EA Sports WRC now has VR! Is it any good?

It’s been a long time coming but VR support is finally available for EA SPORTS WRC! But is it any good? As a ‘virtual reality exclusive’ sim racer and sim rally driver, these are my honest thoughts and first impressions…
For reference, my PC specs…
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X / GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 10GB / RAM: 32GB DDR4 3200mhz / MOBO: ASUS X570 PLUS WIFI / SSD: Kingston a2000 500GB / VR: Oculus CV1 / WHEEL: Fanatec CSL DD with Podium F1/BMW M2 rim / PEDALS: Fanatec Clubsport V3 / SHIFTER: Fanatec Clubsport SQ V 1.5 / BUTTON BOX: Custom made by Ed-Engineer
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0:00 Hello and welcome! My expectations…
0:51 How to launch EA WRC in VR
1:19 Yes! 2D rendering is a thing!
2:35 Saving replays?
2:54 My graphics settings and EA recommendations
3:24 Foveation strength setting
4:18 Extra tips for extra graphical performance
4:45 First VR impressions from the cockpit
8:58 My detailed thoughts on VR in EA WRC
13:12 Wrap it up DDF
#EAWRCVR #EAWRC #RallyVR

[@SimRacing604]

This is an excellent video! Thanks for this one, DDF.

[@DDFRacer]

Cheers Mike, thanks for the kind words, much appreciated!

[@chuhhh]

"It feels like that I have forgotten to take the glasses on 🤣🤣" that's my favorite line about this review. it's exactly what I think about the game when I am playing it in vr. Since I have to wear prescription lens irl, I would say that playing this game is like driving without glasses for people that are shortsighted.

[@DDFRacer]

I honestly had to double check that my lens inserts in the headset hadn't accidentally fallen out at one point 😅 after a few minutes you kind of get used to it a little but then doing a back to back with something like AMS2 or even iRacing is eye opening. Pun absolutely intended.

[@Maverik770]

Dirt Rally 2.0 works wonderfully for me in VR. I have a modest RX 6750XT paired with a Ryzen 5600X and I can run Dirt Rally 2.0 at almost Max Settings with a solid constant 90 FPS on my Oculus Rift CV1. It's flawless for me. Looks and plays fantastic. I saw the Codemasters comment that VR in Dirt 2.0 was outsourced and this is their first crack at VR development in-house. I hope WRC can work great in VR. I race exclusively in VR these days.

[@mad-b264]

As soon as I jumped into VR using a Quest 2, And I got an i5 12600k with a 12gb 3060, I think the 12gb saves the 3060 for VR, lol, And yeah Dirt Rally 2 works as one of the best VR Sim's I do, AMS 2 is bad ass too, I will be jumping on AMS 2 in a bit, I find during the later hours AMS 2 seems to have some better races online.... I won't be going back to my 4kTV after using the Quest 2, I will find Sim racing hard if I had to go back to a TV screen, So now I will be Sim racing in VR from now on, lol.... In fact I want to get a Quest 3 already, lol...

[@DDFRacer]

Same here, all of my sim driving (either racing or rally) is done in VR 👍 it's so hard to go back to a flat screen once you get used to the spatial awareness and depth perception in my opinion.

[@Maverik770]

@@DDFRacer Couldn't agree more. Driving/racing just feels so much more natural in VR. That spatial awareness and being able to tell how close you actually are to a line/curb/wall helps tremendously. I primarily run short ovals on iRacing and VR helps me to be able to nail my line lap after lap perfectly. I can't go back to flat screen now. Last time I tried it, I was sooo much slower than my pace within VR. I've owned WRC for a little bit now but hadn't gotten around to firing it up due to the lack of VR support. So, I'm pretty excited that my first experience with it will be straight into VR. Hoping to check it out later tonight. Thanks again for this video. Great work! :) P.S. I was excited to see you are also still rocking a Rift CV1. Such a great headset.

[@Maverik770]

@@mad-b264 It's literally transformative in sim racing. I cannot go back to flat screens now.

[@mad-b264]

@@Maverik770 I bet everyone who tries VR will say the same...

[@AndreiSZS]

I hope it comes on PSVR2. That foveated rendering setting gave me hope. With eye tracking and only 60fps requirement, it could run pretty well on console.

[@Stone2D3D]

I feel you mate; As a PSVR2 owner myself, I'm very, very dissapointed that WRC 23 in VR on PS5 is not supported. And not to get your hopes destroyed, but I've read that EA/Codemasters are not planning to support the PSVR2 in the long run either. Real Engine 4 seems to be the big problem here ?!. The PS5 seems not to have the power (!?) to play this game in VR. To he honest, I think the devs should take a closer look at GT7 to get an idea whats really possible with VR on PS5. Till now; GT7 is the BEST VR experience I ever had on PS5... And if WRC 23 seems to be impossible, why not give PS5/PSVR2 owners the joy of rally driving with a VR release of the (older) Dirt Rally 2.0 - that's something that MUST be possible to do right now....

[@tonymunford5804]

@@Stone2D3D completely agree , they could do any older Rally game be fantastic.

[@DDFRacer]

No doubt it could run well on console in the future but sadly I don't think this is on EA's radar moving forwards which is kind of ironic as I've seen plenty of complaints from PC players that the game has been dumbed down for consoles, yet here they are including a pretty major feature for PC only 😅

[@tonymunford5804]

They need to bring it to PS5 😜

[@DDFRacer]

I wouldn't hold your breath on that one unfortunately mate 😬 everything I've seen from their announcements and updates doesn't look too promising, but then again they only announced VR would be releasing on PC less than a month ago so you never know.

[@iseslc]

I will try fiddling with the upscaling and anti-aliasing, I'm sure it can be improved quite a bit. But yes, VR visuals are pretty rough right now... That being said, I'm glad I finally got to play this game, as I don't have room for a single screen setup, let alone a triple, so VR only for me. Awesome video as always!

