A Sim Racers Opinion about the Valve Index VR Headset 

Mixed Reality Sim Racing I hope for a new steam VR version ... and inform us after you ordered the valve index... so I can order mine :)

Very timely comment. With the news F1 2022 will support VR my search for a new headset, to replace my Rift CV1, has been renewed. Did buy a Reverb G2 towards the end of last year but was disappointed, FoV was smaller and sweet spot was tiny, so I returned it. Keep coming back to the Index which is looking like the best all around option. Just a shame the headset only option seems to be permanently out of stock. Pimax 8kx is interesting but its a very bulky headset and even though I have a RTX 3090 / 5950x I don't see that as being enough to drive it satisfactorily.

If you are interested in the Index I can highly recommend the full package. Half Life Alyx and several other games are a blast with these controllers and of if it's not your thing you might be able to sell them with a good price. An alternative could be the Quest 2 with some mods like a better head strap and audio solution. Fov is not as big as on the index but should be better than the HP.

same here sim racing with og vive is terrible

Same here, been using the Vive since wave one and would love a bit more resolution. The only thing holding me back is the lack of wireless.

For sim racing the wire doesn't really bother me, I rather not have to deal with battery life when doing endurance races.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing Yes, I agree. In fact on the Vive, when playing sims, I tend to plug it into a Qualcomm 3.0 charger instead of the battery. I was referring to room space games, where I'm jumping around. I don't just play sims (need to get my exercise too!) 8) I suppose I could just switch back to the Vive for that, or do you think I won't want to use the Vive (for room space), once I get the Index? Thanks!

Yes for active room scale games it would help a lot to not trip on the cable in hectic situations. A friend uses a pulley system from the roof which works quite well for this.

I had track IR before VR but it's just not comparable. - No 3D and depth. - Still limited to the monitor ahead of you. - You have to keep your eyes straight while turning your head. - 1:1 head tracking is not possible because you have to look at the screen at the same time - Way harder to understand what the car is doing while in VR it feels more natural. - The in-game cockpit doesn't stay in line with your cockpit.

It's slightly higher than in the video but you don't see from mirror to mirror.

Heard the same with revive but was too lazy to try it

Mixed Reality Sim Racing yeah, the more programs running at the same the more possible conflicts and errors will come in and make things even worse

@@classiccview6679 Just trolling here, but, case in point for the Rift S? After all, simplicity is king! lol...

With the reverb I would have the same tracking issues like with the Rift S because of my green screen setup. Also I like to play with the controllers and the WMR ones are not that great.

Mixed Reality Sim Racing not for you then, but if you get a chance test it ! :)

My friend sent me his reverb. I'm a previous Pimax 5k+, Vive Pro GearVR mod and RIft owner. Might get this and try it too. I can say the reverb is better for sim racing than any of the others I've owned. Only minus was the FoV

Warfalcon so clear

@@MixedRealitySimRacing hi Marcel! What is the problem with inside out tracking and your green screen set up? Thank you.

I did nothing to the FOV

Thx, next stop of the ACC Porsche Cup League is Spa at night though ;-)

I don't know, inside out tracking won't work for me, I'm on the lower end of IPD and hat the Rift always on the minimum setting and the new one isn't adjustable. Sound is crap compared to proper headphone or speaker solutions and besides the higher resolution nothing improved at all while the index at least got a bit higher FOV and more refresh rate options. If Oculus brings a proper high end VR Headset I might want it. But their cost down replacement of the old one I'm not so interested in.

@Zwenk Wiel for my Mixed Reality videos I have a green screen setup around me, because of that the inside out tracking has too less reference points for orientation. And I generally dislike that idea because the only benefit is ease of use which I never had a problem with. When it gets dark it doesn't work, when controllers are out of camera range it doesn't work, when they are too close its buggy and when one controller is behind the other it also doesn't work properly. Having proper tracking placed around the play area will always be more precise and cover more area of movement. I wish they made it backwards compatible to the previous tracking, made a better overall headset similar to the index with proper headphones and adjustments and I would be happy to pay significantly more than the Rift S costs right now. It's a bit depressing right now, I really like the Index but the last days steam vr kept annoying me really badly. Makes me want Oculus Home back but now going back to the CV1 will feel bad and the Rift S sadly isn't what it could/should be.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing According to the RU-vidrs Cas & Chary the Rift S & Quest inside-out tracking works great with a green screen while WMR and the new Vive Cosmos have problems. Just something to take into consideration.

