Legal notice: this post is made available through the Patreon platform ONLY to current subscribers of the "VR friend" tier, exclusively for private reading and/or interacting with comments. Any other use of the contents, including but not limited to reposting, copying, republishing in whole or in part on social media or any other form of disclosure is strictly prohibited, and in violation of Luke Ross's and Patreon's IP rights and terms of service.
Game
https://store.steampowered.com/app/782330/DOOM_Eternal/
Enabled technologies
Supported version(s)
The R.E.A.L. VR framework was tested with game version 1.0.49.0, a.k.a. the PC Mods Update, available from Microsoft with Game Pass. The same version of the title bought from other stores should also work, like for example the one found on Steam at the address linked at the top (I get no commissions). I cannot give any guarantees however, as there could be differences that cause issues ranging from small defects to showstopping problems in VR.
Older versions or pirated copies are not supported. Official versions later than the ones listed above may or may not work, depending on what was changed. See here for information on how to prevent automatic game updates from breaking VR functionality.
Special setup notes
The folder where you should extract the R.E.A.L. VR archive and run RealConfig is "C:\XboxGames\Doom Eternal - PC\Content". You might need to customize the path if you moved your games library or in case you own the game from a different store, but it will always be the folder that contains the "DOOMEternalx64vk.exe" executable file.
If you're using the same version as me (Game Pass), please keep in mind that games installed by the Xbox App can only be injected if you put them in the default C:\XboxGames location. Any other folder on the system will be hard protected by Windows against tampering.
Deactivating VR support for DOOME temporarily, in case you find something wrong with it or just want to play flat, is very easy. Actually there are several ways to do it, but the canonical one which I recommend is renaming the RealRepo folder to a different name (for example adding an underscore at the end, "RealRepo_"), since my Vulkan injection process will look for that folder before trying to hook a game. When you want to go back to playing in VR, you can restore the folder to its original name and my framework will hook again the next time the game is launched. Note that this is only needed in case you find showstopping issues or want to play flat for a long time; if you simply want a short break from VR, for example to try out a hard battle in 2D, all you need do is press the "Stop VR" button in the R.E.A.L. VR overlay.
Resolution and aspect ratio
Use the "Target pixels per degree" slider and "Adapt resolution" button (see here to find out how they work).
Options
IMPORTANT: this title encrypts its saved games and user options files with the unique ID of the player. That means RealConfig will NOT be able to preselect the graphics options needed for VR and you'll have to do everything manually, so please read on and follow the instructions in this section to the letter or the game will not be working correctly.
Before installing R.E.A.L. VR, run DOOME flat (not in VR) and access the in-game SETTINGS menu to set the following options:
UI:
HUD Scale = Large
CONTROLS:
Aim Assist = Off
Target Snapping = Off
VIDEO:
Window Mode = Windowed
Aspect Ratio = 16:9
Resolution = 1920 x 1080
Vertical Sync = Off
Enable HDR = Off
Present From Compute = On (recommended value, but can also be set to Off in case of problems)
Field of View = 90
Motion Blur = Off (you should never enable any kind of motion blur when using R.E.A.L. VR, or the world will look smeared out horizontally)
Raytracing: Luckily, for DOOME ray tracing was still optional. You can turn it on if you want to be maimed by demons while you're staring at beautifully rendered reflections in puddles of water, but perhaps you'll find it advisable to switch it off and gain back precious fps.
DLSS = Performance, Balanced or Quality. To enable the DL(S)SS fix which will get rid of the shimmering around the edges of nearby objects and characters, DLSS must be turned on. If it's not available on your AMD system, quit the game and install OptiScaler as explained in my previous post.
Motion Blur Quality = Low
Resolution Scaling Mode = Off
Depth of Field = Off
Additional game-specific notes
You can bring up the R.E.A.L. overlay with the Pause key on the keyboard, or by pressing Back+Start (Select+Start) on the gamepad. The controller gesture is always active, even during gameplay.
