Amazingly Realistic Immersion Mod

CMDR Mr S

C
Old Duck said:
First off, I need to give credit to CMDR AD for his initial work in this field, as detailed in his original thread located here. He is the giant whose shoulders I stand upon. Continuing his work, I have further modded Elite Dangerous to provide the following changes:
  • BLACK Space
  • BLACK Shadows
  • No External HUD Elements
  • Cleaner HUD
  • Space Snow Removed
  • Cockpit Smoke Removed
  • Sun Modifications
  • Remove Fog From Rings
  • Turn Off Cockpit Lights
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It is amazing how much I disagree with pretty much ALL those mods (safe maybe the "tron" thinghy removal. That I could agree with but it does not bother me anyway).
Thank you for your work, but I'll pass.
 

Slowfiddler

Slowfiddler
Black space and no dust at all! Very nice. It makes space look even bigger.
[ShaderOverrideCanopyHUD] doesn't seem to work as I still get all the circular markers around planets.
 

thistle

T
SPAS said:
It is amazing how much I disagree with pretty much ALL those mods (safe maybe the "tron" thinghy removal. That I could agree with but it does not bother me anyway).
Thank you for your work, but I'll pass.
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Yeah, I've tried them all in VR but actually prefer changing the graphics files to go the complete other way, making the galactic core much brighter and far larger. More immersive to me.
 

Valorin

Valorin
Old Duck said:
First off, I need to give credit to CMDR AD for his initial work in this field, as detailed in his original thread located here. He is the giant whose shoulders I stand upon. Continuing his work, I have further modded Elite Dangerous to provide the following changes:
  • BLACK Space - That's right, space is now BLACK. The clouds of interstellar dust have been removed. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how realistic you want space to mirror the night sky you see IRL, this also removes the galactic core and the few distant galaxies normally visible. All stars, however, are clearly visible. If you normally operate in the Bubble, you may appreciate the black and realistic night sky over the default. If you're an explorer, you may wish to disable this particular option. See the thread below for screenshots (in particular post #16).
  • BLACK Shadows - A perfect complement to the black sky is black shadows. This modification removes ambient light from space, making the dark side of objects (stations, outposts, ships, landable planets) black as night. This is more realistic to how shadows look in the empty void of space when there are no sources of reflected light like planetshine. Don't worry, it looks better than I make it sound. Think of is as HDR Mode. Again this assumes you're operating in the Bubble, as closer to the core you would expect ambient light from the high density of stars. This feature is can be turned on and off separately from black skies.
  • No External HUD Elements - All circles and labels around planets and ships are disabled, making it feel like you're looking outside a simple glass window. I find this much more immersive, but it also adds a challenge as you'll need to use your cockpit HUD (radar, compass, etc) to navigate. It will also make combat much more challenging without the targeting reticles. Not for the faint of heart, but for those desiring an immersive world outside your spaceship along with the challenge of IFR flight, this mod is for you! Also disabled is the blue "TRON" glow around mapped planets along with the bright, crazy "comet trails" for ships in Supercruise.
  • Cleaner HUD - Normally our instrument HUD and side-panels have a "drop shadow" behind them, which this mod removes. The result is a cleaner look that doesn't block your view, but it may be harder to read the side panels in certain bright locations. I've also removed those lines that do nothing but clutter the view.
  • Space Snow Removed - The "snow" in space and the blizzards over planets have been removed. However I have retained the "flying warp stars" effect in Supercruise. Like all modifications, you can turn off this mod to keep the "space snow" in the game if you depend on it for your vectors.
  • Cockpit Smoke Removed - No more fires in the cockpit when your ship is only at 80% heat. This also removes smoke in certain places inside the stations, but not others. For example, humidity still can be seen coming from overhead vents, but the mailslot is no longer boiling with smoke.
  • Sun Modifications - Some minor sun modifications made, other more "invasive" mods provided but turned off by default. Experiment and see which combination of sun effects you like the most!
  • Remove Fog From Rings (OPTIONAL) - Per request, an entry (disabled by default) is provided to remove fog from ring systems once you drop on them. I don't use this feature, so it may require some testing.
  • Turn Off Cockpit Lights (OPTIONAL) - If you want a dark cockpit, or you are annoyed by those flashing red lights while mining, there is an entry (disabled by default) that will allow you to turn these lights off.
The way this mod works is that it intercepts calls to Windows graphics subsystem, allowing certain pixel shaders to be turned off. It does not replace or change any of ED's files, rather it adds some new files which ED will use when present. AFAIK this is in accordance with Frontier's EULA, as it's not changing the game files in any way, nor does it allow or promote cheating in any way that I can imagine. If anything, it makes the game HARDER to play, but in a way us realism nuts will enjoy.

