VR Wars: The Red Devil RX 6600 XT Showdown with the RTX 3060

Assetto Corsa Competizione

BTR’s sim/racing editor, Sean Kaldahl created the replay benchmark run used for both the pancake game and the VR game. It is run at night with lots of geometry, and the lighting effects of the headlights, tail lights, and everything around the track adds to the feel of racing.

Just like with Project CARS, you can save a replay after a race. The CPU usage is the same between a race and its replay so it is a reasonably accurate benchmark using the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps against 20 AI drivers.

Although iRacing may be more accurate or realistic, Assetto Corsa Competizione has some appeal because it feels more real than many other racing sims. It delivers the sensation of handling a highly-tuned racing machine driven to its edge.

Here are the VR Low frametimes.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 6600 XT managed to deliver 117.00 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 2 frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 achieved 126.33 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses but with 1 synthetic frame generated.

The RTX 3060 has a bit more performance headroom than its Radeon competitor.

VR Low shows a noticeable drop in visuals from VR High and we would suggest lowering individual settings instead of dropping from presets to stay out of reprojection if possible. Unfortunately, there is no “VR Medium” preset.

Next, we look at Borderlands 2 performance.

Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 is a full version of the pancake version sans co-op. Battles deliver frantic in-your face 360 degree superfast action with endless weapon combination possibilities which are even more intense and addictive in VR, and if there is a way to enable the 120Hz option without reprojecting frames, we’d recommend using it over 90Hz.

We benchmark at 100% resolution with medium/near/normal in-game settings and plus 16xAF and FXAA as below.

Here is the frametime plot for Borderlands 2.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 104.45 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames, no Warp misses, nor any synthesized frames.

The RTX 3060 delivered 106.71 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames and no Warp misses, but it required 35 synthetic frames.

Borderlands 2 looks great at 100% resolution with medium detail, and both cards give a comparably good VR experience.

Next, we look at Boneworks.

Boneworks

Boneworks is a rare game that couples a fair single player campaign with an incredible sandbox and next generation VR physics interactive tour de force. We benchmark using the ‘Time Tower’ level.

Boneworks made on the Unity engine has average to very good visuals and it particularly benefits by allowing for high levels of MSAA up to 8X which we use for benching. We also enable ambient occlusion and use the highest settings, and we leave SteamVR’s resolution at 100%.

Here are the frametimes plots of both of our cards.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 6600 XT delivered 149.34 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frame or Warp misses and no frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 achieved 148.58 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames and no synthetic frames or Warp misses.

There isn’t any difference playing with either cards at the highest settings at 100% resolution and it is possible to increase the SteamVR resolution. For GeForce cards, we recommend using VRSS for additional visual improvement with only a minor performance penalty.

Let’s check out Elite Dangerous next.

Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets (~400 billion). Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a very dedicated following of players.

We picked the Medium Preset and we set the field of view (FoV) to its maximum. Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 6600 XT delivered 141.51 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames, no Warp misses, and none of its frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 delivered 128.22 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthesized frames nor any Warp misses.

Both cards deliver an identical experience on Medium settings, but the RX 6600 XT has a little extra performance headroom.

Let’s continue with Half Life: Alyx.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to Standard, but we also set the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgraded to FXAA+TAA. Although DLSS is available for RTX cards and the Quality setting improves performance without impacting image quality significantly, we did not test with it.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 76.91 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, but 3221 (50%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 produced 103.61 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, and it only required 191 (3%) synthetic frames.

Although, the RTX 3060 gives a better experience over the RX 6600 XT in No Man’s Sky using the Standard preset, it isn’t strong enough to play on the Enhanced setting without synthesizing frames.

Next we check out Pavlov.

Pavlov

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Pavlov in VR. Pavlov is the most popular multiplayer VR shooter with a primary focus on its community. Realistic fast-paced combat is a large part of its core experience, and even tanks have been added.

We benchmarked using the training sessions with the highest settings.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details:

The RX 6600 XT delivered 165.97 unconstrained FPS with no dropped, synthesized frames, or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivered 175.96 unconstrained FPS also with no dropped, synthesized frames, or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivers an identical VR experience to the RX 6600 XT although it has a little more performance headroom. We recommend that it be used for increasing the SteamVR render resolution or for playing at 120Hz.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2

Project CARS 2

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur although it looks best to us on Low or Medium. For lesser cards, we would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6600 XT managed 100.15 unconstrained FPS with 17 dropped frame and 17 Warp misses but 566 (6%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 achieved 77.43 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frame and with 1 Warp miss but with 4820 (50%) synthetic frames. It had no Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 on our medium VR settings is unsatisfactory for both cards and we would recommend lowering individual settings or even lower the resolution a bit as needed to stay out of reprojection. The RX 6600 XT is faster, but the VR experience is spoiled by dropped frames and Warp misses.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings but we did not increase or Supersample the resolution.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 128.30 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthetic frames and there were no Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 managed 129.39 unconstrained FPS, also with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 26 synthetic frames were produced