VR performance in Racesims (including "next" gen VR)

[HoiHman]

I have been a VR enthusiast from the beginning.

I bought a Oculus Rift CV1 at launch day and it has served me well over the last 3 years, but.... the image quality and performance compared to a monitor is terrible.

So in those 3 years i upgraded from an Intel I7-4770K to an Intel I7-7700K, sold the GTX1080 and bought a 1080Ti.

For upcoming new HMD's i did another couple of hardware upgrades:

-The 1080Ti has been replaces by a 2080Ti
-The I7-7700K is overclocked to 4,7Ghz
-DDR4 memory runs now on 3200Mhz


My system gets a 11.000 score in VR benchmarks




Still i'm struggling with every single race sim between having a decent performance and good image quality. Even though my PC is "better than 92% of all results"

Most race sims are running most of the time locked at 45PFS with ASW enabled. Mainly because i run them with higher multisampling settings to compensate for the low image quality in the rift.

Yesterday i tried ACC.

The 1.0 release of Assetto Corsa Competizione is the worst of them all. I did a fresh install yesterday and set the game at the lowest settings, Steam VR settings are at 100% and i'm still not getting 90fps at the start in Spa with 20AI.

At those low settings the game looks worse than Grandprix 4 on a 1024x768 monitor more than 20 years ago.

The strange thing is that even with ASW disabled, i'm still getting not more that 65-70% load on both my GPU and CPU.

On my 34" widescreen monitor ACC runs like a dream and looks drop dead gorgeous.

I'm all in on the whole VR and simracing combo, but having suffered the low image quality of VR for the last 3 years i'm kind of growing tired of it.

Because i love VR, i invested in both a HP Reverb and a Valve Index and will decide which one is best. However my latest experience in ACC lets me to believe that with 2080Ti, both headsets will struggle to maintain a steady fps.

The main selling point of the Reverb is the number of pixels, but i doubt that a 2080Ti will be fast enough to run any simrace game with 20 cars on track at 90fps.

The main selling point of the Index is it's refresh rate, but again i don't think that a single 2080Ti will be able to deliver a 120fps frame rate in most of the current race sims with other cars on track.

Now we are starting to see all these reviews of the new gen HMD, but most of them are for normal games, not the high-end demanding racesims we use.

With my current hardware spec, i don't see any useful upgrade that would really boost my performance even more.

So my conclusion is: VR performance in race sims sucks, even if you have a high-end PC.

How's your performance in VR and what's your VR benchmark score?

 

[Stevie_007]

ACC in vr is a shambles atm, i have a i9 9900k and gtx1080ti with a pimax and assetto corsa with 20 cars runs like a dream not acc, those games are cpu limited though. i did just upgrade from a i7 4790k at 4.9 to the 9900k and my performance is so much better

 

[wajdi]

You need a 3000$ to run these new gen VR. Lol
The 2080Ti here is Israel alone costs 1700$.

 

[HoiHman]

ACC in vr is a shambles atm, i have a i9 9900k and gtx1080ti with a pimax and assetto corsa with 20 cars runs like a dream not acc, those games are cpu limited though. i did just upgrade from a i7 4790k at 4.9 to the 9900k and my performance is so much better

What supersampling settings are you running Steve?

 

[Mascot]

980Ti/6600k (both stock) and CV1 here.
I generally only play AC.
Like you @HoiHman I have high graphical settings inc 1.5 SS and am happy with 45/ASW.
Performance depends greatly on car and track combos. If the track is well optimised and the cars have at least one LoD I can run big fields against AI without a stutter, eg 26 AI Mini Coopers at Okutama with balloons and helicopters (dry, daytime, Sol) is one of my favourite combos, I've also got a race preset at Spa that has 22 different GT3 opponents, most of them mods, and again it never drops below 45/ASW.
The new CM/CSP CPU/GPU optimisations for large AI grids are incredible - better than vanilla AC, even with all CSP bells and whistles enabled.
With some cars and some tracks I'm only getting 50-odd fps while hot-lapping solo.

I tried ACC a few months ago and performance was godawful, and it's supposed to be even worse in the release version. I haven't even bothered firing it up since.

 

[Stevie_007]

https://forum.pimaxvr.com/t/the-gpu...-world-it-works-in-steamvr-games-too/19960/17

Have a try of this also, it’s not just a pimax problem seems to work on other headsets

 

[Mascot]

https://forum.pimaxvr.com/t/the-gpu...-world-it-works-in-steamvr-games-too/19960/17

Have a try of this also, it’s not just a pimax problem seems to work on other headsets

Lots of guff in that thread and it's a Friday afternoon so my brain is fried: what exactly
is the suggestion?

 

[Deleted member 197115]

9900k, 1080Ti, AC with shader patch and SOL and I can do night racing in thunderstorm with 16 cars 90 fps, no reprojection.
Odyssey+ 210% SS, everything is pretty much on max. Ilja and team did tremendous job optimizing this thing, 9900k helps as well.
ACC in current state just no go performance wise, flat screen or VR. And to be honest, to my eyes AC with shaders looks better.

 

[Stevie_007]

basically it looks like there is a nvidia bug whereby the gpu is not being fully utilised, so gpu is only being used 60% then via resetting afterburner/precision the gpu usage goes up to 99% and gains 20fps. watch one of swevivers youtube videos he explains it

 

[RCHeliguy]

I understand what you are saying.
So far everything I've seen on my computer is CPU bottlenecked even with my i9-9900K and memory running at 3200 MHz. The 1080Ti can be maxed out in PC2 at high SS, but at 1.6 both my CPU and GPU appear to be running well. Dirt Rally can be run at up to 1.4 SS since I boosted my Memory clock speed, however it is mostly CPU bottlenecked. BTW that is running at native 90fps, not with ASW.

