Elite: Dangerous VR on Linux Mint?
- Thread starter cerveaux
- Start date
I've been running VR on linux since last fall. There's a bit of setup to get everything running well but it wasn't anything too crazy.
Here are some hardware details:
HMD: Valve Index
gpu: AMD 5770
cpu: 2990wx
ram: 64gb
distro: ubuntu 20.04
AFAIK that's the only HMD currently supported for linux. SteamVR has async reprojection enabled for AMD hardware but not Nvidia. I started out with a gtx 1080 and it was pretty rough. The frame drops were more noticeable and the game would freeze up randomly for most sessions. Switching to AMD made the gameplay a lot smoother and it rarely crashes anymore (maybe 1 in 50 sessions).
Right out of the box the default graphics settings weren't super great. Customizing the settings by changing the graphics config xml helped a lot. I followed the popular guide by cmdr Exigeous to get started. I attached a graphics xml file with what worked for me (disclaimer: I didn't spend very long tweaking this part, it's somewhat opinionated).
The graphics settings folder for that xml is
~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Elite\ Dangerous/Products/elite-dangerous-64/OptionDefaults
Overriding one of the .fxcfg files there will allow the game to read the customized values. It's always a good idea to back up the originals first though in case you want them later. Not sure if the game will pick up a new value with a different PresetName, that could be something to try out.
In SteamVR I set the max VR framerate to 80 fps. It's not too bad but it's never going to be as nice as a highly optimized Windows setup. It's definitely worth checking the GPU usage in SteamVR since a beefier gpu might be able to handle better framerates.
The game install might vary a bit by linux distro so proton db could be helpful to check.
That's the technical side of things at least. Happy to help with any questions about linux vr things
btw, I've heard that 2021 is supposed to finally be the year of the linux desktop /s
Here are some hardware details:
HMD: Valve Index
gpu: AMD 5770
cpu: 2990wx
ram: 64gb
distro: ubuntu 20.04
AFAIK that's the only HMD currently supported for linux. SteamVR has async reprojection enabled for AMD hardware but not Nvidia. I started out with a gtx 1080 and it was pretty rough. The frame drops were more noticeable and the game would freeze up randomly for most sessions. Switching to AMD made the gameplay a lot smoother and it rarely crashes anymore (maybe 1 in 50 sessions).
Right out of the box the default graphics settings weren't super great. Customizing the settings by changing the graphics config xml helped a lot. I followed the popular guide by cmdr Exigeous to get started. I attached a graphics xml file with what worked for me (disclaimer: I didn't spend very long tweaking this part, it's somewhat opinionated).
The graphics settings folder for that xml is
~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Elite\ Dangerous/Products/elite-dangerous-64/OptionDefaults
Overriding one of the .fxcfg files there will allow the game to read the customized values. It's always a good idea to back up the originals first though in case you want them later. Not sure if the game will pick up a new value with a different PresetName, that could be something to try out.
In SteamVR I set the max VR framerate to 80 fps. It's not too bad but it's never going to be as nice as a highly optimized Windows setup. It's definitely worth checking the GPU usage in SteamVR since a beefier gpu might be able to handle better framerates.
The game install might vary a bit by linux distro so proton db could be helpful to check.
That's the technical side of things at least. Happy to help with any questions about linux vr things
btw, I've heard that 2021 is supposed to finally be the year of the linux desktop /s