[@DDFRacer]

Fingers crossed 🤞 it has the potential to be great if the VR can be optimised. The underlying foundations of the game itself are really solid after the last few patches and I've been having a lot of fun exploring it recently but yeah, needs a little bit of work to get the visuals a bit more dialled in.

[@86themadhatter27]

I get the feeling this will remain in beta form for the rest of this games life and this is the best it's gonna get.

[@DDFRacer]

I hope not, but I suspect you might be right. Looking at ACC, which also uses Unreal Engine 4, the VR clarity isn't much better than when it first arrived on the scene and they've had several years to fine tune it so I get the feeling it might just be the limits of the graphics engine unfortunately.

[@BPMa14n]

9:55 All I needed to know hold off and stay w dirt rally 2.0 for vr for now

[@DDFRacer]

The only reason I moved on from DiRT Rally 2.0 was due to the community league I rally with having problems creating championships on racenet. A bit unfortunate as I definitely prefer it over EA WRC 😕 but that's where the championship runs now.

[@IdentityCrisisVR]

I have been playing DR 2.0 in VR and it runs pretty well. I waited for WRC to release VR before picking it up and its rough right now for sure. The biggest issue I am having has nothing to do with the VR part. WRC will not recognize my USB hand brake at all. I have tried to bind it and it doesn't recognize it, DR 2.0 was a simple set up for the hand brake. Any suggestions would be great.

[@DDFRacer]

I've had a similar issue a few times and I don't know the exact cause but unplugging it and plugging it back in again will cause it to register, either after a restart before launching the game or from within the game itself. I also noticed that you can't just select a function and map a control, you need to select the specific device you want to use and then go into the menu for that device in game and assign directly from there. It's a bit fiddly but hopefully this helps! If not then I'm all out of ideas unfortunately mate.

[@hugovai89]

FYI you need to reset the game for upscaling to work well, no shimmering or apparent foviated rendering circles. After tweaking with the settings I noticed dlss worked well and I can run higher/pretty decent settings on my G2. Albeit I turned the resolution down to 40% it look good and performs close to 90 fps.

[@DDFRacer]

Good to know, thanks mate 👍 I'll keep playing around with settings to try and find that sweet spot like countless others at the moment no doubt. What you mentioned about the resolution is the kicker though unfortunately, having to lower it way below the capabilities of the headset is pretty telling and also makes me chuckle in a sad way when people discredit me for using a CV1 in this review. It's probably running _better_ on a less demanding headset 😆

[@hugovai89]

@@DDFRacer yes it's not the best, it defenitly feels like acc in vr. UE4 for vr is less than ideal. Although I have to say the reverb g2 looks better at 40-50% res than my cv1 used to. Even better than my rift s. But I can run 70% res with ams 2 and it looks much better, with no upscaling also wich tells a lot about how underperforming it is.

[@denboogie9199]

Thank you for looking into this. I will try it soon on a Quest 3/3060ti and I'm a bit scared of the performance. Probably need to upgraded the GPU soon.

[@DDFRacer]

I'll be interested to see how it runs for you on the recommended settings 🤔 especially as I've been weighing up the inevitable VR upgrade (the CV1 is going to kick it at some point...) and the Quest 3 always seems to come out on top in terms of the most sensible replacement.

[@kiksu1]

I bought the game a while back at a discount because of the promise of VR support. Tested with RTX3060 12GB and Quest3 wirelessly via Steam Link. Even with medium graphics settings it's unplayable. With ultra low settings it works, but it looks like a game from 20 years ago. So for me, unplayable. Other PCVR games work fine with much higher quality settings. So, in this state I can't recommend this. It needs a lot of work.

[@razzpoutine7966]

HI , interesting that you can only run dirt rally2 on low settings. I run on mid but use virtual desktop to crank it up to high with 120fps. It looks and runs like a dream on my 3080. Hopefully codemasters can optimize for vd in the future.Enjoy your videos

[@DDFRacer]

Here's hoping for some future patches and improvements too 🤞 it would be nice to enjoy what is actually a really good game with a decent level of clarity in VR. With regards to DiRT Rally 2.0, I'm running natively in the Oculus CV1 instead of through SteamVR, Virtual Desktop or anything else. This seems to get the best performance for me, although I do need to keep a little wiggle room free to ensure my recording/streaming software doesn't crap out and start stuttering mid stage when I can't do anything about it 😅

[@nongamerplays]

Good video thanks!

[@DDFRacer]

Thanks for the kind words 😎 much appreciated!

[@VMZ432]

It’s a great vid I thought and very fair. I see all the things you mentioned and changing the FOV rendering was a great tip, but running on a 4080 with a quest 3, I was up till 3am and having so much fun I couldn’t force myself to bed. Then today with some more tweaks and the FOV rendering adjustment, driving during a break from work I had tears in my eyes, it totally made me emotional. My gut feeling is it will get to where you want it to be (setting aside UE4 limitations), but until then I’m really happy with the beta, and it surpassed my expectation/hopes. Nevertheless, I agree it has a way to go, and I’ll be there for it.

[@socks2441]

If this blew you away this much I'm guessing you never tried dirt rally 1 or 2 in vr? They look and perform sodo much better, even if the physics isn't quite as good.

[@DDFRacer]

Thanks for the kind words 😎 I tried to make this video as objective as possible! Yeah sure the VR is not superb at the moment but it's only the initial beta release and I genuinely want it to do well, those feelings you describe about the pure emotion when it all comes together are what make sim racing worth it. That said, if you want a truly hardcore rally VR experience (which runs super smoothly too) then I'd strongly suggest checking out Richard Burns Rally by Rally Sim Fans. The base game might be 20 years old now but the modding community have kept it alive and up to date...for everyone to download and enjoy for free too! I only tried it out for the first time a couple of months ago but it absolutely blew me away and can't recommend it highly enough 👍

[@momashtilas]

Rift S user here, running on 3080. Framerate is decent, even with high settings. Is there any way to bump up the pixel density? Assetto has this and it's a must for me (otherwise everything looks nasty). Also is there any way to turn down image contrast in WRC? Turning down brightness doesn't help much, everything inside is dark af with overexposed outside 😢

[@JanekPeVR]

Yes you can - Pixel per display pixel override in Oculus Debug Tool

[@DDFRacer]

Ah I see someone already beat me to the pixel override debug tip 😎 however I'm not too sure about the image contrast issue unfortunately. I'm experiencing the same thing across various stages where the image is blown out and I can hardly made out the road ahead of me, mostly in bright conditions on lighter gravel or snow. My only recommendation would be to try playing with the Shader and Post Processing settings in the Advanced Graphics menu to see if that makes a difference 👍 fortunately you can change these settings mid-stage in EA WRC instead of having to quit, go back to the main menu then load in again. A big saving grace which I forgot to mention in the video!

