VR?

[VR StarLightPL]

For reference, I was successfully playing Elite + Vive on an i5-3570k and a GTX 670... steam vr test listed that as "capable". Granted it wasn't an always smooth ride, but it was even before valve implemented Asynchronous Timewarp for SteamVR. But that was really minimum. Now I have 1070 with the same CPU and only VR is able to push this desktop to break a sweat.

also: shameless plug:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/319126-Vive-or-Rift?p=4964286&viewfull=1#post4964286 my "Vive or Rift" comparison...

go team Vive! ;-D

 

[vic]

CPU is VERY important. It is just as important as the gfx card.
I had gtx970 and had lots of stutter in ED, then I bought a gtx1080, and to my surprise not much gain in performance. Then upgraded motherboard and cpu ...and eureka big improvement!

 

[CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned]

CPU is VERY important. It is just as important as the gfx card.
I had gtx970 and had lots of stutter in ED, then I bought a gtx1080, and to my surprise not much gain in performance. Then upgraded motherboard and cpu ...and eureka big improvement!

Going from what to what? Just curious and it may help the OP.

 

[Son of the Desert]

Thanks for all the tips and replies. I'll be definitely buying VR in the future once I buy a high end pc.

I thought you needed a fairly beefy machine anyway if you are playing Star Citizen?

There is this .cfg that will make SC run on almost all pc's with graphics down to the lowest. and arena commander/hangar/Star Marine are small and very optimized so they run well on my pc

 

[Verlaine]

If you want immersion then get a Rift — with either a second sensor or Touch, which comes with a second sensor — and either a set of top-notch stereo headphones and a binaurel surround-capable sound card or a surround gaming headset.

The visual sense of scale and immersion in VR will ruin 2D monitors for you, and the virtual surround will complete the experience.

Additionally, there's no optiical distortion — round objects stretching at the sides of the screen — in VR. Planets, stars and wheels look round.

Yes, VR can be expensive. But it's worth it — especially if you want immersion.

 

[Frank]

Thanks for all the tips and replies. I'll be definitely buying VR in the future once I buy a high end pc.

There is this .cfg that will make SC run on almost all pc's with graphics down to the lowest. and arena commander/hangar/Star Marine are small and very optimized so they run well on my pc

That's good to hear. I watched the duelling pistols video that was posted on the Star Citizen thread and I liked what I saw. Hopefully once the full game's released there'll be quieter corners of the galaxy to hold these sort of fun events.

I agree with Verlaine as well about the distortion of playing Elite on a flat rectangle. The way they've projected the cockpit onto the 2D plane appears weird after you've gotten used to seeing it as it should be.

 

[Herbrand]

I played Elite on a Vive with a 7970 (!!!).

Granted I had to downsample, but it worked. And this was BEFORE they implemented asynchronous reprojection!

 

[X-Terminator]

My experience: seen a 2nd hand CV1 for £450 so took the plunge as it wouldn't lose value in trying (they are now £500 New!)
1st issue is getting it connected to install as it has HMDI and your Graphics Card will want to make this the default Monitor 1 and therefore it will give you a blank screen if you had your Monitor previously on HDMI and then switch that to using a HMDI to either DVI or DP adapter for your Monitor. i.e. if you change your Monitor from the only one connected then it doesn't automatically get reverted if you change port. Some DP cables even do not allow a Monitor to be the primary one and instead require a powered type as it is also used to extend in series between monitors. So you reboot if switching the Monitor around before you then (power down) connect the Rift. It makes totally no difference if you use a HMDI>DVI for your Monitor or a HDMI>DP(4k*2k) for your Rift instead. You'll still be able to access HMDI Full Range (darkest blacks) for your Monitor which will also display in the Rift anyway as is separate to 3D settings.

