DK2 just arrived today. Can I squeeze more out of this? or do i need a new card?

[CMDR Holycow]

Or both?

I spent the better part of a couple hours getting my Dk2 up and running smoothly. I can play all the basic demos, and roller coasters with no problem, and really had no problems getting ED to run. The only issue I had, was getting the blue light to work on the camera to give me positional tracking. Finally got that figured out, and into ED I dove.

Here are my specs

win7
I5 2.67 quad core
Nvidia GTX470
8GB ram
Sennheiser 598 HD headphones
ED 12" 500watt ported HT Subwoofer
Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS
Sietek combat pedals

I built this machine 5 or 6 years ago now, and at the time the video card was top shelf. Today? Not so much. I am hoping you guys can help me squeeze as much performance out of the game as I can, allowing me to hold off on a pair of 980s or whatever, until the CV1 comes out.

I have done all your basics. I am running in extended mode, green UI color, settings as low as I can possibly set them, AA off, 1080 and x1 sampling. With settings as low as they go, I don't get very much studder at all. It is PRETTY smooth (but not butter smooth), but definitely playable. I only have the tinniest bit of judder while inside the large stations. The game is noticeably prettier with the graphics on high, but the studdering is REALLY bad up there. Totally unplayable. I'd like to add that I have had zero game issues that other people report, i.e. game crashing.

What I find strange, is that on my 27" monitor, I can run the game on ultra maxed out and still get perfectly fluid game play. Hard to imagine the DK2 puts that much more strain on the graphics card. Anyting else you guys can lead me to to squek out some better performance out of this antiquated gtx470?

Now that I have played the game in the rift... there is absolutely no way I can go back to playing on a monitor. I just can't believe what I am seeing. Playing in the rift literally feels like I am sitting in a space ship. I am in awe. I can't BELIEVE how massive the interior cabin ceiling is inside my type 6. On the monitor, sure, you can tell its a larger/taller cabin, but in the rift, christ, the ceiling looks like it's 15 feet high! I look out through the glass... and the walls of the underground docking bay feel like they are a good 50 or 60 feet away. On a 2d monitor, it all seems completely flat. Redeploy back to the surface before launching... and looking up.. the interior of the space station feels MASSIVE! The size of the Radar on the HUD feels a lot bigger, and it feels much further out in front of you. I look at it in the rift and think... its big. Seems like its 2 or 3 feet across. You just can't put it into words. The sense of scale and distance the Oculus gives you completely changes the game. It is the most amazing video game experience I have ever had.

 

[drkaii]

Welcome to a new world

I love your description, it is spot on.

As for squeezing juice, the most important things are shadows and AA. You have AA off but turning shadows off can make a huge difference too. It's significantly better than Low.

All other settings hardly make a difference, but check this link to see which ones are classed as Low/Medium impact in case you want to turn some stuff up: http://in2gpu.com/2014/12/16/elite-dangerous-performance-guide/
(note one thing: it will stutter while you approach planets etc no matter what you do, it's not a performance thing, it's just the way the game has been coded)

If I were you I'd be most interested in getting high performance in space. If it judders inside and around space stations, that's a decent sacrifice to getting the core experience at it's best: cruising around the galaxy

I will strongly strongly urge you to get a GTX 970 (why pay double for an only 1.2x increase on a 980?). With the 970, you won't need to even go SLI to get perfect frame rate with everything on max. But the main thing you can do with a 970 is do some Nvidia DSR, which is basically SSAA (the best anti-aliasing by far) but much more efficient. It is what will complete your Rift experience. It will make it go the equivalent of Playstation resolution/detail to N64 resolution/detail (ok I made that up but it's probably not far off at all) just by getting rid of all the shimmer and jaggies to the point that you can actually see stuff. The stars look much better, you can make out the details on the planets much better, the cockpit is much more crisp and you can read text significantly better. It basically makes the Rift higher resolution. Not by actually increasing the resolution but by making the most of it. I'd say it's a night/day change.

Also, overclock that CPU if you can.

You could probably sell your 470 for £30-£50 to contribute to the cost.

Why wait? When the CV1 comes out then you can add another 970 to the mix, but you can get your first one now and benefit from it now and then.

