Frontier, please add support for Windows Mixed Reality!

[Violins77]

Greetings, I am a new owner of an HMD Samsung Odyssey, and Elite Dangerous is one of the main reason I bought a VR headset.

Elite does run with my HMD throught the Mixed Reality app for Steam VR, but there are some issues that make it unplayable as of now. I know Frontier doesn't list Mixed Reality as officialy supported, so I'm not complaining here, I'm just trying to help by reporting the issues. Please note that some of it might well be coming from the MR driver itself, but it would surely help if the devs are onboard, as Mixed Reality will probably bring a lot of new people to VR, in turn helping the VR industry.

1- It seems that the screen is flickering in and out of focus when loading different things, and we can actually see the Steam VR compositor in the background flickering, or sometimes just another area of the hangar/ space station.. This, combined with moving the headset, will make the screen jittery.

Steps to reproduce easily : Go to a space station, access the mission board, and navigate the missions up and down quickly while looking up and down in the HMD. The screen will jump around and recenter.

2- It also seems like looking around in the HMD acts as a mouse hover, which might actually also be the source of the issue 1.

Steps to reproduce easily: Go in the galaxy map, look around in the HMD while not touching the mouse. You will see stars get randomly selected as if the were moused over. You can even see the info panel updating with the "hovered" star info. This should probably not happen while just looking around in the HMD. It seems the HMD is acting as a pointer of some sort which makes the window lose focus and do weird things.

Thanks a lot, I believe this issue probably affect everyone (I am a dev myself) so probably easy to reproduce, but if you do need more info, please let me know.

 

[vic]

hmmm why exactly would be the benefits of having Mixed reality(as opposed to normal VR) to ED?

 

[revofire]

Full support. I have an Odyssey and E was a major player in this purchase.

hmmm why exactly would be the benefits of having Mixed reality(as opposed to normal VR) to ED?

Zero sensors needed, easy setup, and WMR is the cheapest platform out there whilst still retaining quality. Also higher resolution, much higher resolution, even on the low end devices. The Rift and Vive run at 1.3m pixels, the base WMR headsets run at 2m pixels, and the Odyssey at 2.3m. That's a huge difference for text and detail.

In the end, we need options, and FDev has been really good with supporting VR, so I hope this continues (and in a timely fashion) with this.

 

[Violins77]

hmmm why exactly would be the benefits of having Mixed reality(as opposed to normal VR) to ED?

I'm not sure I understand your question. There is no "normal" VR. All systems are different. Vive uses SteamVR, Oculus uses OpenVR, and Windows uses Mixed Reality.

Now, as I said, the dream would be that all of the three would work flawlessly with each other, but we all know this isn't the case. SteamVR is the most universally working of them all, but some games still go the extra mile and put "Windows Mixed Reality" in the VR compatibility of the game store page, meaning this has been tested and is supported.

If you ask about the advantages, then yeah, revofire listed them. For E.D. though, the resolution is the major factor.

 

[govny]

hmmm why exactly would be the benefits of having Mixed reality(as opposed to normal VR) to ED?

maybe, the benefit will be that the ones owning a WMR could use it properly?

p.s.
another problem I have noted is the looking around inside the cockpit the hud move slightly respect to the rest of the cockpit itself.

 

[vanfanel]

hmmm why exactly would be the benefits of having Mixed reality(as opposed to normal VR) to ED?

Don't be confused with microsoft's naming scheme of "Mixed Reality" It's still just VR but Microsoft likes being different and prefers calling it "Mixed"

 

[loribee]

Windows Nixed (sic) Reality is still pretty new. Given that they didn’t come out and announce support for it when it was first unveiled, it probably makes sense to see what the adoption rate is before committing valuable dev resources to it. One can argue that with steam support they don’t need to do anything themselves.

I had a Samsung, but returned it. I’m using a pimax 4K with SteamVR and it works great. Your issues might be in the SteamVR bridge to windows MR .. which to be fair, is still in pseudo-beta.