Then you can install the Runtime (now 1.13) which downloads the latest update but after v1.7 it uses the SSE4.2 cpu check. My Dual Quad Xeon 3GHz failed and so it would NOT install!
Fear not - I found a link to 1.7 Runtime Install from the Oculus Forum by a game designer (as they don't bother storing old versions!) and this does not have the SSE4.2 cpu check and so auto installs the latest Runtime You can then set "Install Unknown Apps" and "Auto Update" in Settings (only this way you can install games to C: drive)

Running through the Setup it tells you then to plug in your USB HMD, Sensors (1 is basic), Controller (a daft remote seriously when we could have used KB & M!), Gamepad (skip if not needed yet), Touch (if you want to play other cool stuff else skip if you haven't got). They suggest that you must have USB3.0 - this is false and their compatibility lies lots! It told me prior this that my cpu and Motherboard's Via USB chipset are both non-compatible. However, they did find out that USB2.0 is best for extension cables (and powered if doing so) as that can go longer than USB3.0
So I plug them into a basic PCI USB2.0 card and it did not even find them! Then I put them both onto the motherboards USB2.0 and it does find them!
I then enter my height, my eye distance, I start the scan leaning back sitting down and next I'm seeing the Dreamdeck VR Demo - WOW!!!

Next to get ED working and all you do is start the game and set 3D Mode in Graphics to HMD Headphones. Next time you start the game it immediately starts VR and Oculus Home (also starts when you put on the HMD).
I can run ED on Ultra Settings but set Terrain Quality & Material on High as most do and have found more detail by doing this. I now use no AA but use SS0.85 and HMD1.25/1.50 and even PPD at 1.25 in Oculus Debug (if this really has any affect now).
You'll probable want to disable ASW (it will still cap to 45fps however if it drops below 90) = CNTRL + Numpad 1

I've only had issues on one update which required RESTART OCULUS device in OH Settings (reboot would not solve it)
Then the Win10 Updates reset my whole Drivers to become enabled which upset the whole system - I need to disable Monitor Speaker Drivers as I use a Soundcard to Studio Monitors but the Rift's Headphones are far better as they added DTS (3D Audio). It had also messed up swapping my USB Dongles (software protection) in trying to resolve issues by updates - these needed reinstalling and then my upgraded GTX1080 could be loaded after each boot finally. This only added an extra 5fps to my GTX970 which is perfect for this limited 30 to 45fps you get on this Xeon non-compatible computer.
The only issue now is the regular screen jumps and grey outs which is an Oculus Runtime 1.13 bug (everyone has) and is now fixed in their Beta version and so is about to be fixed.
So...the updates for Rift and Win10 mess with USB - as does swapping some of your devices around as they remain in its cache. Clearing that did not solve it but reinstalling copy-protection dongles does which can cause your whole PC to get bogged down with issues as I found.

All in all - you can use your CV1 on an old Dual Quad-Xeon PC if you get the 1.7 Runtime: - https://forums.oculus.com/developer/discussion/comment/408108/#Comment_408108

 

[vic]

Going from what to what? Just curious and it may help the OP.

going from xeon e5530 2.4GHZ to intel i5 4670 3.4GHZ(with motherboard to match of course). Stutter much less even in res sites but peaks around 80% usage. Next pc I get i7 6700k or something like that.

 

[CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned]

going from xeon e5530 2.4GHZ to intel i5 4670 3.4GHZ(with motherboard to match of course). Stutter much less even in res sites but peaks around 80% usage. Next pc I get i7 6700k or something like that.

Thanks and sorry as I'm probably going to cause rig envy!

Having just tested I can confirm that the CPU/memory have made a fair difference as well.

Going from:
Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5 Ghz Quad Core
8 Gb DDR3 1600Mhz
1080 GTX

To:
Intel Core i7-7700k 4.2 Ghz Quad Core
16 Gb DDR4 3866Mhz
1080 GTX

Far more stable, currently playing with settings but managed to leave HMD quality at 2.0 and up SS to 1.5 and no stutter so far, yet to try planet side.

 

[Verlaine]

FWIW, I don't have a super-powerful rig, but my VR experience is good enough that the occasional hiccups are worth it. I'll take the immersion and presence of VR with some slight hiccups over a butter-smooth 2D experience any day.

A high-end PC would be great, but it's not required.

