VR or Screens? Which is FASTER for Sim Racing?

virtual reality or screens welcome back to the traction channel where today's video will be all about that very question i'm not saying i'm going to be able to answer it but what i am going to do is an incredibly scientific experiment that i hope will at least contribute something towards answering it maybe possibly not is it even an answerable question let's be honest there is no denying that the levels of immersion virtual reality brings to the table is astonishing a decent headset from the likes of hp oculus or htc will set you back a generous three-figure sum so it takes a bit of commitment if you want to go down that route it may look epic and make you feel like you're a racing driver but it can also be uncomfortable for some be awkward to use tricky to get focused or even give you motion sickness whether to part ways with your money and buy a headset might be determined by one or more of these factors but another question that might be more relevant to some is does it actually make you faster to try and find out i decided to do some back-to-back tests across a variety of different platforms for each one i use the same settings the same conditions and the same amount of track time to make sure the test was as fair as possible now just before i start there are a couple of points i want to make for the sake of full disclosure for non-vr i was using a single flat monitor rather than triple screens or a curved one triple screens will give you better peripheral vision and awareness but that's about it i also normally race in non-vr so i have more experience with this than i do in vr which i have taken into account the final variable i need to mention is the headset itself i was using the oculus rift s which is why we describe as a nice mid-range headset at the time of making this video buying the rift s would set you back around 400 british pounds picking the right headset is hugely important so make sure you do your research first i for example wear glasses so needed a headset that's comfortable to wear with glasses and this isn't the case with the original rift but the rift s is superb in that area there will be better quality headsets but there will also be far worse so it's probably quite well suited to this experiment now if i'm going to do this properly i better share with you my original hippopotamus i mean hypothesis based on my previous experiences i expected that i would fare better on the screen than with the vr headset although i believe the reason for this would be familiarity and my increased experience in non-vr was i right let's find out the first thing i decided to do was go down the route of unfamiliarity that being on this occasion the formula renault 3.5 on iracing i've only done a handful of races in the past five years and i wanted to be outside of my comfort zone as much as possible so i left the setup on the baseline default as well i then chose road atlanta as the circuit for two reasons one i haven't ever done an online race there and two the incredible undulation which makes many of the corners blind i figured this would be a great test of vr's capabilities to improve visibility compared to the single screen first up i went in non-vr mode for a 20-minute practice session it obviously took me a few laps to get dialed into the circuit a good example being turn one i really underestimated how fast you could take that corner until i'd completed a decent amount of laps but eventually i started to get the hang of it the thing i struggled with the most was being able to pinpoint the correct lines and turn in points over the blind horizons i felt hugely limited by my low seating position and lack of visibility meaning that i regularly find myself guessing when the right time was to turn into the corner i mean this is realistic but it doesn't make it any easier during the 20 minutes i managed to get down to a 111.275 not a great time but it felt decent enough given the circumstances following the practice session i jumped straight into a five lap race run and i had similar struggles i managed a couple of one eleven point sixes but then made a mistake on lap four over a blind crest by misjudging my line on entry and ended the run with a couple of inconsistent and underwhelming 112s all in all a pretty poor show from me i feel like i let team single monster down on that one now on to vr and i was totally shocked at the difference of course some of it's down to the fact that i was now up to speed with the car and track combo a little bit but this time round i felt like i could see the corner so much better meaning i could predict what was going to happen much more easily and aim my car with precision and consistency the biggest challenge i discovered was the change in sense of speed caused by the different field of view setting i'm going to save the entire field of view discussion for another video it makes perfect sense once you understand it but needs a fairly detailed explanation but in basic terms the vr headset provides a slightly more zoomed in perspective which is realistic visually but of course without the g-forces and real movement you lack the real sense of speed what this meant was that doing 80 miles per hour in vr felt like the same speed as when i was doing 60 miles per hour without vr this led to quite a few embarrassing spins as i got used to it because i kept getting to the slowest point in the corner thinking i was going slower than i actually was and then putting on too much power too early you will probably see what i mean if you try this sort of back-to-back challenge for yourself it also affected my confidence over curbs as you get the camera shaking vr that you don't necessarily get with the screen aside from those specific issues the vr was absolutely superb i had so much more confidence could be so much more consistent and the lap times absolutely exposed this in the 20 minute run i managed a one minute 10.589 a whopping seven