How to Install and Setup OpenXR Toolkit with iRacing in VR

[@thiskoryracing]

Did this help you gain FPS? ---- As a side note, I ended up turning off Upscaling/Sharpening because I am CPU bottlenecked, and it seemed to utilize a bit of CPU which actually hindered my performance - this is with a 9700K @ 4.9Ghz.

[@yesno9980]

Someone suggested on reddit that I try OpenXR Toolkit for iRacing and you were a godsend. Finally hitting 90 fps on quest 3 with no frame drops.

[@FruitLoop2020]

But what setup you running? Remember 90fps isn’t always the best. Sometimes having 72hz as. The slider at 1.5 works better. Smooth is better than fps. You won’t notice much difference in frames from 90 to 72hz

[@yesno9980]

@@FruitLoop2020 You mean my pc specs? Got a 3070, i9 12th gen, 128 DDR5 RAM. I hit over 200 frames when using my monitor, but in VR I struggle with 90 fps. It shouldn't struggle, yet it does, I don't know if its because of the preview window you get, if that's making me render the game twice and reducing my performance and whether I can turn it off or not.

[@FruitLoop2020]

@@yesno9980I found using the forums that people having issues with the newer tracks in VR and how they are rendered. People with 4090 have issues too. However the settings in this video should help. But for me personally (I stress personally) I found 72hz better for me as very hard to tell the difference.

[@yesno9980]

@@FruitLoop2020 For my rookie races it seems to be holding up, but I wouldn't be surprised if later down the line I have to set it to 72 hz and I don't mind. Thanks for the info bro.

[@FruitLoop2020]

@@yesno9980good luck in rookies 🙂. And no worries, hope it helps. As I say, the settings in this video are very good and credit to him. I just prefer graphics to be turned up more in Vr so chose the 72hz. However I’m going to try these settings later and see what it’s like 🙂

[@vaspano]

Thank you so much for your video, coming to IRACING from RFACTOR2 I couldn't dial the VR although I am fortunate to own a mega mega PC, now I get 100 fps with everything turned to maximum. Cheers buddy

[@skipp1877]

Finally, a video that explains how to set this up from start to finish.

[@wb3191]

I've been doing this without the program you mentioned earlier in the video. It helped the cpu bottleneck. Running much smoother than in Oculus mode or whatever when joining the race sessions. Its still has that "blink" moment every once in a while, but before it would stay in a weird state. It looked like clear lines were running through the full image but made it kind of laggy. In openXR, it will blink but be back to normal, even with more graphics enhanced.

[@acam386]

Amazing video, I got the last 5 frames I needed for that perfect 90. A huge thanks!

[@nakazonegamestreaming896]

I have been watching all these OpenXL videos and I can tell yours is niiiiiice!!!!

[@thiskoryracing]

Thank you so much! I try my best to make videos that are as helpful as possible 💜

[@nakazonegamestreaming896]

@@thiskoryracing You did it brother!!!!

[@JSteelsRacing]

Awesome video - I had no idea what to do with OpenXR now im setup and ready to go! Thank you!

[@thiskoryracing]

Glad to help! 💜

[@fardin_hossain]

Thank you so much for this super easy tutorial, you have truly made my vr experience so much better ❤

[@thiskoryracing]

Glad to help 🙏

[@markchurch5273]

Toolkit WAS the best tool for vr. Took me weeks to tweek it to perfection. Now they bloody dropped support for it. Nothing comes close to that now. Gutted.

[@thiskoryracing]

It still works for me using the Bigscreen Beyond and other PCVR headsets. I think the Quest platform had issues with one of the updates. I believe it was resolved with one of the latest Quest updates eh?

[@markchurch5273]

@thiskoryracing thanks mate, I'm using pimax crystal light. Every time I start assetto corsa with it on, it crashes the game. tbh heard a few peope it still works. Possibly another problem.

[@Armitage574]

love this tool to remove iracings yellow/greenish tint

[@thiskoryracing]

That's a good idea!

