Confirmed E D (or at least my install) ignores Oculus config.

Mulbin · Jul 28, 2015

UPDATE - FD HAVE NOW CONFIRMED THAT IPD ADJUSTMENT IS NOT CURRENTLY WORKING IN ELITE DANGEROUS

After a long conversation with support who have been bouncing things off of the Devs responsible for VR, here are they key bits of information...

"I did some testing with this today and I do see what you mean.

I am waiting to hear back from our developer who handles this so will will set your ticket to we are investigating, and keep you informed when I hear back about this.

Best regards,

CMDR Ares"

"Indeed you are correct! We actually have guy here who's super interested in this and handles a lot of our VR stuff. We've been discussing your issue and he appears to think that you're correct too but he'll investigate the moment he gets some free time - I confirmed this earlier.

Hopefully we can get some sort of fix on the go soon because having an awkward IPD can be quite frustrating I imagine.

I'll try to keep you updated though!

Kind regards,

CMDR Vanguard"

"After some digging it looks as though some games might actually be using a workaround for this bug at the moment. Hopefully we can do this too, we've added this to our fix list though, thanks for bringing it to my attention

Let us know if you'd like help with anything else though, or if you've got any info you'd like to add to this issue.

It's been a pleasure talking to you!

Fly safe Commander."

My original post below which explains how I realised it was broken in the first place...

OK, I've been doing a lot of fiddling with oculus settings on various games and learned a few tricks for fixing the IPD on games but ED is still causing problems.
My research started with Half Life 2 which was running great... except that I felt like I was shuffling around on my knees in a world filled with 3 foot high people, living in miniature houses! IPD adjustment in the rift config didn't seem to fix it enough (even though my IPD should be 63.5), turning down to 55 still looked off (although better than 63).

So I discovered that you can actually set the oculus IPD way below or above the slider values by editing this file - C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Local\Oculus\profileDB.json

Scroll to the profile you want to edit and find theses lines...

"vals": {
"Gender": "Male",
"PlayerHeight": 1.700000,
"EyeHeight": 1.600000,
"IPD": 0.060000,
"NeckEyeDistance": [0.070000, 0.063000],
"EyeToNoseDist": [0.030000, 0.030000]
}

and edit the IPD... you must also edit the two values for "EyeToNose" to each equal exactly half of the IPD

So for example I found this worked well for Half Life 2..

"vals": {
"Gender": "Male",
"PlayerHeight": 1.700000,
"EyeHeight": 1.600000,
"IPD": 0.048000,
"NeckEyeDistance": [0.070000, 0.063000],
"EyeToNoseDist": [0.024000, 0.024000]
}

So far so good, Hal Life is now realistically scaled for my eyes. As an additional test I set the IPD to 30... suddenly I was walking on stilts in a land of 12 foot giants!

But I can now confirm the my copy of E D is completely ignoring the oculus config. The difference in scale just using the slider should be significant, but when setting my IPD to 100 or to just 10... still the same scale cockpit, still the same tiny pilot. No difference.

Firstly can people confirm if adjusting the slider alters the impression of scale for them in E D? And for those who it is working for, could you run a test and set the value to something crazy, and report back if you are in a giant's spaceship! Would be really helpful to confirm if it is just my install, or if this is a bug with E D in general. IPD adjustment correctly (and drastically) alters perceived world scale in all other games for me, just not this one.

Mulbin · Aug 1, 2015

UPDATE - I've had a ticket open for a while and have been discussing this bug with customer support. They have confirmed that they are seeing exactly the same problem, Elite is ignoring oculus settings for IPD and displaying the miniature cockpit/pilot. They have sent a request for more info from the Dev responsible for Oculus.

Starting to look like you really can't alter the IPD in the current build of E D, although people could in the past. Something must have broke!

grodenglaive · Aug 3, 2015

what version of the oculus runtime are you using and are you in extended mode?
I use the same method to alter the ipd below the 55 mm limit. It used to work in elite, but I haven't tried changing it lately.

Mulbin · Aug 3, 2015

The problem is the same in direct or extended using 5.0.1.0, 6.0.0.0 or 6.0.0.1. Only elite has an issue, all other games adjust ipd correctly. Customer service have confirmed that the bug is replicated on their own computer so are talking to the devs to see if it is universally broken.

grodenglaive · Aug 3, 2015

confirmed for me as well - No effect with IPD change. I thought my avatar was looking even smaller than usual.

Mulbin · Aug 9, 2015

Had no more from my ticket for a while so will give them a poke.

Would be helpful if everyone else who has noticed IPD is no longer imported could put a ticket in... OR users are thin on the ground so I'm being a bit ignored by support as a long voice. Let's get this fixed!... Tired of having 6 inch long forearms

slartybartfast · Aug 10, 2015

Ok well i messed about with ipd settings in the rift config app ( putting them low and high) and it does make a slight differnce, i mainly notice it docked inside a large station and if its not set right when i move my head #what ever is in front of my ship bends and distorts slightly as i move and rotate my head, but everything has always been tiny on the rift, dont matter if its Elite or Project cars or what setting i use.
So on my install rift setting are doing something.