tenths faster than without the vr headset my five lap run really hit the point home i was effortlessly consistent and had the speed to go with it what i also learned from this first test is that iracing has a really user-friendly vr interface and the quality is fantastic basically the whole thing is optimized and they've set a very high standard for virtual reality integration so well done to iracing for that just before i moved on to the next test there was something i wanted to check because the physics car and track were all unfamiliar to me i knew my driving would improve with seat time so i just wanted to make sure that variable wasn't skewing results i jumped back into non-vr mode for one last attempt and to be honest i really struggled my sense of speed was all out of sync again which had a massive impact on confidence in particular the breaking points the change in depth perception also meant i was turning in too late every time and i had two sizeable shunts at turn one because of this i felt a little bit better at finding the right line into the blind corners but still nowhere near as certain as i was in vr so the first test was as comprehensive a victory for virtual reality as it was a surprise to me for the second test i decided to go to the opposite end of the scale familiarity i jumped on a set of course of competizione which is the game i'm currently most involved with esports-wise i went with the mclaren 720s as older as there are lots of tricky curbs and chicanes where it can be hard to spot reference points and apexes this time i changed it up and went for vr first now for this car and track combination a decent time for me normally would be a low 127 or a high 126 on a perfect lap so at least had some sort of benchmark this time around in virtual reality i actually got up to speed surprisingly quickly the first thing i noticed was that the difference in graphics quality between screen and vr was bigger on acc than it was in eye racing simply because of how heavy this game normally is on your pc in comparison you really need to tone it down for vr in my 20 minute run i got down to a 127.6 relatively early but then was stuck on that time for a while before finally finding a little bit of pace at the end that moved me towards my own benchmark this time around and unlike eye racing my issues mainly came in the 5 lap run my eyes were getting tired and i was generally just overheating a lot which is a known occurrence for many people using vr after wearing the headset for over 20 minutes my driving began to get sloppy as my comfort and concentration levels dropped i struggled to focus and i really struggled to pick out my turn-in points consistently to be more specific it was the exact opposite problem to the one i had using non-vr previously in that i was turning in too early rather than too late for the corners it was almost as if i'd drank a couple of beers before i started and it really showed in the lap times my honest opinion about this is that it was a combination of the constantly changing field of view and therefore sense of speed and the discomfort either way i was useless and if i drove that badly regularly i would probably lose my job next up back to the single screen i expected to be right on the pace with this one as it was much more familiar but i again suffered from the same problem as i had done on eye racing when switching back from vr again i was missing my turning points this was probably when the penny dropped for me that the field of view change was a bigger challenge for the brain to cope with than the change to or from virtual reality judging how far away a corner was had become a big challenge now of course you can actually change the field of view when racing so i decided to change my camera angle to the one i normally race on which happened to have a more realistic field of view similar to the vr headset this really helped things my consistency improved and i began to find my rhythm but it still took me the whole 20 minute session to get the lap time down to a low to 127. on the five lap run i finally got it together and popped in a 127.192 i did make a mistake on one of those laps but the rest were decent enough and the last two were literally identical to the thousandth of a second to be honest at this point i felt like if i was to keep going i would probably have been able to set consistent 27 3s and 27 fours with the second test i think the biggest thing was the realization that the most challenging thing about what i was doing wasn't driving with each specific setup it was actually the switching between the two the adjustment period was longer than i expected and i didn't feel in the zone so to speak until right at the end of the 20 minute practice run vr again surprised me allowing me to post the fastest lap time pretty early on but the difference here was that in vr mode i started driving worse with time whereas in non-vr mode i started getting much better with time to me this is down to the discomfort i talked about earlier assetto corsa competition feels less optimized than i racing for virtual reality and with the gt and during style racing being the main feature of acc you will likely be doing more longer races in this situation then for me at least i would probably choose non-vr over the vr headset to allow me to drive better for longer from my perspective i call the score as one each after the first two tests for the third and final test i jumped into automobilista 2. this is another game that's outside of my comfort zone but importantly it's known as one of the best vr experiences you can have in a racing game particularly when weather is a factor for this reason then i jumped in a cave room around cadwell park and added some rain for extra immersion first up non-vr mode initially it was a case of getting used to the game's driving physics but despite managing this i was continuing to suffer from similar problems with the depth perception and the lack of