The program you need is called 3Dmigoto. Click the name to download the file (version 1.3.16). Extract the file and then copy the CONTENTS of the x64 directory to your elite-dangerous-64 directory (in my case this is found at D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-64). Next you need to download the d3dx.txt I've attached to this post, rename it to d3dx.ini, and save it to the elite-dangerous-64 directory, replacing the one that comes with 3Dmigoto. That should do the trick! To disable any particular modification, just insert a semicolon ( ; ) in front of the 3 lines of code for that specific mod, thus commenting it out and turning it off.

DISCLAIMER - Whatever you do, you do of your own accord. If your computer catches fire and your Arx disappear and Stigbob knocks on your door demanding cookies, I am not responsible! Blame TJ, or better yet, don't blame anyone. AFAIK there is no risk, but a prudent person would research all of this before installing "alien" software on his/her computer.

NOTE - If you want things like haze in stations removed, see CMDR AD's original mod as linked above. You can copy-n-paste settings from his .ini file to mine to remove haze, "warp stars", etc.
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Didn't have too much time trying around, but the no-tinting option actually seems to work. I need to do some more hopping around, but it also seems to preserve dark sides of planets, which it doesn't when just toggling of the new lighting thing in the game's ini files. I'll try more once more colourful stars come along my way...
Concerning the "Black Space" thing, you said it also affects the galaxy core, but I wasn't aware that you actually meant the whole milky way in the background... Killing that one off entirely doesn't add to realism at all... The one we got now isn't really what it should be I guess, but it should definitely be there! :D
Space dust is also a fact, though it wouldn't be quite that hazy I guess. So, yes, black space looks good, but completely losing the milky way in the background makes it look more like a bug for me.

Also: it actually works along with using Reshade, which surprised me.
 

Valorin

Valorin
AbsinthSvK said:
Seems devs don't care about PvP.
I hope turning off stupid mist and make game more dark is not a problem when they cant balance pvp for years.
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Don't care for PvP... Ha!
I wish they spent the time trying to balance combat with polishing the simulation and scientific authenticity!
To be perfectly honest, I kinda think, they would also have had to deal with less outrage for their efforts... I am under the impression, that many (not all!) combat focused players are rather complaining than being grateful that their playstyle gets so much attention...

Concerning changing around shaders and graphical stuff, they are indeed lenient, which is very much to my liking, since Elite's main attraction is not PvP. Not at all.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Hopefully I haven't come across as, "This is a MUST HAVE mod for EVERYONE!" in the OP. It's a must-have mod for ME, and the five other people just like me, but I have no delusions that the majority of players won't like at least some of what this mod does. Most YouTube videos I've seen imply that players actually like orbit lines, the first thing I turned off when I started playing three years ago. Players who like orbit lines will hate this mod, no doubt. My enthusiasm for it is of personal taste, like when someone eats at a restaurant and exclaims, "This is the most amazing hamburger I've ever eaten!" This doesn't mean that person is trying to convert vegans into meat-eaters.

As for the realism of the two skies, for me personally, I find the black sky more realistic, but this is mainly in the Rift S. When I took the "before and after" screenshots in my Rift and then looked at them on my high-contrast computer monitor, what I saw was very different. The Rift S is an LCD display with a poor contrast ratio, so normally space looks washed out and overly "cloudy" without this mod, at least for me. With the mod, it looks surprisingly realistic. When I say "realistic", I'm basing this on the night sky I see when I look out my window at night. Also as previously noted, I operate mostly in Sol region of the Bubble. If I were out exploring nebula, I would obviously turn off the black skies.

Something I didn't mention in the OP that may make a difference for some is that I've cranked up my star count to 10000. This helps fill in all that "black space" with actual stars, to a density akin to what I see IRL from my rural, high-altitude countryside villa.

Anyway, I'm just adding this last-minute disclaimer that this mod isn't for everyone. In fact, it's probably not for most people. But if it IS for you, then I think you'll be as excited about it as I am, and that's why I took the time to share it in the first place. (So please stop beating me up, LOL).
 

Valorin

Valorin
Old Duck said:
Hopefully I haven't come across as, "This is a MUST HAVE mod for EVERYONE!" in the OP. It's a must-have mod for ME, and the five other people just like me, but I have no delusions that the majority of players won't like at least some of what this mod does. Most YouTube videos I've seen imply that players actually like orbit lines, the first thing I turned off when I started playing three years ago. Players who like orbit lines will hate this mod, no doubt. My enthusiasm for it is of personal taste, like when someone eats at a restaurant and exclaims, "This is the most amazing hamburger I've ever eaten!" This doesn't mean that person is trying to convert vegans into meat-eaters.

As for the realism of the two skies, for me personally, I find the black sky more realistic, but this is mainly in the Rift S. When I took the "before and after" screenshots in my Rift and then looked at them on my high-contrast computer monitor, what I saw was very different. The Rift S is an LCD display with a poor contrast ratio, so normally space looks washed out and overly "cloudy" without this mod, at least for me. With the mod, it looks surprisingly realistic. When I say "realistic", I'm basing this on the night sky I see when I look out my window at night. Also as previously noted, I operate mostly in Sol region of the Bubble. If I were out exploring nebula, I would obviously turn off the black skies.