SETTINGS
VR Medium preset
HMD Quality: 1.25
Supersampling: 0.85
Blur: off
Anti-aliasing: FXAA
Ambient oclusion: medium

PERFORMANCE
Space: Mix of 90fps and 45fps/asynchronous timewarp
Stations/planets: mostly 45fps/asynchronous timewarp with occasional dips below

SPECS
Sapphire RX 480 Nitro+
Intel Core i7 965 quad-core/eight thread circa 2008 (old-school but still crunching 1's and 0's)
Intel motherboard
16 GB RAM
SSD
Inatek PCIe USB 3.0 add-on card for Rift sernsors
Windows 10

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Additionally, there's no optiical distortion — round objects stretching at the sides of the screen — in VR. Planets, stars and wheels look round.

Wow, now that you mention it, I never noticed that! I mean, I know that they do in 2D - it's very noticeable - but in VR it is just so REAL I never noticed the distortion is gone! +REP

 

[ZeroAi]

I have been playing ED for a while and I love it but one thing I don't like and many people don't is the lack of scale. I used to play Star Citizen before I bought ED and in that game your tiny fighter seems like a big ship because you can walk around in it. but in ED I used to fly a type 6 and when I had money I bought a type 7 and it was a big upgrade but it didn't feel that different apart from the type 7 being slower. One user told me to get VR and I told him that many of us don't have that because of the price(And i'm not sure about this but does you PC need to be beefy to handle VR?). Is it worth it getting VR for this game and what options would you recommend? Don't get me wrong I love this game but it is sometimes hard to get immersed in and I think many of you feel the same. btw I heard about this osvr thing a while back and i heard it was going to be cheap and open source does anyone here use that?

I hear you, and when I first played in VR back in December I was like whoa at the scale of things!

One example I used in my video on Elite in VR was how much bigger the cabin of my Asp E seems - I'm mean seriously it just seems soooo much bigger in VR - it literally was one of the biggest surprises I had playing the game in VR. (to bad a 2d video can't truly convey this :-(

It's also fun to walk around your cockpit and even fly standing up behind your chair, or standing backwards as you leave a planet so you can see it fall behind you.

PS - I'm expecting whole bunch of new VR headsets to come out this fall, so if you can wait 6-8 months you may be able to save a lot on a new or current headset. Also, with Gen 7 i7's out (and z270 mbs) gen 6 (and z170) should be much cheaper. And don't discount i5's if cash is tight - I ran an i5 with my GTX1070 for a couple of weeks and it worked great.

Good luck!

 

[VR StarLightPL]

to bad a 2d video can't truly convey this :-(
(snip)
PS - I'm expecting whole bunch of new VR headsets to come out this fall, so if you can wait 6-8 months you may be able to save a lot on a new or current headset. Also, with Gen 7 i7's out (and z270 mbs) gen 6 (and z170) should be much cheaper. And don't discount i5's if cash is tight - I ran an i5 with my GTX1070 for a couple of weeks and it worked great.

Couple of things here.
First, its true you cannot show VR in 2d, but you can give a sense of scale of things in Elite if you put it in perspective. As this video does

Spoiler

[video=youtube;6_kLXgo4FC8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_kLXgo4FC8[/video]

And our "little" Sidey:

Spoiler

[video=youtube;XjnIPHRMKB0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjnIPHRMKB0[/video]

Secondly, the price on 1st gen VR headsets just doesn't want to drop from sky-high, while NVidia cards lose value faster than the snow melts in spring (did you see the new titan x and the salt from previous TX owners?). Yes, there is a discount on Rift, but IMHO Oculus lowered its price by $200 probably because they prepare for possible injunction if they lose another court battle with Zenimax. And Vive reacted by saying they don't feel the need to lower the price because their product "is immensely successful". So unless someone else enters the playing field with comparable quality tech, don't hold your breath for price drops. Promotions like -100 [your local coins here] happen often though. I saw it three times already on the Vive (took advantage of boxing day ), counting this VR birthday.