[@HORUSCOOKS]

thank you! your explanation was super helpful! GODSPEED

[@Dachopper_]

How does the sharpening tool work in this? Is it like ASW in that it predicts the next frame in a video by using information from previous frames? I note you only have it at 96% whereas other reviews I’ve watched drop it to 50-60% which in theory should provide more FPS with additional headroom right? What’s the trade off of setting the sharpening tool higher or lower? As someone who’s new to gaming history trying to get my head around this. Thanks!

[@Chader9]

Great video. I am just using the Preset Cull, but may experiment with the Custom option based upon your tutorial. Also thanks for sharing your GFX card model and iR GFX settings for reference. I am testing some different values now and seeing yours are a good spark to testing some settings I hadn't considered until now. You didn't mention Turbo mode, and while it is "experimental" my experience and that of others seems to indicate it is very worth testing.

[@thiskoryracing]

It's always nice hearing feedback, thank you! Turbo mode is actually something I didn't consider after reading about it on the GitHub page because it mentioned the potential of increasing frametimes and latency, as well as potential for crashing and instabilities with other features, so I didn't mention it because I simply haven't tried it myself and wanted to make as quick of a video as possible and only mention the essentials. In hindsight, I should have given it a quick mention just so people know what it is and can test it for themselves, but that would probably have added another 10 minutes to the video with how much I tend to ramble 😅

[@AndyBell018]

I may have missed it, for reference when seeing your in game FPS and graphics settings, what PC specs are you working with? Great video, for what it’s worth, for this content specifically I would’ve loved to have found the PC specs in the description.

[@thiskoryracing]

Hey thank you for the useful feedback! I added my PC specs to the description 💜

[@AndySpicer]

I’ve been on iRacing for so long that when I’m on a track in real life or even on the highway, I’m like, where is the green and yellow? Where are the settings for this? This really looks terrible….. thanks a lot iRacing.

[@spicyberms7282]

Hey great video! I saw at some live shots you have overlays on, is this also in you VR view or just on for the capture? Have you had any success getting overlays like racelabs in VR using openxr?

[@thiskoryracing]

Thanks! I don't use overlays in VR as I find them distracting and pointless to look at when in the heat of a race. I use overlays for my stream only. Otherwise I just use the blackbox for relatives, and maybe a delta if I feel slow.

[@Drivewithbob]

Like the fucking video ! Loved that part lol

[@robertallen3133]

Fantastic video

[@thiskoryracing]

Thank you! That's super kind of you 💜

[@nicolasgervais3883]

a big thank you for this video! It was really usefull!

[@FruitLoop2020]

Good explanation, however the one thing I slightly disagree with is frames. For oculus anyway, smoothness is also a biggy. I have oculus at 72hz rather than 90hz, but I find the clarity better (for me)

[@thiskoryracing]

I notice a massive difference between 72Hz and 90Hz, especially on the slower LCD panels. 90Hz is necessary for me to have a decent experience, as long as that 90Hz is smooth. OpenXR Toolkit allows me to get that 90Hz running smooth as butter, while allowing me to increase the graphics simultaneously. If I try 72Hz I just can't.. even if it's just as smooth because I notice the difference in framerate and 72Hz isn't as smooth as 90Hz. It's hard to disagree that 90Hz is better than 72Hz, but I guess if you are incapable of running a smooth 90Hz (even with OpenXR Toolkit) then it would be best to run 72Hz if you can only get that to run smooth.

[@FruitLoop2020]

I can run 90hz smoothly, but find 72hz better as it will allow the other sections to be increased giving an overall better experience (for me) as I find having 90hz but turning down settings to make it run smooth is not worth the experience. For info I’m running 4070 TI SUPER, 5800x3D. So more than capable of 90hz. I will test your options/settings What VR are you using? Currently have the quest 3

[@thiskoryracing]

By "other sections" I'm assuming you mean you're able to increase graphics at 72Hz? Either way I'm glad you got things figured out for yourself. I use a Quest 3, Index, and Beyond. I have used all for racing, but recently got my Beyond back so I'll strictly be using that again.