Mulbin · Aug 11, 2015

Changing ipd from 55 to 75 would not make a tiny difference, it would be massive (and is when it works)... I think people may be convincing themselves its doing something when it isn't. To clarify - if working in a game ipd setting is the difference between 3 foot people and 12 foot people, not subtle.

Update on ticket, devs are looking into it as all customer care people have confirmed it is not working on their installs either. It was a known issue for the 5.0.1.0 drivers but appears to still be broken in 6.0.0.0 and 6.0.0.1.

Mulbin · Aug 11, 2015

PROGRESS!!!

Just got this from support, the Devs are working on a solution and confirm that this problem is present in all installs of Elite. If you are one of the few who see everything scaled correctly this is simply because your eyes happen to match the default IPD...and I envy you

For all those with tiny doll pilots, no you're not going crazy

"Indeed you are correct! We actually have guy here who's super interested in this and handles a lot of our VR stuff. We've been discussing your issue and he appears to think that you're correct too but he'll investigate the moment he gets some free time - I confirmed this earlier.

Hopefully we can get some sort of fix on the go soon because having an awkward IPD can be quite frustrating I imagine.

I'll try to keep you updated though!

Kind regards,

CMDR Vanguard"

Ryder35 · Aug 11, 2015

Good spot sir. I always felt the avatar was too small. Here's hoping they fix it

grodenglaive · Aug 12, 2015

thanks for the update

slartybartfast · Aug 12, 2015

Mulbin said:
PROGRESS!!!

Just got this from support, the Devs are working on a solution and confirm that this problem is present in all installs of Elite. If you are one of the few who see everything scaled correctly this is simply because your eyes happen to match the default IPD...and I envy you

For all those with tiny doll pilots, no you're not going crazy

"Indeed you are correct! We actually have guy here who's super interested in this and handles a lot of our VR stuff. We've been discussing your issue and he appears to think that you're correct too but he'll investigate the moment he gets some free time - I confirmed this earlier.

Hopefully we can get some sort of fix on the go soon because having an awkward IPD can be quite frustrating I imagine.

I'll try to keep you updated though!

Kind regards,

CMDR Vanguard"

Well changing the ipd on the rift config is doing something, there is def a distortion to objects at a distance when you move your head about when you mess with it, and you can make it stop or get worse so it is def doing something.
Good to know they are looking int o the mini me problem, im a short of small build but me in elite vr world is even smaller. good job i dont mind being a small person lmao.

Mulbin · Aug 12, 2015

slartybartfast said:
there is def a distortion to objects at a distance when you move your head about when you mess with it, and you can make it stop or get worse so it is def doing something.

Interesting... something odd going on there as what you are describing is a framerate drop, not a change in IPD. IPD only makes the world seem bigger or smaller (all of it, including avatar) but distortion/stretched objects as you describe (when turning head) is caused by a drop in frame rate. Wonder why different IPD settings would cause that... could have discovered a bug related to judder/distortion! Perhaps Elite is trying (and failing) to apply IPD setting and in the process is dropping frames.

slartybartfast · Aug 12, 2015

its a hard thing to explain. only notice it when docked, at the surface of a large station, and it dont affect the cockpit or anything close at all just the wall way out in front its like a slight bowing or pulling when you move you head.
the even stranger thing is if i look on the 2nd screen on me monitor i looks fine, so this must be something to do with how my brain is dealing with the stereo information, or its something that's not showing up with just the left eye showing.
i dont think its a framerate drop because there is no judder or lag (well untill i turned it on yesterday) and it dont look like a drop in performance its all butter smooth.
Would love to know if anybody else can replicate this. when ipd is set to std 64mm everything is great if i take it down to 58 the bowing effect is terrible, if i take it to 70 the effect is there just not as bad. then just enter a station and stare at the back wall and move your head about.

Darkmark07 · Aug 12, 2015

Slarty, have you got the rift set up properly with the correct adjustment for eyepiece depth and type?

Just a thought...

slartybartfast · Aug 12, 2015

Darkmark07 said:
Slarty, have you got the rift set up properly with the correct adjustment for eyepiece depth and type?

Just a thought...

Oh i can get it to work perfectly, i just saw this thread and thought i would see if the IPD settings in the rift would actually do something in game and it does. just not sure what it is its doing.
so its not a problem or anything more an observations from messing with the IPD.

Mulbin · Aug 12, 2015

UPDATE!

Further confirmation from the Devs via customer support for me today that IPD function is disabled in Elite, apparently it's also not working as it should in all other games but they are using work-arounds (presumably skimming the data from the oculus config file rather than waiting for oculus runtime to send the info). So the problem is actually that the oculus runtime doesn't provide the information to games in the first place.

"After some digging it looks as though some games might actually be using a workaround for this bug at the moment. Hopefully we can do this too, we've added this to our fix list though, thanks for bringing it to my attention

Let us know if you'd like help with anything else though, or if you've got any info you'd like to add to this issue.

It's been a pleasure talking to you!

Fly safe Commander."

So there you have it, official word from FD is that IPD is not currently functioning in ED and it's on the list of things to fix

Ryder35 · Aug 13, 2015

I wouldn't hold you breath. Judging by the announcement about the SDK they will not be doing anything on the rift implementation for a while. If they do it will be on the 0.7 or 1.0 SDK which may resolve the problem anyway as it is using direct mode