VR vs Monitor?

[RidingTheFlow]

Even with good rig it still will be more blurry than monitor (I've tested mine on GTX 980 which was more than capable). Whenever *you have no issues* with it will be up to you.

You can't expect same visual fidelity (mainly sharpness) as 4K display from ~WQHD res stretched to a wide FOV.

 

[ArkSeaJumper]

I cant go back to the monitor, I had some problems with VR motion sickness when in the SRV, and tried to go back to the monitor. Didnt like it, so i learned to live with the problem.

I would say I wouldn't still be playing the game if I not for VR.

 

[AtrociKitty]

It's a really interesting thread. Question is, is VR really just a novelty?

I think the tech is a lot better than it was a decade ago, but it's still a novelty for the same reason it was back then: not enough resolution.

I had a Vuzix heaset maybe 9 years ago, and it had a lot of the same features today's VR has. You could play a flight sim in 3D and look around at the tail of your plane, as detected by accelerometers in the headset. It was really cool for 2008, but the resolution was abysmal, so I rarely used it. Today's headsets have much, much better resolution and field of view, but it's still not quite enough. A 4k screen per eye might be the breaking point, but we also need enough graphics power to drive two 4k displays with sufficient quality and refresh (No single card on the market today can do that well enough yet).

 

[shadragon]

Your post pipped mine, and i find myself being answered in some things ! thanks 777. All this blurred stuff and detail and graphics complaints through VR, is it really just down to the card, and levels of detail set on sliders? Some folk seem to suggest that you're taking a huge bite in graphics quality and unreadable text, and making VR sound like a step backwards.

It's good to hear someone saying nonsense. I right on the edge of splashing out on one... and always someone is making me stay my hand / wallet... aaargh the agony!

VR has its downsides. It takes a power rig to run them at decent performance levels. You need a top end video card and CPU that does not bottleneck it. Various people have screendoor, bloom and god ray issues depending on the headset (Both Vive and Rift have more in common than differences). That said, the immersion of being inside a space ship far exceeds the issues.

Best strategy is to try one out before you buy. Read as many reviews as possible and decide for yourself. Once the lasers start flying past your cockpit you won't see the issues anymore.

 

[Crank Larson]

Does playing in VR effectively make elite a very different game?

Of course. It's the difference between playing a game, and flying a spaceship.

I'm one of the few who had VR (Vive) and went back to monitor (and head tracking).

I did that with the Vive too. E: D was too blurry. The Rift doesn't have that problem.

 

[d8veh]

Your post pipped mine, and i find myself being answered in some things ! thanks 777. All this blurred stuff and detail and graphics complaints through VR, is it really just down to the card, and levels of detail set on sliders? Some folk seem to suggest that you're taking a huge bite in graphics quality and unreadable text, and making VR sound like a step backwards.

It's good to hear someone saying nonsense. I right on the edge of splashing out on one... and always someone is making me stay my hand / wallet... aaargh the agony!

I have a very high spec PC with a 1080 graphic card. I took a lot of help with settings from the forum, but I found the resolution unsatisfactory for anything at long range. I've put away my VR stuff until something changes. I try to support VR. I bought the DK2 first, tried it and realised that it wasn't good enough, then I bought the CV1 full of hope. For me, it needs higher resolution and changes to the game to make navigating and things like that easier.

 

[evanevery]

I was reading a thread that eventually turned into the usual handbags and name calling definition argument. In the thread was a really interesting throw away comment about VR that seemed to be ignored.

Does playing in VR effectively make elite a very different game?

It would be great to hear from some who have done both.

A personnal example would stem to a talk I had about the imperial courier. I hate the cockpit on my monitor set up. Those hoops make me feel space sick. A VR player friend said it was one of his favourites and offered a great view.

John.

ABSOLUTELY! I would have stopped playing ED a long time ago if it wasn't for the "Alternate Reality" that VR provides.

When you play the game on the monitor, you are WATCHING the game (as well as all the other crap on your desk, in your room, etc).

When you play in VR you are IN the game. There is no comparison!

I've actually played long in to the early hours of the morning, only to take my Rift off to see that my wife had shut the lights off in the basement (not knowing I was there - or so she says). My VR experience was totally disconnected from my RL. I had no idea I was sitting in a completely taken off my HMD. This has happened more than once (I need to have a talk with the wife...)

...and ED is the best game ever to experience VR. Car racing games are also pretty good. Basically anything you play from a seated position in VR works pretty well. "Room Scale" VR is a party trick at best (remember the Nintendo Wii?) - and who needs a wireless HMD if you are sitting in a chair?

Once you experience it you'll understand!

