How to Play, Set, Review of iRacing with VR (Oculus Quest 2)
Updated on 2021/03/28 I added the last section “How to align the view from the cockpit” and “How about the FOV?”
You can see my 3-display system from the above link.
I enjoy the iRacing with below products
Oculus Quest 2
FANATEC Podium DD1
FANATEC Clubsports Steering Wheel Formula V2
FANATEC CSL Elite Pedals LC
December 2020, I bought Oculus Quest 2 and I use it for the PC game, iRacing. When playing the racing game, I think, many people may choose the 3 displays instead of VR. However, the 3 displays need a wide space and consideration of designing fixing the displays thus they prevented me to choose them. And in Japan, if I asked the Twitter followers, they often say I need over 144Hz displays, and 27 inches is better, IPS or VA type are better. Applying those opinions will pressure the cost.
So I selected Oculus Quest 2, because it doesn’t require the space and cost less than 3 displays. I got it and I played iRacing with it for about 1 month. And my conclusion is, this combination is good for now. So I wrote the setup and what I felt during playing here.
<iRacing Official>
Impression for my Oculus Quest 2 with iRacing
Positive
・I can feel the track around me.
・Considering the sense of immersion, VR is best for racing games.
・Personally, it’s no problem with the “angle of view.” Someone who have Pimax (high-end 8K VR) said, “it’s like a swimming goggle.” It’s true but I don’t care when I play iRacing. When I move my head, I can clearly see inside and around the car.
・No negative effect on lap times during a race. (but… please refer “negative”)
Neutral
・I felt VR sickness when I float the head from the headrest. If I put my head on the headrest, it’s no problem with the VR sickness.
Negative
・The headband is tight to fix steadily.
・ Not good accessibility reduces my race practice, which could affect my skill of racing.(I’ll write how to start the race below)
・I want more clear view quality. The contrast and vividness of the view are little bit vague. But I won’t say louder because the Oculus quest 2 is very reasonable.・After using the VR, I want to have wheel which has a lot of buttons instead of a switch box because I don’t need to find the location of a button. So I changed the Steering Wheel from FANATEC F1 Esports to Formula V2 Steering.
My Setup
First of all, the USB cable that comes with the normal Oculus Quest 2 is a 1m cable that is not USB3.0 as shown in the left picture. I managed to do iRacing with the attached cable, but it’s quite difficult to connect a PC and Oculus Quest 2 and play a racing game with the 1m cable.
Soon I ordered a USB3.0 cable. Now the transfer rate has increased and I can now use the 90Hz mode instead of the normal 70Hz reflash rate.
My PC spec is the Ryzen 5 3500 and 2070 Super. I’ll write more precisely at the next.
Spec of My PC
Unit Japanese yen ($1=around 100yen)
Windows 10 14,000
CPU (AMD Ryzen 5 3500) 13,980
Mother board (AsRock B450) 9,300
SSD (Western Digital SSD 500GB WD Blue SN550 PC M.2–2280 NVMe WDS500G2B0C-EC) 7,980
Memory (Crucial by Micron W4U2666CM-8G) 7,280
Cooling Fin and Fan (KOTETSU MARK2) 3,580
PC Box (Fractal design define 5) 10,980
Power (Antec NE750 GOLD) 10,480
Graphic Board (ZOTAC RTX2070SuperMINI) 53,980
Total around 130,000
1. My Routine to start the iRacing
1–1. What I should do before seating the racing Cockpit
If you’re not sure about the word “Cockpit,” my “Cockpit” is below.
a. Change contact lenses from glasses.
b. Turn on the PC.
c. Turn on the iRacing UI.
d.Check the Oculus Quest 2 is connected with the PC and it’s under stand-by. (Both Sleep mode and running is OK)
1–2. Turn on the Wheelbase such as FANATEC CSW V2.5, Podium DD1.
(If you turn on it after displaying the virtual racing track and car, the LED on the steering wheel on CSW may not turn on.)
1–3. Click the “Join” button on the right upper side of the iRacing UI
Then, the status bar on the iRacing UI will stop after a little bit of processing.
1–4. Select “Yes” for the question “Oculus Rift detected. Start full screen on the Rift’s display?” (←You can skip if you configure as I’ll show next section)
If you select “No”, the game will be displayed only on the PC display.
If you cannot find the above box, please search the toolbar at the bottom of the display. You’ll find 2 iRacing icons. Click one of them. The box will appear.
1–5. Wear the Oculus Quest 2 and press “No sharing ”button on Quest 2 display.
And a question will appear like “Do you share the PC contents with the Oculus Quest 2?” Then I choose “No” in the Oculus. I think it’s a troublesome process.
1–6. Select Boundary. (If the setting is good, you can omit)
Oculus Quest 2 sometimes asks me “Select the guardian (boundary).” I select the boundary wider than I can. I draw a big circle through the wall because if the boundary is small, the red circle, which points out the position of the controller, sometimes appears.
1–7. Press the “Use Oculus Link” button from the “gear” menu on the Oculus Quest 2 display
“Oculus Link” is a mode to display the PC screen on Oculus.
1–8. After waiting for the loading, the game will start.
Setting Information
Sound Set
You can preset the speaker for the race sound and Mic&speaker for the Voice chat. (please see yellow highlight)
After 1–8, you can select “OPTIONS” >> “SOUNDS” from the display.
Please select the Speaker or earplug from the “Device” and “Playback(Voice chat will come from)”
Also, please select the Mic from the right side.
Set text file to skip clicking the “Yes” on below box
If you want to skip this step, please open the below file as text and change the number of the AutoSelect of [Oculus Rift] from 0 to 1 and save it.
/documents/iracing/rendererDX11.ini
Graphic Setting
I play iRacing with Oculus Quest 2 with 90Hz (The Max Refresh Rate the Quest 2 provides) with the setting below.
The Setting for Oculus Quest2
Below is the setting mode of Oculus software on Windows.
I select 90Hz, and Rendering Resolution is Automatic. It depends on your PC capability.
(my PC’s spec is 2070S & Ryzen 3500.)
The Setting for iRacing
Pit Objects→ Medium (When driving along with the home straight with High mode, the fps dropped around 40fps, so I selected this.)
Cockpit Mirror “2” (I can use side mirrors and a virtual mirror. If “3”, we can use the back mirror also.)
HDR OFF (If On, I heard that the load for the system is high.)
etc….
The Setting for the Sound
I selected “Rotate with VR headset movement,” though I haven’t checked the difference between yes and no. But it seems to affect the surrounding of the sounds if we move the head.
A tip when dropping the frames rate and sounds
After using the PC for some activity except for the game, when I use iRacing & Oculus Quest 2, some frames and sounds are sometimes dropped. (I can somehow drive but it disturbs driving.)
Just restart the PC, the problem has been solved in my case.
The development of VR and GPU is so fast now. So I chose the middle spec VR. In the near future (3years?), we can get more powerful VR and graphic card at a similar cost. Then I’ll try it again.
How to align the view from the cockpit
The view sometimes misaligns. Please push the power button on the right of the Oculus Quest 2 and please wait for about 2 seconds and then, push the button again. The view will align as the proper position. Also, you can assign the “align button” on the steering wheel or keyboard from the iRacing software. Please assign the button at “Recenter HMD” in the “CONTROLS” tab.
How about the FOV?
You don’t have to adjust the FOV for the VR. Originally, the FOV is proper and cannot be changed.
If you have time, please drop in at my home page.
<<My Tips>
