With my recent renewed interest in sim racing (Thx Derek ) after a few years of absence I dusted off my old Oculus Rift CV1.

Last used in 2018 with iRacing and Project Cars 2 on my old rig I decided to give it another try and see if it would still run on my newer system (i7 10700k/RTX 2070S)..

After a few initial installation problems with the Oculus software from facebook/meta I got it up and running. With the help of youtube and different forum threads iRacing and AMS 2 are running stable with 90 FPS and with enough polish to please my eyes.

It did take only a few laps to get accustomed to the VR experience again and the unmatched immersion one can get from it. Especially in an open wheel car the effects are breathtaking!

Of course the CV1 being one of the very first HMD´ s resolution and FOV leave a lot to be desired.

So I would be very much interested if one of you had the chance to try one of the newer generation HMD´s like the HP Reverb G2 for example and would be willing to share the experience.

That sounds awesome. How hard is it to adjust from having a fixed view, which I always assumed made me more precise with cornering since there is no variability in your view point. Are you just as fast in VR?

I was gifted an older Oculus a while back but have not tried it with racing sims yet. I probably should.

It was really easy to switch to VR racing coming from a fixed monitor setup back then when I got the Oculus Rift. Got a more comfortable facecover and prescription lenses for it which really helps if you wear glasses.

And a small USB ventilator to get some airflow towards your face is a must for me because wearing the Rift for awhile will simply make me sweat otherwise.

I´m just as fast in VR as I´ am in front of a monitor. The main difference apart from the obvious immersion is the increased ability to race comfortably close to other cars during a race. It just feels so natural to have a quick look to the side and check the distance to your rivals.

Definitely try to setup that Oculus set you got there and try it in AC or AMS 2. If you are really in for an experience try Dirt 1 or 2 with VR.

It could be a pain to setup correctly and tweak all the settings for the different games to get a good experience but it is definitely worth the investment!

I'm intrigued but not eager. We'll see

I don't use one of the newer generation HMDs, but I do use the Samsung Odyssey+, which was the finest of the first gen WMR HMDs by a country mile. Visually, it has the same FOV and resolution as the vastly more expensive Vive Pro, and the inside out tracking is great for simming. You might be able to get a used Odyssey+ for pretty cheap, and it is for sure a huge improvement over the Rift CV1 (I've owned O+, Rift CV1, and used Vive Pro, so speaking from experience). I would say that it's actually harder to go back from something like the Odyssey+ to the Rift than it would be to go from Rift to pancake, it's that big of an improvement.

DBond, I always found the precision in controlling cars using a monitor to be a result of trial and error; you'd know that, if you were on a certain part of the track at a certain speed and the edge of a trackside object hit the edge of your screen, you'd know when you'd have to do some of that driving stuff. I find that falls apart a little when you are slower or faster, or off your usual line. For VR, you have no edge of screen to assist, but you have the ol' parallax thing with your eyes, so you can estimate distances about as well as you can in real life. You can also look at the apex or anywhere else you'd like, which is a big plus. I find that, so long as you know the car you are driving, learning tracks is far easier, and that you should be able to adjust to new situations a little better.

Bearing in mind that I am not one of those pro-level sim racers, I find that I am noticeably faster with VR. My improvement is probably better than most people's would be, but it's been real enough. The improvement in immersion has been huge.

Finally, if you do flight simming, VR is awesome for that as well. Some people say that it is a disadvantage for MP, but that is not a problem for me, as I'd rather lick a slug's back than play MP again with 99.9% of the people I have met online. And once again, the improvement in immersion is huge. I remember the first time I did a head-on pass against a Me-109 in IL2, as the Luftwaffe pilot fired and my canopy began to shatter, I actually ducked behind the panel, it was that vivid an experience.