Dirt Rally 2.0: Best hardware_settings.xml for High-Speed VR

The primary performance killer in DiRT 2.0’s VR mode is the Ground Cover and Mirrors. While the game looks great with high foliage, the “stutter” caused by the engine recalculating shadow maps for every leaf in your peripheral vision is a major bottleneck. We focus on a “Pure Visibility” build.

File Path

The hardware configuration file is stored in your local My Games folder. Ensure the game is closed before editing, as it will overwrite your changes on exit.

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\DiRT Rally 2.0\hardwaresettings\hardware_settings_config.xml

Technical Note: To maximize the VR experience, ensure the <vr> tag is set to active="true". Also, setting the file to Read-only after editing is recommended to prevent the game from auto-detecting “recommended” settings that lower your resolution.

Optimized “Rally VR” Configuration Block

Search for these specific tags. This configuration is optimized for high-speed tracking and reduces the “shimmering” effect common on rally tracks.

Parameter	Recommended Value	Technical Purpose
shadows	enabled="true" size="1024"	1024 is the “sweet spot” to prevent massive VRAM hitching.
mirrors	enabled="true" width="512"	Reduces mirror render load; you rarely check mirrors in Rally.
crowd	enabled="false"	The FPS Savior. Disables CPU-heavy 3D spectators.
ground_cover	level="1"	Keeps grass visible but removes the complex shadow layers.
particles	level="1"	Prevents dust clouds from dropping frames in narrow sections.

<shadows enabled="true" size="1024" maskQuality="0" particles="false" />
<particles enabled="true" level="1" energy="0.5" />
<crowd enabled="false" detail="0" />
<ground_cover enabled="true" level="1" opacity="0.5" />
<mirrors enabled="true" width="512" height="128" maskQuality="0" />
<postprocess brightness="1.0" contrast="1.0" gamma="1.0" />

HowTo: Engineering the Ultimate VR Stability

Follow these GameEngineer.net technical steps to reach the “locked” refresh rate required for professional rally times:

1. Multi-Sampling (MSAA) Overhaul: In VR, MSAA is extremely expensive. Set msaa="2" in the XML. Do not use 4x or 8x; instead, use SteamVR Supersampling (1.2x or 1.3x) to achieve better clarity with less GPU cost than native 8x MSAA.
2. The “Eye-Tracking” Fix: If using a modern 2026 headset with eye-tracking (like the Quest Pro 3 or Varjo), disable Anisotropic Filtering in the XML (af="0") and force it through your GPU driver to fix the “shimmering” on the gravel road ahead.
3. Trees vs. Ground Cover: DiRT Rally 2.0 treats trees and grass differently. You can keep Trees on High for visual reference, but Ground Cover should always be Low. The grass uses a “Billboard” system that is notoriously unoptimized for the dual-camera rendering of VR headsets.
4. Weather Effects: If you experience “lag” during rain stages, navigate to the <weather> tag and set quality="0". This removes the high-res “splash” particles on the windshield which are calculated on the main CPU thread.
5. Fixed Foveated Rendering (FFR): Use the OpenXR Toolkit to enable FFR. By reducing the resolution of the image in your peripheral vision by $50\%$, you can gain up to $30\%$ more performance, which can be reinvested into higher Texture Quality.

Technical Explanation: Crowd Culling and Draw Calls

The reason crowd enabled="false" is the most impactful setting for VR is due to Draw Call Latency. In an engine like EGO, every 3D spectator is an individual draw call ($D_c$). In VR, the engine must perform these draw calls twice (once for each eye).

By removing the crowd, you reduce the total draw calls per frame by nearly $25\%$. This lowers the CPU Frame-time ($T_{cpu}$), which is critical because if the CPU doesn’t deliver the frame to the VR compositor in time (usually within $11\text{ms}$ for $90\text{Hz}$), the headset will drop to “Reprojection,” causing the “ghosting” effect that makes high-speed hairpins impossible to judge. Disabling the crowd ensures the CPU is focused entirely on the vehicle physics and the road geometry ahead.