I extended VR support to the "Play DOOM Eternal with mods" option. You can mix R.E.A.L. with plenty of third-party mods without issues (of course I cannot guarantee compatibility with each one of the more than 700 mods available, but I successfully tested several of the most famous).
DOOME is a very nicely optimized game, and despite having beautiful visuals it will run at full frame rate on most systems. That's why I set the default Render Mode to AER v2, which for instance on a Quest 3 set to refresh at 72 Hz will make the game run at 144 fps, thus eliminating any need for reprojection.
Input
You will definitely want to use a gamepad to play DOOME. Keyboard and mouse sort of work too, but there might be issues, like mouse clicks activating other windows at random or some entries in the game menus being unreachable with the cursor; thus, in order to have a smooth experience, using a gamepad is highly recommended.
Don't worry about console-player syndrome: with R.E.A.L. VR, aiming is gaze-driven and extremely fast, intuitive and accurate, so even if you're used to playing FPS with your mouse, give your gamepad a chance ;-)
Camera, HUD, gameplay, cutscenes
The R.E.A.L. framework supports 6 DoF tracking, i.e., the camera will follow your head rotation and movement. However, by default full 6 DoF is only enabled in cutscenes and other moments when you don't have control of your character, because during actual gameplay the camera is in a constant "aiming" state, meaning there's always a crosshair or dot displayed where you are aiming.
So during gameplay R.E.A.L. VR will restrict you to 3 DoF, or rotational tracking only, as enabling positional tracking would quickly get your aim out of alignment. If you prefer you can force 6 DoF on at all times (see the "Custom controls in the 'DOOME' overlay tab" section below); just be mindful not to stray from your home position, or if that happens recenter by shaking your head "no".
The HUD rescaling can be finely customized, so you won't miss any of the important information that appears at the sides like health, hints, ammo count and so on. If the default size I suggest doesn't work for you, you can tweak it using the "HUD scale" slider, which will have immediate effect while playing without any need to bump the resolution. Note that this slider is found in the "DOOME" game-specific overlay tab and is not to be confused with the "Normal HUD size/distance" and "Aiming HUD size" sliders available in the HUD section of the main page in the overlay.
Mantling in DOOME uses a different code path than the rest of gameplay. I managed to make it work in VR anyway, but please note that while normally the Slayer will move where you look, during mantling he will be decoupled from the camera (so before you jump off a wall make sure that your character is facing the direction you want it to jump towards!).
Cutscenes are fully 3D and allow you to look anywhere without restrictions. Expect the usual missing props, invisible walls, levitating characters and so on in the parts of the scene that you were never supposed to see in the flat game.
Occasionally, some cutscene portions will force you to look in a certain direction (so the world will appear to be headlocked), but that only lasts for a few seconds.
An awesome feature of DOOME is that frequently cutscenes are seamlessly integrated with gameplay, with no visible jump from one to the other, which makes the experience very immersive and visceral.
Custom controls in the "DOOME" overlay tab
You can adjust the camera position finely in 3D space using the Camera sliders.
The "Allow 6DOF in gameplay" will let you disable the restriction to rotational tracking while aiming. I don't recommend doing that since the game is frantic, and you probably don't want your crosshair to get out of alignment all the time just because you moved your head too far from your home position. But the option is there.
"Camera rotation compensation" is only relevant if you are using Legacy AER: it will get rid of the world judder that can be perceived when you use the thumbstick to rotate the camera.
You can change the world scale, from small adjustments to playing with dolls or giants, and even force the game to render to a 2D virtual screen in case you should find a section too hard to play in full VR.
The vast majority of users should not need to touch this setting, but if your system appears to display the 3D effect incorrectly (as though distant objects were actually in front of closer ones) try changing the "Frame delay compensation" value step by step until you get a perfectly stable world image, with proper depth everywhere.
[I'll post new information here as it becomes available.]