Thirdly. IMHO, buying an i7 still doesn't make sense gaming-wise, yet. There was no big CPU revolution due to AMD being beaten to ground by their own mistakes (PC is dead, long live mobile... not.). Below's how my four year old i5 cpu compares to the "latest and greatest" i7. That's +31% effective speed. IMHO its not much for a four years period, and don't take the crap that is listed in "recommended requirements" the publishers push on you. You need to cleverly program to properly take advantage of hyperthreading beyond four cores and bar a few notable exceptions developers don't take time to optimize their code like they used to, due to business constraints.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7700K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-3570K/3647vs1316

Also, the adoption of i7 is not stellar. You can get a glimpse of things here: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ - half (!) of reviewed machines still runs on two (!) cores. Until that changes, I don't see i7 being overutilised in gaming.

Sure, it's nice to have a faster cpu. You're futureproof and all. But unless you use specialised software, there will not be much gain. Ryzen is a trap ;-) because it needs actual programming to shine, so it will show its real power in upcoming and patched titles. So a solid i5 of your choice will do nicely for at least two to four years from now, unless a disruption event happens. And given that intel abandoned the tick-tock release cycle supposedly because of difficulties with ever smaller manufacturing process, and Ryzen needing patches for existing software to shine, I tend to think it's rather four years. But who knows?

 

[Hell Razor5543]

I have been playing Elite: Dangerous for over 2 years now, and more than half of that in VR (initially the Rift DK2, now using the CV1). I knew the Anaconda was large, but now I am playing in VR I KNOW that it is huge. The bridge alone is larger than the ground floor of my home!

 

[shadragon]

It is not. I just upgraded from an mid-range cpu from 2009 to the latest 7th gen intel and I got practically no improvement whatsoever. Same with going from 6GB DDR3 to 16GB DDR4. ED is almost wholly GPU dependent.

It is. CPU delivers info to and from the GPU, handles networking and secondary game processing (logs, system / galaxy map generation, etc.), not to mention everything else going on in the background. Going from a decent CPU to better CPU does nothing. Any reasonable modern day CPU will run Elite, but get a cheap i3 and you'll have issues, especially in VR.

OP - in my sig block there is a link for Steam VR. It's a free test tool that tells you how well your system will cope.

 

[vic]

In reality though CPU is important for ED. From my experience going from 970 to 1080 I saw vitrually no performance improvement. Only after I changed my cpu/mobo from XEON quad 2.4GHZ to i5 4670K 3.4GHZ did I see real improvement! Still not as much as I would like though since my 4 cpu cores are maxing at 80-90% with occasional stutters.

 

[mp4x]

I just upgraded, last month, from an i5 3570K to an i7 7700K. I already had a 1080. The difference is great; I though it ran well before and didn't really have any problems with it, I was just feeling impulsive and 'wanted' an upgrade, but now I have it I realise how well Elite can run.

It's remarkably smooth and constant, I get the occasional frame drop in the usual places but the FPS stays in the 80's even in those load spaces (stations, rez) in that first moment of arrival

Steam SS:2.0
In game SS: .65
In game HMD: 1.0
Most settings on high

The CPU made a huge difference.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

I just upgraded, last month, from an i5 3570K to an i7 7700K. I already had a 1080. The difference is great; I though it ran well before and didn't really have any problems with it, I was just feeling impulsive and 'wanted' an upgrade, but now I have it I realise how well Elite can run.

It's remarkably smooth and constant, I get the occasional frame drop in the usual places but the FPS stays in the 80's even in those load spaces (stations, rez) in that first moment of arrival

Your i5 was probably bottlenecking that 1080 in VR. The sole reason I am not switching to 1080 because I suppose 1070 is all the poor i5 can handle. Out of curiosity, did you ran your i5 @ stock clock or overclocked?

 

[mp4x]

Your i5 was probably bottlenecking that 1080 in VR. The sole reason I am not switching to 1080 because I suppose 1070 is all the poor i5 can handle. Out of curiosity, did you ran your i5 @ stock clock or overclocked?

Overclocked at 4.3 which ran at 100% load in EliteVR. Elite and ETS2, both in VR, maxed out my CPU more than anything else I run. Honestly, if not for those two games, i had no real reason to upgrade - that i5 chip with the 1080 card was still excellent. That said, Im super glad i did!