Good Bye VR

[Good Death]

So I've taken a long brake from Elite and any other VR titles. Today I played ED in pancake and I was just blow away by the beauty and crispness I was able to achieve. So so long VR your immersion and sense of scale have worn off, my eyes shall not be forced to puke no longer. It was a rocky relationship after all. Constantly trying to convince my self that things would work out but much like my ex-wife you were a constant thorn in my backside. Now if I can find an 80" curved TV and dig out the Ed Tracker.

 

[Sysmon]

3 curved ultrawides without edges and you are set.

S

 

[CylonSurfer]

So I've taken a long brake from Elite and any other VR titles. Today I played ED in pancake and I was just blow away by the beauty and crispness I was able to achieve. So so long VR your immersion and sense of scale have worn off, my eyes shall not be forced to puke no longer. It was a rocky relationship after all. Constantly trying to convince my self that things would work out but much like my ex-wife you were a constant thorn in my backside. Now if I can find an 80" curved TV and dig out the Ed Tracker.

Yuk, flat screen gaming... how boring! What HMD did you use? Ha, I remember using TrackIR more than a decade ago, more trouble than it was worth when used on a 2D screen, still it did come in handy when I started using HMDs which didn't include 6DoF tracking back then.

 

[Ashnak]

Try it again with an HP Reverb...

 

[AlSki]

I know how you feel, text in ED always seems blurry and unreadable, there's just a bit too much screen door effect on my rift etc, but I found that by completely turning off anti-aliasing, and running Ultra with HMD at 1.5x, I get everything pin sharp. (Just with some jaggies that anti-aliasing would have cured). If only there was a "Don't anti-alias text" option

 

[davinator791]

I've used TrackIR for a long time then bought Valve Index a few months ago just for this game and never regretted.

 

[Castillo]

Well, it seems VR just isn't for everyone. I do miss the details of playing desktop, but I enjoy the immersion of VR way too much. To each their own I suppose.

 

[Wildcat67]

Fair enough, but for me HP Reverb + HOTAS + Voicepak == Bliss

 

[Old Duck]

I've gone in the opposite direction, where I just can't get back "in" to games I used to love, like Space Engineers, because they are so "flat" now. This means that I no longer have any direct alternatives / competitors to ED, because it's the only game of its kind that does VR so well. And if my Rift S dies, so does ED.

 

[Good Death]

Yuk, flat screen gaming... how boring! What HMD did you use? Ha, I remember using TrackIR more than a decade ago, more trouble than it was worth when used on a 2D screen, still it did come in handy when I started using HMDs which didn't include 6DoF tracking back then.

I actually had a great time pancaking it up. CV1.

Try it again with an HP Reverb...

No thanks not a big enough jump in tech.

I know how you feel, text in ED always seems blurry and unreadable, there's just a bit too much screen door effect on my rift etc, but I found that by completely turning off anti-aliasing, and running Ultra with HMD at 1.5x, I get everything pin sharp. (Just with some jaggies that anti-aliasing would have cured). If only there was a "Don't anti-alias text" option

I've been tweaking all that stuff since day one. It's just not gonna work babe. Immersion was on a good level yesterday Ed Tracker Wireless up and running.

I've gone in the opposite direction, where I just can't get back "in" to games I used to love, like Space Engineers, because they are so "flat" now. This means that I no longer have any direct alternatives / competitors to ED, because it's the only game of its kind that does VR so well. And if my Rift S dies, so does ED.

I've been there but then the magic wore off and I came to my senses.

 

[CylonSurfer]

I actually had a great time pancaking it up. CV1.

Ah CV1 - that would explain a lot. Not a great HMD by todays standards, looking at your PC specs from other posts it would seem you wouldn't have had any headroom to apply super sampling in order to improve the visuals, then again the anti-aliasing used by FDEV in this game is really bad and VR does it no favours...

Personally, if the only choice was to play this title in 2D on a monitor (curved or otherwise) or not at all, I'd choose not at all. VR is the most immersive way to enjoy content, playing in 2D on a screen just isn't. I've been using HMDs of one type or another for the past 8 - 9 years, I wouldn't go back to playing on a 2D screen. The very thought of playing a game that was not in VR makes my throat dry with boredom.

 

[Old Duck]

Ah CV1 - that would explain a lot. Not a great HMD by todays standards, looking at your PC specs from other posts it would seem you wouldn't have had any headroom to apply super sampling in order to improve the visuals, then again the anti-aliasing used by FDEV in this game is really bad and VR does it no favours...

Personally, if the only choice was to play this title in 2D on a monitor (curved or otherwise) or not at all, I'd choose not at all. VR is the most immersive way to enjoy content, playing in 2D on a screen just isn't. I've been using HMDs or one type or another for 8 - 9 years, I wouldn't go back to playing on a 2D screen.

