Force to open in SteamVR?

[GetSaltyBrah]

I own Elite + Horizons. I have linked my Frontier keys with Steam and so on. Elite also appears in my Oculus home library. I use an Oculus Rift CV1.

I am trying to use OVR Toolkit inside of Elite Dangerous, which is an app specifically for SteamVR and will not work on the Oculus home/dashboard. I am having an issue where I cannot get Elite to launch into SteamVR. It is all a bit confusing to explain so I will try to provide as much clear info as I can along with a few pictures. The pictures are just screen captures of my whole screen, they are not edited and all programs are running together. I can't seem to add images so I have provided links to them.

I would take the following steps:
I will open SteamVR first, it detects all stations and controls, check in the headset, I am in my SteamVR environment, as confirmed by SteamVR panel. >> https://ibb.co/1Ls7qBP

Next, go to my Steam library and launch ED. It asks if I would like to play ED, ED Horizons or launch in SteamVR mode. I select the latter and launch VR mode. >> https://ibb.co/D8m8hdq

Elite opens the frontier launcher at the same time as launching the game into VR. The launcher then gives me a repeated error saying 'unhandled exception: object reference not set to an instance of an object' but this doesn't seem to stop the game from launching and working just fine. I can close this error AND the launcher and the game is still open.

The game is now running in VR, I can see the image inside the headset. The below image shows that the elite client is running and my Oculus library has detected it as also running. My SteamVR however is not detecting or doing anything despite choosing the 'launch into steamVR mode' option at launch. >> https://ibb.co/9NV3N9q

I now press my SteamVR overlay button (the menu button on left touchpad) which will normally bring up SteamVR options when running a game in SteamVR but I get nothing. I now press the Oculus home button (the menu button on right touchpad) which takes me to the oculus dash. This in turn allows me to select SteamVR from the menus. Also note in the image how Oculus isn't recognizing what is playing in this menu?? >> https://ibb.co/kDmV9ZV

So now I decide to click on the SteamVR option that circled in the above image. This takes me to the empty SteamVR environment, the one you get when you just started loading a game with SteamVR. >>https://ibb.co/G3Q6fhv

And now this is what I am left with.... Elite Dangerous, running through my Oculus app and no way to get it to open in SteamVR. The below image shows the game client open with oculus mirror capturing what my oculus detects. SteamVR running, but not detecting Elite along with an empty environment being displayed in my SteamVR mirror. >> https://ibb.co/HpvQbWd

Any help getting it to launch into SteamVR would be greatly appreciated.
Cmdr

 

[someNOOB]

Hey, I've got the same issue, did you ever get a resolution on this?

Obviously the steam launch option of "launch in Steam VR mode" is not accurate.

 

[GetSaltyBrah]

Hey, I've got the same issue, did you ever get a resolution on this?

Obviously the steam launch option of "launch in Steam VR mode" is not accurate.

No luck so far! I have only found that my buddy also on Oculus can't launch it in SteamVR either. I feel like I always come up with such niche problems for myself and never get a reply in usually very active forums xD If you ever find a resolution let me know and I will likewise.

 

[Tetra Trash]

Try this; I found it on the steam forum and used to use it when I ran OVR toolkit. Author is Pyrofrogstudios.
Navigate to the actual game executable not the launcher e.g.:
\SteamApps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-64\EliteDangerous64.exe
Right click and select properties.
Select the Compatibility tab.
Check Run this program in compatibility mode for:
Select Windows 7 from the drop down.
Click OK.

 

[GetSaltyBrah]

Amazing! This works wonderfully! Once the .exe is set to win 7 compatible, the 'launch to steamVR' actually launches to SteamVR! Exactly what I was after. Many thanks Cmdr o7!!

 

[GetSaltyBrah]

Hey, I've got the same issue, did you ever get a resolution on this?

Obviously the steam launch option of "launch in Steam VR mode" is not accurate.

See above post, worked for me!

 

[someNOOB]

See above post, worked for me!

Thanks.

I had seen this elsewhere and thought it was old / incorrect, as steam wasn't recognizing my HMD. After some fiddling with plugging/unplugging my Rift, and closing / reopening my Oculus software I did indeed get the game loaded in steamVR mode.

Unfortunately the performance was much lower. I was using the Oculus debugging software and it was taking only 20- 30 frames from the app rather than the full 80 I would normally get. This was with no steam overlays enabled (no OVRToolkit).
Presumably this is due to steam ultimately having to pipe through the oculus drivers and this causing a lot of inefficiencies, likely why Frontier does this natively and you need to "trick" it using the compatibility mode.

Unfortunately for me I get nauseous pretty easily in VR and the lower performance is part of the problem.

OVR toolkit has some awesome features that dash doesn't when it comes to in-game overlays so it is a bummer but oh well.