Elite through oculus, steam or launcher

[Rubix]

Hi,

I'm sorry if this is answered elsewhere, I'm trawling the interweb trying to glean as much information as possible before my rift arrives. So i've seen on the Frontier store i can get a key for oculus home and steam. my question is,

Are there any performance increases/decreases/issues by launching the game through these portals?

I've never used steam, although i have had an account set up for over a year, i currently launch elite via the launcher and plan on still doing so but if there is any gain to launching through either Steam or Oculus home then obviously i'll do that.

Rubix

 

[Blian]

You'll need to set up Oculus first, it is foolproof Then in the Oculus home software you'll need to go to settings and enable unknown sources. Then you can start E: D via its launcher. Then set the 3D in the ingame graphics options to HMD, and you're set. Maybe you want to set the preset to VR HIGH too.
No performance issues whatsoever.
I don't think there's any up or downside to launching from Steam or Oculus Home, however if you go for Steam it will start SteamVR too. I didn't notice anything different but I like it simple, so I just use the E: D launcher.

 

[Khaldur]

As far as I know there is no difference in terms of game performance.
Sound may be a minor difference. Starting from the ED launcher I always have to set the Rift's headphones as standard audio output device in order to have sound through the built-in headphones. I heard if you start it from Oculus Home that's done automatically.

Be aware that if you redeem steam keys Frontier have to pay 30% of the game's price to Steam. Don't know about OH keys but I guess it's similar.
So if you care about supporting Frontier for further development of ED don't use any keys and simply start from the ED launcher.

 

[Cliché]

If you do as the above replies suggest (HMD & Headphones / default playback device), when you start ED through the launcher and after you hit PLAY, Oculus Home will start up when you put on the Rift (assuming it's not already running), and then after a few seconds ED will be detected and it will switch over to that. A few times I've got what I call the Gray Screen of Death, but it seems that eventually ED will start if you just wait.

Anyway, unless you bought the game through Steam or the Oculus Store, I don't see any benefit to not using the standard launcher, unless you prefer to use the other methods. Sorry, but I can't comment on performance.

 

[AztecScribe]

As far as I know there is no difference in terms of game performance.
Be aware that if you redeem steam keys Frontier have to pay 30% of the game's price to Steam.

Are you sure that is true? I wish I'd known that earlier as I downloaded just to test it and have never played it again though Steam! You will find older posts on the forum from me where I complain about running the game through Steam but in the end it was just that I had over hyped expectations for VR. As it is I didn't really see any differences between Oculus store or Steam (I have never tried the regular launcher).

It's true that if you use the Oculus launcher it automatically switches to the rift audio. There are also theories that the Asynchronous Timewarp feature of the Oculus only works when you run the game through its own launcher but I've not dug any deeper into that issue as I use the oculus launcher just for the ease of audio.

 

[Alec Turner]

I have another question along similar lines. so I currently have ED installed natively (i.e. via the Frontier download). I've got an Oculus arriving today hopefully and, like the OP, have been doing some prep work. So I was considering getting an Oculus key (simply for the convenience and general funkiness of being able to launch the game from within Oculus home - AFAIK there is no other benefit). Anyway, my question is, if I redeemed the Oculus key would I be right in thinking that I'd end up having to install a brand new copy of the game within the Oculus software folder (leaving me with two copies of the game) and that, if I wanted to continue using ED both in and out of Oculus mode, I'd then have to keep both copies up to date.

If so then I'll just stick with my Frontier installation thank you very much.

 

[Rubix]

I only ask for those kinds of reasons... like the theory ATW possibly only working through the oculus launcher. the automatic switching of the audio, whilst convenient is not a major issue as just setting the audio manually takes literally 2 seconds. I'm happy enough to continue running the game through the native launcher i'm just thinking of keeping as much resources free to perhaps help with performance. I definitely don't think i will get the steam key as i imagine launching from steam will also open up steam VR. so having (as i understand it) more resources (steam VR, the oculus runtime and Elite running.

Anyway, i hopefully will be tinkering tonight as my Inateck USB card from Amazon is out for delivery a day early and my other half should be picking up my Rift from a local Currys/PC World (pay and collect) that was ordered Sunday ready for today!

 

[AztecScribe]

Yeah if you use the Oculus or Steam versions you have to reinstall the whole game, it's a beeatch. But once installed you can right click to run in desk top mode if you fancy playing on a regular monitor. To give another down side to this though you then have to re do all your settings in game. This is ok when you go from vr to desktop mode but back again is annoying as you then have to change settings in jump/stutter VR which is a pain.

 

[VR Dextrovix]

The Oculus Store version is separate, so a waste of disk space, and has to keep itself up to date separately from any other version you have installed. It also doesn't share settings that the standard Frontier launcher uses, so there is little point having it selectable from the Oculus Store as you can just launch that, and then launch the game from your monitor's display via the launcher.

So as I never redeemed my Steam key (because FD loose 30% of future sales is you do integrate it from Frontier's store area), I've continued to just use the launcher. All you have to do is allow 3rd party apps from the Oculus Store settings menu to run and when you use Frontier's launcher it'll use the Rift once you've configured it from the graphics options to do so.