I was thinking the same thing, as my experience is far and above "making my eyes puke" like the OP states it. My Rift S with high to ultra settings and a >1 HMD, along with my own special mods, looks pretty darn amazing IMO. In fact my visual experience in VR is far, far, far better than the flickering Elephant-butt-leather lag-fest that the PS4 was. Text is crisp and clear, stars look great, framerate is smooth (except in High CZs), no noticeable SDE, shadows are awesome My only complaints are the god rays and lack of dynamic range (brights vs. darks) with my LCD Rift S.

Now if I were playing ED on a top-end 60" 4K HDR TV with ultra settings on everything, I might feel differently, though flat is flat regardless of the resolution. Then again, if I had such a nice flat screen, I'd probably be playing Space Engineers or Star Citizen or something other than ED. My recent love for VR is what has kept ED running on my computer during this "old era" of content drought.

 

[Eliza]

I've gone in the opposite direction, where I just can't get back "in" to games I used to love, like Space Engineers, because they are so "flat" now. This means that I no longer have any direct alternatives / competitors to ED, because it's the only game of its kind that does VR so well. And if my Rift S dies, so does ED.

Like it happend to me, when my Rift went south some years ago. Tried "Pancake-ED". It lasted 20 min. before I switched off because of slight disgust.
Okay...4k is great and such, but the feeling of flying a spaceship was simply non-existent.

 

[Good Death]

Opinions are like rectums. I've tried out and seen all the new headsets out there. Honestly (my opinion) there's just not enough of a difference from the CV1. Definitely not enough for me to warrant throwing away decent hardware. Just about every headset I've tried has its shortcomings. And that is why I chose to take that break to wean myself off of the immersion that VR brings. Maybe in a few more years I'll get back into it but until then I'll be enjoying my pancake. Stalker alert!

 

[AlSki]

Maybe in a few more years I'll get back into it but until then I'll be enjoying my pancake. Stalker alert!

Well at least you will still be around

I will admit I am slightly worried that all the new features in the new era might actually be better in pancake than VR. When I ran the FSS in pancake recently I was really surprised just how much animation is missing from the VR version, but it makes sense to avoid Motion sickness. I think my worst experience was probably trying to do a base run in an SRV that was thrown around by exploding missiles, and so lets hope that the new flight sequences make up for any space leg related sequences.

 

[Old Duck]

Opinions are like rectums. I've tried out and seen all the new headsets out there. Honestly (my opinion) there's just not enough of a difference from the CV1. Definitely not enough for me to warrant throwing away decent hardware. Just about every headset I've tried has its shortcomings. And that is why I chose to take that break to wean myself off of the immersion that VR brings. Maybe in a few more years I'll get back into it but until then I'll be enjoying my pancake. Stalker alert!

What I like about ED is that it lets you seamlessly switch between playing VR in one session and "pancake" in the next, and it does a good job at both. Skyrim requires two separate games (and thus separate saves) to achieve this!

 

[CylonSurfer]

I've tried out and seen all the new headsets out there. Honestly (my opinion) there's just not enough of a difference from the CV1.

The difference between a CV1 and a Valve Index is pretty large mate. The lack of a screen door effect really boosts the image quality and the higher res screens help in almost all areas of the game. Hell, even the Rift S is vastly superior to the CV1 when it comes to both SDE and resolution.

Of course it is your choice entirely if you drop VR. For me personally, if the only things I had available were a 4k display or an Oculus DK1, I'd choose to use the DK1 purely due to the immersion VR adds to games which 2D displays can never come close to matching. Don't even get me started on curved TVs - they're biggest gimmick ever!

 

[Rock Hunter]

I'm still trying to get my head around the difference I've found since switching from an i7 6700K, GTX 1070 and 16Gb Ram on my Odyssey and the settings that allowed me (which I thought was amazing, with just a few "if onlys") to the set up my new i9 9900ks, RTX 2080Ti and 32Gb Ram allows me. I'm amazed at how good the game looks with Ultra everything (bar the usual stuff VR doesn't need) with my old Odyssey headset. It's a weird case of small yet significant differences. I came into VR all too aware of the opinions regarding relative lack of resolution and perceived quality but from the off I've been very pleasantly surprised, balance that with the sheer joy of being inside my ship, car or aircraft and my only concerns are around continued support.

The best thing about pancake mode for me is it doesn't have the same devasting affect to my bank balance as VR seems to. With the new set-up I'm far more aware of SDE than ever before and if the Reverb had similar blacks to my Odyssey I'd be losing cash there too. Then again, Elite has me looking at the Virpil Constellation HOTAS grip at the moment so perhaps this game is simply named Dangerous for its ability to make its players spend way too much cash whenever they're weak. I am weak.

 

[Old Duck]

The best thing about pancake mode for me is

The best thing about pancake mode for me is that I can easily get up and do the dishes while stuck in those long supercruise runs.

 

[Rock Hunter]

The best thing about pancake mode for me is that I can easily get up and do the dishes while stuck in those long supercruise runs.

The best thing about VR is the only dishes I need to do is the odd coffee mug, nothing else exists. I won't even fly a Fed ship as there are too many coffee makers that will eventually need washing