Getting started: E D with your Rift

[Para Handy]

No this isn't a guide, it's a plea for one.

Having spent hours getting my brand-spanking-new Rift set up in what must be the most tortuous nonsense they could think of....

I am sitting here, having finally found how to redeem my key for E D in the Oculus's app / settings / account page, watching the library there half-way through downloading 13.23 GB...

I am beginning to seriously consider sending the thing back for a refund at this rate. Everything seems so convoluted and the poor resolution I saw in the headset during the tutorials is not making me very confident of the quality awaiting me when I get into E D (if!).

Maybe some kind, experienced owner of the current consumer version of the Rift could find the time and energy to sit down and write up a getting-started guide? (Maybe someone has done it already and I have missed it? Maybe I'm just thick and the only one that finds this an unstructured mess?) Not the tuning of display setting, just how to get going and maybe how to start different commanders, stuff like that.

pretty please...

 

[Ulysses_W]

There are a lot of guides to help you in the stickies section above.
Logging on with multiple accounts is easy, just log out of one commander in the launcher, and log in agin with your other account.

More importantly, don't prejudge the VR experience in ED before you climb into your cockpit. You maybe pleasantly surprised once you get into that chair.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

No this isn't a guide, it's a plea for one.

Having spent hours getting my brand-spanking-new Rift set up in what must be the most tortuous nonsense they could think of....

I am sitting here, having finally found how to redeem my key for E D in the Oculus's app / settings / account page, watching the library there half-way through downloading 13.23 GB...

I am beginning to seriously consider sending the thing back for a refund at this rate. Everything seems so convoluted and the poor resolution I saw in the headset during the tutorials is not making me very confident of the quality awaiting me when I get into E D (if!).

Maybe some kind, experienced owner of the current consumer version of the Rift could find the time and energy to sit down and write up a getting-started guide? (Maybe someone has done it already and I have missed it? Maybe I'm just thick and the only one that finds this an unstructured mess?) Not the tuning of display setting, just how to get going and maybe how to start different commanders, stuff like that.

pretty please...

I don't think you'll like it anyway, judging by your attitude to other issues of the years. If I was you, I'd cut my losses, stop the setup process and send it back. I hope you appreciate my honesty.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

There are a lot of guides to help you in the stickies section above.
Logging on with multiple accounts is easy, just log out of one commander in the launcher, and log in agin with your other account.

More importantly, don't prejudge the VR experience in ED before you climb into your cockpit. You maybe pleasantly surprised once you get into that chair.

I had yep another jaw dropping VR experience today. I loaded up the SRV training mission, deployed the SRV, parked next to the ship, exited my SRV (got out of my chair) and looked up at the ship. O-M-G!

 

[Para Handy]

I don't think you'll like it anyway, judging by your attitude to other issues of the years. If I was you, I'd cut my losses, stop the setup process and send it back.

................ [down]

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

What a rude person. [down]

On the subject of this guide:

1. Install ED.

2. If you already have ED installed, don't bother trying to get ED running from Oculus Home as this is an unnecessary step.

3. Install Oculus Rift hardware and software as per instructions.

4. In ED options/graphics, enable the Rift HMD.

5. Enable 'Unknown Sources' in Oculus Home settings/general

Did I miss anything?

 

[dogbite]

An Oculus key isn't required. Just running from the Frontier launcher is fine. The only advantage is being able to launch the game from in the Rift within Home.

Don't judge the quality of VR by ED. It is not a native VR app and, depending on your computer, needs some tweaking to bring it to optimum for any given system. If you were expecting the graphics to live up to a good monitor (especially 4k) you didn't do your homework. That said, "made for VR" apps look really good on a computer meeting spec (which you haven't mentioned yours). Robo Recall is a great example what to expect in VR when it's done right even at normal pixel density which can be up'd to as much as x2 if your gpu is powerful.

Most newbie questions get asked and answer about every week in this forum. The vast amount of info available here can be daunting (especially on the subject of tweaking ED for VR). As Ulysses said, read the stickies. For quicker resolutions to problems, ask specific questions regarding your quandaries. Also, a well phrased google search can often speed up the process and net answers more precise to your individual game and hardware situation. I have been in the Rift for over a year now and still learn new things all the time. This is 1st gen tech and is always moving forward and there is a lot to be learned when tweaking for non-native VR games. Although current VR isn't going to match a good monitor, the immersion factor and scale is off the chart. Almost every 4k user here and in other forums has said the same thing-" I won't play on a monitor anymore". There are so many great experiences in VR, whatever your play style. Many consider Elite to be one of them.
Again, offer your detailed computer specs, as questions and do Google searches geared to your hardware and the games you want to play in VR and you shall prevail. Many (this one most of all) forums are very helpful when helping new VR users get the best out of their kits. Ask away.

 

[Para Handy]

There are a lot of guides to help you in the stickies section above.
Logging on with multiple accounts is easy, just log out of one commander in the launcher, and log in agin with your other account.

More importantly, don't prejudge the VR experience in ED before you climb into your cockpit. You maybe pleasantly surprised once you get into that chair.