[@ramiromartha7267]

i tried to do about 5 runs on my pico 4. 4 of them crashed the game, and the one that did work was just as bad as it can be. Janky images when i tried to move my head, even blurrier than ACC and it was waaaay to bright. Back to flat racing then!

[@DDFRacer]

Ah mate, sorry to hear that! Although the visual clarity might not be super for me, at least it runs smoothly and doesn't crash...well the software at least 😅 plenty of issues with the plugin behind the steering wheel.

[@markhallowell4059]

It's passable at the moment, but needs more. Rallying in VR makes me want to keep fiddling to make it as good as I can though. A few more hours of tweak this, try again to go yet.

[@DDFRacer]

That's the thing though, you could spend days fiddling around with settings and end up maybe only 5-10% better than your original starting position. Even with the perfect settings it's not going to be as good as other titles out there unfortunately, the theoretical upper ceiling is still relatively low in the grand scheme of things. Doesn't stop me enjoying the driving though 😁 might have to give this month's CommUNITY round a crack at some point this/next week!

[@markhallowell4059]

@@DDFRacer VR makes all the pain worthwhile :)

[@RisingPingRacing]

Ive been waiting for VR to hit before buying this game, and it's on a big sale rn, might give it a try

[@DDFRacer]

If you have the spare cash then why not! If it's cheap enough then it could turn out to be quite a good investment if these VR performance/quality issues get ironed out eventually.

[@RisingPingRacing]

@@DDFRacer it's like 25 Australian dollarydoos at the moment. That's unusually cheap for an EA game 😅

[@DDFRacer]

Crikey

[@BuTTuRzz]

I don't understand. Dirt Rally 2.0 is amazing in VR. It's one of the best implementations of it imo ever. It's VERY solid, looks great and isn't pixelated at all.

[@DDFRacer]

They swapped out the graphics engine and are now using UE4 instead which... isn't great for VR unfortunately 😅 (also see Assetto Corsa Competizione...)

[@BuTTuRzz]

@DDFRacer but I literally play Dirt Rally 2 yesterday and it's perfect lol

[@MikaTarkela]

I just tried it but I couldn't get past the main menu. For some reason the controls are pushing left so I cannot choose anything. It's like i'd be holding the left button all the time :/

[@DDFRacer]

I've had this issue in the past when my joystick has bugged out on a slider or I've left my controller on the ground upside down. If you haven't done so already, try disconnecting/unplugging devices one by one to narrow down what's causing the issue 👍 maybe the default controls in EA WRC are mapped to something you have connected which isn't playing nice.

[@philippegohier6992]

After lot of test, graphics settings change nothing on the blury. Only the link is important. Oculus debug tool must be used. Pixel per display 1.3 (will return to 0 after restart . Must reset to 1.3 everytime) Mipmap gen on 0 0:0 Auto Off Default Dis Dis Dis Dis Oculus link : Default Default Off 2016 Enable 2500 Encode bitrate 500 0 Disable Disable. Also if visible hud is set to performance, it indicate that something max the fps at 36. Half of what is suppose to be.

[@DDFRacer]

Thanks for continuing to tweak these settings and find a sweet spot! Doesn't help me much unfortunately as my older headset is connected via HDMI directly instead of a link cable but hopefully this is useful to anyone else reading through the comments who might have a newer Oculus/Meta headset 👍

[@trevorjlewis]

I had a 1080ti water cooled card and VR in 2.0 was awesome. Mostly high settings and solid 90fps.

[@DDFRacer]

Ha yeah, same here actually! Was looking at older footage this week of the original DiRT Rally and noticed it looked really sharp and ran a lot more smoothly too, all on a 1080 card. Not sure why we've taken so many steps back in terms of VR since then, pretty baffling.

[@trevorjlewis]

@@DDFRacer I still use my water cooled 1080ti it's in my living room PC now running a tandem loop with a 5600x. It only for watching TV and general internet use but wasn't worth trying to sell it because people don't believe what an awesome card it still is. As for this Wrc game running bad in VR is it really the fault of Unreal Engine 4 as people say it is?

[@DDFRacer]

Assetto Corsa Competizione also uses UE4 and that's not exactly known for it's stellar VR performance either 😬 so I would say it definitely plays a part. No doubt EA could optimise the game itself a little more but Kunos have had years to improve the VR in ACC.

[@VRManCave]

It's not your headset or your system. I run it on Ultra settings on a 4090 and Quest 3 and it still looks terrible. The devs actually said that the VR itself isn't in Beta, they're calling it Beta because it's the first time they have an internal team working on it. I've just released a video on it on my channel if you wanna see how it looks, but it's honestly very disappointing, same as F1 22/23.

[@DDFRacer]

Yeah I didn't have a great experience with F1 22 either to be honest 😅 blue screens and literally unplayable, although to be fair back then I was still on my Nvidia 1080 card so would have probably been pushing it anyway. My current 3080 definitely meets the recommended specs listed by EA and still doesn't quite cut it 😬 and it's good to know (although not reassuring) that you're having similar problems on a 4090 too. I'll definitely check out that video to see what Ultra looks like, thanks for the heads up mate 👍

[@LudwigAxborn]

But are you using any upscalers or foviated rendering? Why did you not mention any of the biggest factors? "ultra settings" on graphics details doesn't do much for VR games in terms of visuals.

