PC PC building & spec check

Discussion in 'Sim Racing Systems & Troubleshooting' started by KoAStR, Jul 23, 2011.

  1. Rolz

    Rolz ACC Nutter Team Raceonoz Gold Member

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    I would recommend buying the Rift off Oculus direct... if you have an issue with an Amazon bought one you need to send it to Amazon for warranty etc... this will add to turn around time....
    I had this issue with my CV1... but when I bought mine, my only option was off Amazon as Oculus didn't sell/deliver to Australia... now they do of course.
  2. Godzilla

    Godzilla Team Driver

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    That include shipping? As it’s just $19 I’d say get it from Oculus direct for the better support
  3. beakeroo

    beakeroo Professional

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    Yes that includes shipping but I've always found Amazon to be absolutely awesome as long as you buy directly from them and not a reseller.
  4. SteveDrivingSlowly

    SteveDrivingSlowly ACC Results Ste(ve)ward

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    Yeah I have a small room I can devote to a sim rig that is currently just full of junk ('spare' guitars and music stuff, wine, beer, old computer parts, unfinished robots - all can be dealt with assuming I can achieve activation energy) and not doing anything, so space not an issue. Currently leaning towards triples (3 x 27") as I don't think VR will work for me (english = can't deal with being above 17 degrees, motion sickness, want to look at my awesome 3D printed button box a lot).
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  5. beakeroo

    beakeroo Professional

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    Maybe that's my problem too Steve but then again I work outdoors all year around!
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  6. Godzilla

    Godzilla Team Driver

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    Being the helpfull sort that I am I will be more then happy to assist you with your wine/beer space issue
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  7. its-benny-racer

    its-benny-racer Professional Gold Member

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    As I've said previously, I can't see myself ever wanting to race without VR.
    Being able to turn your head and look over to see how close you are to the car next to you, or spot the apex for a tight hairpin. I love getting in an F1 car just to feel the speed of it, everything is life size and fully 3D so you get a real sense of just how fast it is.
    It might take a few sessions to get used to it, and it is important to make use of apps like crew chief to make up for not being able to see buttons or tablet apps.
  8. beakeroo

    beakeroo Professional

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    Its going to take some getting used to PC gaming, I struggled tonight to get the AC Content Manager going and eventually gave up for tonight a bit frustrated because it wasn't spoon feeding me.
    Then I fired up AC and spent an hour benchmarking the settings to find the right level where I could get 120 fps at 4k. I ended up figuring that if I dropped shadows down then all was good (I also found that my TV doesn't like 1440p lol)
    Then I tried to set up my wheel, it took a lot of googling to figure out how to stop the PC inverting my pedal presses.
    Finally I jumped in a Mclaren GT3 and did some time attack. I've not raced for a couple of months now but was holding my own in D2 of PCars in the midfield battles. I turned off all assists like I do in Pcars2 and I was all over the place at first but I have to say that the road feel and FFB felt more realistic than PCars ever did and I haven't played around with FFB at all yet on my wheel.

    Console gaming is certainly easier but I'm hoping once I've worked through this stuff life will become easier!

    Tomorrow night I figure out why my Buttkicker isn't working tonight and why I can't seem to use it when my Astro A50 mixamp is turned on. Then I do some more laps.
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  9. its-benny-racer

    its-benny-racer Professional Gold Member

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    It might be worth noting that GT3 racing cars are designed to be driven with TC and ABS. In real life I'm lead to believe they are more or less undriveable without them.
  10. beakeroo

    beakeroo Professional

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    I'll keep that in mind, lol. I thought I'd get a feel for the physics but I'll use realistic settings tomorrow.
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  11. beakeroo

    beakeroo Professional

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    Oculus Rift S has been ordered! $630 from Amazon but $580 after cashback (using Shopback)
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  12. v8power383

    v8power383 Professional

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    Anyone know a good place and price to get a PC to run Assetto Corsa Competizione
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  13. Rolz

    Rolz ACC Nutter Team Raceonoz Gold Member

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    Hey mate, what’s ur budget? It’s a bit of a challenge especially with the new video cards due out soon...
    They will shake the market up a bit...
    I’m just waiting to get my tax return back... so will pull trigger on base system and keep existing gfx card until new nvidia cards drop
  14. beakeroo

    beakeroo Professional

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    If you're after a good bang for buck system then it's hard to go past Techfast who advertise on ozbargain regularly. Otherwise like Rolz said, the new NVIDIA 30xx GPUs will drop in a month or so. Nobody knows how much they will cost but they're likely to drive down the prices of the current gen.
  15. v8power383

    v8power383 Professional

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    OK awesome thanks for the info guys
  16. Ryzza5

    Ryzza5 Professional

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    OzBargain sometimes have tempting deals on PC parts
    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/cat/computing

    If you click on an item, review the comments on the page in case most people have better recommendations. If all is well, scroll back up and click Go to Deal.
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  17. Crunch

    Crunch Professional

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    I won't go into a large amount of details, but I would like some opinions on my situation:

    My PC specs:
    i7 6700K @ 4GHz (stock clock)
    16GB DDR4
    AMD RX 570 4GB (stock clock) - Freesync compatible (I switched from nVidia 960 2GB which I had since 2015)

    Other specs:
    (monitor) Samsung 75 inch Q9FN - Freesync compatible, ARC, 120Hz
    (receiver) Sony STR-DH790 - Freesync incompatible, Dolby Atmos, eARC, 60Hz

    This setup works perfectly for 4K HDR 7.2 surround sound @ 60Hz on GT Sport (PS4 Pro -> Receiver -> TV), however I'm having lots of problems with PC gaming/iRacing.

