I built a VR Racing Sim for UNDER $1,000!

The moral of the story here is to start with what you've got- if you wait until you have the ultimate setup, you'll never get started.
Sim Racing is an especially expensive hobby when you consider that you're playing the same games as they exist on Xbox or Playstation, just in a much more expensive way- so it's hard to justify spending big bucks on sim racing especially when you're just getting started, as each component can easily fetch 4 figures on a high end setup.
So, I decided I still wanted to experience racing games in a proper way with a racing wheel and pedals, racing seat, and immersive VR headset- but as cheaply and as simply as possible.
Links to everything I used for my racing sim here (affiliate):
Logitech G29 Wheel and Pedals: amzn.to/3KqfHhp
Logitech Shifter: amzn.to/42S40aB
Playseat Evolution: amzn.to/40wP2VD
Playseat Gearshift Holder Pro: amzn.to/3ZC3hY9
Meta Quest 2 (256GB): amzn.to/3U9pz2j
Syntech Quest 2 Link Cable: amzn.to/42QbM4C
Water Bladder Hydration System: amzn.to/3KalRRE

[@filipivan5125]

"champagne taste and a beer budget" never heard this one so I love it that much more !

[@dylanmacintosh]

Hahaha I probably heard it first from my grandpa 😂

[@slimeballslatty]

ong dis shit was relatable 😂

[@deluge6479]

Ppl been saying that since before I was a kid lol

[@JustMamba]

Its literally the slogan for miller high life lmfao.

[@Blz-ys3nr]

Respect on the setup! I love the idea of the water bag strapped to the chair .

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks!! The headset makes it a little tricky to drink from a water bottle even with a long straw, so the water bladder quickly became my method to stay hydrated 😄

[@Pazazazaz]

love the quality of your vids man! keep it up!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you for watching!! Your kind comment is much appreciated 🙌

[@lanxathetrapripper3433]

wait what this is really good qual for inly 897 subs congrats bro looks like you re already in the big league keep it up and you defenetly get there

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks a ton!! I'm always trying to improve my skills, so your comment means a lot. Thanks for watching!!

[@Kai_Exploits]

Bro I thought u had 100k subs and had to see it again and only 1k. How bro you sound so professional and like you know what you are doing.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you for the kind words! I’m just out here tryin my best to make the best videos I can- maybe someday we’ll hit that 100k mark and have a huge celebration 🙏

[@Kai_Exploits]

@@dylanmacintosh Yes bro, I'll be right beside u when it happens!

[@censoredialogue]

when you pulled out that water bladder i thought you were about to say you got a catheter so you didn’t have to get up to pee 😹😹😹

[@dylanmacintosh]

NOW we’re talking, why didn’t I think of that?! 🤣🤣🤣 Also, don’t Google what F1 drivers do if they have to use the bathroom during a race… for me I just pause the game and go use the restroom, but they don’t have that option… 🤨

[@censoredialogue]

@@dylanmacintosh ngl i thought they just poop before the race 😭😭

[@dylanmacintosh]

Oh NO you Googled it 🤣

[@jjaammoo7777]

I’ve been struggling to find a way of using my Oculus 2 and a pc for sim racing. Can you explain the process of what to buy to use the Oculus and how to hook it up. I also have a wheel with pedals that work on my PS 4. I have Asseto Corsa and love playing on my 65”, but I’m looking for that immersive experience vr has to offer. Thank you so much for the realistic point of view!

[@soakerhvh]

assetto corsa on pc nativly supports oculus link, and you should be able to plug ur wheels and pedals into ur pc and it should all be workable in the assetto corsa settings

[@cantrellarchived5319]

Please drop your asseto corsa presets graphics settings. You can upload presets. I pretty much have the same pc specs and setup but with hp reverb g2. But I get pretty low fps. I really only play no hesi.