[@FULLNinja69]

UE5 has two types of rendering, deferred and forward. Forward is for VR and deferred is for flat screen. ACC used deferred that is why it doesn't run so well in VR.

[@DDFRacer]

Well, you learn something new every day 😎

[@stickdeath1980]

It's UE4 actually :D

[@FULLNinja69]

@@stickdeath1980 you are correct it's not just ue5

[@anthonymoloney3671]

As I understand it deferred can be used for VR (not just flat screen), but forwarded rendering is sometimes preferred, depending on the scene and other factors.

[@jamesleegte5753]

DR2.0 on a 2080ti with a rift s looked average and then when I upgraded to a 3080ti I was really pleased with it. My next upgrade will be the 5000 series and I feel it will be a lot better then. I still play DR2.0 almost every week nearly four years since VR released for it and I think it will be the same for me with EA WRC. I bought it last night for £17.99p with a 60% discount so for that price as long as it’s similar to DR2.0 on a 2080ti with a rift s I’ll be happy until I build my next pc!

[@DDFRacer]

When I jumped from a 1080 to a 3080 a few years ago I noticed a massive jump too 😎 and although I didn't bump my settings up too much, it was more the peace of mind of knowing that I wasn't running my PC at full tilt while recording/streaming which I liked the most. One unexpected drop of rain could send the whole video into a stuttery mess 😂 well...not quite, but you know what I mean. I've had plenty of great times in DiRT Rally 2.0 as well, what an awesome game mate, completely agreed. Someone from my Discord community has been running a championship for three years now although was unable to create a new one for 2024 due to server issues so switched over to EA WRC instead. I've been patiently waiting for the official VR support to drop so I can start participating again 😁

[@jamesleegte5753]

@@DDFRacer trees set to high changed everything for me in DR2.0! Just for that one setting my 3080ti purchase was fully justified haha

[@jamesleegte5753]

@@DDFRacer turn off upscaler, rendering to 0, anisotropic 16x, AA High, kill off ground cover entirely, crowds low, shadows, skids very low and then tweak away from there. Upscaler adds all the blur and smudge so turn it off. Mine is no longer blurry and looks like a decent psvr1 game and it’s super smooth. I only get jitters when entering Portuguese towns.

[@MrBeerscuits]

Older VR headsets also have lower resolution so more performance, I have a 3070ti with Quest 3, it is barely playable for me unfortunately, I have a old HTC Vive, i'm really tempted to trying it to see if I get better performance. I don't like how Meta/Oculus handle PCVR. I really notice latency on the Quest 3 no matter the game.

[@DDFRacer]

I've been considering an upgrade for a long time now but whenever I do my research, all roads lead back to the CV1. I know it's old and it's got a low resolution compared to more modern headsets but things like charging cable issues, increased latency, no built in solutions to pin windows inside VR, increased godrays, less dark blacks etc...they all put me off. It's hard trying to find something that (clarity aside) is genuinely worth upgrading to that isn't going to absolutely bankrupt me or melt my computer 😅 All I need is a headset that plugs in directly (I don't need or use wireless) and has a decent image quality with the ability to pin my live chat and a basic HUD inside VR. Crazy to think that one of the best solutions is still one of the very first solutions from over 8 years ago.

[@Eskoxo]

I think you probably need a higher resolution headset at this point:) It does not look perfect but i use on 4090 with bigscreen beyond DLSS quality with sharpness turned to 100 and id says its passable.

[@DDFRacer]

I had the opportunity to try a friend's Varjo Aero a few months ago and the increase in resolution was incredible, everything was so much clearer and I could _actually_ make out the text on most in-car dashboards 👀 but on the flipside the field of view was a little narrower, colours seemed a little off somehow and the cost was a little intimidating too. I've seriously considered a Quest 3 on multiple occasions but when I get close to adding to the basket I always seem to find a reason not to, whether it's issues with link cables/batteries, increased latency etc. As long as the CV1 is still alive I'll keep using it as it's absolutely rock solid, but I know at some point I'm going to need a replacement, I just don't know what 😅

[@ukgarridge8486]

@@DDFRacer Would highly recommend a wired DP headset over a Quest, especially for sims. Im using a Quest 3 i borrowed from work atm and while it looks great in slow paced games like Half Life Alyx, the compression is very noticeable in racing sims and ruins the experience. Its also very uncomfortable with the standard strap. Its nowhere near as crisp and clear as my old Reverb G2 even though it's technically superior in many ways. I just sold the G2 and pre ordered the Crystal Light which is looking very promising.

[@DDFRacer]

@@ukgarridge8486 100% agreed, wired is the way to go for me as all of my time in VR is spent sat in the rig 👍 I don't need to get up and move around with the headset on or go wireless. Out of curiosity, how easy is it to "pin" a window inside VR in a non oculus headset? I'd need to be able to see my live chat whilst streaming and the built in oculus software actually makes that super straightforward 👍

[@ukgarridge8486]

@@DDFRacer Not sure im afraid. I havent tried Pimax or Varjo software yet but Windows Mixed Reality, which my HP G2 ran on, is pretty terrible to be honest. Its also being deprecated later this year and bricking the G2 with that, which is why I reluctantly sold it. Oculus software is definitely up there with the best, just a shame they're all about wireless now

[@Eskoxo]

@@DDFRacer as long as you get to steamvr there are many applications that can pin multiple windows in vr etc and as far as headsets unfortunately not many options bigscreen beyond and pimax which has bad rep for quality control. If in no rush can always wait for mythical valve index2 deckard in 10 years:)

[@Jackson85094]

one of the problems with wrc vr is just the fact that ea wrc doesn't look that good to begin with lmao, i thought the vr was alright but it felt like i had to strain to be able to see corners and it made me feel disoriented pretty quick

[@DDFRacer]

Ah righto 😅 so it's an EA WRC issue in general, not just a VR thing. I've heard a few people on my Discord mention the graphics in pre-VR needed a bit of dialling in so I guess throwing in a more intensive rendering method just highlights any flaws even further.