visibility cadwell like road atlanta is infamous for its undulation and blind corners and yet again i struggle with those sections in particular i did gradually improve as the session went on but i never fully grasped the amount of time i had before each corner a good example was the run between turns one and two i didn't really head back to the left too often after turn one even though that's the correct racing line because i was scared of missing the turning point for the right-hander after it my fastest lap from this session was a 132.084 after the 20 minutes were up instead of doing a five lap run on my own i raced the ai instead to try and get a feel for how vr or the lack of it might affect racecraft my findings well even despite the rain and the single screen it wasn't actually too bad the hardest part was not knowing the exact position of my rivals when making the move a lot of the time i was just sending one and guessing where the other car was hoping not to hit it in those situations it would have been nice to be able to look left and right as the weather got worse i made a few mistakes and ended up finishing 21st yeah i'm going to lose my job when this video goes public now time to see what all the fuss was about regarding automobile list 2 in virtual reality very quickly i got it like i racing the game felt truly optimized for the vr experience in a similar way to the likes of project cars 2 which uses the same madness game engine i am planning on discussing this in another video by the way so make sure you keep an eye out for that one if you're interested in the automobilistic franchise anyway back at cadwell and i was finding things much more enjoyable this time around as i've said before i do appreciate that i was still learning the physics so i knew i would likely be faster second time round but what a difference in how connected i felt to the road and to the car the visibility was better i could be pinpoint accurate with my inputs and i had a more comfortable and realistic sense of speed looking at the turn 1 and turn 2 example i had a far easier time of it placing the car back to the left hand side because i had a much clearer idea of the distances to the apex giving me confidence in my judgments i did however get a little bit hot and bothered again despite having a fan on my fastest time in vr though a 130.854 a whopping 1.2 seconds quicker than i was without the headset now it was time for the race and it was superb fun i was able to see everything i needed to meaning i could position my car much more precisely against the opposition and make far more accurate judgment calls when overtaking this time i held off the opposition when the rain worsened and finished an absolutely astonishing 15th place also how about this for a race finish in these situations you just have to love virtual reality my conclusions with automobilista 2 it's pretty clear by now i preferred the experience in vr it made it easier to learn the track getting you up to speed faster and gave you much more of an opportunity to be precise that being said once you are up to speed on either setup there's probably not much in it at all so after my incredibly scientific experiment what did we learn one virtual reality can improve your precision versus a single screen two you can be just as fast in virtual reality as you can on a screen three you can be just as fast on a screen as you can in virtual reality but it might take longer 4. virtual reality can get uncomfortable after a length of time albeit this is dependent on the individual 5. racing other cars is easier in virtual reality 6. iracing and automobilista 2 are more user-friendly and optimized for vr than a set of course of competition is seven i love cadwell and i love road atlanta eight in terms of vr versus non-vr i don't think one is really any worse than the other as they both have their strengths and weaknesses it's a boring answer i know but it's genuinely true nine changing constantly between vr and non-vr is really difficult and the change between the two will affect your driving more than your lack of experience with one over the other i for example am far more experienced with non-vr than i am with vr yet non-vr fell alien to me after only 30 minutes in virtual reality 10. if number 9 isn't the case for any of you lot then it turns out i'm just a driver i was pleasantly surprised by vr in this test and it really did open my eyes to some of the disadvantages that come from using the screen will i now make a more permanent move to vr honestly i don't think so i still think that ultimately the lap times can be very similar and i would prefer to be comfortable in a longer race if i'm just racing for a bit fun though i will have to get the headset out more often so that's going to conclude this video as always a big thanks to all of you for watching and i really hope that this experiment will help at least one of you decide whether or not it's worth making the jump to or away from virtual reality i would also love to hear from you guys about what you experienced if you've already made the switch are my feelings on the subject relatable or was it totally different from yours let us know in the comments below make sure you keep an eye on the traction channel to catch new content when it comes out but until next time keep it pinned thanks for watching and have a great day [Music] you

Channel: TraxionGG

Views: 106,502

Keywords: traxion, traxion.gg, traxion gg, traxion john, John Munro, VR racing, VR, VR racing games, ultrawide, triple monitors, ultrawide vs triple monitors vs vr, vr vs triple monitors vs ultrawide, VR headset, racing in VR, racing VR, racing games VR, simulator VR, VR simulator, VR racing simulator, racing simulator VR, VR vs monitor, VR vs screen, VR vs triple monitor, VR vs single monitor, VR vs ultrawide, vr headsets, oculus, valve, htc, sim racing, vr sim racing, sim racing vr

Id: tOnmDSwOEyI

Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021