[@sasa-tr3hc]

Thank you so much for such amazing video, do you know some ready VR racing simulator I can play any racing game with using Oculus Quest 2 for example?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question, are you referring to a VR racing game you can play with ONLY the Quest 2? If so, I think the only such title available at this time is Grid Legends. However if your question is referring to using the Quest 2 as a PCVR headset connected to your gaming PC, the go-to VR racing titles are Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione, iRacing, Automobilista 2, F1 22 or 23, Project Cars, or Dirt Rally. They are all good at different things, so no one game is “the best” racing sim at everything. They can all be hardly fairly cheaply on regular PC Gaming sales such as Steam sales etc. I hope this helps!

[@nathanrhee400]

loved this video and watched it all the way through

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks very much for watching, commenting, and enjoying!

[@sixzxx]

bro can you please help with the vr quest settings , first person jus looks so bad , idk what to do anymore been messing with setups for days now

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! I struggled with this too and the thing that helped me the most was to change the resolution slider from “auto” to “manual” everywhere possible. For instance on my PC I had to change that setting in the Oculus app device settings, as well as in the SteamVR video settings for games that launch in Steam because if you only did one it would still be yo-yo-ing the resolution on the other setting, so you have to do both. So to change it from “auto” to “manual” all you have to do is select a resolution scale that’s NOT auto. Like, even if you set it to “1x”, even though that shouldn’t technically be any different than the auto setting, at least it takes it off “auto”. This also fixed all the annoying jittering (juddering?) stuttering etc that I was having especially in F1 23 VR and Assetto Corsa VR mode. You can experiment with setting video scaling to 1.5x etc as some people say it looks better but that really just depends on the hardware of your system, but the important part is that it isn’t set to “auto” anymore, no matter what the “manual” scaling value is, 1x, 1.1x, 1.2x, 1.5x, etc. I hope that makes sense and I hope that helps you out! If you have a specific problem with a specific VR sim title let me know too and I’ll tell you if I’ve ran into it before. Cheers!

[@dwaynediah4595]

This way I love sim racing

[@timripley7168]

what kind of bandwith / upload / download speeds do you have to support VR?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question, and depends what kind of speed you are referring to- if you’re referring to your ISP bandwidth, aka how you pay for internet to your house, then once the game is downloaded the speed does not matter, unless you are playing online multiplayer in which case you’d need the same kind of speeds comparable to other online games, whether they are VR or not. But if you are referring to using a VR headset like the Quest over wifi, then the wifi bitrate should be over 100Mbps to max out your available usage of AirLink, and 200Mbps for Virtual Desktop. If those answers are not what you are looking for, then please let me know. And thanks for watching!

[@timripley7168]

​@dylanmacintosh yes ISP Bandwith... ie if I want to use a VR headset for AC or iRacing or? I have seen different answers ie if there is too much latency(?) you can get 'motion sickness' (which I am definitely sensitive to). Also, I saw Steam used to have a system checker where it would tell you if your PC/Laptop will support VR games etc... and tia:)​@@dylanmacintosh

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! So if your concern is your ISP's bandwidth for online multiplayer, then I think you should be pretty much good to go if you have a normal internet connection like broadband, fiber, etc. The only option that wouldn't work is high orbit satellite connection due to the higher latency. So, the round trip latency, or "ping", is more important for online gaming than simply bandwidth/speed which doesn't really matter if it's all that fast. I hope that helps! As far as a system checker for minimum requirements, most games like AC or iRacing will have a webpage on their website listing their minimum PC specs, so check with those specific games as well. Keep in mind there might be a separate minimum spec for the VR mode of each game. In general though any modern system with a dedicated graphics card of 60 series or higher equivalent power should do the trick to get you started, but of course a bigger more expensive graphics card will allow you to turn up the resolution and framerate. I hope this helps!@@timripley7168

[@gamingdevil49]

you could either just mount your wheel to a desk and save 100 dollars. or build your own cockpit for whateve wood costs at your local home depot

[@dylanmacintosh]

True, I’ve seen lots of Reddit posts on how to DIY build your own sim rig, either out of wood or PVC, which is super kühl and infinitely customizable but for me once I saw the PlaySeat Evolution on Craigslist for $200 I knew I’d rather go for that then rent tools and such from Home Depot, I’m also in an apartment so I don’t have a lot of “workshop” area besides my basement which is a shared space anyways, know what I mean… maybe once I buy a house with a garage and get more tools I can get more into DIY stuff, that’d be really exciting!! By the way, thanks very much for watching and commenting 🙏