[@Tripokaridos22]

Terrible engine. It runs way way better after all these patches on monitor Ultra settings everything I had 45-60 fps and now I have 90-100 that shows.that they try to optimize it... But again it doesn't look good. I run side.by side Greek stages on VR DR1 DR2 and WRC ... DR1 looked better than all of them... Maybe because they make it with love and not Consoles on their mind's

[@user-dm2hr3qk9l]

​@@Tripokaridos22 dr1 looks better than dr2? Then how is the feeling on the wheel? Is it better than dr2?

[@Silentpartner2176]

They have a vr trailer on the Xbox store too, but Xbox doesn’t support vr.

[@DDFRacer]

Bit of an oversight there 🤔

[@thirtytwoforty]

The UEVR injection mod works better. I'm able to run high settings using the mod and low/mid in native VR.

[@DDFRacer]

Does it still work post-update or has it broken compatibility with the mod? I didn't try it out beforehand unfortunately but by all accounts, it sounds like it does a better job so I'd be keen to give it a try.

[@LudwigAxborn]

@@DDFRacer The UEVR injection is an universal mod that works for all unreal engine games, regardless of version etc. There's nothing game specific written in it. You do have to create a profile though, and that could in theory change with game updates, but it's highly unlikely unless they change fundamental details about the game's core.

[@Gorgula]

​@@LudwigAxbornthe previous wrc update broke the overlays in game using UEVR. I haven't tried it post official release.

[@JonJon-dk3nh]

At £18 at the moment I'm going to pick it up.

[@DDFRacer]

Excellent point 👍 with the game being on Steam sale at the moment it's definitely a good time to pick it up, especially if they can improve the VR performance with future updates.

[@abeidiot]

interesting that you said it's blurry. I remember the uevr mod looked quite sharp compared to dr2

[@DDFRacer]

Can't say I've tried the UEVR mod to be honest, I was holding out until the official VR support was released with this update. From all accounts it seems the injector was able to do a better job 🤔 I'll have to see if it's still compatible or if the update broke it and try a back to back comparison if possible.

[@kondor99999]

Is that a CV1?

[@DDFRacer]

It sure is mate 😎 been using it since day 1 on the channel many years ago and apart from needing to swap out the foam a couple of times it hasn't let me down. Now that I've said that though, it'll probably fail in the next few weeks 😅 better start researching replacement options again...

[@philippegohier6992]

After 2 days of trying , now its clear.

[@DDFRacer]

Any chance you can share what you did to get it looking nice? I think there might be a lot of people here who would be interested to know 😉

[@philippegohier6992]

@@DDFRacer i answered, but msg got deleted.

[@philippegohier6992]

Reflections on windsreen cause a lot of problems , very low reflection on car. Very low track détail. Epic and high are ok , only if they dont involved reflections. I use oculus debug tool : encode bitrate 500 Temporal interpolation , min 80 max 100

[@DDFRacer]

@@philippegohier6992 yeah I saw the notification pop up but then it was gone 🤔 odd! Thanks for sharing, I'll give those a try later! Unfortunately the encoding won't work for me though as my CV1 is pre-link and connects directly via HDMI and USB 😅 but the rest sounds promising.

[@philippegohier6992]

@@DDFRacer i modified the text, put no links or chanel promotion of someone else. Anyway ill do more test tomorrow. Probably youll do another video in a week or 2 with better settings and a clear view. Vr in wrc will be better.

[@iamcrackles]

In all honesty i used to own a 3900x with my current 3080 and performance wasn't that great, to be honest the CPU is a massive bottleneck with a 3080. So i upgraded to the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D which greatly peformed in all my titles, to stretch out the longevity of my x570 board so i would suggest if you are really wanting to stretch your current system. Plus your VR experience would be much better.

[@DDFRacer]

Thanks for the advice mate 👍 I'll have a look into that.

[@Frikoo]

Tried it with Quest 3. Not that good. And you cant use AirLink. Only cable. And using Virtual Desktop it has really bad stutters. But that is not my biggest problem in WRC. Its that after you finish a track in Time Trial you cant judge how good you did when looking at the leaderboard. You know what I mean? Like I can finish like 200 but I cant know how many have driven that stage - 1000? 3000? 20000? Is it really that hard to put in corner - you are 200/2376. Or even better - you are in top 9%.

[@ukgarridge8486]

AirLink works fine, even though they said it wasn't supported yet. Im using it right now and its stable

[@Frikoo]

@@ukgarridge8486 ooo. Didn't even try because they said so. Will give it a try. Thanks!

[@DDFRacer]

I hadn't noticed that issue with time trial to be honest 👀 I'll have to keep an eye out for it next time I do some runs, but seems like a pretty fundamental (and simple) thing to be missing.

[@superfly2323]

UE4 is terrible at VR unfortunately. I run a very high spec PC and it looks ok and plays well and I really enjoy it. It does run better than ACC in VR if that means anything to anyone. I wish they would of just licensed the PC2 engine like AMS2 did and this would be a spectacular VR Rally experience. But like DDF stated I hope to be proven wrong too.

[@DDFRacer]

I think the issue with the Madness engine from AMS2 is that it comes integrated with the physics side of things too, although don't quote me on that as I really don't know exactly what I'm talking about 😂 Reiza have spent several years reverse engineering the engine and are only just getting to grips with it and in a state they're comfortable to call their own. The progress they've made is astounding but they're also one of the most relentless dev teams I've ever seen, I swear they don't sleep ha! You'd think that EA would have the resources to do something similar over time with UE4 but you won't catch my holding my breath for too long 😬

[@Nobody-Nowhere]

Are you really using Oculus CV1 ?