[@FruitLoop2020]

@@thiskoryracingyes, apologies other settings I meant graphical. Found turning them up all to max whilst at 90hz (especially in the rain and the newer tracks) would cause some stutter. However main thing it works 🙂. Have you tried the sunlight/glasses feature in openxr? Found it actually looks nicer than normal.

[@thiskoryracing]

@FruitLoop2020 Yeah I tried those settings but the Beyond is already like wearing sunglasses so I don't need it haha. I actually lower the brightness a bit on the Beyond too because I like my screens fairly dim.

[@socc3r7k1ng]

I don't have any games with check boxes in my openXR list, how do I add them?

[@thiskoryracing]

Sorry, I made a mistake and did not mention you must launch the sim first before it will pop up in that section. My apologies!

[@13breno13]

What headset are you rocking? I'm on a quest 3 and have had good success using Virtual Desktop wirelessly. For some reason I'm actually getting better performance and it also resolved a sound stuttering issue for me all while being wireless!

[@thiskoryracing]

Bigscreen Beyond 😎 It's fantastic!

[@13breno13]

@@thiskoryracing I've seen those and they look great. Have you tried a Quest 3? If so what are your thoughts? Have you tried Virtual Desktop wirelessly with your headset?

[@thiskoryracing]

I have a Quest 3 as well, yeah. It's good, but some games suffer more from compression and latency issues. I personally wouldn't recommend a Quest for sim-racing for those reasons alone, having experienced both. Having a display port connection improves visual clarity enough for me to want to keep using a cable. Quest 3 also is more tedious to use in general compared to a "proper" PCVR headset with a cable, for various reasons, including having to tinker with spacewarp, bitrates, battery life, etc.. For most other games and applications, the Quest 3 is awesome, I just wish it had OLED displays and the option to plug in a display port for better visual fidelity when playing PCVR.

[@13breno13]

Interesting. I was having issues cabled with my Quest 3 but have been blown away by using Virtual Desktop and OpenXR. Always though wired=better but somehow the quality and stability is way better for me, it probably says more about VD though rather than the medium. Latency wise I've never had problems and it doesn't feel unresponsive but I also haven't benchmarked it. Screen wise I do wish it was OLED with more brightness but I'm happy with it overall and don't have a reference other than my old Lenovo WMR headset. I'd be curious to get your thoughts on Virtual Desktop on the Quest and how it compares. It's a paid app but you can use it for up to 2 hours and refund it if it doesn't work out.

[@stefancristian6128]

i have a quest 3 and planning to do this, anything you would recommend differently from your video ? I'm gonna play with it anyway but maybe you have some ideas

[@saramark4622]

When I open XRtoolkit, I don't have theapplication listed in the box at the bottom. Its completely blank. How did you get iracing to populate that box?

[@thiskoryracing]

I think simply launching a session in iRacing should get it to pop up, let me know if this works for ya!

[@reggaesurvivor251]

@@thiskoryracing it did thank you

[@juccavtr]

How to switch from Oculus runtime to openxr or it's the same

[@filipetkd]

My menu doesn’t pop up on the screen guys. Anyone knows what is it?! I use windows 11!

[@AndySpicer]

I want you to know, I intended to hit the like button as this video was ending. Then, you had to go ahead drop an F bomb. So now, in addition to hitting like, I’m gonna have to fucking hit subscribe as well. Pffff.

[@thiskoryracing]

My throat started to close up half way through reading this. You had me there for a moment! 😂

[@Pascalleke_]

I have a Bigscreen Beyond, im not able to even start the game in VR, i get 'Simulator appeared to be unresponsive for more than 25 seconds'. Its loading veeerrryyy slow, stays at 15% first few times i was able to get in the game but its just frozen in my VR screen but on my monitor it was working but laggy

[@thiskoryracing]

@@Pascalleke_ What hardware are you running?