Yeah well the stickies have info but some of it is old, some of it is not applicable (Vive, DK1&2, etc) some of it is for tuning-up your install.

I think it would be neat if we had just a "so your box arrived, here is a good way to get going" sort of thing.

Having to start everything from the Oculus app is the first thing. I was hoping that the games would recognise that VR was available and just offer it on loading.

Nothing to do with Elite (apart from finding how to redeem a key) was the strangeness of the Oculus Home interface, I still can't work out how to move though pages of screens using the Touch, I'll get there in the end though.

So far I have got the thing running, been really pleased with the ISS experience (got the bruises to prove it!), got E D running and not sure whether the 3D experience (which is indeed great) compensates for the lack of visual detail or rather quality of detail. I can see why people get motion-sickness in the SRV for example, I had been at sea for more than half my life and never felt a touch of seasickness but I could actually feel a bit of queasiness starting when first driving over the surface. The experience in space though is not quite so amazing and that I think is due to the lack of sharpness peripherally, maybe as I experiment either it will improve or I will learn to accommodate it.

I certainly have decided not to return the thing anyway. Although I can't see me wearing it a lot to play Elite, although that might change as I learn more, it is certainly a neat thing to use and the freebies that come with it make it worth the dosh anyway.

Again, I think with the raft of new Rift users that the current offer will (could) bring to Elite, it would be great to have a basic here-is-how-you-get-started guide to setting up and using the Rift in Elite.

 

[Para Handy]

On the subject of this guide:

............

4. In ED options/graphics, enable the Rift HMD.

5. Enable 'Unknown Sources' in Oculus Home settings/general

Did I miss anything?

There you are, see that is exactly what I mean. Excellent (and not even slightly rude ) Thanks

 

[Para Handy]

...........
4. In ED options/graphics, enable the Rift HMD.

..............

An Oculus key isn't required. Just running from the Frontier launcher is fine. The only advantage is being able to launch the game from in the Rift within Home.

Don't judge the quality of VR by ED. ..........

I fully understood that there would be a reduction in detail from the 1440i I am used to, not a problem, the visuals will just take getting used to I suppose.

One issue I now have is that even when I try to run E D from a separate installation for another commander, Oculus Home loads and I am left with the windowed display on my monitor. I can change that but I can't see the "Enable Rift HMD" in Elite's Options / Graphics. I only see this:

I suspect that this is because I installed E D in Oculus Home and uninstalling from that library hasn't stopped this - presumably I will have to totally uninstall Oculus to recover the functionality of having my separate commanders.

 

[dogbite]

The "enable Unknown Sources" is a good example of things that most people don't know about, at first. It isn't prominent in the Rift setup since Oculus would rather you bought all your games from Oculus Home. After being enabled, any OpenVR game from Steam or with a launcher of their own will work. This setting, not being highly visible or mentioned during setup is annoying to most new users. We all struggled with that one in the beginning. It is well documented in many advise threads, now but that doesn't excuse Oculus for not making that one more clear.

 

[Gunner Deckard]

Also this game needs Super Sampeling. Without it at some decent levels it suffers. I actually returned my original vive cause it was a pixelated mess. Bought another one when they added the ss fixes and it's far far better than what I origionally experienced. That and a 1080 ti let's you push the graphics to the max mostly.

 

[dogbite]

I fully understood that there would be a reduction in detail from the 1440i I am used to, not a problem, the visuals will just take getting used to I suppose.

One issue I now have is that even when I try to run E D from a separate installation for another commander, Oculus Home loads and I am left with the windowed display on my monitor. I can change that but I can't see the "Enable Rift HMD" in Elite's Options / Graphics. I only see this:

http://i.imgur.com/CPfIzW9.jpg



I suspect that this is because I installed E D in Oculus Home and uninstalling from that library hasn't stopped this - presumably I will have to totally uninstall Oculus to recover the functionality of having my separate commanders.

It's the 1st one under the 3D section. It isn't enable Rift. It is enable HMD (either with speakers or headphones). Your screen capture show you have it set to off right now.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

I fully understood that there would be a reduction in detail from the 1440i I am used to, not a problem, the visuals will just take getting used to I suppose.

One issue I now have is that even when I try to run E D from a separate installation for another commander, Oculus Home loads and I am left with the windowed display on my monitor. I can change that but I can't see the "Enable Rift HMD" in Elite's Options / Graphics. I only see this:

http://i.imgur.com/CPfIzW9.jpg



I suspect that this is because I installed E D in Oculus Home and uninstalling from that library hasn't stopped this - presumably I will have to totally uninstall Oculus to recover the functionality of having my separate commanders.

Rift isn't mentioned in the ED settings. I think it's HMD Enable, I can't remember and I'm not at home. All you need to do is setups all your commanders with VR enabled. I can't see that you will face any problems. Another thing you need to do is map the Centre HMD or whatever they call it in ED. I have it mapped to voice attack. Voice attack is also a must in VR imo.

 

[dogbite]

Also this game needs Super Sampeling. Without it at some decent levels it suffers. I actually returned my original vive cause it was a pixelated mess. Bought another one when they added the ss fixes and it's far far better than what I origionally experienced. That and a 1080 ti let's you push the graphics to the max mostly.