Playing In Death, Beat Saber, etc.. I have SS set to 2.0 which is as high as it goes and the CPU's and my GPU are not even running hard.

What I've been reading is that there is new support coming that will finally start to unlock the RTX pipelines that are basically going to waste right now.

This is my take on things.
With my upcoming Index I'll be don't expect to be running much or any SS, however I believe that will allow me to run either 60fps reprojected to 120fps, or 72 fps reprojected to 144 fps.

I know that reprojected frame rates are not quite as good real frames, but if I can run native 90fps right now with my computer with some SS, I think it is a reasonable stretch.

Given my current performance in all my non-sim games, I'm quite sure I'll enjoy them even quite a bit.

 

[Mr Latte]

It started a niche market, it still is and that's part of the problem.
I enjoyed some VR experiences with the Rift and only a GTX1070 with i7 @4.6Ghz
The specs are starting to date now...

Sim Developers may want to support it but really it's not a priority for them based on user numbers. As highlighted, even buying some very expensive hardware they will still not manage to deliver an experience that most would deem worth the current price/performance ratio. I certainly wouldn't be buying a 2080Ti for VR usage, (as a primary reason to get one) when it still does not deliver enough grunt with the current way VR is working.

Valve Index is the direction I will go, based on FPS, support, new controllers and FOV with improved visuals without it having the extra GPU demands that the HP Reverb or other units have.

However, I will be buying one of THESE and hold out to see what comes after the 2080Ti
I want RTX and HDR on a nice monitor too while still having good VR performance.

 

[RCHeliguy]

A 2D monitor ????? The horror!!!!!!!

 

[HoiHman]

In AC i'm running a 2.5 SS in VR and still maintain a "decent" 45fps with ASW.

I have been playing a lot on the 2D monitor lately. Mounted on the motion rig directly behind the wheel, the monitor is awesome and super sharp, but...

Tonight i drove through the LA Canyons and that's something special in VR. AC with 2.5 SS looks really good and i can't wait to give this a try in the HP Reverb. (hopefully next week)

I believe the HP Reverb has around 3x the pixels of the rift, so i might need lower rendering settings than the native resolution in order to keep it drive-able

I will stay away from ACC, like i did in the past. AC looks like the better game anyway with all the mods and tracks available and about 2-3x the performance in VR.

I'm curious about the performance difference that can be expected when upgrading from a I7 7700K @4,7 to a 9900K

Since with the oculus, some opitons in SteamVR are not working. I'm also curious how good the smoothing in steamVR is compared to the ASW of Oculus.

 

[Asterix]

It started a niche market, it still is and that's part of the problem.
I enjoyed some VR experiences with the Rift and only a GTX1070 with i7 @4.6Ghz
The specs are starting to date now...

Sim Developers may want to support it but really it's not a priority for them based on user numbers. As highlighted, even buying some very expensive hardware they will still not manage to deliver an experience that most would deem worth the current price/performance ratio. I certainly wouldn't be buying a 2080Ti for VR usage, (as a primary reason to get one) when it still does not deliver enough grunt with the current way VR is working.

Valve Index is the direction I will go, based on FPS, support, new controllers and FOV with improved visuals without it having the extra GPU demands that the HP Reverb or other units have.

However, I will be buying one of THESE and hold out to see what comes after the 2080Ti
I want RTX and HDR on a nice monitor too while still having good VR performance.

Non-VR user here.

Compared to some of the race sims, what are the best optimised specific VR games like performance and graphics wise?

 

[Mr Latte]

Henk while the HP is going to give the sharper image, the RGB subpixels and still decent resolution bump in the Index along with its better software/support, monitoring and framerates to me make it the much better "gaming" VR solution.

I would be certain more people will take the hit in resolution drop of the HP but still enjoy the improvement over the Oculus and prefer to run with higher framerates.

We will see but more I read into it the more it seemed too demanding and if any headset looks to get the future backing from developers for PC it appears to be going now in the Valve direction with Oculus reaching more towards the portable and media sectors than PC gaming.

I personally wasnt convinced with Pimax and how long they may be about or the influence they would have in the market. Taking everything into account the Index looks to be a great VR headset and nice boost in performance over the Rift which may tempt VR newcomers as well.

 

[Mr Latte]

Interesting read....
oVer heRe

 

[HoiHman]

Interesting read....
oVer heRe

Quite the opposite of the video review i just posted in the Reverb review topic in which the reviewer speaks of edge to edge clarity. There's only one way to truly judge the HMD, by trying it out yourself.

Performance wise there's hope since the Reverb will also support a 60hz mode

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Non-VR user here.

Compared to some of the race sims, what are the best optimised specific VR games like performance and graphics wise?

AC with CSP (custom shader patch) by x4fab (Ilja) and SOL from Peter of course.
Best graphics and performance.
Some say iRacing is pretty good too, can't tell as cancelled my subscription before venturing into VR, flat screen was okay.

 

[Mr Latte]

Quite the opposite of the video review i just posted in the Reverb review topic in which the reviewer speaks of edge to edge clarity. There's only one way to truly judge the HMD, by trying it out yourself.

Performance wise there's hope since the Reverb will also support a 60hz mode

You can afford both, but 120Hz will change things too and the immersion I believe over just the resolution or sharpness of the image. Also the wider FOV.

People with 120Hz 1440p monitors did not go jumping into 60Hz 4K gaming.
One unit is developed for "gamers" the other is not and the visual clarity is only one aspect not to get too, caught up in. Watch the TESTED video as they cover a lot of interesting aspects having tried them all.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Gosh, 120hz or 144hz in VR, only person who doesn't own VR can be naive enough to believe that this can work. Just as useful as Index frunk or front cameras.