(And the Imperial Courier was absolutely my favorite ship to fly until FDEV broke the audio in the 2.3 update. Its engines are now so loud that they make your ears bleed and you can't hear anything else.)

 

[Blaze Stark]

For me its easy to describe - its like sitting in real spaceship. With a ski googles on. Which have really crappy lenses and everything around is blurry Yeah, and you see individual pixels too - its like having your nose stuck right to old TV screen - but at least you will stop noticing it after you get used to it.

In a nutshell, the tech is awesome and will go long way. But it still in its infancy.

I did read alot before i bought the rift and 'knew' what to expect. It still totally blew me away, the Oculus Touch demo (The room with the robot thing) is mindbeding. I agree with your last part though, things will get better and i dont think VR will be a niche for very long.

 

[GeneralIdea1964]

<snipped>

VR is nice, but productivity is king.

I feel this is the biggest difference on many ways.

In 2D you can get more done.
Plotting route, checking other websites, not wearing a silly headset, eating and drinking(for real ).

BUT

In VR you feel you are in the Elite universe not looking at it thought a window or from the sidelines.

PS if you want to wait for 4K version, it might well be worth it for the level of detail.

 

[leeG]

I have a Rift and a 34” curved ultra wide monitor.

The immersion and sense of being in the spaceship, along with an appreciation of the true, huge scale of the stations that VR gives you is amazing. The downside is the difficulty interacting with the real world while in the Rift’s virtual world.

The crisp details and sharp lines and edges the monitor provides are wonderful. The loss of immersion in 2D compared to the VR experience is offset by the ability to add real world activity in support of game play.

I use either the Rift or the monitor depending upon what activity I’m planning to do.

As a merchant, I play in 2D. This is because I take a lot of notes. Typical trading session begins with a visit to the six systems I trade between to manually update commodity prices on my iPad. Then I select the most profitable route for the day and fly several loops manually recording transactions in a paper journal. Could all this note taking and data entry be automated? Sure. Do I want it automated? Not really.

As a space tourist, I play in VR. If you’re out to see the sights, go for the full experience! Well, that is unless it’s driving around in the SRV. I haven’t yet come to terms with the VR barfmobile.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I feel this is the biggest difference on many ways.

In 2D you can get more done.
Plotting route, checking other websites, not wearing a silly headset, eating and drinking(for real &#55357;&#56841.

BUT

In VR you feel you are in the Elite universe not looking at it thought a window or from the sidelines. &#55357;&#56833;

PS if you want to wait for 4K version, it might well be worth it for the level of detail.

Who needs to eat and drink? I don't use 3rd party websites anyway and I find navigation easy in the Rift, so it's all good for me.

 

[GraXXoR]

Designed from the get go for VR, ED with a headset literally throws you into space... I had played a few cheesy games in VR before, but ED is where it's at.

There are plenty of people who say it's not much better than a big monitor and they would be wrong... It is much better.
Sure, it can be visually difficult to make out targets in the far distance because of the low resolution, but with the HUD and select target in front or select next target buttons mapped, it doesn't impact my gameplay at all.

The SDE of the Oculus is already less than the Vive due to the pixel layout and slight defocussing. But this can be further reduced by using green based HUD colours (there are 2 independent green pixels for every blue and red one meaning that the resolution of green is effectively double that of the other colours.)
Using Dr. Kai's ED Profiler I select a VR friendly colour set and boom. Off I go.

Since I have played this game to death, I only play ED sporadically now, but when I do, it's nearly always in VR.
When I was using EDDB or Inara, I used to play on the monitors for a while and move to VR for CZs and RESs but since I rarely need those sites now, I stick to VR.

I have finished all the grinds except CQC and maxed out everything so now I get to potter around in my various ships and try various wacky things. I am proficient at blind typing and use voice attack for everything else so I rarely need to remove the headset...

The Oculus is comfy for 2 to 3 hours and if you get the IPD correct it won't tax your eyes too much. Mine just happens to be exactly at the widest setting so it's a doddle to set up if someone fiddles with it. I recommend contacts if you eyes need them, glasses can touch the lenses and potentially scratch the Oculus' optics.

Also, the Courier and the Type 9 are my favourite ships to fly in VR... They are both outstanding experiences... The courier is so snug and sleek and the Type 9 is an industrial monstrosity...

but they are not alone... Since I "finished" Elite, I have taken out my ships one by one and maxed them out and engineered them all while in VR... It's been a very rewarding experience seeing each ship up close and personal...

