Just got the HTC Vive, any quick/basic setup tips?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Cuba, Feb 9, 2017.

  1. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    Just got the HTC Vive and been reading a lot on this forum about VR settings etc. Any basic settings/advice some can share with me to get me started with the Vive?
     
  2. mr_belowski

    mr_belowski Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    For Raceroom or in general?

    In general, follow the recommendation for lighthouse mounts (securely mounted high up in opposite corners angled down). Experiment with supersampling in the steamvr.properties file - anything over about 1.5 is likely to cause performance issues. Don't bother trying to get Project Cars to run well and look good - it's one or the other I'm afraid. Install ReVive if you don't mind installing Oculus stuff - Assetto is really good, as is Dirt Rally. ReVive works with Oculus-only games bought from Steam, but does require Oculus software to be installed. There's a huge amount of VR games / apps on Steam. Many (most) are crap but there are lots of absolute crackers, and lots of really good free stuff (The Lab, Destinations, GoogleEarth, Rec Room). Have a look at the Vive Reddit sub - lots of opinions there. Don't be tempted by Vorpx - it simply doesn't work properly - even the fully supported best games like Fallout New Vegas look wrong.

    Be aware that you might get a bit motion sick or disorientated at first. Roomscale games generally won't do this, but games that allow you to move around by holding a button take some getting used to. The Doom 3 BFG VR mod is one example - it's brilliant, but you need to get your 'vr legs' first.

    For raceroom, it's still early days for their VR implementation. There are some significant performance improvements in the pipeline. With the current implementation I find -vr 2.5 about the best compromise, with 2xMSAA, medium details, low mirrors and shadows.
     
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  3. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    Thanks @mr_belowski !
    Great info! Still loving your app too.
     
  4. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    Need help finding the steamvr.properties file to change supersampling Thx!
     
  5. Blanes

    Blanes Well-Known Member

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    Hey Cuba good to hear of another racer jumping into VR as it is an absolute blast - RRRE is very good right off the bat but will definitely improve greatly over time. You do not need to adjust the steamvr file but just change the command line option in Steam to the desired setting.

    I have a Gigabyte 1080 and find -vr 2.15 works great. In game I have everything in graphics set to highest with 4xmsaa and 4xSuperSampling switched on via the Nvidia Control panel. That is with an i7-6700K oc'd 4.5ghz so your mileage may vary according to hardware. I did my testing in the DTM cars at Spa and Nords 24hr course to test how heavy the graphics would be at those settings. So play around tweaking few things to get the right balance on your system. Have fun ! :)
     
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  6. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    Thx for the advice. I managed to download Chaparone Switcher to adjust the supersampling to 1.5. It helped a little in PCars; it's the only VR sim I can launch at the moment through Steam. Two questions. Where do I find the "command line option in Steam" to make your suggested change? And I'm assuming I can't launch R3E because I need to download ReVive like Mr Belowski suggested? I'm guessing that's why I don't see it in the VR portion of Steam. I'll do some more research online tomorrow to try to answer those questions, but any help is appreciated. So far, I see the potential, and love the immersion, but PCars looks pretty bad, blurry, bad resolution etc. Thanks again!
     
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  7. Blanes

    Blanes Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I have Rift CV1 so few things are different I think and Jim also has the Vive so he will no doubt give better info there but you should not need to launch ReVive because RaceRoom is using OpenVR via Steam.

    For RRRE from within Steam you right click on the game title and goto properties which opens a window and half way down there you see a button "Set Launch Options..." and click on that. In the box that pops up you simply type -vr 2.15 but you can put any number from 1.5 upwards to say 2.5 and it increases the pixel density of the image you see in VR. Most people seem to settle from 2.0 to around 2.5 as when you go much higher it taxes the system and to me looks too sharp anyway. As I said, I found 2.15 gave me a nice image where I could see the others cars sharp enough detail and with the 4xSS it fills the jaggies or aliased edges that 4xmsaa misses.

    As for Project Cars, it is a bit blurry and I apply 1.35 pixel density increase to sharpen a bit plus I force on fxaa and smaa to low via the .xml settings file. For Vive it would be the file openvrsettings.xml which is in your c:/users/[username]/documents/project cars directory and is best to have graphical settings mostly low as it is heavier on the system with ai cars limited to around 15 to 17 from memory. I do not play pCars much anymore being mainly on AC and now RRRE.
     
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  8. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    Great info. I much prefer RRRE to PCars so I can't wait to get home to run this in VR. Thanks again!
     
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  9. mr_belowski

    mr_belowski Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    When you do get R3E running in VR, I'd be interested to hear if you think everything is 'scaled' correctly (steering wheel, car interior, other cars). For me it looks spot-on, but some folks think everything looks to be only about 80% of real life-size.

    steamvr.vrsettings is in .../Steam/Config/, and there's some info about it here:http://www.roadtovr.com/how-to-impr...ality-with-supersampling-pixel-density-tweak/

    As far as I know, R3E does *not* use this setting

    PCars will always look bad - either low-res and blurry, or stuttery with lots of ghosting. It's just not a very good Vive implementation
     
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  10. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    Will do! Thanks for the link. I haven't had a chance to run R3E yet after reading Blanes post on using OpenVR, but I'm sure I'll stumble my way though it. I have to admit, this in not so straight forward. PCars was easy because it's cued up under the VR tab in Steam. No other titles are listed there, so it becomes somewhat of a mystery as to how to launch it. Looking forward to trying it out in a few hours...working a very short day today :)
     
  11. mr_belowski

    mr_belowski Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    right click, select "properties", click "launch options", type "-vr 2.5" into the box (without the quotes), click OK a couple of times and launch the game (click OK when it complains about not supporting VR and launching in theatre mode). Bish-bosh :)
     
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  12. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    @mr_belowski after finally getting R3E to run in VR (thanks for all your help guys) I find the scaling just right. Really enjoy the VR except for blurred objects (cars, track, features etc) in not so far distance (20 meters ). texture issues still exist but not as bad as PCars. Do you have the same issues? I'm running at -vr 2.5. Don't notice any fps issues, runs smooth. Just need to sort out the blurry images for objects that are only about 20 meters away. Close objects and cockpit look good. Let me know if this is normal. Thx.
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2017
  13. Cuba

    Cuba Member

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    After much research, I think everything I mentioned above is normal at this stage of development which is completely understandable. Great job S3S! I can't wait for future updates to VR support!