I've had the rift for a long time now and if you want to further your experiences get VorpX. It's mostly rubbish, the supported games list has no "quality rating" but some games are really good. Portal 2 is an obvious example. Again, you'd need your 970 for this. But as for now, Elite is by far the best experience. Have you tried it with the Sidewinder? You can actually stand up and stick your head out the window. Try muting the audio when that happens. It's the most surreal, peaceful experience I've ever had.

 

[CMDR Holycow]

Thanks for the reply. Going 970 is certainly an option. I think I might have to get myself a bigger power supply if I go that route. (not sure, id need to research a bit.) And yes, I have shadows off. Every setting is maxed out to the floor. Turning on a nice AA has a huge increase in quality. I just can't turn my head

One more thing that really surprised me with how much presence you experience in this game, is how you can actually "feel" the overall size of the ship you are flying. How the heck do you describe this? For example... in my viper.. I can tell that I am in a mediumish sized fighter type frame. Going through the mailslot I can feel how far away the walls are in relation to my ship size. But then going into my type 6... MAN! I can tell im driving a big bus (thats the biggest ship I have at the moment). I really really wish I could show everybody what this is like. If you are a monitor player that thinks a tripple 27" + head tracking is "just as good"....please, go find a dk2 to try out. It is sad to think there are gamers out there that haven't experience this yet.

I am really excited for the future of gaming in general, VR in general, and Elite dangerous. Bring it on, Oculus!

 

[vannibombonato]

Welcome to a new world

I love your description, it is spot on.

As for squeezing juice, the most important things are shadows and AA. You have AA off but turning shadows off can make a huge difference too. It's significantly better than Low.

All other settings hardly make a difference, but check this link to see which ones are classed as Low/Medium impact in case you want to turn some stuff up: http://in2gpu.com/2014/12/16/elite-dangerous-performance-guide/
(note one thing: it will stutter while you approach planets etc no matter what you do, it's not a performance thing, it's just the way the game has been coded)

If I were you I'd be most interested in getting high performance in space. If it judders inside and around space stations, that's a decent sacrifice to getting the core experience at it's best: cruising around the galaxy

I will strongly strongly urge you to get a GTX 970 (why pay double for an only 1.2x increase on a 980?). With the 970, you won't need to even go SLI to get perfect frame rate with everything on max. But the main thing you can do with a 970 is do some Nvidia DSR, which is basically SSAA (the best anti-aliasing by far) but much more efficient. It is what will complete your Rift experience. It will make it go the equivalent of Playstation resolution/detail to N64 resolution/detail (ok I made that up but it's probably not far off at all) just by getting rid of all the shimmer and jaggies to the point that you can actually see stuff. The stars look much better, you can make out the details on the planets much better, the cockpit is much more crisp and you can read text significantly better. It basically makes the Rift higher resolution. Not by actually increasing the resolution but by making the most of it. I'd say it's a night/day change.

Also, overclock that CPU if you can.

You could probably sell your 470 for £30-£50 to contribute to the cost.

Why wait? When the CV1 comes out then you can add another 970 to the mix, but you can get your first one now and benefit from it now and then.

Drkaii, what DSR setting / resolution do you recommend in nvidia control panel? I have an OC 970 and can perfectly run all maxed out, but in-game supersampling introduce lots of judder, and im not familiar with DSR settings.

Thanks,

Vanni

 

[rj16066]

Or both?

I spent the better part of a couple hours getting my Dk2 up and running smoothly. I can play all the basic demos, and roller coasters with no problem, and really had no problems getting ED to run. The only issue I had, was getting the blue light to work on the camera to give me positional tracking. Finally got that figured out, and into ED I dove.

Here are my specs

win7
I5 2.67 quad core
Nvidia GTX470
8GB ram
Sennheiser 598 HD headphones
ED 12" 500watt ported HT Subwoofer
Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS
Sietek combat pedals

I built this machine 5 or 6 years ago now, and at the time the video card was top shelf. Today? Not so much. I am hoping you guys can help me squeeze as much performance out of the game as I can, allowing me to hold off on a pair of 980s or whatever, until the CV1 comes out.

