F1 2020 is an official video game for the 2020 Formula 1 and 2020 Formula 2 Championships developed and released by Codemasters.
Let’s find out how to play F1 2020 in VR.
How to Play F1 2020 in VR?
F1 2020 may lack native virtual-‐real-‐ity support, but just like previous entries in the series, F1 2020 runs very well in VR via VorpX. The visual effects are true stereoscopic rendering, which means they give you an accurate sensation of speed and depth perception. You will need a very powerful PC to play at high graphical levels with a good framerate.
If you prefer to use the third-person view, however, playing with a high frame rate is even more enjoyable than using a monitor. In the F1 2020 game, for example, you will be able to enjoy a much smoother framerate when playing with the third-person view.
What You Will Need
VorpX is an amazing piece of software that allows you to play any native PC game in virtual reality. It works perfectly with Windows 10 and SteamVR, supporting both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets. We’ve tried it out and found it to be incredibly easy to set up and use. Read my full review of VorpX here.
To play F1 2020 in VR, all you need to do is download VorpX and then run the game through its DirectX 11 mode.
Overall Experience
If you’ve used F1 2019 before, then you probably already understand how F1 2020 works, so let’s review it again.
We’ve already mentioned that the ideal way to play a racing game in VR would be to be completely inside the vehicle’s cockpit. However, if you’re trying to play a non-VR racing game in VR, then there may be some issues with the cockpit not rendering properly. Fortunately, these issues don’t exist in F1 2020, which uses VorpX’s Geometric Rendering Mode.
So, How can you make the game more realistic?
To make the game feel more realistic, there is an option to switch between 2D and 3D rendering modes. When playing in 2D, the cars’ geometry appears flat, and the tracks are represented by simple lines.
However, when playing in 3D, the cars’ bodies appear three-dimensional, and the tracks are drawn as curved surfaces. We’ve also made the camera view wider so that you can see more of the track ahead.
But the Z-Normal rendering mode is not up to the mark.
The shame is that the Z-Normal rendering mode, which requires much lower computing resources than the normal rendering mode, produces perfect results in 3 dimensions except for the cockpit.
However, we find that the cockpit view becomes too big, and there is an irritating graphical artifact around the antennae and halo columns at the forefront of the car. Therefore, we cannot recommend using Z-Normal rendering mode unless you have no choice.
Does the issue persist in 3D?
In the third person, the issues do not exist. The Z-normal 3-d rendering is almost indistinguishable from geometry 3-d. There will be some z-normal artifacts in the menus. However, it is not a problem at all during the races! On an i5 7600k and gtx 1080ti, with z-normal mode, we can achieve a solid 60fps at low to mid settings, whereas geometry 3-d struggles to reach 30 fps even on ultra-low settings.
We strongly recommend disabling the “Chasing Cars” feature when using the VorpX plugin for the first time. If you enable this feature, the cameras will follow your movement and turn toward you whenever you look at them, which is extremely annoying. To disable this feature, go to the VorpX Plugin settings and uncheck the box next to “Enable Chasing Cars.”
Is it worth playing the full version?
You can play the full version of the title in the Oculus Rift, but it doesn’t completely fill your entire field of view, so you’ll always be seeing black bars around the edges. It isn’t particularly noticeable, but it is something to keep in mind when playing.
When you enable Track IR in games and in Vorp X, you can actually freely move around quite a lot in these modes. Unlike earlier games in the series, where they had a lot of problems with track IR, this mode somehow works around them to give a very nice experience. Don’t push your luck with this, though. Looking too far up or down still doesn’t work really well.
The menus work perfectly well. VorpX is capable of displaying them properly from a natural viewing angle, so it really does feel like a native VR experience.
However, if you’re using an Oculus Rift DK2, you may occasionally see some issues when watching the cinematics.
Bugs
In order to avoid crashing during gameplay, we recommend loading the menu before putting it on your headset so that you can see if the issue persists. Unfortunately, the bug occasionally occurs, though it rarely causes any problems.
The second bug might occur if you’re using a Thrustmaster TM X steering device. We’ve experienced this issue, where the game wouldn’t recognize the correct paddle-shift button. Other buttons continue to function normally.
When using both a mouse and an Xbox controller simultaneously, there may be issues with the mouse not working properly. To solve this problem, you could either bind your mouse controls to the emulated Xbox control setting or turn off the VorpX gamepad emulation entirely.
If you turn off the gamepad emulation, the game won’t change the camera angle as you move your head left and right. We found this not to be an issue because you can already see your mirror when the field of view is at its widest.
Settings
There are some game-specific options that you need to adjust to get the best VR experience.
In Settings > Camera Options:
- Select Cockpit
- Field of View 1.00
- Offset: Horizontal 0.00
- Offset: Vertical 1.00 (personal preference)
- Camera Shake 0.0%
- Camera Movement 0.0%
- Look to Apex Limit 0.0
- Head Tracking with TrackIR On Halo Column Off (personal preference)
You need to adjust the cockpit camera settings so that they match your own preferences. For example, if you prefer a wider field of view (FOV), then you may want to increase the vertical offset. If you don’t like the halo effect, you can turn it off.
Turning off any camera movement effects is just to avoid adding motion sickness in VR.
In Settings > Graphics Options:
HUD Area Adjustment
It is very important for the HUD elements to be placed close to the center of your vision so they’re easy to see. By using the “HUD Offset” option, you can move the HUD elements closer to the center of your screen.
One of the most important settings is the car adjustment. You need to adjust the car so that they’re close to the centre of your vision.
In Settings > On-Screen Display:
Setting Value Track Map Off Driver Tags Off
The driver tags need to be disabled in VR. They don’t align properly and are very annoying.
The Track Map works well, but it’s too big and distracting, so hide it.
The rest of the settings are up to personal preferences. We recommend leaving most of them turned off for a more immersive experience but feel free to experiment.
TrackIR Settings
To make use of the Track IR head tracking feature, once in-‐ -gamed, go into the VorpX menu and select Head Tracking Settings. Then
You can set up TrackIR to support head roll yes and pos tracking yes.
Conclusion
If you have the hardware to support it, we highly recommend giving Virtual Reality a try. It’s so much more immersive, particularly if you’re playing with a steering wheel and pedals. While virtual reality experiences like Assetto Corsa and Project CARS 2 are undoubtedly superior, the F1 game feels unparalleled. With VorpX, you can get pretty close to having the ultimate racing simulation.
Let us know if you have any comments or questions.