Oculus Rift Support

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by balu, Jan 29, 2015.

  1. balu

    balu New Member

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    I would love to play R3E and I would surely buy a lot of content. But I have switched to a monitor-free racing rig a while ago, racing with the Oculus Rift exclusively. Unfortunately, the current state of Rift support is, well, very rough. Is there any official information when Oculus Rift support will be improved?
     
  2. J-F Chardon

    J-F Chardon KW Studios Developer

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    Hello Balu!

    As you might have read, Oculus developers announced they would deprecate dx9 from their upcoming SDK's.
    Read about this there: https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=19489

    For us it pretty much means we need to up our game now. Let's see what happens.
     
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  3. 247

    247 Active Member

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    does this mean you should update to newest DirectX?and what happen in term of performances to people which computers just have minimal requirement?
     
  4. pixeljetstream

    pixeljetstream Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    it's just the API that changes, DX11 for example supports various feature levels, so that most of the dx9 hardware could still run
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff476876(v=vs.85).aspx

    "just" is of course a good deal of work ;)

    That said imo DX10-hardware as minimum level would be fine these days, at least according to steam hw survey there is only a small fraction of people with true dx9 hardware
    http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/
    it makes the life of developers much easier to not have to write too many codepaths, and there was a big change in hardware capabilities from 9 to 10. (note: NVIDIA devtech engineer expressing my own opinion)
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2015
  5. 247

    247 Active Member

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    My thougs are : I spent quite a lot of money in r3e cause even if my pc just met minimal system requirements i still could run with no problems...in case they switch to a newest direct x would be sad to have a loss of performance due to a more demanding graphic...hope I'm obviously wrong... :)
     
  6. Thomas Friedrich

    Thomas Friedrich Well-Known Member

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    I really want to have full OR support, because for me it's the future of simracing. My racing experience was never as immersive, with a natural feeling as with the Rift. That said, I'm also aware of the fact, that I'm a member of a tiny, minor group of people. So I can absolutely understand the reserved and observant position of S3S... putting limited human ressources in optimisations of existing content and development of new content is sure a wise decision, at least regarding the growth of the client base.
     
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  7. Drei

    Drei Well-Known Member

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    The thing is: right now yes, we are a tiny minor group of ppl, but when CV1 will come out (and probably other developer's products) this community will grow really fast. For me nothing compares to the feeling of VR in simracing. Yes, with DK2 you can have lots of issues right now, but somehow this is still the best racing experience i've ever had.
    And on the other hand DX9 is a 12-13 years old API, time to move on. I don't think there should be any performance changes just because they switch to DX11 (or 12 for the low level graphics API support).
    So hope the best, i think CV1 will not come out before W10, so the task is not urgent, but i hope S3S will keep polising their Oculus support, so when the times come, they can implement it as fast as it possible.
     
  8. Derek Speare

    Derek Speare Member

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    The DK1 was the watershed event for VR. In the years to come a VR HMD will be the way people enjoy their digital entertainment. The time to embrace the technology is now; it will be too late in the future to catch up. The value of VR is self evident in the first moment of experiencing it...

    I agree that the interface for Race Room should be optimized for VR users. It's quite tedious to navigate the interface as it is. Take some pages from the VR implementation playbooks of LFS, EuroTruck, DCS and iRacing and let they way they do it be a guide. VR users don't want to fiddle with what title needs what screen to be primary, nor do they want to squint to see what they're doing just to get in their car, and they don't want to use some third party program with its own configuration dances and prayers to use to do it. They want to click the icon to start, put on their VR device, push "Drive" and take off. I know this is not easy to accomplish, but it's something that needs careful attention :)
     
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  9. Drei

    Drei Well-Known Member

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    And if you guys at S3S would really like to rock in VR, please don't forget, that our button boxes will be mostly useless while headset is on... time to make the cockpit alive! would be amazing to see working switches and buttons in cars for example with Leapmotion, or being able to adjust the inside mirror with hand...prolly im insane...sorry about that :D
     
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  10. Thomas Friedrich

    Thomas Friedrich Well-Known Member

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    I think this will be all possible in the distant future... there should be no problem with virtualy switching buttons or adjusting the mirror. Just think of MS Kinect and how accurate it can track movement (heartbeat, temperature...). For now I would be really happy about just some compatible menus and stable support for racing... but owning the OR DK we are just VR pioneers, we should be aware of this and be patient. Let's just be happy with the experiences we already have and look forward to an awesome future for sim racing... it's just a matter of time!
     
