My experience playing Elite: Dangerous with Google Cardboard
I'm pretty sure a lot of you have heard about Google Cardboard. If you haven't, go google it for more details, but in a nutshell: it's a (very) cheap way to experience VR.
I followed a guide on the forums (
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=40985) to get everything working and after numerous tries I managed to get things going.
My setup consisted of a stock google cardboard (not a fancy one such as colorcross, but real cardboard one) and cheap acrylic lenses, which is what I believe most people will have. For the phone I'm using a Motorola Moto X 2014. My rig is an Intel I7 with an AMD Radeon HD 7970 and 8 gigs of RAM, which is able to run ED on maximum settings.
The experience of running ED with VR glasses is a very interesting one: it *is* immersive and if it wasn't for the numerous technical limitations of my VR setup I'd probably never consider playing with a regular screen again.
The first problem is getting everything to work smoothly: Trinus server kept closing all the time until I set quality to Ultra, especially when I looked far to the sides. I'm not sure High would have fixed it since I tried on normal, low and even retro before getting mad at it and using Ultra. So basically Trinus worked fine with Fake 3D disabled, Fast mode and Ultra quality. The drawback is that performance took a noticeable hit on Ultra (I was using wireless streaming; maybe on USB it would've faired better).
The second problem is that the sensors needed recalibration every time I'd move my head back and forth. I ended up binding a joystick button to reset sensor controls, which "worked" but broke a lot of the immersion. Also, it is quite disorienting when you return your head to the "centered" position and the screen pans all the way to the right. I believe this might be a limitation on the phone's gyro and not necessarily a software problem.
Visual quality suffered a lot due to the poor lenses (everything near the screen edges got blurred) and also due to the low DPI of the phone screen, which resulted in quite underwhelming visuals compared to playing on a proper monitor. Again, this is a limitation on the way cardboard works: phones just aren't designed to have their screen so close to your face and magnified through lenses.
Poor visual quality also means unreadable text: the fonts sometimes are blurred beyond recognition, especially when the text is closer to the edges. I constantly found myself having to turn my head to directly face the power distributor indicator in order to see how many pips I had into each system. That, coupled with my screen going crazy when I returned my head to its original position, meant that combat was impossible. Trading would also be seriously compromised because I'd either not be able to read prices at all or I'd have to make some serious effort to do so.
Lastly after spending nearly 1 hour and a half with the cardboard box firmly attached to my face both my nose bridge and forehead were hurting. It just isn't comfortable, though it would probably be enough to add a few cushions on strategic places. I decided I won't go through the trouble of doing that, however, because of the other limitations I just mentioned.
Overall, was it worth the trouble of setting up cardboard? Yes. It is quite amazing to see the possibilities, and I'm courting the idea of getting an Occulus Rift to have a proper experience now.
Is the game playable with cardboard? No. I believe that even with better lenses quality would suck due to the phone screen. The sensors are probably not going to be precise either (and believe me, you absolutely want precise sensors when your viewing is involved). There is going to be screen lag and stuttering, which may be fatal in a dogfight or even during docking.
So I'd advise you to give cardboard a shot (there are also some cool cardboard-specific stuff on play store), but do not think you're going to have a cheap occulus replacement.