[@Pascalleke_]

@@thiskoryracing ryzen 9 7950x3d, RTX 3070, 32GB DDR5

[@Pascalleke_]

@@thiskoryracing when i remove the toolkit, it will run but takes minutes and like 2 fps in menu

[@andreimelo135]

I've installed this but "fixed foveated rendering" does not appear as an option for me. What Am I doing wrong?

[@thiskoryracing]

What VR headset are you using? There are known issues with the Quest platform with V68, which apparently will be fixed with V69. This is written on the top of the linked github page. Otherwise, double check that your headset it supported, and you are launching iRacing in OpenXR.

[@casimir_1]

I messed with openvr with steam and tried to switch back to openxr and now it won’t work. I’m so frustrated

[@thiskoryracing]

Weird, I've never ran into that issue. Have you tried doing a Google search for your specific issue? Perhaps resetting the .ini files by moving them to another folder and launching the game again will help? This doesn't seem normal and something else must be going on.

[@oNAGAo]

This doesn't seem to help for systems like mine that are CPU-bound in iRacing. I went so far as to cull everything possible (as if I was looking through a roll of toilet paper), and the frame drops while racing in the rain were the same.

[@thiskoryracing]

That's brutal. If you don't mind me asking, what GPU and CPU do you have?

[@oNAGAo]

@@thiskoryracing Yeah, there are probably still some other settings I might be able to turn down, but I'd rather not make everything look like potato graphics. CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core - 3.70 GHz 32GB RAM GPU: RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra Gaming

[@tahirballikaya213]

yeah if you are CPU bound there is not much you can do. I have a 5600x and 3080 as well. FFR helps a little but it mainly helps the GPU. Only options that help a little is turning off dynamic shadows and reduce amount of mirrors (I have it at 2). And also turning off Night shadow maps for night races.

[@gabytro]

If I turn on cull outer mask HAM my screen goes black :(( and I have to restart the game

[@thiskoryracing]

@@gabytro no worries, some settings may not work for all headsets. Just keep it off and apply the rest of the settings.

[@BlueSolsticeGaming]

Idk how you got this to work. Mine doesn't even show the menu, it legit just has a stroke

[@thiskoryracing]

What kinda hardware are you using? What GPU and HMD? Make sure it's supported. Sometimes reinstalling stuff helps. Or try closing all other apps that aren't necessary, maybe one is interfering with it. I wish I could help troubleshoot more, but you're on your own from here, good luck! If you manage to get it working I'd be curious what was done.

[@eternalglow6483]

I tried downloading some of these upscaling mods like this one and the VRperfkit one and I couldn’t get any of them to work on oculus or SteamVR games

[@thiskoryracing]

OpenXR Toolkit only works with a few games. Check their website which I have linked in the description of the video and scroll down to see the supported game list.

[@TPA_JW]

Great video. I installed openxr, but iracing .exe is not showing up in the application box in openxr. How do you add it?

[@thiskoryracing]

Thank you! I failed to mention it in the video, but you have to launch iRacing first to get it to show up, so just launch a session and it should pop up.

[@TPA_JW]

@@thiskoryracing Bingo! Thank you!

[@davidclark5155]

Followed the steps however after restarting sessions wont load past 15% I have to load in safe more or as admin to get it to fire up. Not sure if something has changed since this was uploaded but it wont work for me

[@thiskoryracing]

Hmm, I am using version 1.3.2 which seems to be the current version so it should not be an issue there. Perhaps you could try resetting the .ini file by simply moving all of your renderDX11___.ini files from your Documents/iRacing folder to a temporary safe folder to backup these files, then restart iRacing and it will rebuild these files from scratch. See if this helps at all. If not, I'd try a Google search to see if you can find anything. Wish I could help more, but I haven't had this issue personally.

[@davidclark5155]

@@thiskoryracing that the version of openxr? I could see if i can update, the other stuff i have tried

[@thiskoryracing]

Yeah that's the OpenXR Toolkit version I'm using.