I have done all your basics. I am running in extended mode, green UI color, settings as low as I can possibly set them, AA off, 1080 and x1 sampling. With settings as low as they go, I don't get very much studder at all. It is PRETTY smooth (but not butter smooth), but definitely playable. I only have the tinniest bit of judder while inside the large stations. The game is noticeably prettier with the graphics on high, but the studdering is REALLY bad up there. Totally unplayable. I'd like to add that I have had zero game issues that other people report, i.e. game crashing.

What I find strange, is that on my 27" monitor, I can run the game on ultra maxed out and still get perfectly fluid game play. Hard to imagine the DK2 puts that much more strain on the graphics card. Anyting else you guys can lead me to to squek out some better performance out of this antiquated gtx470?

Now that I have played the game in the rift... there is absolutely no way I can go back to playing on a monitor. I just can't believe what I am seeing. Playing in the rift literally feels like I am sitting in a space ship. I am in awe. I can't BELIEVE how massive the interior cabin ceiling is inside my type 6. On the monitor, sure, you can tell its a larger/taller cabin, but in the rift, christ, the ceiling looks like it's 15 feet high! I look out through the glass... and the walls of the underground docking bay feel like they are a good 50 or 60 feet away. On a 2d monitor, it all seems completely flat. Redeploy back to the surface before launching... and looking up.. the interior of the space station feels MASSIVE! The size of the Radar on the HUD feels a lot bigger, and it feels much further out in front of you. I look at it in the rift and think... its big. Seems like its 2 or 3 feet across. You just can't put it into words. The sense of scale and distance the Oculus gives you completely changes the game. It is the most amazing video game experience I have ever had.

I have a Gigabyte 760 that has about 60hrs use on it. It has been sitting in its original packing for about 6 months. If your interested PM me.

Cheers
RJ

 

[drkaii]

Thanks for the reply. Going 970 is certainly an option. I think I might have to get myself a bigger power supply if I go that route. (not sure, id need to research a bit.) And yes, I have shadows off. Every setting is maxed out to the floor. Turning on a nice AA has a huge increase in quality. I just can't turn my head

One more thing that really surprised me with how much presence you experience in this game, is how you can actually "feel" the overall size of the ship you are flying. How the heck do you describe this? For example... in my viper.. I can tell that I am in a mediumish sized fighter type frame. Going through the mailslot I can feel how far away the walls are in relation to my ship size. But then going into my type 6... MAN! I can tell im driving a big bus (thats the biggest ship I have at the moment). I really really wish I could show everybody what this is like. If you are a monitor player that thinks a tripple 27" + head tracking is "just as good"....please, go find a dk2 to try out. It is sad to think there are gamers out there that haven't experience this yet.

I am really excited for the future of gaming in general, VR in general, and Elite dangerous. Bring it on, Oculus!

Hell yeah. You and I think alike. What's your in-game name, I'd like to add you to friends. I'd be very interested to take this sense of realism you so accurately describe and see how it adds to the experience of multiplayer with another OR user

Drkaii, what DSR setting / resolution do you recommend in nvidia control panel? I have an OC 970 and can perfectly run all maxed out, but in-game supersampling introduce lots of judder, and im not familiar with DSR settings.

Thanks,

Vanni

Copy the settings in these screenshots exactly: http://imgur.com/a/JMVry (which is from this reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2cnas5/supersampling_the_dk2_2560x1440_in_elite_dangerous/)

Just remember that you are doing these for the Rift, so make sure you've highlighted it at the top in all the sections!

The bit that confused me was that creating the custom profile doesn't mean it's going to appear in the resolution list in the Nvidia Control Panel, but it will appear in the game.

Couple of tips:

1. When you change the resolution in the game it might immediately tab you out. I found that's because Nvidia Control Panel was still open. Closing fixed it.
2. On my set up (970, i5 2500k, 8gb RAM), I can turn everything onto max like this and when I'm in space I get a perfect 75fps. You can even enable MLAAx4 without any issues, although I'm not sure it does anything! When I am docked in a starport it will go down. Turning shadows off in star ports helps, or at least on low.
3. When you first turn it on, just like any graphics setting in ED, the frame rate won't change for a few seconds. Not sure why. So if it's laggy, give it 10 seconds before you worry too much!

 

[vannibombonato]

Hell yeah. You and I think alike. What's your in-game name, I'd like to add you to friends. I'd be very interested to take this sense of realism you so accurately describe and see how it adds to the experience of multiplayer with another OR user



Copy the settings in these screenshots exactly: http://imgur.com/a/JMVry (which is from this reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2cnas5/supersampling_the_dk2_2560x1440_in_elite_dangerous/)

Just remember that you are doing these for the Rift, so make sure you've highlighted it at the top in all the sections!

The bit that confused me was that creating the custom profile doesn't mean it's going to appear in the resolution list in the Nvidia Control Panel, but it will appear in the game.

Couple of tips:

1. When you change the resolution in the game it might immediately tab you out. I found that's because Nvidia Control Panel was still open. Closing fixed it.
2. On my set up (970, i5 2500k, 8gb RAM), I can turn everything onto max like this and when I'm in space I get a perfect 75fps. You can even enable MLAAx4 without any issues, although I'm not sure it does anything! When I am docked in a starport it will go down. Turning shadows off in star ports helps, or at least on low.
3. When you first turn it on, just like any graphics setting in ED, the frame rate won't change for a few seconds. Not sure why. So if it's laggy, give it 10 seconds before you worry too much!

That's interesting.
I checked your link, are you sure it's not better to use the specific DSR option that is in Nvidia control panel? Ill give it a try as soon as i can, thanks for the help.

 

[CMDR Holycow]

Hell yeah. You and I think alike. What's your in-game name, I'd like to add you to friends. I'd be very interested to take this sense of realism you so accurately describe and see how it adds to the experience of multiplayer with another OR user

!

CMDR Holycow. Right now around Cupis doing some trading runs. Although, im not sure what kind of multiplayer experinece I could get at the moment. I can't use the keyboard to chat into comms or anything. It's going to take some practice and trial/error to get the fully immersed experience to work with all aspects of the game.

Quick question you may know off hand.. if I did go 970, and in the future I want to run 970 sli... do I have to buy the IDENTICAL card, brand, model, and all? or will any 970 do? (im 100% ignorant on SLI)

 

[CMDR Holycow]

Screw it, i just pulled the trigger on a base model 970 from evga. My current motherboard doesn't do SLI, so I think for now, it will tie me over for quite a while. Next year after the CV1 comes out.. I can spec out a new machine with an SLI mobo, a bigger powersupply, and an additional 970 and it should future proof me for some time to come.

EDIT: oh yeah, and as if things couldn't get even more badass... I have a decked out obutto revolution cockpit coming in a few weeks. oh man. Can you believe my wife lets me do these things?

 

[Adam Lusardi]

Question will 2x970 drive the CV1 at 4k 90Hz?

 

[CMDR Holycow]

Question will 2x970 drive the CV1 at 4k 90Hz?

the cv1 will not be 4k.

 

[drkaii]

Quick question you may know off hand.. if I did go 970, and in the future I want to run 970 sli... do I have to buy the IDENTICAL card, brand, model, and all? or will any 970 do? (im 100% ignorant on SLI)

Any 970 will do. So I take it you don't have a mic then.

Can you believe my wife lets me do these things?

Yes because my wife does too. Why are we so blessed?

 

[Adam Lusardi]

the cvi will not be 4k.

Given the talk on these pages in the last few days re Galaxy note 5 how do you know CV1 will not be 4k do you work for OR or Samsung?
We would love to know your info if you do!
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=113378&p=1790054&viewfull=1#post1790054

 

[Pyro Steel]

Quick question you may know off hand.. if I did go 970, and in the future I want to run 970 sli... do I have to buy the IDENTICAL card, brand, model, and all? or will any 970 do? (im 100% ignorant on SLI)

As long as its another gtx970, yes you can. Even if its from a from a different manufacture (say the first is EVGA and the second is MSI) it'll work fine. Also if its a overclocked version of that same card, sli is still good to go.
The only thing that wont work is lets say a 6gb version of the card comes out and you buy it. If you were to SLI it to your 4gb version, it will only read the lower ram of the two cards. So it wont utilize the extra 2g from the higher end card.

 

[Yololo69]

Does one of you guys made quality and speed fps tests to compare:
1/Creating this custom higher resolution manually like suggested here
2/ Use NVidia DSR mode from NV Control Panel
3/ Use SuperSampling directly from the new ingame video choice

I'm curious to get some experience here before trying to do the same with my 970

 

[Raptoyd]

Screw it, i just pulled the trigger on a base model 970 from evga. My current motherboard doesn't do SLI, so I think for now, it will tie me over for quite a while. Next year after the CV1 comes out.. I can spec out a new machine with an SLI mobo, a bigger powersupply, and an additional 970 and it should future proof me for some time to come.

EDIT: oh yeah, and as if things couldn't get even more badass... I have a decked out obutto revolution cockpit coming in a few weeks. oh man. Can you believe my wife lets me do these things?

I have an Obutto works great for this. Mount your camera up top dead middle and bolt your HOTAS to the table top. Nice trick that helps a little with the text is have the seat all the way back when starting the game then slide forward just a few inches helps a lot with the text especially the green text. Get a nice wieless headset something like a Logitech G930 and your set.

 

[drkaii]

Does one of you guys made quality and speed fps tests to compare:
1/Creating this custom higher resolution manually like suggested here
2/ Use NVidia DSR mode from NV Control Panel
3/ Use SuperSampling directly from the new ingame video choice

I'm curious to get some experience here before trying to do the same with my 970

I'll give DSR a go tonight and get back to you on that.

I can tell you the ingame SS is (much) worse.

 

[Masta Squidge]

Given the talk on these pages in the last few days re Galaxy note 5 how do you know CV1 will not be 4k do you work for OR or Samsung?
We would love to know your info if you do!
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=113378&p=1790054&viewfull=1#post1790054

They have stated repeatedly that resolution is not going to be all that high, because of the performance hit.


Would you please tell the class how you plan to run this game at 4k resolution at 75hz while having to double render, effectively requiring 150 fps?

It would be the worst possible business decision on their end to require that kind of hardware from a consumer. They would be killing their sales before the thing even launched. My TITAN isn't even up to that task, and it's specifically geared towards massive resolution gaming.

The 970 is faster with 2.5k and below, the 980 certainly beats it. But 4k in this thing would require at minimum 2 970s.

 

[mickeeie mouse]

sorry, iv not read all the replies, but i own a 970 and i couldnt recommend it to anyone to play this game, it just isnt powerful enough on its own, i wish id have bought the 980 now, however, im waiting on what AMD have to offer in the coming months before i upgrade again.
the GTX970 is a mid range card, sits where the old 560ti used to be in the market, then nvidia brought along the 780ti and titan, and moved the goal posts so to speak, so id expect atleast a 980ti to be announced around the time of AMDs new gpus, but only time will tell.
im not beating on the 970, its a great lil card, but you need to plan for the future here, from the whispers coming out of oculus, the CV1 will be higher res and 90hz, so massive amounts of horsepower will be required, a 2nd 970 in the future may be a good plan mind, personally, i dont like multi GPU set ups, more shizzle to go wrong imho, but thats just me

MM

 

[Masta Squidge]

sorry, iv not read all the replies, but i own a 970 and i couldnt recommend it to anyone to play this game, it just isnt powerful enough on its own, i wish id have bought the 980 now, however, im waiting on what AMD have to offer in the coming months before i upgrade again.
the GTX970 is a mid range card, sits where the old 560ti used to be in the market, then nvidia brought along the 780ti and titan, and moved the goal posts so to speak, so id expect atleast a 980ti to be announced around the time of AMDs new gpus, but only time will tell.
im not beating on the 970, its a great lil card, but you need to plan for the future here, from the whispers coming out of oculus, the CV1 will be higher res and 90hz, so massive amounts of horsepower will be required, a 2nd 970 in the future may be a good plan mind, personally, i dont like multi GPU set ups, more shizzle to go wrong imho, but thats just me

MM

What in god's name are you talking about?

My titan walks all over this game and the 970 is faster by a significant amount, stock vs stock of course.