Oculus Rift Configuration Guide – Simulation Gaming

Assetto Corsa

There are a few AAA racing games that support Oculus Rift, many of which are still in beta or unreleased (such as Project CARS). Assetto Corsa is still in the development stages, but the developers were kind enough to provide us with one of their early access codes. They have of course reminded us to mention that there is still a lot of work to be done on the game.

The game comes packed full of premium quality content, with a wide range of racing tracks from around the world (see list below) and fully licensed cars from a variety of disciplines. Right now, this is one of the most varied and polished DK2 racing experiences available to play right now. Unfortunately, the developers haven’t had much time with the DK2 to integrate VR menus and options screens, so getting the game up and running can be a trial and error experience.

Circuits available in Assetto Corsa

• Drag strip
• Drift test circuit
• NurburgringGP circuit
• Imola “Enzo & Dino Ferrari” circuit
• Magione circuit
• “Autodromo di Monza” circuit
• Monza historic 1966 circuit
• Mugello circuit
• Silverstone
• Silverstone International
• Silverstone National
• Spa Francorchamps
• Trento Bondone hill climb
• Vallelunga circuit
• Vallelunga Club circuit

The came contains a high-end physics engine and officially licensed cars from Abarth, BMW, Classic Team Lotus, Ferrari, KTM, Lotus cars, McLaren, Mercedes, Scuderia Glickenhaus, Pagani and Tatuus.

Control Tests

The game supports keyboard, mouse and custom control configurations. It’s perfectly playable with an analogue controller, but sim racing fans will no doubt be eager to try out a steering wheel. The game comes with pre-set profiles for popular wheels such as the Fanatec series, Logitech G25 and G27, Thrustmaster 430, T500RS and more. All other controllers or wheels can benefit from customisable buttons, axis, range, deadzones, degrees of rotation and more.

There’s full support for custom mapped H-Shifters, you can also use a keyboard or another external device for extra commands should your controller of choice have limited customisable buttons.

The game supports custom controller profile saving and loading. Perfect for having a DK2 setup and a normal gaming profile for your controllers.

Oculus Configuration

As I mentioned before, setting up the DK2 in Assetto Corsa can be fairly tricky. I first suggest you enter the game in standard 2D with the Rift powered off. This will allow you to easily configure the games settings.

Resolution should ideally be set to 1920 x 1080 at the highest Hz (typically this will be 60Hz for most of you) possible. You actually need it at 75Hz for the rift, but this option may not be available while the headset is powered off. Rendering mode should be set to Oculus Rift.

• Fullscreen Rendering on
• Vertical Sync on
• Framerate limit off
• Anistropic Filtering off
• Ani-Aliasing Samples off
• World Detail medium
• Shadow Resolution medium
• Post processing effects disabled

Only increase in game quality of AA, AF, world detail, shadow resolution and other settings if game performance is very good, decrease again if higher settings cause performance drops. It’s easier to work up-to high quality settings than to work backwards. Get the basics right and the game running smooth first.

Now you’ve dialed in some graphics and control settings, you can save and quit the game. Start up the OculusConfigurationUtility and power on your Oculus Rift. Set the DK2 into extended mode and set the DK2 as your primary monitor. Launch the game again and move the game window to your desktop screen. This is all in 2D and you won’t see anything on your Rift just yet. Go back into the options menu and change the display resolution to 1920 x 1080 @ 75Hz for the Oculus Rift to work properly. You can now go pick a track and car to start the race. When the game loads your game should appear on the DK2 display. Simply put the headset on a play.

Additional Oculus Configuration

If the performance is poor, adjust your graphics settings lower accordingly. If the performance is smooth and judder free, start by increasing the anti-aliasing settings and world detail until you can get the game looking as detailed as possible without impacting overall performance. It may take some time, but it is worth it.

If some issues persist, please return to the general tips on the first page of this article.