[@davidclark5155]

@@thiskoryracing unfortunately even after updating to the newest openxr it doesn’t work. As soon as i choose the ham/ cull option the screen goes black

[@thiskoryracing]

That part isn't necessary, and may not work with all headsets so you can skip the Cull (HAM) part and leave it off.

[@tahirballikaya213]

If I turn on Cull Outer Mask on I get a black screen. The game keeps running as I can still hear it but everything is black and I need to restart it. Do you know why that happens? I have a G2

[@thiskoryracing]

Not sure at all why this happens, as it has never happened to me. Are you sure you're using a supported GPU and headset? As far as culling, the outer mask should only be turned on Yes, and the Middle and Outer Resolution should be a fraction number and NOT set to Cull.

[@FOGDaheee]

I keep cull off as I have the same black screen with a 3070 and the reverbG2. I use CAS and have FFR set to quality, hold 90 fps with no issues and I have a i5 8600K so that's an old CPU.

[@tahirballikaya213]

@@FOGDaheee I actually got it to work somehow. But I noticed some of the visible part around the nose was culled so I keep it off. Instead I set the outer ring to 100% and set the resolution to cull and expand by 120%. The fps gain is around the same but I like it more that way. I also use CAS at 100% btw, iracings in-game sharpening looks too harsh to me.

[@FOGDaheee]

@@tahirballikaya213 Agreed, I use 90 sharpening in the OpenXR toolkit instead and the image is nice and clear.

[@LukeFlembo]

A couple of days ago i installed the software becuase i had low fps i also turned on foveated rendering which worked , a few days later now iRacing is splitting the display in half and not rendering in my headset also foveated rendering has stopped working completley and doesnt even show up in the settings and i am not running the software in safe mode .

[@thiskoryracing]

I'd personally relocate all of your .ini files in the iRacing folder in your Documents. When those .ini files are moved, they have to be recreated and the next time you launch iRacing it'll run an initial setup for graphic settings. Do this to reset your settings to default to ensure you didn't accidentally change anything to mess stuff up. Then readjust your graphic settings in-game and see if it works again. There have been known issues regarding distortion on some headsets while using OpenXR, if you have this issue search for "iRacing VR distortion" in Google and you should come across a Reddit post with a fix for that. Hope this helps!

[@LukeFlembo]

@@thiskoryracing thanks man

[@LukeFlembo]

@@thiskoryracing any chance I can grab your discord so I can show you the specifics of what’s happening

[@thiskoryracing]

Sorry I didn't reply to this sooner Luke. You can absolutely join my discord discord.com/invite/uWmZtzwy Feel free to post in there or you can DM me.

[@reggaesurvivor251]

OpenXR wont show any application whatsoever that i could chose from

[@hacksbm]

don't you put any SS?

[@thiskoryracing]

Super sampling? That's the opposite of what this video is demonstrating. Adding SS would be counterintuitive.

[@hacksbm]

So dont use ss, with ss you obtain more good quality

[@thiskoryracing]

Right. Thanks.

[@m1northreat]

i def liked this fucking video! gonna have to give it a go this week. will post if it helped me or not with my quest pro. i have a ryzen 5600 and an rtx 4080. i tend to struggle on the cpu side of things and am hoping this helps alleviate that

[@thiskoryracing]

Haha thanks! You definitely have a better GPU than me, but CPU is basically on par with mine so I am curious how it works out for you.

[@m1northreat]

ok, so tried it out and my gpu hung out around 6-7 before going openxr and the cpu hung out around 10-11. now the gpu sits at around 3-5 and the cpu still kinda sits in the same spot. this is with IMSA. my cpu tends to struggle with the GTP cars. it was easy to setup and i def feel the gains. thanks again for the video@@thiskoryracing

[@thiskoryracing]

@@m1northreat Love to hear it! Glad you were able to find some performance to keep things running smooth! We have a similarly old CPU, and mine sits at around 11 as well so that makes sense, we are CPU bottlenecked 🥲

[@m1northreat]

yep! sounds like it! gonna have to upgrade, hopefully sometime soon. @@thiskoryracing