I've bought the index soon after and never really returned to the CV1. I still experience the laggy view in iRacing from time to time but not sure where it's coming from. A cool thing of the light house tracking and and motion platforms is that you can put a controller on your seat and software can cancel out the movement of the cockpit so only your true head movements will affect your view which makes it a lot more realistic and easier to drive and digest as with big movements of the cockpit your ingame head would fly through the car

@@MixedRealitySimRacing Thanks for replying! I will look into the motion cancelling aspect in further detail. I guess you could say I'm "ALL IN" because if I could lose the screen door and have a higher RRate it obviously would be better. My Rig does move around a lot (2DOF+TL) but it's simulating Gforces pretty accurately so thanks for the tip on light house tracking. Once again good review! DMAX

Hm not really a fan of most motion Sims especially to simulate geforces which is pretty much impossible to do right with any system below the price of a full car but don't want to start a debate.

I've recorded with my monitors resolution of 1440p 60fps and I think a Bitrate of 60

I've decided to play and enjoy driving more and record/edit less because the last videos didn't get much views.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing Hi, I had the same reasoning. Now I ride more and record less

@@MixedRealitySimRacing great idea

If wouldn't have the index already I would consider the G2. The Index still has higher FOV, refresh rate and I like the controllers a lot for non simracing games which I also play. The higher resolution is probably great but a 2080ti already struggles with ACC and the Index. Also I fear that because of my greenscreen setup for mixed reality recording the inside out tracking has not enough references points for proper tracking.

I have to sacrifice a bit to get 60fps constantly but it looks good then and with the Index in 120hz mode it's quite smooth

No, but I've heard some have and that using ferrite cores around the index cable helped.

Textures are high other more demanding things medium. I use very little super sampling as it has a quite big impact and I'm often racing in a full grid because the league often has 30-50 cars. Anti aliasing is on medium and a method which name starts with a T I think. Once it was the method with no ghost, now it also has some but still the least of all I think.

Mixed Reality Sim Racing TAA aka Temporal has a lot of ghosting. Maybe you are using KTAA? Thanks for answer. Also do You know how to disable mirroring from headset to monitor. I dont see any reason to use additional resources to display headset output to monitor.

@@its-kapucha correct I'm using KTAA. I think I tried to disable it once through a .json file but it didn't make a difference.

You need at least one for simracing and it always needs to see the front of the headset

Mixed Reality Sim Racing thank you!

Das meiste auf medium, fast nur texturen höher, kla kanten Glättung auf hoch. 130% super sampling in steam VR und 120hz.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing Danke, werd ich mal testen.

habe die gleichen probleme mit meiner rift S,2080rtx und 8700k. komme mit dem bild und der performance gar nicht klar. habbe alles ausprobiert

forgive me the typing errors... some look really bad lol but I hope you can understand me. No edit function on youtube unfortunately. Cheers bro

The inside out tracking needs solid edges to track which are not moving and always in the same spot, so when 90% is just green and the rest it could track is my arms which are always moving it won't have enough information to do it properly.

No worries, your post was perfectly readable but normally there should be a edit function, at least works for me.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing oh yeah... I just discovered that when you roll the mouse over the right top corner of the post it will give you the option to edit.... never knew about that! Now I've learned something new today lol.. ok, so back to the subject, maybe the top and bottom cameras on the rift-S could cover it, who knows... other thing that occured me is maybe there is a way to place markers for the tracking that are out of sight of the recording... but that I dunno how much of playing around it would demand... anyway, if you ever have the opportunity to try, do it... than we stop guessing and finally know for a fact if it works or not... If I have a chance I'll do it and let you know... cheers bro.

Correct m8, he is from Germany. But iam really puzzled about your statement that you like the German accent. This is really the first time I hear such a statement about the German accent ;) I thought that most american people are grinning about the accent of German people. Happy to be proven wrong ;)

@@HamburgerAcht honestly, most European accents sound pleasing. I find only asian accents to be hard on the ears.

@@HamburgerAcht German accent in English sounds one of the crispest, clean accents. It is very appealing to listen to from a UK perspective.

You need at least one base station, that's how I've used it in the video. Now I have all because I really like everything you can do in VR not only sim racing and the controllers are awesome.

I just bought the Index I've borrowed and enjoy it a lot also in other VR games which make use of the very cool controllers.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing Awesome thanks for the update, I think I'll be making the switch from my original Rift.