  11. m.bohlken

    m.bohlken Well-Known Member

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    As far as I know the Update to a new Version of DirectX will have no Impact to the Systemrequirement as long as you are not using any Option that is only available in a new DirectX-Version.

    I think VR will be a big market not only for the Hardeware-Developers but especially for various Sims like Racing or Flight-Sims. At that point Sims with VR-Support will always have an advantage to sims without that Support, as owners of that Hardware want to use it.

    And as a Develpoment of VR-Features in R3E will Cost some money, I think it would be ok, when users of VR-Hardware (and I will be one of those users when the final Version is released) have to spend a few vRP for the VR-Support.
     
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  12. Thomas Friedrich

    Thomas Friedrich Well-Known Member

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    I would have no problems with buying a "VR Pack". This is a good point @m.bohlken , never thought about this, but would make sense. If I want to use some extra features , I have to pay for it, sound reasonable to me.
     
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  13. pixeljetstream

    pixeljetstream Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    also believing that all the "cockpit (joystick/wheel)" games (which used to be a lot of PC games in the old days), will have a big comeback with VR. It's just that immersive. Facebook didn't invest 2bn for nothing, and many companies have an interest in it (can sell all kinds of new stuff to people hehe).
    As for paying for a VR pack, here the issue is maybe that development costs come first... Though s3s likely at some point will want to leverage what majority of hardware is capable of and leave dx9 anyway. Which is the bigger hurdle. Maybe a sort of kickstarter model where the developers can gauge the interest of people pre-financing specialized development would be an option to help influence the priorities? (at the same time it could lead to people being angry if some other stuff takes alonger). But like you say the people with those devices will just get more, it's just that more mainstream friendly than tripple screen rigs.
     
  14. Miroslav Davidovic

    Miroslav Davidovic New Member

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    Hey there, I have no idea how to get in the game with the Rift? Any hints?
     
  15. Ernie

    Ernie Well-Known Member

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    Run R3E with commandline parameter -vr

    Check video settings for 1920x1080x75Hz and also disable Motion blur.
     
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  16. Thomas Friedrich

    Thomas Friedrich Well-Known Member

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    But as far as I know, the Rift only works with practice mode, leaderboard challenges and multiplayer races. Whenever I tried to do some single player races, the track loads up and the camera is cycling around the track from a kind of helicopter view. You can see the cars standing in the grid, but it's not possible to start the race...
     
  17. Drei

    Drei Well-Known Member

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    So the reason i'm bringing this topic back alive, is HTC Vive. I know that many other companies trying to develop their VR/AR headsets, but HTC Vive seems to be one of the most promising efforts (especially because Steam is behind it)... Actually it looks like they will release it before christmas... Anyone knows anything about the software/hard specifications/limitations?
    As most of us knows Oculus get rid of their DX9 support which unfortunately affects R3E too. What about Vive, will it work on DX9? Any plans for R3E support?
     
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  18. m.bohlken

    m.bohlken Well-Known Member

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    Maybe another form of the question could be "Are there plans that R3E will support DX11 in the future?"
    DX11 has better multi-threading-Support. Thats one of the reasons why Oculus drops DX9...
     
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  19. Drei

    Drei Well-Known Member

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    The best would be DX12 imo. That is clear why Oculus dropped DX9, I completly agreed with that. But still, it would be nice to know where we heading at on VR side in R3E...
     
  20. heppsan

    heppsan Well-Known Member

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    Can't They support both?
    I know a bunch of DX9 sims I would like to race with the Oculus!!