Hands-on: Assetto Corsa EVO’s VR update is a welcome improvement

It’s been a while since I last sampled Assetto Corsa EVO in virtual reality, but I can say for certain that it’s in a better state than it was in its first public build all the way back in January 2025 (!).

For V0.8, Kunos has introduced a foveated rendering option that reduces the clarity of the surrounding VR image while maintaining the fidelity of the area of the screen that players actually focus on. This seems to have upped both frame rates and stability.

There’s a new pixel density option to try, with settings from 50% to 150%, offering players greater resolution tunability. Generally, lower numbers equal better performance at the expense of sludgier-looking graphics, and vice versa.

VR graphics settings are now distinct from ‘normal’ in-game graphics settings and are saved to different locations, with a few more nuanced tweaks outlined in the changelog at the bottom of this article.

The kicker here is that the in-headset experience of AC EVO is much smoother than before, but there’s still a sense that Kunos could further improve its usability.

For example, in the controls settings menu, perhaps the most important sim racing VR function of all (i.e., centering your view) is marked simply as ‘Reset View’ in the ‘Camera’ sub-menu. 

There’s no mention of ‘VR’ anywhere. Which is odd.

In the UI menu, on the other hand, there are a bunch of VR-specific settings to map, so it seems strange to separate these mappable headset actions into different places.

The game also struggled to cope with the demands of my Pimax Crystal Light headset and would frequently lock as a result (perhaps I’m due an upgrade for my gaming PC’s RTX 4070, but one would hope it’s enough to offer a solid VR experience with modest graphics settings today).

So, when VR worked for me in V0.8, it did so reasonably well and was a marked improvement on my previous test experiences. But there’s undoubtedly still much work to be done ahead of V0.9 to create a bug-free in-headset experience.

The latest Assetto Corsa EVO update releases today, 9th July, on PC via early access. Alongside the aforementioned VR changes, it also adds the Kyalami circuit and three new cars. We also have the full patch notes.