While it is a revolution in gaming, many people dismiss it as a pointless fad with too many compromises... But remember that TVs were hideous when they first came out. Now look at them! We have to remember that we are currently arguably only in the first generation of consumer grade HMDs and next year could see some real 2nd Gen products appearing, like this beast:

Pimax 8K HMD.

The Kickstarter for Pimax's new "8K" (two 4k screens) HMD just finished successfully with over $4M raised and it looks like they are tooling up for production starting next week...
They should become available sometime Q2 next year, so keep your eyes open for them.

Pimax have already had a 4K HMD out since spring and have sold 30,000 of them, so they are ready to get to work on the next generation after a mere 6 months!

[video=youtube;qz2Sx_KSPgA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2Sx_KSPgA&t=6s[/video]

 

[NotHere]

Well, that is unless it’s driving around in the SRV. I haven’t yet come to terms with the VR barfmobile.

Yup, that SRV's the only thing in the game that comes close to inducing motion sickness in me. Even full FA-off isn't a problem. (Lucky me, I guess. My brother can't do VR at all because of the ocular migraines it induces.) Usually, it's the planets where there's just enough gravity to keep the SRV glued to the surface but not enough to have flattened out said surface over time, so there's a lot of up-and-down-and-up-and-down going on. Like being on a boat, I suppose. I tend to get a lot more practice with the SRV's vertical thrusters on those sorts of planets Seems to help.

 

[Vorxian]

Hey GraXXoR, just want to say thankyou for the write up, you have no idea how helpful that was to me. Really interesting about the 8K VRs. Wonder if it's silly to be impatient and get Gen 1, or wait a couple of months and go Gen 2, and get more value for your pennies.

Cheers

 

[RidingTheFlow]

First you need to wait for graphics hardware which will be able to drive that 8K at 90FPS.
This will not take just "a couple of months"

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

First you need to wait for graphics hardware which will be able to drive that 8K at 90FPS.
This will not take just "a couple of months"

The 8k is usable with a 1070 as it upscales the image. Pretty sure I will be able to use my AMD Fury with it, but I will have to turn down some settings.

If you get an 8kX which 2x4k screens then that will need next gen hardware I suspect.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

Nah, upscaling will kill the point of trying to reduce the blurriness. Same with motion interpolation tricks - which kind of work, but also produce a lot of artefacts here and there.
If you want really enjoy it, you will need a power to render it properly at full res, no real way around it - can't get picture information out of nowhere.

 

[Crank Larson]

Wonder if it's silly to be impatient and get Gen 1, or wait a couple of months and go Gen 2, and get more value for your pennies.

Unless there is another sale (e.g. the £400 summer Rift sale), I would suggest wait until the 8K comes out to see how that fares. I am very much looking forward to that, and will most likely buy one if it lives up to its promise. I bought the Rift in the summer sale as at £400 it became value for money (in my opinion). The Vive, at around £760 when I bought it, wasn't worth the money which was why I sold it. For E: D, the Rift is noticeably better than the Vive. For room scale, Vive is king. It's also worth noting that the Pimax kit will work with the Vive sensors, but not the Rift.

First you need to wait for graphics hardware which will be able to drive that 8K at 90FPS.
This will not take just "a couple of months"

With regards to hardware to drive 8k, that doesn't matter. The idea is that it is upscaled (using hardware in the headset itself), and the primary benefit is field of view and elimination of screen door. The intention is that VR machines today will be able to use the Pimax 8k using upscaling, until the computer hardware catches up.

Nah, upscaling will kill the point of trying to reduce the blurriness.

No, as that is not the point in it.

 

[lenna]

Of course. It's the difference between playing a game, and flying a spaceship.

Not really, I keep hearing this argument in support of VR for ED but that is far from true IMO. That is not to say I would not recommend VR for ED though...

I will concede only one point in this regard... Current mainstream PC VR solutions do offer a nice apparently seamless gaming experience BUT it is far from the leap in gaming experience that some like to try and make it out to be. I think at least some are too easily impressed by gimmicks.

 

[lenna]

I took a lot of help with settings from the forum, but I found the resolution unsatisfactory for anything at long range.

The fundamental problem with VR is optical resolution (pixels/degree of FoV) when compared with comparable monitor solutions.

Personally, while I think the VIVE/Oculus are below what is achievable with an HD1080p monitor they are still fit for purpose IMO.

Where blurriness is concerned, it could be down to the optical path settings - distance between your eyes - due to the fundamentally 3D display nature of VR solutions. If the optical path is poorly configured the end effect would be like looking through corrective glasses/contact lenses that are the wrong prescription.

The VIVE has a wheel on the side for adjusting the inter-pupil distance, not sure about how or if the occulus has a way to adjust this.