HMD Quality under the "quality" list and SS do similar things. Most here (myself included) seem to prefer increasing hmd and leaving the SS setting at 1 (the games graphics default) for sharpening the graphics. Some even set SS to .65 and HMD to 2.00 percent, but to my way of thinking that just means that the game has to up sample back to default and increase pixel density (hmd quality) at the same time. Test both separately to see which looks better. Doing both makes it harder to find the sweet spot as far as sharpness goes. Any HMD setting above around 1.75 quickly diminishes in detection for most anyway in ED. I can run 2.0 but don't because I can't really see a big difference in Ed and prefer to crank up other settings (shadows and such) instead. Since the Op is only running a GTX1070 I would suggest something around SS 1 HMD 1.25 or maybe 1.5. Set quality high, post processing and motion blur off, shadows low and lower gamma to nearer the bottom. Tweak others to taste and performance goals. Work up or down from there to get the smoothest experience you can live with. Having high frame rates goes a long way to the immersion you get.
The Vive and the Rift are "slightly different in where the pixels located in the "sweet spot" and how thing like asynchronous time warp vs reprojection behave so the tweaking will vary some. User perception will also dictate what settings are preferred as many people with the same setups have varying opinions on what looks best.

 

[Para Handy]

It's the 1st one under the 3D section. It isn't enable Rift. It is enable HMD (either with speakers or headphones). Your screen capture show you have it set to off right now.

HMD Quality under the "quality" list and SS do similar things. ..................

I didn't see anything like that in the 3D section just the usual anglyph and side-by-side in the drop-down - but I expect that was because the Oculus app was hijacking things, the HMD quality was redded-out at 1 as well.

I have uninstalled Oculus for tonight, I'll have a go with it again tomorrow, now that I know (a bit more of) what I am looking for and what to try to avoid. I am hoping that if I don't install E D again Oculus won't start loading with every attempt at starting Elite (uninstalling the whole thing has cured that for now). If it does then that will mean there is somethng left in the registry so I'll have to uininstall and then restore to get rid.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Para Handy]

Rift isn't mentioned in the ED settings. I think it's HMD Enable, I can't remember and I'm not at home. All you need to do is setups all your commanders with VR enabled. I can't see that you will face any problems. Another thing you need to do is map the Centre HMD or whatever they call it in ED. I have it mapped to voice attack. Voice attack is also a must in VR imo.

Thanks again for your help, as I said to dogbite, there was nothing like HMD in the choices, the only thing was the HMD quality fixed at 1 and reddded out. I'll have a good look to do things the way you suggested tomorrow when I re-install the Oculus (I had to uninstall it to get E D to run in non-VR - it had hijacked all).

I do appreciate your help and look forward to coming at it afresh tomorrow, armed with today's experiences.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

In case you are not already aware of it, an essential tool for all VR users is Dr Kaii's excellent ED Profiler https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...er-Robust-Settings-Profiler-Switcher-Detector!

This allows you to:
- easily switch between VR and 2D profiles (graphics settings, UI colour)
- edit UI colours
- run batch files when switching profiles
- start the ED launcher from its interface

If you are getting the Oculus app starting every time you start ED even when you have 3D set to off, I get around this by a) having the Oculus background service set to Manual startup and b) running a batch file in ED Launcher to start or stop the background service as needed (I also have two icons on my taskbar to do the same, which was the method I used before ED Profiler could run batch files).

 

[Para Handy]

.............. offer your detailed computer specs, ..............

I forgot you asked for that, here it is:

i7 6700K @4.00GHz (not OC)
16GB 2400MHz Crucial Ram
ASUS Maximus VIII Hero mobo
GTX 1070 8GB Asus Strix graphics

W7 pro 64bit SP1

465Gb SSD Crucial c:
232GB SSD Samsung d:
4TB WD spinner (e: f: g

Blu-ray burner

BenQ GQ2765 monitor 2560 x 1440


Edit - forgot to include OS - added.

 

[dogbite]

I didn't see anything like that in the 3D section just the usual anglyph and side-by-side in the drop-down - but I expect that was because the Oculus app was hijacking things, the HMD quality was redded-out at 1 as well.

I have uninstalled Oculus for tonight, I'll have a go with it again tomorrow, now that I know (a bit more of) what I am looking for and what to try to avoid. I am hoping that if I don't install E D again Oculus won't start loading with every attempt at starting Elite (uninstalling the whole thing has cured that for now). If it does then that will mean there is somethng left in the registry so I'll have to uininstall and then restore to get rid.

Thanks for your help.

Quite welcome.
You may be right about the Oculus key registration removing the setting. Maybe deleting any leftovers in C:\Program Files\Oculus\Software\Software will do the trick. As I never used an OH launch, I am just guessing though. Perhaps someone who has abandoned the OH method and gone to launching from the Frontier launcher will chime in on this. There may be some old OH files or registry keys that can be removed to avoid a complete install. GL

As an after though, you could try running ED without VR (disconnect the Rift) and see if the missing settings return. If so, then select and restart with your Rift attached. Guessing here.