I'm late to the party and the last thing this thread needs is another first impressions monologue but I guess all info is useful for those who are still on the fence about getting this.
I am a "VR Veteran" having had the PSVR1 and Oculus Rift S. I didn't play much DiRT Rally or GT Sport on PSVR but I did platinum Driveclub VR. On PC I spent hundreds of hours with Assetto Corsa Competizione, dozens of hours with Richard Burns Rally, a few hours with DiRT Rally 2.0, and with the following titles basically just tried them for a couple hours but never went back to them consistently: Assetto Corsa, Automobilista2, rFactor 2, RaceRoom.
As a veteran I was not blown away by the move to VR in GT7 but that was to be expected; I was already accustomed to what VR offers and there was really no "wow" factor at all when I tried GT7.
IMAGE QUALITY
What I will say is that PSVR2 image is a massive step up from my Rift S and RTX2060 GPU (not to mention PSVR). The image is much clearer and the draw distance is light years beyond what I could achieve on my modest PC. Plus GT7 can actually show shadows and other cars far in front of me without crashing the PS5 LOL! So with GT7 the visuals to me are great but in no way approaching that of a 4K television. I am happy but not impressed (not disappointed, either). The visual upgrade is about what I was expecting. SDE is present in GT7 but doesn't bother me. I will say, however, that there was lots of over-hyping going on in the early sneak peaks regarding the image quality of GT7.
Where the headset really shines graphically is with Kayak VR. That game DOES have imagery approaching the quality of a 4K TV. Not quite there yet, but very impressive. Ditto on Horizon. That looks fantastic and the intro boat ride on the demo was a real "wow this is incredible" moment. I will be buying that game despite assuring myself I wouldn't bother before trying the demo. SDE is barely noticeable in these two titles.
I do agree with those who say the cockpit has a "toy" ambiance to it. I don't think it's the world scale per se, but rather something inherent in the Gran Turismo engine. The feeling inside the car is identical to GT Sport, for better or for worse. DiRT Rally 2.0 also gave me that "toy" impression. Given that both GT7 and DR2.0 have pretty simple physics dynamic models that could be contributing to having this impression. I don't remember ever having that "toy" feeling in ACC or the other PC sims I mentioned earlier. It could also be the camera being forced to "locked to horizon" mode (more on that later).
EDIT: I forgot to mention the sweet spot. It's very small with this PS VR2 headset. Those new to VR will have a steep learning curve getting this thing to align perfectly. /EDIT
REPROJECTION
This has been a touchy topic this week and I have seen very mixed opinions on this. Personally, having had to lock to 40fps and reproject to 80fps in every sim except RBR (which I was able to run native 80fps), GT7 is smooth as butter to me. The reprojection does not bother me and if I even noticed it I wouldn't care anyway. Obviously native 90fps would be better but after my struggles with ACC and the Rift S, GT7+PSVR2 is an absolute treat and I find it to be an excellent VR implementation given the complexity of the game and the relatively weak hardware we are using to push all these pixels. I do, however, understand where those who are complaining about it are coming from. It kind of depends on what you were used to and what your expectations were.
Reprojection did not bother me in Kayak or Horizon, either.
AUDIO
I haven't heard much about this, and it's probably because lots of people use headphones which I really don't like using. I used to have a 7.1 surround system but that was only used with PS4 so I had never really experienced this 3D Audio thing before. Using the included earbuds, this was the only part of the experience that was new to me and blew me away. There are sounds there that just don't come out of the TV: clicks from the transmission, groans from the chassis under stress, squeaking from the shock absorbers, and what surprised me the most was being able to hear which tire(s) was losing traction just from the directional audio.
Having the mic pass through the ambient sounds in the room sealed the deal for me: my next upgrade will be a Pulse 3D headset. Color me convinced.
The HMD is also very comfortable.
ADAPTATION
Although I am a "VR veteran" it's been a little over two years since I played ACC competitively. The only thing I had time for in GT7 was the NSX time trial at Daytona. This is a track I am not very familiar with at all so I already had something going against me. Plus, I saw a battery in the HUD so it seems the NSX has a hybrid boost or something? I tried doing some button re-mapping on my WRC rim with the Fanatec GT DD Pro but couldn't get the boost working (if it has boost at all).
Under normal circumstances I can get silver times on the second lap. To get a gold I usually need between 5 and 20 extra laps depending on how the car/track combo sits with me. With the NSX at Daytona the first few laps were very messy but I quickly got up to speed and got silver on lap five. I had to get off to bed so only did a couple more laps but at the end of my seventh and final lap I was only four-tenths of a second off the gold time, and I was leaving lots of time on the table.
So I doubt I will have any adaptation problems and I will quickly be as fast as my 2D self and probably a bit faster after a couple more days. I was always faster with VR in RBR, DR2.0 and ACC and GT7 seems like it will not be an exception to that.
LOCK TO HORIZON
Another controversial topic. I generally play VR with the horizon locked. However, I have never raced anywhere that had any big banking. The time trial at Daytona with the dash slanting down to the left, my head not moving with it, and being detached and off-center from my avatar was pretty jarring. Maybe they can find a happy medium where we are locked to horizon but after a certain slope our view can rotate with the dash. Better yet would be to give us the option to unlock from horizon. Anyway, this is only an issue in very small parts of the game so in the grand scheme of things it's no biggie to me personally.
HARDWARE ISSUES
My HMD works perfectly and both controllers track well. Unfortunately my left Sense controller has a problem where the buttons don't work while in games. They work on the PS5 OS menus, but don't do anything in the games. So forget Horizon, Star Wars, RE8, etc... for now.
Apparently Sony is aware of the issue and it can be fixed by a firmware/software update. For those having similar issues there is a thread here with some possible fixes:
Sorry for the long-winded recap. I hope someone finds my humble opinion useful.
Can't wait to do some more GT7-ing this weekend!