[@DDFRacer]

I sure am 👍 still going strong after 7+ years of pretty much daily use, it's been on every video/stream on the channel

[@Nobody-Nowhere]

@@DDFRacer But why? its like using a VGA monitor on your face :)

[@DDFRacer]

@@Nobody-Nowhere I actually went through this in quite a lot of detail on a stream yesterday if you want to hear my reasoning 😅 kzbin.infohZbSMhR8UHU?si=yj6ZG1Xg-BC-b6Gy&t=3438

[@Proximo011]

Amazing how Codemasters (if I remember correctly) could do it quite well with DirtRally 2.0 but EA can´t make it happen with WRC....

[@discodan2265]

UEVR works better at mo but remember Codies stated its still in beta.

[@DDFRacer]

100% agreed 👍 EA were very clear to let us know it's a Beta feature all over their Steam announcement posts which was a smart move. Hopefully it improves over time!

[@discodan2265]

@@DDFRacer I just tried to boot wrc up again using uevr as openxr & dlss with native support is bugged and it crashes the game. I tried all the usual troubleshooting like deleting my config files for wrc/ uevr etc replacing all the orig .dll in the game folder but no, it boots in uevr for around 1 min then crashes. I can run it through steam vr though it looks like shite all blurry and crapola. I do hope Codies release proper openxr support this time.

[@bdo7915]

What happens if u launch from steam vr?

[@DDFRacer]

I haven't tried that to be honest, although normally with other games this makes performance worse for me. Running VR natively in the Oculus headset will always be the preferred option 😎 and EA WRC doesn't give you the option in Steam either unfortunately, you just launch the game as normal and then it'll ask you in-game whether you want to use your headset or not.

[@bdo7915]

@@DDFRacer ahhhhh gotcha

[@verox43]

Mine runs like garbage and looks even worse with almost the same system as yours just 3070 graprhics card. Tried many different settings but gave up after few hours because it made me so sick from all the stuttering and low FPS. hopefully it will get optimised better with updates

[@DDFRacer]

Here's hoping 🤞 the actual underlying game itself really quite enjoyable and I can see myself spending a lot of time working through AI championships and my online CommUNITY Club even with the current state of the VR. If they can make it better with updates then that would be lovely.

[@jomi560]

you don't need skidmarks... speak for yourself 🤣

[@DDFRacer]

Ha yeah, good point Captain Underpants 🤣

[@TheVirtualFuture-By-WB]

Ok, so this is a useful video. You include settings. So being your usining CV1 I take it it's wired. ALL the other just showing game play.. Who cares?

[@DDFRacer]

Thanks for the kind words mate 👍 and yep, my CV1 is from before the days of AirLink or wireless so it's got a nice old HDMI cable which connects directly to my GPU along with an additional USB connection too. I did originally upload a gameplay only video a couple of days ago when I first tried EA WRC in VR, but it was always my intention to follow up with something a bit more substantial like this that could give people a better idea of what to expect 😉

[@mad-b264]

Reminds me of Beam in VR, lol...

[@DDFRacer]

Now _that's_ something I've been meaning to get back to again! Tried it out when VR first released but other things got in the way and I never ended up going back to it for some reason. Your comment doesn't give me too much confidence though 😅 is it not that good?

[@mad-b264]

@@DDFRacer lol, I was joking a little bit, Bean updated the other day or the other week one of them, And I did try it in VR with the new update, I will say the Scenario parts is better in VR, There is some vorX app or something like that, I can find the video I seen it on, The dude had Beam looking bad ass in VR, And the Desktop with a plus sing in front of it, It is free on Steam, That is meant to work with Beam, I have not tried Virtual Desktop, I found using Virtual Desktop improved AMS 2 for me by loads, I only race in VR using the Virtual Desktop and the Link cable, You got to try Virtual Desktop in Steam or on the Headset, I was told to get Virtual Desktop for the Headset though, I bought it on Steam and then some dude says I need it on the Meta Quest store, Apparently you can play with settings more or something... Most Sim racing games will be in VR now, I hear Le-Mans ultimate can be run in VR, And Unreal VR thing, Saying now 11 thousand games can be in VR, It do look impressive having unreal engine games in VR, Crash Bandicoot can even be played in VR, lol.... VR is changing the Gaming world for a long time to come, Have you seen the Meta Ray Ban glasses that you link to a phone, Soon TV companies will be making TVVR pair of glasses lol.... But yeah Beam NG will get better over time in VR....

[@anthonyt219]

3080 on low settings?! Its gonna be crap on my 2080 then. Well that sucks.

[@DDFRacer]

Yeah unfortunately at the moment you need a pretty beefy setup for EA WRC and even then it's not going to be great. Hopefully in future updates they can smooth out the performance a little 🤞

[@FoxamPL]

i tried the game, god it runs horribly, and the vr view keeps snapping out of place....

[@DDFRacer]

Not sure what the issue with the VR view snapping out of place would be since that's usually done per headset and not per game 🤔 you experiencing it with anything else? I make sure the reset VR view button is mapped to something I can reach in an instant right in front of me, just in case 👍

[@FoxamPL]

@@DDFRacer the snapling does not happen in asseto corsa. I guess i need to upgrade my rig🥲

[@DDFRacer]

@@FoxamPL nah definitely not mate, if AC is fine then I'd say it might be a software issue then, bit of an odd one though! No need to upgrade just for this game when EA clearly still need to optimise it a bit

[@Tripokaridos22]

Dirt Rally 1.0 had has the best VR

[@DDFRacer]

Not going to argue with you there 😉 they were some of the very first videos I ever uploaded on the channel several years ago and still (kind of) hold up to this day. Remarkable that we've had 8 years of progress and things now look worse with better hardware. The physics and general driving experience are definitely a step forward though which is the whole point of this at the end of the day I suppose 👍

[@tonymunford5804]

Yes but they stopped doing it now and you can’t add it .

