tweaks by next week.

 

[Zero7159]

I tried the recommended settings, with SS at 1.3 because I have a 1080ti. I noticed a lot of aliasing compared to my previous settings where I was running SS at 1.5 and MSAA at Medium. I am going to try and keep the recommended graphics settings, but I am going to bump the SS back up to 1.5 and MSAA at Medium. Hopefully that will get rid of the visible aliasing. That probably means I will be running at the ASW 45 FPS, but to be candid, I cannot tell the difference when the game is running at 90 FPS, versus 45 FPS with ASW enabled.

 

[nepal roade]

Set Oculus Home to start as admin for all users (option at bottom of Oculus properties page) you must start Oculus once, then close.
The game will then load in VR without having to open Oculus.

Have not been able to do this, the window that shows Oculus 'Store' and 'Library' at the top of its window when closed closes down my Rift with a warning that I won't be able to use my HMD. Can you please be totally explicit in your description of these options so I can find them.

the same problem with

"Make sure the Oculus service starts up with Windows, easy and fast way to do this is to download the Tray tool and select Run at start up+start Oculus service on boot."

I have the Oculus Tray Tool app, ver 0.81.1 and there is no option "start Oculus service on boot." sorry if I'm being dense but these suggestions need to be precise.