Detailed dk2 setup + tips + links
1. Install the 0.5 or 0.6 Oculus Rift runtime (0.7 and above currently do not work and are not supported) and the latest GPU drivers
1.a You can download 0.5 here: https://developer.oculus.com/downloa...e_for_Windows/ and 0.6 here: https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/pc/0.6.0.1-beta/Oculus_Runtime_for_Windows/
1.b You can also try the runtime switcher method explained here to have a dual install of runtimes: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...21#post3066621
2. Set the display mode to extended display (right click the Oculus Configuration Utility icon in the system tray > Rift Display Mode > Extended Mode > apply)
3. Make sure the rift is on and set as the secondary monitor (right click the desktop > Display settings)
4. Start the game, and in Graphics options change Monitor to Secondary, and 3D to HMD with headphones/speakers. Hit Apply and then click yes when it wishes you to confirm (you'll have to be looking through the rift at this point.
Go through this posts to optimise the rift's visuals:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=121355 (also contains a lot of tools and other software that are useful for VR)
More info and extra details below.
Andovar made a good point later in this thread so I am adding it here > "Measuring your IPD can be critical. If you're in the average range, and within a couple mm of the 63.5 setting in the rift, then you should be fine. But if you're well below or above(like me) the norm, then the DK2 will likely be a disappointment."
At the bottom of this post you will find the rest of the information on what you can do about this if it applies to you.
Tips and recommendations
1. Don't forget you need to set up your profile in the oculus rift configuration including the Advanced Setup. And if your eyes feel strained then try turning down your IPD by manually lowering the number by a few points for example if the setup gave you 64.9 as your IPD but it feels wrong try 64.7 ect ect until you find what feels best.
2. Change your GUI color for much better readability. Here are instructions = http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2p3784/you_can_manually_customize_the_gui_colors
Green variations work best with the DK2.
There is also a tool Smack332 made to quickly change GUI color and switch graphic options between the monitor and the DK2 before starting the game it also has the ability to show a second screen on your monitor. You can find it here = https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=65258 Voids preset is a good mix between readability and still having red for enemies.
2.1 Sweet FX has made a major difference for me in visual quality of the game at no fps loss so I would highly recommend checking it out as it is really not hard to set up. You can find the link to Sweet fx and instructions here > https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=117345 I do not use his Nvidia panel tweaks and i prefer the second setup with slight color adjustment. I do not know if this works with AMD video cards or if there is a different setup if you do know that please let me know so I can update this section accordingly.
2.2 This is not necessary by any means but using Voice Attack is an excellent addition to playing with the Rift. They have a free trial and the full version is only 8 dollars so not bad at all. I especially recommend it if you're trying to play with a keyboard and mouse, although for the best experience getting a HOTAS setup is the way to go.
You can check it out here = http://www.voiceattack.com/Default.aspx
3. Extended mode is the only supported way to play right now (01/07/2016) and leave your primary display ON and rift set as Secondary (if you have more than one monitor you may need to disable all others).
In AMD control center go to the Desktop Management Tab, then Desktop Properties and make sure the DK2 is set to 1920 x 1080 at 75 Hz and Rotation is set to Portrait. In Nvidia control panel its under the display section select the rotate display menu other than that settings are the same.
There is a possible exception to point 3. If your main monitor can only run at 60Hz then it may lock your FPS to 60 in the DK2 there are two solutions to this.
3a. Some monitors can run at 75Hz if you lower your resolution so try that first. Most ppl have reported that option at 1280 x 1024.
3b. If your monitor can not run at 75Hz you will need to set your DK2 as your primary screen and you may or may not need to then turn your monitor off. It makes launching the game a little tricky so try to position your windows so that when you look in the DK2 you can see the play button. If someone knows a better way please pm me so I can update.
It should be noted that I do not have the issues with my monitor so I can not test 3a and 3b myself but after reading many posts of ppl saying this has helped them I thought I would include it as a possible fix. It is not guaranteed to work, but if it does please let me know.
4. When you launch Elite Dangerous especially the first time there is a good chance it will launch to your main screen without VR enabled so first thing set up your controls before you go into VR mode its much easier that way. Then go to graphic settings and make sure it's set to fullscreen, change the monitor to secondary, change 3D setting to Oculus Rift then you should see the resolution as 1920 x 1080, refresh rate 75Hz, vsync on, frame rate limit off and now hit apply and look in your rift you will need to confirm changes before the timer runs down.