[@fuckthis1890]

Love the setup, already ordered most of the parts and cleared up some space to try it myself. But please don't recommend pre-builds or even use them as examples. The Alienware Aurora you showed for example is a ticking time bomb when it comes to airflow and cooling, its really bad. Use resources, source parts and build your own. Its cheaper, you'll learn something and can even service and upgrade your machine yourself.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks for watching! Glad to hear you’re giving this racing setup a go! I see your point on the pre-built argument, I really just needed to pull a “dollar number” as building a custom PC can be all over the place, so I pulled up google and just searched for a PC with a recent graphics card to show the “top end” of that price range for that component. So in the second half of the video where I shifted to the “as cheap as possible” approach I countered that methodology with the bit about the 3060… I guess I could’ve made that more clear that I was recommending the latter half of the video, where I use my own GPU, etc. I’m always looking for ways to make my scripts come out more clearly, so thank you for your input!

[@GOTTHEDAWGINME]

Can confirm, researching PC hardware and picking the parts because I wanted one got me hooked in the hobby of PC hardware. Building one was the most fun I've had in a while, since I'm the type of guy that loves tinkering.

[@swagger15369]

I dont have a PC but I'll likely only use it to play the SIM Racing games. Is the RTX 3060 the only requirement I need to look for in a PC to be compatible with VR?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question, the short answer is yes- the 3060 (or now 4060) graphics card should be fine for most VR games if you lower the settings a bit when using PCVR on the Quest headset like I was here in this video. But the longer answer is it also depends on what headset you’re using- if you grab a 4K per eye headset and expect 120hz, well that kind of VR performance only comes with a 4090… so yeah for VR whether you buy a pre-built or build a PC yourself, generally you should look to get the biggest graphics card you can afford depending on what kind of performance you’re looking for. I hope this helps!

[@stevenm4696]

Can you have 2 car rigs with just 1 pc?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! I would say it’s probably not possible to run 2 racing sims off of one PC… it essentially comes down to the racing sim software only being able to run one instance of the game at a time, and all the racing sim games are local single player, no split screen like some console arcade racing games. So unfortunately I don’t believe it would be possible without running a crazy expensive computer with two or more virtual machines running multiple instances of the game, and even then it would be about as expensive and resource intensive as running two computers anyways… so, this thought process brings me back to saying one PC per racing sim is still the way to go ☝️

[@Harryyyy123]

2:51 but who needs a 4090???

[@Snifflesrambunctiouswaterbed]

That commercial suxed!!!

[@morbid1.]

I build my own rig with aluminium profiles and old office chair. The best part is that you don't need to build anything complicated. I live in a flat so my construction capabilities are very limited. Also own build rig is very flexible to changes and new additions. I started with a wheel stand (foldable one) and office chair with flip flops under wheels to make it not ride away \(￣︶￣*\))

[@tcc8499]

i started with an wheel stand and n wooden plank with holes in it attached to it so i could put the wheels of my office chair in their and it would ride away. now ive build my own wooden setup, very sturdy and i can upgrade what ever i want

[@frost3424]

u can make an overkill pc right now for LESS than 2K, and acurrent gen pc for less then 1,2k

[@Vyltax]

A rtx 3060 mid range????? that feels for me like between mid and high range

[@dylanmacintosh]

Haha I hear ya- i meant within the 3000 series of Nvidia GPUs the 3060 would be mid range, where the 3050 would be the low range and 3070, 3080 are high range, 3090 is god tier. In the grand scheme of GPUs today I agree, the 3060 is a great card. I would definitely consider it mid-high range of “price to performance” GPUs for sure

[@Vyltax]

@@dylanmacintosh I totally agree with that!