@@Blanchy101 do you mean the CV1 first rift? if yes, the rift S is a noticeable improvement. i do own both of them

@@Michelsen77 yes the cv1

You need at least 1 of the lighthouse base stations to tack the headset but you don't need the complete package.

There are steering wheels for the games. Not quite sure what you mean with controllers for the index. VR doesn't need special wheels.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing i am a older guy and years ago we use to have steering wheels for games. I figured having a VR headset on and using a steering wheel instead of holding a controller in each hand it would feel more realistic with the steering wheel. I wasn't sure if they make a steering wheel that the controllers clip on or not

@@Randy2747 there are no special wheels to hold the controllers

@@MixedRealitySimRacing ok thx for the help I appreciate it 😁

@@Randy2747 For simracing, the VR system doesn't need to know the location of your hands. You use your regular steering wheel hooked up to the PC and the VR headset for display/ head motion.

ah, ok. green screen setup . yeah, inside out tracking may have issues with that. otherwise inside out tracking is perfect for simracing though. i saw another youtuber have issues with the cosmos in front of his greenscreen, but he seems to think his rift s was working fine in front of it... who knows.

It's the default with 1 click less rear anti rollbar and adjusted pressures to get 30psi while driving.

I'm a bit too lazy at the moment also because some videos that took a lot of effort to make didn't get a lot of views.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing Ist es so schwierig umzusetzen?

Bestimmt 4x so viel Aufwand wie ein normales Video

@@MixedRealitySimRacing Wie gesagt bzw gefragt, das Lenkrad bleibt nur Zentral da stehen wenn du in 3D aufnimmst oder? Was musst du denn genau beachten gegnüber einem normalen 2D Video? Die Frames genau anpassen? Dann bestimmt die Lichtverhälntnisse usw? Klar, wenn es einfach wäre würde es wohl jeder so machen. Ich habe ähnliches versucht, allerdings habe ich nur frontal den Greenscreen. Und da bewegt sich der Lenker mit jeder Kopfbewegung. So bin ich gestern auf dich aufmerksam geworden.. :) Übrigens danke für deine Offenheit und Zeit. 😎👍

Wenn die Kamera am VR headset ist dreht sich ja automatisch beides gleich wenn man den Kopf bewegt, dann muss ich beides zeitlich synchronisieren sowie die Größe und Farbe anpassen. In der Beschreibung hab ich ein Tutorial Video

how is the detail of 4k monitor vs your vr headset?

@@theblitz1687 the amount of information you can see in vr cannot be beaten, and if you have the hardware, running high settings and lots of supersampling make it pretty damn crisp. and that 90fps is certainly better for sim racing than the 60 of my monitor. but the monitor is definitely a ton crisper/ sharper/ prettier etc. i mean, its a 4k screen. and with my hardware i can run games like project cars 2 at ultra settings 4k 60fps.. but, like i said. i pretty much only play in vr still. just shows the true power of vr. even if it looks worse its still my screen of choice. i wouldnt actually say it looks that much worse than say a 1080p monitor up close to your face though. even that does look better and sharper and less visible pixels etc. but not by that much. if you are that worried about the difference though there are high resolution hmd's out there, the hp reverb for example has very very high ppd (pixels per degree). very very sharp. not tried it myself but its supposed to be pretty ridiculously good.

Did you try other headsets to compare? In my opinion it's one of the best but that also comes from me using VR since the very early days and getting used to much worse. The glare is indeed an issue I can confirm, depending on the lighting it can be quite distracting. Other then that I'm really happy with it now, steam got better, still isn't perfect.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing I do agree its come a long way, the glare is even worse when watching a movie, to me it's like someone flickering a torch in my eyes I believe it's the lenses that are causing these problems, I did try the pimax 5k xr as I wanted to see if oled was better, in a way it was, the wider view is really good, doesn't feel like your looking through a mask, but that also suffers from glare, not as bad as index, but has a worse problem where right eye it really is blurry in places like it's being smudged, and the head strap was really poor and never fitted me properly like the index did, I see the 8kx has big improvement, I will try that once it's in Amazon

What cpu? Im gunna buy a 2080 super and 3900x for a gaming pc that im gunna use for sim racing

How? my 2080ti is bottlenecking on medium settings with 1.2 super sampling at 60fps with a full grid of 50 cars and various conditions.

i7 8600k. I'm usually playing online with 8 or less. But I'll also note that a lot of mod tracks are badly optimized and run like crap on any settings.

