Oculus Rift Configuration Guide – Simulation Gaming

Euro Truck Simulator 2

Euro Truck Simulator is one of those games that doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but it has proven a bit hit with PC gamers. This is especially true since the Simulator series are often in the multitude of seasonal Steam sales. The game comes with native DK2 support and it’s a game that is well suited to VR. The developers have added 3D VR friendly menu screens that are a little tricky to navigate due to resolution issues, but it’s certainly better than no VR support on the menus.

The actual game benefits greatly from the DK2 as the headset allows you to look around your truck cabin at various dials, your dashboard SAT NAV and more. The interiors of the trucks are nicely detailed and most importantly of all, having free look and positional tracking allows you to look and lean around the cab to better view your mirrors. When performing tricky reversing maneuvers you can literally lean out of the window of the truck and look behind you; this is awesome for reversing into tight spaces.

Resolution issues are a little more obvious in this game than some of the other simulation games I’ve mentioned. This isn’t as highly polished a game as some of the others I’ve tested; the textures and assets aren’t the best, but the overall experience is still very good.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 Features

• Transport a vast variety of cargo across more than 60 European cities.
• Run your own business which continues to grow even as you complete your freight deliveries.
• Build your own fleet of trucks, buy garages, hire drivers, manage your company for maximum profits.
• A varied amount of truck tuning that range from performance to cosmetic changes.
• Customize your vehicles with optional lights, bars, horns, beacons, smoke exhausts, and more.
• Thousands of miles of real road networks with hundreds of famous landmarks and structures.

Control Tests

ETS2 doesn’t have the best control configuration ever, I couldn’t get the Xbox 360 controller to operate smoothly for steering, making the game near impossible to control at the best of times. The DS4 controller worked very well for steering, but the analogue triggers were only detected as buttons, however this was fixed with a 3rd party app (Xpadder). Steering wheel was certainly the best option here, as being able to make long slow turns and lane changes on the multitude of motorways the game features is vital; something that proves tricky and tedious with an analogue stick.

It is advisable you configure your controller properly before proceeding with the Rift setup, it’s much easier this way.

Oculus Configuration

Setup of ETS2 can be a little tricky, as it does tend to suffer from stuttering with alarming frequency at first. To configure the game for Oculus you first need to go into Steam, right-click the game in your library and open up the properties window. You need to navigate to the “Betas” tab and select “oculus – Experimental support for Oculus Rift”. Navigate back to the General tab and click “Set Launch Options” and add the tag “-oculus” without the quotation marks. Click ok and close the properties windows.

Make sure the OculusConfigUtility is loaded, turn on the rift and set it as the secondary display in extended mode and start the game (make sure you’ve followed the settings above correctly). The game should now launch on to the rift. The return to desktop 2D mode, remove the “-oculus” tag from launch options.

Additional Oculus Configuration

The game is a little tricky to get running smoothly, if you do experience judder I would suggest dropping the overall graphics settings down to see if that improves performance. If that doesn’t help at all, then you will need to try to force V-Sync on or off in your graphics card control panel. If that doesn’t work, then launch the game with the DK2 set as your primary monitor.

Important! This game seems to suffer from stutter regardless of settings for around 30 seconds of gameplay, which clears up by itself. When testing your settings, try to keep playing and see if it improves before quitting and adjusting your settings again.

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