 

[revofire]

Windows Nixed (sic) Reality is still pretty new. Given that they didn’t come out and announce support for it when it was first unveiled, it probably makes sense to see what the adoption rate is before committing valuable dev resources to it. One can argue that with steam support they don’t need to do anything themselves.

I had a Samsung, but returned it. I’m using a pimax 4K with SteamVR and it works great. Your issues might be in the SteamVR bridge to windows MR .. which to be fair, is still in pseudo-beta.

So I love my Samsung, why'd you get rid of it?

 

[Violins77]

Windows Nixed (sic) Reality is still pretty new. Given that they didn’t come out and announce support for it when it was first unveiled, it probably makes sense to see what the adoption rate is before committing valuable dev resources to it. One can argue that with steam support they don’t need to do anything themselves.

I had a Samsung, but returned it. I’m using a pimax 4K with SteamVR and it works great. Your issues might be in the SteamVR bridge to windows MR .. which to be fair, is still in pseudo-beta.

Yeah, I've been reading about your issues with text clarity, but I think it is an isolated case. The picture quality is quite good with the Odyssey, but the whole mouse overlay issue is a dealbreaker for now.

I agree, I think the issue really is from the driver, but I'd be cool to have a word of frontier on WMR.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

It's not a matter for Elite supporting MR.
It already does through steamvr, this is also the most desired solution, making yet another runtime interface is simply not an industry option.

What you want is for MR and SteamVR to properly adapt and support each other, and it took Vive almost a year before getting to this current level of software stability.

Expecting anything to work better from this multitude of MR HMD's is comical at best.

 

[loribee]

Reading some discussions on the steamVR mixed reality page, it looks like there are some quirks and issues with the api that windows exposes that might be causing issues - getting the correct resolution of the headset is one for example.

I suspect it will get better in time - this is version 1.0 so i’m hoping stuff gets fixed for the sake of the platform, although Microsoft doesn’t have a good track record on consumer tech (Zune, windows phone, band, and groove are all consumer products they have abandoned in the last few years)

Like Tor says, it might take several months to get to the same level of stability you currently get with Vive - I play Elite using a Pimax 4K, and apparently it took them several months to get a stable driver and working gyroscope - luckily I was late to the pimax party, so when i got my headset, most of the initial issues with the driver had already been fixed.

 

[Violins77]

It's not a matter for Elite supporting MR.
It already does through steamvr, this is also the most desired solution, making yet another runtime interface is simply not an industry option.

What you want is for MR and SteamVR to properly adapt and support each other, and it took Vive almost a year before getting to this current level of software stability.

Expecting anything to work better from this multitude of MR HMD's is comical at best.

What you say is true, I'm no asking Frontier dev to develop a whole new render for Mixed Reality, nor to make it available on the MS Store. I'm just asking a couple "sanity check" on their end to see if anything is acting as it should from their end. The MR are higher res, to start with, so just checking with a MR HMD and adding the "stamp" to the store page would be appreciated. The same was done with Vive.

What do you mean it took a year with Vive? Doesn't the Vive use SteamVR natively?

 

[Violins77]

Reading some discussions on the steamVR mixed reality page, it looks like there are some quirks and issues with the api that windows exposes that might be causing issues - getting the correct resolution of the headset is one for example.

I suspect it will get better in time - this is version 1.0 so i’m hoping stuff gets fixed for the sake of the platform, although Microsoft doesn’t have a good track record on consumer tech (Zune, windows phone, band, and groove are all consumer products they have abandoned in the last few years)

Like Tor says, it might take several months to get to the same level of stability you currently get with Vive - I play Elite using a Pimax 4K, and apparently it took them several months to get a stable driver and working gyroscope - luckily I was late to the pimax party, so when i got my headset, most of the initial issues with the driver had already been fixed.