[@KingArthusSs]

Pico 4 VR 500€ steering wheel 100-400€ Unfortunately you need a very strong graphics card for VR and only the 4090 comes for €1700. with the GK alone you are well over 1000€ if I don't want pixel graphics

[@FataIend]

i can use vr with a 3060 and its reallly good

[@KingArthusSs]

@@FataIend i can use vr with 1080GTx and its really bad xD

[@soracing]

3060 mid range card? Lol. Im chilling with a 1650, must be super low range lol. Super sick build tho

[@dylanmacintosh]

LOL great point, I think the most common card on the Steam survey is still the 1650 by a good margin, but the 3060 is right behind it. I was more thinking of the “mid range” part of like, within the 30-series range the 3060 is between the 3050 and 3070, but yeah as far as it’s capabilities it’s a rather well performing card for the price over previous generations, probably why it’s 2nd on the steam survey currently, a lot of people are switching to it since it’s a great upgrade over older generations for not “too” much more money. I did release a newer video recently though on upgrading my GPU to the new Asus 4070 Dual, I was very happy with the way it came out! As always thanks for watching and commenting 🙌

[@soracing]

@@dylanmacintosh haha yeah. I was actually thinking about upgrading from the 1650 and also buying a VR headset for sim racing. Would you recommend the 3060 for VR racing? again super sick sim rig.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! Honestly, yes I would recommend the 3060 to get started with VR racing, but also the 4060 has recently come out for $299 MSRP so I might recommend that too, just depends on what sales you can find. Since upgrading to the 4070 I’ve realized that I could’ve just lowered the settings to like, VR Medium on the 3060 and been perfectly stable at 72 fps even in the wet races, even with the Ryzen 3600 CPU that I had in the system at that time as well. There’s definitely diminishing returns if you spend more money on the gpu + cpu because you’re still locked in at 72fps if you’re using Quest 2 default settings anyways. So, I think even todays modern budget offerings have really decent VR performance, especially for F1 VR games at 72fps. I hope this helps!

[@soracing]

@@dylanmacintosh Yeah that definitely helps, thank you so much

[@carloscruz7317]

wait 3060 is mid range?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Mid-range in this context is referring to middle of the 30 series range, as in between the entry level 3050 and high end 3080 (and god tier 3090). It’s a very good card relatively speaking, especially comparing to upgrading from older generations like 10 series and older if that’s what you’re wondering!

[@Xxdirtygranny420xX]

cammus c5 and t3pm is maybe 100 bucks more expensive than the logitech g29 and it has way better pedals and direct drive

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great advice!! I’ve been looking really hard at getting a direct drive wheel lately- I bought the Logitech G29 used on Craigslist years ago, so it’s definitely time for an upgrade especially now that my skills are improving too, I can feel the old gear driven Logitech starting to hold me back- especially the pedals.

[@Techxolotl]

Does this work on PC?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question- yes, it works on PC. I am using a PC here in this video. I hope this helps, but please let me know if you have any other questions!

[@allgunsblazed9106]

It works better on pc 😉

[@troyuittenbogaard1677]

it real helpt my out thxx

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you for watching! Glad I could help 🙌

[@devbo777]

Gotta be a cheaper computer smh lol

[@XsTwentyOne]

thank you

[@dylanmacintosh]

You’re very welcome! Thanks for watching 🙏

[@sunsetsdripping]

3060 mid? damn my 1660ti is a third world country then😢

[@dylanmacintosh]

LOL the 1660 is a great card and is still the most popular graphics card currently, I meant the 3060 is mid-range since it’s in between the 3050 and 3070/80/90 so in Nvidia’s branding the 3060 is “mid range” of the 3000 series even though it is of course a very capable modern graphics card, not necessarily “mid” in terms of the entire GPU market

[@sleepy_dobe]

Lol.....your setup might be under $1000, but if you slap some Aston Martin or Red Bull labels on it, it'll immediately cost over $5000. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@dylanmacintosh]

Right??? It’s all branding 🤣 someday I might actually build a copy of the CURV simulator, but you bet your bottom dollar it won’t be $80k 🤑

[@justinsenna2438]

Justin

[@kitava1912]

holy shit! skip to 6 mins in the vid!! jesus !!

[@JonDough-ux9ju]

That’s not a sim. Logitech g29 is not a sim wheel. It feels nothing like an actual wheel whatsoever. It’s a toy.

[@10steps_ahead]

Good for you buddy !

[@forestnfren8146]

this was a good video until you busted out a water bladder. What the fuck