[@labpong7562]

After a day and a half of tweaking the VR, I feel your vid is spot on! I had to work a bit more than I wanted with my 3060ti and Reverb G2, but same results as you. Now where are my glasses. 🥸

[@DDFRacer]

I could have definitely spent some more time tweaking settings and trying to get some nicer visuals but at that point it was only minimal gains for me so decided to commit to making the video instead. It's good to know (although not entirely reassuring) to hear you had a very similar experience too 😬

[@newcastlegeorge]

2:38 - Rapid Bins dislike this bit 💥

[@DDFRacer]

Ha yeah 🤣 I didn't spot that until I did my final checks before uploading! Would have put some sponsorship on there if I'd have picked it up during the editing.

[@ruudboek]

You are using an ancient Oculus CV1 VR headset and you complain about the game being pixelated?

[@DDFRacer]

Sure, I'll admit that more modern headsets will have more pixels and more sharpness, but this is the headset I use for everything I do on the channel (and have done for over 5 years) and allows me to make a direct comparison. AMS2, iRacing, Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom, even Richard Burns Rally which turns 20 years old this year, all run fine and look *significantly* better than EA WRC does in VR. It doesn't take a Quest 3 to see that and, to be fair, there are a lot of other people here in the comments section with much better headsets and GPUs saying it still doesn't look great even with better tech...

[@donjezza]

AA and SS only made everything look worse in my experience, hidden mask and foveated made it way better

[@DDFRacer]

I tried increasing the Foveation Strength setting but had some nasty artefacts in my peripheral vision unfortunately, also the hidden mask feature definitely helps inside the headset when I'm driving but puts black borders on the edges of my recording which kind of defeats the point for me 😅

[@donjezza]

@@DDFRacer yeah fair enough I guess I forgot about videos 😂 I highly recommend turning AA to low tho

[@stevebobowski3507]

Oculus cv1? Pretty low resolution aint it? Lol

[@DDFRacer]

Sure is 😉 but more than enough to be able to do my thing on the channel until it decides to die and I need to upgrade. That said, the fact that EA WRC still doesn't run great _even on a CV1_ is pretty telling 😅 ...

[@stevebobowski3507]

​@@DDFRacermaybe time to upgrade your last gen hardware as the components are very low by sim race standards. Also look into system optimization and thermals as these are often ignored.

[@Tripokaridos22]

AMS,Raceroom,DR1.0 have amazing VR that look way better than WRC and ACC crap Graphics Engine. First of even 4090 can't maxed out and have 120 per eye constantly fps . And even maxed out WRC VR looks bad.with ghosting bad textures and draw distance.

[@DDFRacer]

I'll add Assetto Corsa and iRacing to that list too, both of which are really solid VR experiences. Hopefully with their resources EA can get UE4 optimised a little better over time 😎 they've certainly made some positive improvements since launch to plenty of other areas in game.

[@FlameBot]

I thought on ultra the graphic already looks kind of blurry but you play almost everything on low. What a bad game

[@DDFRacer]

Quite telling that Ultra settings still have the blurriness unfortunately but yeah, these Low settings are the official recommendations from EA on their Steam post. Of course I could push things a little higher but that doesn't give me any wiggle room for night/rain stages and I also need to keep a bit of performance free for my recording software 👍

[@R83TV]

my 3070Ti wont play this in VR.... ACC just fine but this game is just not playable

[@DDFRacer]

I don't think your GPU is the issue here to be fair 😉 hopefully EA can improve the performance of VR in future updates!

[@sasquatch8923]

So basically a decade old game AC (with mods) looks better and runs better then a triple A game from 2023. Is that what I'm hearing? lol. Great work again EA- I guess six months after launch wasn't enough time.

[@DDFRacer]

Yep, pretty much 🤣 but if you want to go one step further then you can say that a *20 year old game* (Richard Burns Rally with mods courtesy of Rally Sim Fans) runs better too...

[@sasquatch8923]

@@DDFRacer 🤣LMAO. Not only runs better but probably looks better too

[@tonymunford5804]

Ea Sports is way better now then when it was released . VR has only just come out , I’m sure it will improve 👌

[@zainhaider8362]

It's rubbish...I refunded it after 45 mins of crashes and graphics that would not accept on a graphical calculator

[@DDFRacer]

No point sticking with it if that's the experience you're having mate 👍 I had something similar with F1 22 by EA a couple of years ago, horrible performance and one of the very rare pieces of software to actually bluescreen my PC. First and only time I've ever used the refund feature on Steam.

[@Silentpartner2176]

Haha, totally agree. It’s ugly.

[@romanseltenreichseltino9778]

this VR in WRC is shit.... I have r7 5800x3d, rtx 4090 and Pimax Crystal, games crash a lot, very bad VR optimisation, low details, unstable fps..... my 4090 crying in this game

[@DDFRacer]

I hear you mate 😬 EA WRC isn't exactly the most well optimised game out there for VR. Actually, let's be real for a moment. It's probably one of the worst 🤣 but will I still play it? Of course. With fingers crossed they improve the performance in future updates...

[@dubtube6691]

It's a joke this game in VR. With all these optimisation now it looks worse than Richard Burns rally 🥴🤦👏👏 2024. Conrad developers. Even dirt Rally from 2015 looks almost the same

[@DDFRacer]

Very fond memories of the original DiRT Rally 😍 I spent a lot of time in that game and thoroughly enjoyed it. DiRT Rally 2.0 was definitely a step back in terms of performance optimisation (and also the fact they removed 2d rendered menus and replays on the monitor) and unfortunately EA WRC seems like another step back again unfortunately. Big shame because everything else such as the cars, stages, handling etc is improving over time.

[@dubtube6691]

@@DDFRacer the menus are super quick in DR 2. You can even leave a time trial at the beginning without waiting to finish the countdown. One click and your can enter the tuning page. It's so so complicated in EA WRC now. A big step back

[@LargeStyle]

There's no hardware in existence that can run a simracing game in VR (using a decent headset) at full resolution, fps, and quality settings - so that's no failing of software. As compromises have to be made, I personally really don't get why people chose to turn graphics down to potato mode when motion smoothing / reprojection takes a massive workload off the PC which then allows for decent graphics with very little visual impact to motion. Maybe WRC is the exception as it uses OpenXR which can have quite prominent reprojection artifacts, but I play all other titles (Dirt Rally 1&2, ACC, AMS2, rF2 and RRE) in SteamVR and using its motion smoothing and it looks and runs awesome on my G2.