5. All other graphical setting are going to depend on what your system can handle. Remember VR is still in development and even the newest hardware is not fully optimized for it yet so you have to find what works best for you.
So that is it. You should be ready now to start your adventure
. Enjoy and I hope this helped some of the people who keep having problems with setup.
Here is a post by Tom Forsyth http://tinyurl.com/nehkpv4 it goes into more detail about general DK2 setup.
To explain my testing method for point 3 a bit more ... I tested the game using Fraps with the benchmark hotkey to save a log of the frame rates to a text file. Then I played the game for 15 to 20 min in direct mode, extended mode with the Rift set as primary other monitor still on, extended mode with the Rift set as primary other monitor disabled and extended mode with the Rift set as secondary with the primary monitor still on.
Out of those modes I had the highest continuous and most stable frame rates in extended mode with the Rift set as secondary with the primary monitor on. So this is not based on a feeling, just hard numbers.
Voice Attack> It uses your windows speech recognition engine so you need to set that up for best results. So go to the Control Panel then Ease of Access then under Speech Recognition take the Speech Tutorial and the Train Your Computer To Better Understand You. After that if it still does not recognize a specific word then you just need to open notepad or similar and use the method you learned when going through the setup process. You can even setup the alphabet (I use the phonetic alphabet) and numbers with it so you never have to take the rift off to type again. I think that is as close to total immersion as you can get.
IPD Issues > This info comes from Andovar so if it helps you give him some rep.
No amount of GPU horsepower, supersampling, adaptive vsync, sweetfx, or whatever other magic is out there will be able to make up for the fact that your eyes aren't in the right position to merge and focus the images.
And just setting the IPD setting in the DK2 config DOES NOT HELP. That doesn't change the physical position of the lenses.
check your IPD here https://pd.warbyparker.com/
if you are really past 70 ipd, then custom lens adjusters might be in order.
There is a solution: change the lens separation using this tool http://www.vr-gear.com/ or use a knife https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_OFWAOdYbo
For both method you will need to use a software that will change the image separation on screen in order to match the new lens separationhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-X...dVk/view?pli=1 and these new OVR server files (runtime v5.0.1)https://mega.co.nz/#!S0ljzAbK!PRZjAhThrKRawzL9WT8Pn8hYvYb6XF4bElt4O0diS0s
1. Install the 0.5 or 0.6 Oculus Rift runtime (0.7 and above currently do not work and are not supported) and the latest GPU drivers
1.a You can download 0.5 here: https://developer.oculus.com/downloa...e_for_Windows/ and 0.6 here: https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/pc/0.6.0.1-beta/Oculus_Runtime_for_Windows/
1.b You can also try the runtime switcher method explained here to have a dual install of runtimes: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...21#post3066621
2. Set the display mode to extended display (right click the Oculus Configuration Utility icon in the system tray > Rift Display Mode > Extended Mode > apply)
3. Make sure the rift is on and set as the secondary monitor (right click the desktop > Display settings)
4. Start the game, and in Graphics options change Monitor to Secondary, and 3D to HMD with headphones/speakers. Hit Apply and then click yes when it wishes you to confirm (you'll have to be looking through the rift at this point.
Go through this posts to optimise the rift's visuals:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=121355 (also contains a lot of tools and other software that are useful for VR)
More info and extra details below.
Andovar made a good point later in this thread so I am adding it here > "Measuring your IPD can be critical. If you're in the average range, and within a couple mm of the 63.5 setting in the rift, then you should be fine. But if you're well below or above(like me) the norm, then the DK2 will likely be a disappointment."
At the bottom of this post you will find the rest of the information on what you can do about this if it applies to you.
Tips and recommendations
1. Don't forget you need to set up your profile in the oculus rift configuration including the Advanced Setup. And if your eyes feel strained then try turning down your IPD by manually lowering the number by a few points for example if the setup gave you 64.9 as your IPD but it feels wrong try 64.7 ect ect until you find what feels best.
2. Change your GUI color for much better readability. Here are instructions = http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2p3784/you_can_manually_customize_the_gui_colors
Green variations work best with the DK2.
There is also a tool Smack332 made to quickly change GUI color and switch graphic options between the monitor and the DK2 before starting the game it also has the ability to show a second screen on your monitor. You can find it here = https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=65258 Voids preset is a good mix between readability and still having red for enemies.