Ok with so few people I can get 120fps sometimes but not really consistently

Ah you mean AC not ACC. Yeah in AC1 I can max out everything including shader mods and still have 120 consistently. But in ACC that's impossible, unreal engine 4 is just too demanding and badly optimized

hows is your rift S these days?? im tossing up between the quest 2- index- HP reverb... big price difference between all, but that FOV and clarity are a tough choice..

@@malonembappe6509 I moved on too a G2 2 years ago, and never regretted it and still using it now

@@Hotdognzz thanks a lot of people told me the same and said the FOV doesnt make too much of a difference in the end

The latest G2 V2 has a slightly improved FOV. I think when coming from other headsets it's probably fine. I tried an old G2 a while ago briefly and the lower FOV in comparison to my index was very noticible but that's similar when I try a Quest.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing yes i think for the FOV inclined its the option between a pixma 8k vs valve index... and then the budget friendly options of a HP Reverb G2 vs Oculus Quest 2... unless i can get a second hand pixma or index i would go the budget friendly version as i only use it for sim racing

actually, no iwas wrong. if you have the hardware to run it, and are willing to turn some settings down, the more fps the better for simracing. 120hz would be quite beneficial i reckon. so the valve index is a great choice for sim racing. if you can afford it.

i mostly sim race, i play a little bit of onward and other vr games, but mostly sim race. so my lenovo explorer (with a few modifications) was perfect for me. higher resolution and refresh rate than rift s, half the price. perfect headset tracking. flip up visor. easy to use, flawless headset (i did break the hinge though, but i repaired it stronger than ever now) the only thing wrong with these headsets is if you dont bring it as close to your eyes as possible the sweet spot and sharpness aint great and of course the controller tracking is off (but that dont matter for sim racing). i personally filed down all the plastics around the nose and lenses to get as close as possible. removed rear pad and put in front. no pad in back, just a thin bit of material so the velcro doesnt stick to you. a rubber band each side of headband to flick over a screw on each side of visor, holds it firm to your face, no wobble, sharper, closer to eyes etc. easy to flick off rubber bands and flip up visor, easy to get back in sweet spot. its basically impossible for me to not be in sweet spot. my eyelashes touch the lenses. i couldnt be happier. its an amazing headset. i will upgrade in a year or two so i have better controller tracking and even higher resolution. kinda hoping they sort eye tracking out and foveated rendering out before i buy my next headset, and slightly wider fov, and maybe varifocal displays (like half dome) much higher resolution etc. like 4k x4k would be easy with eye tracking and foveated rendering. also would be nice to keep the flip up visor style, get an ipd adjuster, keep inside out tracking, like rift s or even better.. etc etc. and hopefully not too pricey. the cosmos is looking like its getting there. (flip up visor, inside out tracking, ipd, highish resolution, etc) faaaaaar too expensive though.

@@wotever99ninynine very good post thank you, seems like your going well with it, I play pcars 2 also

"big upgrade" lmao whut

@@ronangsr are you any good in project cars 2? i only seem to encounter absolute pros or absolute noobs/ rammers. yet to find many races i can be competitive in. unless its the bathurst track or laguna seca. or a couple of other tracks i know well. the rest i have no idea whats around the next corner, lol.

@@Isaax the rift s screen resolution is not particularly high, but original rift and vive have a much much lower resolution. so the clarity/ sharpness/ sde etc probably does feel a lot better. and the ease of use of the inside out tracking etc. even if its technically a bit worse... i can see why he would call it a "big upgrade".

80, but in the race I drove with 120hz and 60fps to have more headroom

English isn't his native language, so you're going to have to accept an accent

hope this boosted your ego

With 150super sampling the picture should be quite sharp, a lot who don't like the resolution have it setup not good enough.

@@MixedRealitySimRacing where did you set the SS for openvr? In game it does not save the settings from the openvr app. I set it in steam vr. Not sure if this is the only way. Never mind its ACC and not AC

@@dubtube6691 both possible, in-game or in acc. ACC is not the sharpest game though.

🤦‍♂️

Mixed Reality Sim Racing haha I’m sorry, sort of.. good video, thanks. I gotta upgrade this dk2 soon.

Aldo Benitez At least try not to make such a dumb comment lol

@@BernoAU I am german too so i can make that comment, Mr smarty pants

@@aldo_3d Hey german, please don't try to start world war 3. kthxbye

Daniel Dorn who the hell asked you ?

@@aldo_3d The world asked me to tell you this. Because the world doesn't like world wars.