I actually had the Pimax 4K (non BE) and pretty much read the whole pimax forum history. Before version 1.2, they were using native Steam VR render, and the performance were good. Starting at 1.2, they developed there own renderer (presumably in order to prepare for the 8K), and performance suffered at first. At version 2.0 (which I was using), it was pretty much to the level of 1.1, so back to good!

I know what you mean about being patient, I really understand the situation well, I would just like to hear FD's take on it to know if there is something really obvious that can be fixed. Obviously, most of the work will come from SteamVR and MR.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I hope they do this.

I have an oculus and it seems that running things trough steamvr has a performance penalty. I reckon the game will run better natively.

 

[loribee]

I hope they do this.

I have an oculus and it seems that running things trough steamvr has a performance penalty. I reckon the game will run better natively.

I’ve tried it both ways, and didn’t notice a difference to be honest.

 

[ZeroAi]

I've only used my new Lenovo for about 20 minutes in Elite and it was on par with my Rift, but I also had some minor issues - whenever I went into the menus I had to recenter the view. I think is likely to be fixed when the Windows Mixed Reality Steam support comes out of beta.

 

[Violins77]

I've only used my new Lenovo for about 20 minutes in Elite and it was on par with my Rift, but I also had some minor issues - whenever I went into the menus I had to recenter the view. I think is likely to be fixed when the Windows Mixed Reality Steam support comes out of beta.

Can you do me a favor and do the steps I posted in my original post?

Also, can you look down in you HMD (as down as you can look, holding your HMD and moving your head so you can look all the way down the lense) to see if you see kind of "clipping" in the floor in the main menu after launching the game? I would relly appreciate.

 

[Chris Simon]

Greetings, I am a new owner of an HMD Samsung Odyssey, and Elite Dangerous is one of the main reason I bought a VR headset.

Elite does run with my HMD throught the Mixed Reality app for Steam VR, but there are some issues that make it unplayable as of now. I know Frontier doesn't list Mixed Reality as officialy supported, so I'm not complaining here, I'm just trying to help by reporting the issues. Please note that some of it might well be coming from the MR driver itself, but it would surely help if the devs are onboard, as Mixed Reality will probably bring a lot of new people to VR, in turn helping the VR industry.

1- It seems that the screen is flickering in and out of focus when loading different things, and we can actually see the Steam VR compositor in the background flickering, or sometimes just another area of the hangar/ space station.. This, combined with moving the headset, will make the screen jittery.

Steps to reproduce easily : Go to a space station, access the mission board, and navigate the missions up and down quickly while looking up and down in the HMD. The screen will jump around and recenter.

2- It also seems like looking around in the HMD acts as a mouse hover, which might actually also be the source of the issue 1.

Steps to reproduce easily: Go in the galaxy map, look around in the HMD while not touching the mouse. You will see stars get randomly selected as if the were moused over. You can even see the info panel updating with the "hovered" star info. This should probably not happen while just looking around in the HMD. It seems the HMD is acting as a pointer of some sort which makes the window lose focus and do weird things.

Thanks a lot, I believe this issue probably affect everyone (I am a dev myself) so probably easy to reproduce, but if you do need more info, please let me know.

Hmm. Do you think you could describe how did you manage to get the Elite running? I don't seem to be able to figure it out. It's kind of sad that of all the SteamVR games that run flawlessly on WMR, Elite is on of the few that has problems. But to be honest I would stomach some clipping and unfocused menus, if I were able to run it at all.

 

[Marbat]

Tried the Lenovo for two days and shipped it back for a refund. I was not impress by it, sure it did appear to be a bit clearer but only in the center, the edges blurriness really bug me. Plus had multiple black screens and that wasn't even while playing ED.

I'll be sticking to the Rift for now.

 

[govny]

Hmm. Do you think you could describe how did you manage to get the Elite running? I don't seem to be able to figure it out. It's kind of sad that of all the SteamVR games that run flawlessly on WMR, Elite is on of the few that has problems. But to be honest I would stomach some clipping and unfocused menus, if I were able to run it at all.

you have to enable Vr in option menu.