 

[PIXEL]

Interesting...
When I launch ED from the desktop shortcut it runs fine on the monitor but the Oculus app starts running in the background even if tho I've set to 2d monitor play in graphics and in windowed mode - is this normal if you've got Oculus software installed. Specially since if i close the Oculus app ED then quits?
I feel I may be doing something wrong here..

May play around with EDProfiler to see if its to do with that..

 

[tresch]

One thing to note!

If you launch Elite through the Elite launcher, and not through the Oculus launcher, the game uses a different audio engine. There is one that's specifically optimized for VR that gets used when you launch from the Oculus launcher, and the regular audio engine can cause some performance issues for VR users. So, if you're launching through the normal Elite launcher, you need to edit a configuration file and manually specify the VR optimized audio interface.

In your install directory there's a file that's something like AudioConfiguration.xml and it's well commented and contains all the relevant information, including a couple values you can tweak for performance purposes

 

[Alec Turner]

One thing to note!

If you launch Elite through the Elite launcher, and not through the Oculus launcher, the game uses a different audio engine. There is one that's specifically optimized for VR that gets used when you launch from the Oculus launcher, and the regular audio engine can cause some performance issues for VR users. So, if you're launching through the normal Elite launcher, you need to edit a configuration file and manually specify the VR optimized audio interface.

In your install directory there's a file that's something like AudioConfiguration.xml and it's well commented and contains all the relevant information, including a couple values you can tweak for performance purposes

This is the first I've heard of this. Could someone point me at a thread describing it in more detail?

 

[robdood]

Interesting...
When I launch ED from the desktop shortcut it runs fine on the monitor but the Oculus app starts running in the background even if tho I've set to 2d monitor play in graphics and in windowed mode - is this normal if you've got Oculus software installed. Specially since if i close the Oculus app ED then quits?
I feel I may be doing something wrong here..

May play around with EDProfiler to see if its to do with that..

The app to run as it is part of the oculus windows services. Closing it will stop the headset from working, irrespective of whether you're playing Elite or not.

Edit: whoops, you mean even when not playing in VR! Yeah I've seen that, I presume it's because frontier have set the game to spin up Oculus runtime regardless of your own settings. Weird.

 

[drkaii]

I only ask for those kinds of reasons... like the theory ATW possibly only working through the oculus launcher. the automatic switching of the audio, whilst convenient is not a major issue as just setting the audio manually takes literally 2 seconds. I'm happy enough to continue running the game through the native launcher i'm just thinking of keeping as much resources free to perhaps help with performance. I definitely don't think i will get the steam key as i imagine launching from steam will also open up steam VR. so having (as i understand it) more resources (steam VR, the oculus runtime and Elite running.

Anyway, i hopefully will be tinkering tonight as my Inateck USB card from Amazon is out for delivery a day early and my other half should be picking up my Rift from a local Currys/PC World (pay and collect) that was ordered Sunday ready for today!

I just have a batch script change the audio for me (via nircmd) from a button my mouse. My mouse has a lot of buttons <.<

 

[Frank]

Remember if you are launching Elite from its own launcher you have to set Oculus Home to accept third party games.

 

[PIXEL]

... you mean even when not playing in VR! Yeah I've seen that, I presume it's because frontier have set the game to spin up Oculus runtime regardless of your own settings. Weird.

Yes I'd like to play ED in 2d only for a while and don't want Oculus to open in the background... I'm using Dr Kaii's excellent EDProfiler <fab! [big grin] btw> and it has a 2d option...
Maybe I'll try to uninstal Oculus, (find a way to save library) re instal ED and EDprofiler to see if that works..

 

[robdood]

Yes I'd like to play ED in 2d only for a while and don't want Oculus to open in the background... I'm using Dr Kaii's excellent EDProfiler <fab! [big grin] btw> and it has a 2d option...
Maybe I'll try to uninstal Oculus, (find a way to save library) re instal ED and EDprofiler to see if that works..

Seems a bit extreme, unless you really need the resources.. Just ignore it? Life's too short, man!

 

[Khaldur]

... like the theory ATW possibly only working through the oculus launcher ...

I'm playing ED using its own launcher and I'm pretty sure ATW is working. I actually don't see why there should be a connection between ATW and the launcher that's used. What counts is what SDK the program was compiled with and that's independent from the launcher.

 

[Tareb]

I do have a question which is slightly ot. I own a Rift and do get this annoying headset disconnection quite frequently. Is there a way to return to Elite after the headset did reconnect. It normally reconnects in a matter of a second, but the HMD is dark and i have to restart Elite.

Did someone find a solution for returning to Elite without a restart of the game. And if so, does the launcher play a role in this solution?

Thx for listening and sorry for being slightly (?) off topic.

 

[PIXEL]

Seems a bit extreme, unless you really need the resources.. Just ignore it? Life's too short, man!

Life is indeed too short... & I've just proved it by uninstalling and reinstalling everything... but the Oculus app still runs in the background if I launch ED in 2d from the desktop..
but thanks for your enlightenment