[@ukgarridge8486]

Its very much a software fault in this case. Im running this on Ultra with 1.5x super sampling and 120fps on a Quest 3 (and a 4090) and no matter the settings the game looks awful. AA on medium or lower is a shimmering mess and anything higher makes it super blurry. Btw ive also been running AC maxed out in native resolution on my G2 before I sold it so the hardware does exist, it just depends on the game. Also motion reprojection sucks in sims imo, I notice a big drop in smoothness but fair enough if you dont mind that

[@DDFRacer]

I'm definitely not expecting full resolution, fps and quality settings all at the same time. It's always a compromise between these three in VR and making a decision which one takes priority, although in this case with EA WRC it's a much harder compromise than other sim racing titles 😬 and especially in my case too I need to keep a little extra headroom on my GPU for my recording/streaming software. I can live with a little stuttering in the headset every now and then but it looks terrible when played back on KZbin which kind of defeats the whole point for me personally. I could definitely bump up a few settings and enjoy nicer graphics but I wouldn't be able to capture them to video and upload here. Reprojection and motion smoothing is a good idea but essentially halves the frame rate and then fills in the gaps every 2nd frame with interpolation. I used to enable this as a precaution a few years ago in rF2 when I was running enduros to save some performance (just in case it rained mid-race and tanked my frames) and I definitely noticed a drop in smoothness unfortunately. If it works for you though then more power to mate, that's awesome! Might as well take advantage of these features if you're able 👍

[@Yuki-rh1ie]

god that looks absolutely horrible. and that's on a 3080 ON A CV1

[@DDFRacer]

Yeah but if I upgrade to a 4090 and get a better headset, all these problems will be solved, right? 😅 Actually, unfortunately not. Plenty of other people have commented here saying that with better hardware and higher settings it still doesn't look to great so here's hoping EA can work some magic with future updates.

[@Yuki-rh1ie]

@@DDFRacer yea this isn't a hardware problem. ea needs to put a lot of work into this horribly optimised game to make it good enough for vr

[@MevRB19]

You rgpu is archaiv and a CV1? You have to be kidding. Pos. Use a 4090 and a Q3 or pimax. Horses for courses. You have the wrong horse. Steam vr is also a pos.

[@DDFRacer]

I'm not exactly sure in what world the Nvidia RTX 3080 10GB is considered archaic, it does the job plenty fine with every other game/sim I use 😆 but fair enough. I'll agree with you on the headset though, it's an old one but it still checks out and is my reference point for my observations of EA WRC, I can directly compare what it looks like to other sims because...well, it's what I use every day, and it _still_ looks bad. I had the opportunity to try a friend's Varjo Aero recently and really enjoyed the extra clarity but it's not in my budget at the moment, I've also considered a Quest 3 on a few occasions but keep finding bad reviews that put me off (link cable issues, battery life, increased latency etc). Until my CV1 dies it'll continue to be the VR headset I use, unless you fancy shouting me the funds for something better and a 4080 to go with it? 😉 PS. Completely agree about SteamVR too, always much better to run native when possible, however EA WRC doesn't use SteamVR so doesn't apply here.

[@nunopt4071]

to play vr in very low u might as well dont buy it

[@FlameBot]

So true. Waste of your free time playing at such bad quality a game from 2024

[@DDFRacer]

I mean, it's passable, you can still drive and get a decent experience as long as you lower your expectations but it's definitely a step down visually compared to DiRT Rally 2.0 and even Richard Burns Rally which is 20 years old now.

[@parker73724]

This game ran awful to begin with. If I have to make the game look like Google Earth to work in VR id rather just play desktop

[@tonymunford5804]

If you think the game ran awful to begin with , why get VR then 🤔

[@parker73724]

@@tonymunford5804 That's what I said in the original comment 😂

[@DDFRacer]

Yeah I had a fair few people on my Discord struggle to dial their settings in over the past 6 months before VR dropped. Photo mode can look absolutely stunning in EA WRC 😍 but yeah, a lot of those visual artefacts I mentioned in the video are still present on a monitor with Ultra settings so it just looks like it might be the way the underlying UE4 engine handles things unfortunately.

[@WoWSondo]

Anything in that headset looks and runs like crap. Get a new headset. Then give a review.

[@DDFRacer]

Sorry, but hard disagree on this one mate. The CV1 itself isn't actually _running_ anything as it's just receiving the image direct from my GPU (which is the Nvidia RTX 3080 10GB and is more than enough 😉). If anything, using a CV1 is actually going to make games run a little _better_ since it's not as demanding in terms of the number of pixels required to render. Sure, I'll admit that more modern headsets will have more pixels and more sharpness, but this is the headset I use for everything I do on the channel (and have done for over 5 years) and allows me to make a direct comparison. AMS2, iRacing, Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom, even Richard Burns Rally which turns 20 years old this year, all run fine and look *significantly* better than EA WRC does in VR. It doesn't take a Quest 3 to see that and, to be fair, there are a lot of other people here in the comments section with much better headsets and GPUs saying it still doesn't look great even with better tech...

[@WoWSondo]

@@DDFRacer it don't run anything you are right, but boy it looks like crap in any game. I told myself long ago when all I had was Vive and CV1 that I don't need a upgrade they all look the same. I laugh at the thought of playing on them now I know. Think that what I was thinking when I made the comment idk. lol no hate bro keep doing you man!!

[@WoWSondo]

@@DDFRacer PS also boy do that game look and run like crap on anything kek

[@DDFRacer]

@@WoWSondo I'll upgrade eventually but probably when the cv1 decides to die 😅 but until then it'll definitely do the job. I actually had the chance to try a friend's Varjo Aero a few months ago and was really impressed by the extra clarity but it's definitely not possible with my current budget unfortunately.