Something I didn't mention in the OP that may make a difference for some is that I've cranked up my star count to 10000. This helps fill in all that "black space" with actual stars, to a density akin to what I see IRL from my rural, high-altitude countryside villa.

Anyway, I'm just adding this last-minute disclaimer that this mod isn't for everyone. In fact, it's probably not for most people. But if it IS for you, then I think you'll be as excited about it as I am, and that's why I took the time to share it in the first place. (So please stop beating me up, LOL).
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Where do we crank up visible stars again?
I am pretty sure it was the graphicsconfiguration.xml, but do you know the exact entry by chance?
I tweaked a lot of stuff in there once, but since it's always reset after patching I stopped bothering at some point.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Valorin said:
Where do we crank up visible stars again?
I am pretty sure it was the graphicsconfiguration.xml, but do you know the exact entry by chance?
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Search for <StarInstanceCount> in that file (I believe you can also put it in the override file). Make sure you edit the proper quality mode (low, medium, high) that matches your game settings.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Slowfiddler said:
[ShaderOverrideCanopyHUD] doesn't seem to work as I still get all the circular markers around planets.
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That's odd. It should!

There are two hashes that turn off canopy HUD, 74a61bc54382d4d9 and e61a98e9d493cdea. The first one does this by removing the glass itself, so that it's basically the visual equivalent of having your canopy 100% blown out (which, if you've never experienced, makes the canopy HUD unviewable as it's supposedly projected on the glass). The second hash leaves the glass and removes the HUD elements themselves. I actually like seeing the glass scratches in VR, so I often use e61a98e9d493cdea, but not when out exploring because it also messes with the FSS.

Anyway, try each of those and see what happens. Both should technically work, but perhaps one will work for you better than the other. Oh, and if you frost up your window using the first hash, it causes all the HUD UI to reappear. 🤷
 

CMDR COWBELLS

CMDR COWBELLS
Old Duck said:
Hopefully I haven't come across as, "This is a MUST HAVE mod for EVERYONE!" in the OP. It's a must-have mod for ME, and the five other people just like me, but I have no delusions that the majority of players won't like at least some of what this mod does. Most YouTube videos I've seen imply that players actually like orbit lines, the first thing I turned off when I started playing three years ago. Players who like orbit lines will hate this mod, no doubt. My enthusiasm for it is of personal taste, like when someone eats at a restaurant and exclaims, "This is the most amazing hamburger I've ever eaten!" This doesn't mean that person is trying to convert vegans into meat-eaters.
Click to expand...
Didn't come across like that at all to me, I read the word optional about a dozen times, so ... I can't see anyone seeing it like that... Unless they are wired to just take things the wrong way at all times, under all circumstances I think we probably have a few of them lurking in the forums.

I turned off the things I didn't want altered, because you know Optional!

Once again Old Duck thanks for the effort :)
 

Valorin

Valorin
Old Duck said:
Search for <StarInstanceCount> in that file (I believe you can also put it in the override file). Make sure you edit the proper quality mode (low, medium, high) that matches your game settings.
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The category of the StarInstanceCount entry is actually GalaxyMap. This affects the actual ingame skybox?
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Valorin said:
The category of the StarInstanceCount entry is actually GalaxyMap. This affects the actual ingame skybox?
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Yes. That's what the experts tell me, anyway.

Some graphics settings questions for new VR guy

I went ahead and ordered a Rift S on sale, so now I have some questions. I doubt I'll be able to keep my ultra settings for VR, so what settings can I scale back without greatly diminishing the visual quality? Worded another way, which settings are GPU intensive but don't really add that much to...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk

Somewhere in that thread... I still need to download that Dr. Tool thing and try it out.
 
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Valorin

Valorin
Old Duck said:
Yes. That's what the experts tell me, anyway.

Some graphics settings questions for new VR guy

I went ahead and ordered a Rift S on sale, so now I have some questions. I doubt I'll be able to keep my ultra settings for VR, so what settings can I scale back without greatly diminishing the visual quality? Worded another way, which settings are GPU intensive but don't really add that much to...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk

Somewhere in that thread... I still need to download that Dr. Tool thing and try it out.
Click to expand...
Alright. Trying around. Also went here: https://www.alpha-orbital.com/news/graphics-tweaks-and-ui-change-guide again to apply the stuff I did before patching at some point.

Edit: Since I'm at it: if you have an Nvidia card, you can switch Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias to "Clamp" and Anisotropic Filtering to 16x in the Nvidia Control Panel for Elite. Helps a lot with distant textures on planet surfaces being blurred.
 
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