VR Choice for Elite Dangerous

[Gorion]

It's a work in progress project.

There's a branch on github as well.  Agreed, exclusive are stupid, and only hold back technology.

[albert]

I received my Oculus Rift CV1 last Friday. Speaking specifically about Elite, I would say the experience is enhanced 10 fold. The immersion, quality of detail, areas of the game that are so easy to miss in 2D are amazing in 3D, like the hangar, the modules being installed, the scale of the ships. In space, it is literally haunting suspended in nothing when you are actually placed into the cockpit.

I don't see the technology as a work in progress, I see the software development as variable.

Most of the other software I have used with the Rift is average. Eve Valkyrie I gave 15 minutes and went back to Elite, it seems a 3 out of 5 game a best. The VR experiences, meh, interesting the first time, gets boring fast. But I haven't bought any so maybe the free stuff is very limited.

No Limits 2 Rollercoaster Sim, bought at full price, utterly amazing, physically feels like being on a roller coaster. Can't wait to edit my own. Apparently Minecraft has VR support, so Libs Rollercoasters may be fun.

I have a few other games that are VR ready. Project Cars, yet to try out. World of Diving, made me ill and want to puke. Descent Underground, not tried. Verde Station Not tried. Ultimate Booster, swinging park ride over a city, scared the crap out of me, awesome.

I personally would buy the Rift only for Elite and if we get Star Citizen supported by it, even if only in space then that will be a massive bonus. I personally don't think SC can miss the boat with VR but they took TrackIR out of the game a while back (possibly just for making the dev process easier).

Anyone who dismisses this as a prototype or not mature enough yet are for sure missing amazing gaming fun. Maybe it's just the costs of entry, which I can understand.

[no peanuts]

There are runtime switchers for the Rift, if you can be bothered installing them you could go through some of the older (and free) content pre-CV1. There was a lot of good stuff out there.

[albert]

I spent a number of hours tuning the VR setup for Elite with my GTX 980 and here's what I concluded.

VSync needs Triple Buffering and the nVidia and AMD client apps cannot enable it reliably. Its a Direct3D function therefore there is one very old big good app that works: D3DOverrider. Load before starting Elite and leave Triple Buffering and VSync enabled. http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/84-d3doverrider/ - This is extracted from Rivatuner.

The Oculus Debug Tool has a config element called Pixels Per Display Pixel Overide. Enable it to make the pixel density higher, similar to super sampling. Tune this to the highest level (between 1 and 2) so you still get 90FPS in space. It may lead to lowred FPS in stations or in planetary landings. But it does make the VR visuals better and seems less of an impact on FPS than the SS option in Elite.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4k80g4/increase_the_render_resolution_of_the_rift/

I set everything to Ultra in Elite then I Turn off: Blur, Bloom and Ambient Occlusion.

[ArithonUK]

I have done this with the Oculus Debug Tool (1.3 pixels is about the right value for my GTX 970) and in-game graphics settings put on "VR High" I get 80-89fps pretty steady. Even on planets it remains high.

The visual clarity is startling!

Landing on the surface of Merope 2A last night was more like looking out the window than playing a computer game.