How To Run DiRT 3 in VR Using VorpX

DiRT 3 came out in 2011, well before consumer virtual reality existed. Despite its age, however, it can be played in virtual reality thanks to VorpX, a program that can make many older games display in stereoscopic 3D in a VR headset.

To be clear, the experience isn't as good as a native VR title like Dirt Rally, but considering it wasn't made with VR in mind, it works shockingly well. Most importantly, it works in the ways that matter most when actually driving the car. I recommend playing with a wheel and pedals in cockpit view, as it makes the experience much more immersive.

In this guide, I will show you how to get everything set up, including overcoming some pitfalls I experienced when trying this out.

What You Will Need

VorpX - $40

The virtual reality portion is handled by VorpX, a program that can make a traditional 2D game render in stereoscopic 3D in a VR headset. VorpX works differently depending on how well it supports the game you are running. On many games, the best VorpX can do is display the game in 3D on a large virtual screen. This can work very well, but it's not quite as immersive as when you are actually "in the game" like a true VR title.

Thankfully, DiRT 3 is fully supported by the VorpX Full VR mode, so you are actually in the car, not just watching a big screen. Additionally, since DiRT 3 supports TrackIR, VorpX is able to use this to provide very good head tracking.

The effect isn't quite as good as a native VR game. The camera doesn't pivot as it does in a proper VR game, so there is a weird sensation that the world moves a little bit when you turn your head. It's hard to describe, but you will feel it immediately when you look around.

Thankfully, you hardly notice these problems once you actually start driving. That said, don't be surprised if this pushes your motion sickness a little harder than usual.

First Time Setup Instructions

Task Manager

DiRT 3 has a tendency to freeze when you exit the game, making it impossible to do anything except sign out to close all the programs, unless you set up some precautions.

The easiest way to mitigate this problem is to set Task Manager to be Always On Top from the Options Menu. With that enabled, you can Ctrl-Alt-Delete, open Task Manager and it will appear on screen, letting you select DiRT 3 and End Task. If you're not bothered by this, you can skip the next step.

DiRT 3 Windowed Mode

The other way to deal with this is to force the game to run in windowed mode. If the game freezes on exit, all you have to do is close the window. We need to edit a text file to do this, since there isn't an in-game setting for windowed mode. We can only do this after running DiRT 3 in VR for the first time.

Start VorpX and open DiRT 3. A message will appear saying you may need to restart for the settings change to take effect. VorpX will now have created the file we need to edit.

Exit DiRT 3, using Task Manager if necessary.

Open Documents\My Games\DiRT3\hardwaresettings\hardware_settings_config.xml. On the resolution line, change fullscreen="true" to fullscreen="false", as seen below.

<resolution width="1600" height="1200" aspect="4:3" fullscreen="false" vsync="0" multisampling="8xqcsaa">

Now the game will run in a window on your monitor, making it easy to close, but appear normally in your VR headset.

TrackIR Settings

In order to make use of the TrackIR integration, once in-game, open the VorpX menu > Head Tracking Settings and set:

DiRT 3 will automatically use the TrackIR data to let you look around the cockpit. Keep in mind the limitations of this, however. It is designed to be used to look left and right into the apexes of corners. You will quickly get motion sick if you spend much time trying to push the boundaries of what it is meant to do.

Overall Experience

Launching the game in VR is as easy as starting VorpX and then launching DiRT 3.

I am really surprised how well the game plays in VR. The menus have a few visual artifacts, but they are perfectly functional and easy to see. VorpX is able to make the menus appear at a good distance, so you don't have to go into EdgePeek mode, which takes you out of the Full VR mode and shows the game running on a virtual screen, to use them.

Once you get in the car, it is a Full VR experience with true Geometry 3D support, meaning it is a fully 3D VR experience. I do get the feeling that there is something wrong with the FOV. It feels like the road is too big and I'm closer to the road surface than where I should be when actually sitting in a car. I think this is just an artifact of how they made the game look correct when viewed normally on a screen. Despite this, I actually didn't find it to be bothersome when actually playing the game.

Better than non-VR?

Whenever I play a game in VR using VorpX, I like to ask myself if the game is actually improved in any way by doing so, or is it more of an interesting experiment without any real benefits. After all, VorpX is a fairly expensive program and it would be easy to use it as a gimmick simply to justify the cost. In the case of DiRT 3 (and most racing games for that matter), there is an actual advantage to playing in VR. The reason is two-fold.

Firstly, you have the depth perception available in a 3D world. This makes it much easier to intuitively judge the speed of your car and its position on track. I find it much easier to know when to brake when I can see the corner approaching in 3D.

I know many people play all types of racing simulators on 2D screens without issue, but I find it much more difficult to intuitively "feel" the car when playing on a 2D screen. As soon as I see it in 3D, I can just relax and drive the car naturally.

Secondly, head tracking offers the huge advantage of being able to look to the apex of a corner and see the exit. This alone is worth the price of admission. All too often you have to turn blindly, relying solely on the pace notes and your memory of the track, and end up with a less than perfect exit, simply because you couldn't see it before you got there.

Similarly, when you are in a slide, you can naturally look in the direction you want the car to go, which makes it much easier to correct the slide and keep the car on track. Just being able to naturally look around the track, seeing further ahead into corners, lets you push the car harder and makes the game more fun to play.

Conclusion

If you enjoy racing games at all, I highly recommend trying this out. Obviously the DiRT Rally games are hard to compete against when it comes to a true rally simulator in VR and DiRT 3 is much more of an arcade racer. Despite that, there is a lot of content in this game that looks and plays great in VR.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions.