DK2 performance and tracking loss

Spanky Deluxe

S
Hi all,

I backed the Kickstarter way back when but am only now finally getting round to trying out the game properly due to first trying it with a bad graphics card, the steep learning curve in the tutorials and general life getting in the way.

Anyway, now I'm ready to roll and have started playing it a bit but I'm having two issues that are proving annoying.

1) Performance seems to be a problem sometimes. If I'm entering a system with more than a few ships in it and a fancy looking station, the frame rate drops quite a bit. Galaxy map is horrible to use, it's so low frame rate. Sometimes when using the frame drive mode the frame rate goes poor too. My system is an i5-2500k (non overclocked) and a gtx 980 (non overclocked). I'm currently running the game with the 'high' settings but with the AA switched down to MLAA2x as apparently that's less of a performance hog. This doesn't seem right as I keep seeing people talking about running with DK2s and using a 2x super sampling which is super intensive.

2) I almost always lose positional tracking (and in-game camera jumps all over the place) when looking towards the left control panel. This doesn't happen with the right one and it doesn't happen in other games - i.e I've never had an issue looking all the way around in other games, I don't even notice when tracking is lost - just when it reconnects. In ED, if I look to the left panel, the screen goes gray, the camera jumps and it's just painful. I have to lean all the way back in my chair and read the display by looking all the way left with my eyes. Does ED use a different tracking cone to other games/apps? The DK2 camera is on top of my monitor and I have my hotas on the edge of my desk at the mo.
 

Ancipital

Ancipital
Have you opened up the office scene from the Oculus control panel, and turned on "camera bounds"? This will let you see where the tracking sweet spot is for your current configuration.
 

Jake_blakeson

J
Spanky Deluxe said:
Hi all,

I backed the Kickstarter way back when but am only now finally getting round to trying out the game properly due to first trying it with a bad graphics card, the steep learning curve in the tutorials and general life getting in the way.

Anyway, now I'm ready to roll and have started playing it a bit but I'm having two issues that are proving annoying.

1) Performance seems to be a problem sometimes. If I'm entering a system with more than a few ships in it and a fancy looking station, the frame rate drops quite a bit. Galaxy map is horrible to use, it's so low frame rate. Sometimes when using the frame drive mode the frame rate goes poor too. My system is an i5-2500k (non overclocked) and a gtx 980 (non overclocked). I'm currently running the game with the 'high' settings but with the AA switched down to MLAA2x as apparently that's less of a performance hog. This doesn't seem right as I keep seeing people talking about running with DK2s and using a 2x super sampling which is super intensive.

2) I almost always lose positional tracking (and in-game camera jumps all over the place) when looking towards the left control panel. This doesn't happen with the right one and it doesn't happen in other games - i.e I've never had an issue looking all the way around in other games, I don't even notice when tracking is lost - just when it reconnects. In ED, if I look to the left panel, the screen goes gray, the camera jumps and it's just painful. I have to lean all the way back in my chair and read the display by looking all the way left with my eyes. Does ED use a different tracking cone to other games/apps? The DK2 camera is on top of my monitor and I have my hotas on the edge of my desk at the mo.
Click to expand...


To answer your first question, Elite has issues when loading new planets and NPC ships in the game so there is a stutter in the game the first time you enter systems and start approaching planets. This is a known bug and FD is aware and supposedly working on it.
As far as the looking left tracking loss I have experienced the same problem, and I have experienced it in other games. There is definitely something wrong with how the DK2 tracks when you look left so it's not just you. I think part of the problem could be how far you have to look to the left to get the panel to open or stay open. Try mapping a button that opens the panels and locks them open that way you don't have to turn your head so far to the left, it has helped with the left tracking issue for me but it is still there.
The galaxy map has always been awkward and a system hog, it is also an issue for people without rifts, one of the major complaints of players since beta. It is getting better but still not very efficient to use.
As far as the performance issue, best method of getting performance\graphics sweet spot seems to be, go with a green HUD color, set the graphics quality to Mid range and up the SS in game to 1.5. I have a similar rig to the one that you have and it seems to run very well with theses setting. Also I use the 4.4 runtime for my Rift.
 
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rkodey

R
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Adam Lusardi

A
I get the same looking left. Thought it was the distance from the camera I'm over max distance or the wall to my left.
<edit>but its a lot less in 1.3
 
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SlackR

Banned
SlackR
Not sure about the graphics issues but people often underestimate the importance of moving the camera back a good five feet. You are much less likely to encounter the tracking problem you describe, though it is still by no means perfect. Good luck!
 

Spanky Deluxe

S
Ancipital said:
Have you opened up the office scene from the Oculus control panel, and turned on "camera bounds"? This will let you see where the tracking sweet spot is for your current configuration.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have and I'm right in the middle of the cone - the 'spike' in there is pointed directly between my eyes. This is why I don't really get why it only happens with the left virtual display and it never happens with the right virtual display.

Jake_blakeson said:
To answer your first question, Elite has issues when loading new planets and NPC ships in the game so there is a stutter in the game the first time you enter systems and start approaching planets. This is a known bug and FD is aware and supposedly working on it.
As far as the looking left tracking loss I have experienced the same problem, and I have experienced it in other games. There is definitely something wrong with how the DK2 tracks when you look left so it's not just you. I think part of the problem could be how far you have to look to the left to get the panel to open or stay open. Try mapping a button that opens the panels and locks them open that way you don't have to turn your head so far to the left, it has helped with the left tracking issue for me but it is still there.
The galaxy map has always been awkward and a system hog, it is also an issue for people without rifts, one of the major complaints of players since beta. It is getting better but still not very efficient to use.
As far as the performance issue, best method of getting performance\graphics sweet spot seems to be, go with a green HUD color, set the graphics quality to Mid range and up the SS in game to 1.5. I have a similar rig to the one that you have and it seems to run very well with theses setting. Also I use the 4.4 runtime for my Rift.
Click to expand...

Good to know I'm not alone on the left camera loss. Does changing the HUD colour improve performance or is it about increasing readability? Mid graphics on a 980 doesn't seem right. Surely it should be better - people keep saying they're running on Ultra.

rkodey said:
980 should have plenty of juice to run at ultra. I run ultra on a 970 (with AA, Bloom, and Blur off), and it's very smooth. I was also having some tracking issues - in my case it was randomly happening though. Perhaps your issue is different if it's ONLY happening when looking one direction. But, just in case it helps:

Summary: Powered USB hub, disable core parking.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=121355&page=14&p=2332898&viewfull=1#post2332898
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I would have thought - I should be able to run ultra with a 980 if you're doing VR with a 970 on ultra. Which AA are you using? I'm using the latest runtime - 0.6 and latest GeForce drivers. I'll look into the core parking. I'm not using any hub at all, I always assumed it was best to plug the two DK2 cables directly into the computer. My camera is going to a USB2 port on the motherboard (as I always get a BSOD when I plug it into USB3) and the headset's USB is connected to a USB port on my case which is run from a motherboard header. I'm using 2m USB extension cables now but only as of a day or two ago and I had these same issues before.

Adam Lusardi said:
I get the same looking left. Thought it was the distance from the camera I'm over max distance or the wall to my left.
<edit>but its a lot less in 1.3
Click to expand...

I'm glad it's not just me!

SlackR said:
Not sure about the graphics issues but people often underestimate the importance of moving the camera back a good five feet. You are much less likely to encounter the tracking problem you describe, though it is still by no means perfect. Good luck!
Click to expand...

The problem is, I'm probably in the same boat as most users - I have my desk against a wall/window and have the camera on top of my monitor. If playing a game like Elite Dangerous, I have to have the joystick/keyboard/mouse etc on the edge of my desk. I can't really move any further back unless I buy some kind of mini lap desk and I can't move the monitor back as there's a window/wall in the way.
 

Adam Lusardi

A
The latest ED build of 1.3 my loss of tracking got more pronounced when looking left and selecting panel options. It now dumps me 0.5m lower in the seat requiring a reset.
This didn't happen in other 1.3 versions.
 
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CMDR Saari

CMDR Saari
Spanky Deluxe said:
I'm using the latest runtime - 0.6 and latest GeForce drivers. I'll look into the core parking.
Click to expand...

Maybe try switching down to the 0.5.0.1 Runtime; 0.6 is known to have issues with ED (info here). Also, definitely try the core unparking utility. It solved my camera jumping issues, though I was getting them in all viewing directions not just the left.

Good luck, Commander!
 

ranix

ranix
I also had issues with tracking loss when looking left or right. I tried moving the camera around and it didn't help. What did eventually help was putting the camera on a tripod such that it looks slightly down at me.

I think the DK2 has a lot of headtracking issues. It's not quite up to snuff as a consumer product. I'm hoping the released version is better in this area (I think it will be).
 

ranix

ranix
I've had headtracking problems constantly. What it's doing now is waaay better than before. The screen used to randomly start jumping around back and forth like crazy forever until I put my hands in front of my face to break the headtracking, then it would be fixed until it happened again (not long). Now, occasionally it just seems to re-orient itself or something. I'm pretty happy with it, that problem was horrible and now it's just gone.
 

CMDR_UKmouse

CMDR_UKmouse
Is your tracking camera directly in front of you, or off to the side? This might explain why it tracks better one way than the other.
 

Susscon

Susscon
I want to resurrect this post.

Anyone found out what is causing this exactly? its happening to me, its not huge issue, but can be annoying after a while.

Exactly the same issue for me.
As described, tracking realignment starts jumping around, but only when looking left, the same effect when you hold your hand in front of the tracking sensor and it tries to re-calibrate itself.

It seems like its a few sensors short of a rift on the right side of the headset ''excuse the pun'' :D
 

Adam Lusardi

A
Its getting less with each build but still there...........I have 2 techniques to solve the jump when looking left.
1/ Turn off the room lights and play at night, I don't really like playing in total darkness.
2/ Buy Vive.....with no camera tracking.
 

grammatonfeather

grammatonfeather
Spanky Deluxe said:
Hi all,

I backed the Kickstarter way back when but am only now finally getting round to trying out the game properly due to first trying it with a bad graphics card, the steep learning curve in the tutorials and general life getting in the way.

Anyway, now I'm ready to roll and have started playing it a bit but I'm having two issues that are proving annoying.

1) Performance seems to be a problem sometimes. If I'm entering a system with more than a few ships in it and a fancy looking station, the frame rate drops quite a bit. Galaxy map is horrible to use, it's so low frame rate. Sometimes when using the frame drive mode the frame rate goes poor too. My system is an i5-2500k (non overclocked) and a gtx 980 (non overclocked). I'm currently running the game with the 'high' settings but with the AA switched down to MLAA2x as apparently that's less of a performance hog. This doesn't seem right as I keep seeing people talking about running with DK2s and using a 2x super sampling which is super intensive.

2) I almost always lose positional tracking (and in-game camera jumps all over the place) when looking towards the left control panel. This doesn't happen with the right one and it doesn't happen in other games - i.e I've never had an issue looking all the way around in other games, I don't even notice when tracking is lost - just when it reconnects. In ED, if I look to the left panel, the screen goes gray, the camera jumps and it's just painful. I have to lean all the way back in my chair and read the display by looking all the way left with my eyes. Does ED use a different tracking cone to other games/apps? The DK2 camera is on top of my monitor and I have my hotas on the edge of my desk at the mo.
Click to expand...

There isn't a steep learning curve. Just follow youtube videos people make and learn one aspect at a time in between playing.

I have the vintage i5 2500k myself and my GPU is much weaker than yours. I have 680. The fact that you're not overclocking is where the real issue lies. My i5 is at 4.8ghz and my GPU is overclocked 145mhz on the core and 155mhz on the vram.

Elite always loses tracking at some point. If I play for 2 hours it will lose tracking at least 3 times. The 980 is very demanding especially since we don't have the luxury of running on DX12 yet. Oculus is also very demanding so you either need to reduce your graphics until it's smooth throughout the game or do some overclocking. Set your graphics to low and then increase some of the settings a little.
 

Raptoyd

Raptoyd
if you figure out overclocking the 980 for this game please post. I have tried big, little overclocks and no matter what the game would crash not sure what is causing that but eventually gave up.

I just remembered why I quit for a while because this thing is so tempermental. I ran for like 3 hrs yesterday trouble free, judder free, just an awesome time trying out Horizons. Did not change a thing logged in the same way tonight and it is like I inherited someone else's setup. The judder is horrible, head tracking is lagging, :):):) need some consistency.
 
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