    The problem I have is that due to my sound system and TV set, I cannot achieve the entire benefits of the components I have because no matter the configuration, there are problems with passthrough caused by the fact that neither the monitor (which is a TV) nor the receiver has DisplayPort, and the GPU only has a single HDMI output; for example, I cannot send more than 60 frames through the receiver due to hardware limitations on video passthrough. No matter what resolution (480p), the hardware is restricted to 60 fps. I will experiment with an HDMI splitter which I will purchase in the future, but I am worried about latency. I also would like your opinions on how best I should be prioritising the power from the GPU towards fps, resolution, HDR, etc. because my GPU is a clear bottleneck. So here's a summation of the hardware limitations I've been dealing with consistently:

    Receiver: capped at 60 fps passthrough, cannot passthrough Variable Refresh Rate technology ('VRR'/Freesync 2)
    Monitor: refuses to passthrough 7.2 surround sound to receiver due to the PC refusing to send a 7.1 audio signal*, breaks the monitor's audio return channel (ARC) as soon as PC is connected (incompatible with eARC)

    So my question for you guys is which do you believe, assuming there are some iRacing veterans here, would be the best configuration?

    Option 1 by connecting to PC -> Receiver -> Monitor: Slightly lower than reasonably max settings at 4K. No cubemapping or HDR. Solid 60 frames per second which rarely dips but when it does, creates a large amount of screen tearing when falling to around 55 fps in heavy LOD scenes. No variable refresh rate, no V-sync, frame cap at 60. 7.1 surround sound PCM audio. LFE channel.

    Option 2 by connecting to PC -> Monitor -> Receiver: Reasonably maxed settings at 1440p. No cubemapping or HDR. Solid 120 frames per second which dips to 105 fps in heavy LOD scenes, replays, or large grids. Freesync 2 to eliminate screen tear with low latency. Stereo PCM audio. No LFE.

    Sorry if this was stupidly long, and I hope this is the best thread to write this, but I'd like an opinion on which of the two above configurations you would prefer, and/or opinions on what aspects of the setup to prioritise, ie. what is important?

    Thanks.

    *Windows 10 does not 'see' the passthrough to receiver, and the monitor's EDID tells the PC it has stereo speakers despite the fact that the EDID also tells the PC that it can accept lossy 5.1 and lossy 7.1. I am not an expert in this technology, but I understand the GPU wants to send LPCM because it doesn't have an encoder so the Windows 10 will want to default to 2 channel LPCM, but there's a setting on my monitor for input audio type between PCM and Bitstream before exporting lossy Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital+. Lossy Dolby Digital does come out of the monitor when the source media is streamed from Disney+, so either the Samsung has an audio encoder or it just sends the Bitstream downloaded from the net, the latter of which is more likely. Either way, the PC won't play ball and the monitor itself is not a hardware 'bottleneck' - it is capable of sending lossy but the PC isn't.

    EDIT:
    >Says won't go into large details
    >Proceeds to go into large details
    TLDR:
    Please choose Option 1 or Option 2 above and why?
  18. its-benny-racer

    its-benny-racer Professional Gold Member

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    I would think that any option that includes having to deal with a large amount of screen tearing would be difficult to accept, as that would seem to have the ability to cause on track accidents.
  19. Ryzza5

    Ryzza5 Professional

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  20. Crunch

    Crunch Professional

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    Thank you both for your responses.

    In a little bit of a scary coincidence, I went and bought a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter without having seen your comment @Ryzza5 While it does seem to work, the 'solution' opens up a whole other kettle of fish with dual-screen setups and the way HDMI needs to have a video signal to send audio, so the only way to get it working is to extend the desktop that will never be used/seen yet wasting overhead for the GPU rendering.

    Here's a forum going back years discussing the exact issue that I sought to solve: https://hardforum.com/threads/is-there-a-way-to-output-sound-by-hdmi-without-video.1896250/

    All I can do after experimenting all day is keeping the extended screen at 720p because that is the lowest resolution that can carry 7.1 surround sound.

    It's all completely awful, but the purchase of a DisplayPort to HDMI wasn't wasted because I needed it to install my PSVR on iRacing anyway. Because the breakout box for the PSVR cannot passthrough HDR, I'm gonna try to use it on iRacing instead which negates most of the fuss I have introduced in this thread anyway. iRacing has decade old graphics so I see no reason to try and push the envelope with visuals.

    It's just too much of a chore at this point and quite silly with how techology becomes immediately outdated. It looks like I pulled the trigger on my upgrades too early; there's a bright HDMI 2.1 future coming soon I will be only joining it in a decade it seems. These exercises in upgrading setups has made me realise how painful PC is compared to the plug and play functionality of a console, and why I'll probably be a console gamer for my entire life. It's too much effort tinkering with rubbish instead of playing games. Gran Turismo 7 releases semi-soon and possibly this year, and that will bring full VR competitive multiplayer racing to consoles. I don't feel like I've missed out on anything in the meantime, especially when I already played Dirt Rally VR on PS4 years ago. Throw in the fact that console games are optimised to not need technology like Freesync because the devs optimise everything themselves, there really is no contest in my mind at least.

    Anyway, thank you all whoever reads this diatribe. I won't hijack the thread any longer; I have my desired 1440p 120Hz with 7.1 surround sound, but needed to compromise the graphics yet again because of the dual screen issue. re. iRacing, the LFE channel is quite intriguing and gives an awesome feel for the tyres, so that's why I was stuck with which above configuration to choose, and I feel that the LFE channel was mastered entirely with a buttkicker in mind.