2.1 Sweet FX has made a major difference for me in visual quality of the game at no fps loss so I would highly recommend checking it out as it is really not hard to set up. You can find the link to Sweet fx and instructions here > https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=117345 I do not use his Nvidia panel tweaks and i prefer the second setup with slight color adjustment. I do not know if this works with AMD video cards or if there is a different setup if you do know that please let me know so I can update this section accordingly.
2.2 This is not necessary by any means but using Voice Attack is an excellent addition to playing with the Rift. They have a free trial and the full version is only 8 dollars so not bad at all. I especially recommend it if you're trying to play with a keyboard and mouse, although for the best experience getting a HOTAS setup is the way to go.
You can check it out here = http://www.voiceattack.com/Default.aspx
3. Extended mode is the only supported way to play right now (01/07/2016) and leave your primary display ON and rift set as Secondary (if you have more than one monitor you may need to disable all others).
In AMD control center go to the Desktop Management Tab, then Desktop Properties and make sure the DK2 is set to 1920 x 1080 at 75 Hz and Rotation is set to Portrait. In Nvidia control panel its under the display section select the rotate display menu other than that settings are the same.
There is a possible exception to point 3. If your main monitor can only run at 60Hz then it may lock your FPS to 60 in the DK2 there are two solutions to this.
3a. Some monitors can run at 75Hz if you lower your resolution so try that first. Most ppl have reported that option at 1280 x 1024.
3b. If your monitor can not run at 75Hz you will need to set your DK2 as your primary screen and you may or may not need to then turn your monitor off. It makes launching the game a little tricky so try to position your windows so that when you look in the DK2 you can see the play button. If someone knows a better way please pm me so I can update.
It should be noted that I do not have the issues with my monitor so I can not test 3a and 3b myself but after reading many posts of ppl saying this has helped them I thought I would include it as a possible fix. It is not guaranteed to work, but if it does please let me know.
4. When you launch Elite Dangerous especially the first time there is a good chance it will launch to your main screen without VR enabled so first thing set up your controls before you go into VR mode its much easier that way. Then go to graphic settings and make sure it's set to fullscreen, change the monitor to secondary, change 3D setting to Oculus Rift then you should see the resolution as 1920 x 1080, refresh rate 75Hz, vsync on, frame rate limit off and now hit apply and look in your rift you will need to confirm changes before the timer runs down.
5. All other graphical setting are going to depend on what your system can handle. Remember VR is still in development and even the newest hardware is not fully optimized for it yet so you have to find what works best for you.
So that is it. You should be ready now to start your adventure
. Enjoy and I hope this helped some of the people who keep having problems with setup. Here is a post by Tom Forsyth http://tinyurl.com/nehkpv4 it goes into more detail about general DK2 setup.
To explain my testing method for point 3 a bit more ... I tested the game using Fraps with the benchmark hotkey to save a log of the frame rates to a text file. Then I played the game for 15 to 20 min in direct mode, extended mode with the Rift set as primary other monitor still on, extended mode with the Rift set as primary other monitor disabled and extended mode with the Rift set as secondary with the primary monitor still on.
Out of those modes I had the highest continuous and most stable frame rates in extended mode with the Rift set as secondary with the primary monitor on. So this is not based on a feeling, just hard numbers.
Voice Attack> It uses your windows speech recognition engine so you need to set that up for best results. So go to the Control Panel then Ease of Access then under Speech Recognition take the Speech Tutorial and the Train Your Computer To Better Understand You. After that if it still does not recognize a specific word then you just need to open notepad or similar and use the method you learned when going through the setup process. You can even setup the alphabet (I use the phonetic alphabet) and numbers with it so you never have to take the rift off to type again. I think that is as close to total immersion as you can get.
IPD Issues > This info comes from Andovar so if it helps you give him some rep.
No amount of GPU horsepower, supersampling, adaptive vsync, sweetfx, or whatever other magic is out there will be able to make up for the fact that your eyes aren't in the right position to merge and focus the images.
And just setting the IPD setting in the DK2 config DOES NOT HELP. That doesn't change the physical position of the lenses.
check your IPD here https://pd.warbyparker.com/
if you are really past 70 ipd, then custom lens adjusters might be in order.
There is a solution: change the lens separation using this tool http://www.vr-gear.com/ or use a knife https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_OFWAOdYbo
For both method you will need to use a software that will change the image separation on screen in order to match the new lens separationhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-X...dVk/view?pli=1 and these new OVR server files (runtime v5.0.1)https://mega.co.nz/#!S0ljzAbK!PRZjAhThrKRawzL9WT8Pn8hYvYb6XF4bElt4O0diS0s
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