Oculus have prescribed that for this generation of its VR headsets, the target experience is resolutely a seated one. This means that racing games are a match made in heaven for the DK2. Racing enthusiasts are one demographic of gaming capable of taking their hobby to extremes to achieve realism and an immersive driving experience. Custom racing seats with triple monitors, and force feedback wheels are not uncommon setups among the dedicated, willing to spend to chase that dream. See Also: The problem is, with no commercial release of the Oculus Rift yet announced, companies producing triple-A titles with VR support are hedging their bets in terms of developer time allocation. It was incredibly rough around the edges, but even then I had a hard time concentrating on the track, so powerful was the VR effect and my tendency to be distracted by the grandness of the scenery. And now, with the latest RC1 update, the game now sports Oculus Rift DK2 support. The first RC1 release was broken for the DK2 in just about every way. Thankfully, soon after, the release was swiftly patched fixing most of the issues above, bar one fairly major one—no VR menu support. Initially I found myself in the seat of a Fiat 500 Abarth. Stitched leather, textured plastics and even the reflection of your dash in the windshield, all lovingly rendered in glorious stereoscopic 3D. Looking up and leaning forward into the steering wheel I can confirm positional tracking is spot on. When I finally got around to looking through the windows I realised the world glided past my eyes in beautifully smooth low-persistence. Despite the detail on show, my PC had no issues maintaining a rock solid 75FPS, which meant a judder-free experience for the most part. My first jarring realisation of a flaw was noticing that all mirrors were rendered merely as 2D projected textures with no depth or parallax. Unfortunately, in VR, these seemingly small details break immersion and now that we have positional tracking in the DK2, the lack of correct parallax distracts. That said, it works and works well for the most part. That niggle aside, racing itself in Assetto Corsa is a fantastic experience when in VR. Pulling away from the starting line and jostling for position amongst a pack of rivals can be an unnerving feeling. The proximity of other motors on the road is felt much more readily in VR. Where in standard 2D, you might play careless, barging cars from the road, you feel much more pressured to keep your distance when immersed. Approaching and tackling corners is a naturalistic affair, as you speed round, tracking the apex of corners intuitively as you go. You suddenly feel the free space around you as you peer down at your car. The apex peering again is very effective in this mode. Finally, an elevated bumper cam gives the greatest rush of speed. All of these are entirely workable in VR. There is an issue however. Do I recommend DK2 owners rushing out to download this game? You can and find more about it. LFS also uses 2D mirrors. Why not share them? Or at least post a link to a tutorial. How do you load a car setup? How do you exit the sim? I will give AC credit though, it looks fantastic once you get it going, but the lack of in-Rift menus kills it. You get a nice little smartphone sized display that is pure and flat, and while a bit of it is covered in the center, you can do most of what you need to do in the OS or any menus. Try to hit win+shift+left or right arrow key, once assetto corsa has started.
