GTX 980 - My VR Settings

[saviornt]

It seems that some people are having bad experiences in VR with Elite Dangerous, so I've been meaning to share my settings. I am running an i7-950 (3.07 mhz), 12gb RAM, and a Zotac GTX980. Triple monitors (Main Monitor is a 144hz monitor) + the Rift. Please note that these settings are current as of Gamma version 1.05.

BIOS:

Intel HT (hyper-threading): Off / Disabled
Intel Virtualization Technology: Off (Note: This should be On if you run virtual machines.. however, CPU min/max power settings might not be available with it on)

Nvidia Control Panel:

Global Settings:

Ambient Occulusion: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: Application-controlled
Antialiasing - FXAA: On
Antialiasing - Gamma Correction: On
Antialiasing - Mode: Application controlled
Antialiasing - Transparency: Off
CUDA - GPU's - All
DSR Factors - Off
Maximum pre-rendered frames - Use the 3d application setting (Note: I need to test this setting a bit more.. between this and the value of 1)
Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA): Off (Note: I haven't tried testing this setting yet)
Multi-Display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Multiple display performance mode
Power management mode: Adaptive
Preferred refresh rate: Application-controlled
Shader Cache: On
Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization: On
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: Allow
Texture filtering - Quality: Quality
Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization: On
Threaded optimization: Auto
Triple buffering: Off
Vertical sync: Use 3d application setting
Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames: 1

Power Management Settings:

High Performance Advanced Settings:

Processor power management:
- Minimum Processor State: 100%
- Maximum Processor State: 100%

Registry Edits: (You need to restart your computer if you change this)

HKey_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583
ValueMax: 0
ValueMin: 0

Oculus Rift Configuration Utility: Extended Mode

Elite Dangerous Graphic Options:

Display: Tetiary (Note: This will change depending on your Rift display number)
Resolution: 1920x1080
Refresh Rate: 75mhz
Vsync: On
Frame Rate Limit: Off
Field of View: Max
3D(Experimental): Oculus Rift (Headphones)
3D Separation: DO NOT MODIFY
Model Draw Distance: Max
Gamma: 60% or so
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: High
Bloom: High
Blur: On
AntiAliasing: Off

(Everything else below this is set to high, and Oculus Rift Quality is set to max)

 

[tinimark]

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing.

What does the registry edit do and did you find it made any difference?

Also, have you experimented with DSR? At the moment I'm finding it looks better at 1440p with most of the quality settings turned down.

 

[saviornt]

The power management settings and the registry edit disable core parking. I've experimented a bit with DSR, and it gives a significant hit on performance, though I didn't play with DSR and quality settings.

 

[doublefrag]

Resolution: 1920x1080

I wonder, why you do not use supersampling/downsampling with a resolution of maybe 2.880 x 1.620!
It works great with my GTX 970 and the legibility is really much more better

 

[saviornt]

See above.

 

[doublefrag]

I also red about problems with the GTX 980 in the german communityforum.
So I guess, this should be some kind of general problem with these cards!

 

[tinimark]

The power management settings and the registry edit disable core parking. I've experimented a bit with DSR, and it gives a significant hit on performance, though I didn't play with DSR and quality settings.

I would def recommend giving it a shot. I haven't finished experimenting yet but as doublefrag has mentioned, it does seem to improve image quality considerably,especially where reading text is concerned. It does indeed make your card work a lot harder but I found that putting all the ED settings down to low (not Oculus quality setting which I keep on max) it still looks better to me.

 

[saviornt]

The thing is, is that I can read the text just fine. It could be that I'm just getting used to it, but yea.

 

[tinimark]

I can read the text but it takes a bit of effort. It's getting better but like you say...might be just getting used to it.

Getting in the Eagle was a bit of a revelation. Those side panels just seem closer and makes a huge difference. Such I pity I had to flog that Eagle to invest the funds in starting out a trading career.

 

[tommywright]

Your 980 should be able to do Antialiasing with very little difficulty. Nvidia's drivers and the hardware are optimized for doing AA and AO because these are common in gamess. I would try SMAA.

We should list the settings that are the most performance heavy. For me, Texture Quality and Reflection Quality are killers. Try turning Reflections down a notch and turning on AA and AO. I think you'll get a better looking image. AA will help the crawl and jaggies and AO is the contact shadows (nice for detail). Just my opinion though.

 

[BigPickle]

I also red about problems with the GTX 980 in the german communityforum.
So I guess, this should be some kind of general problem with these cards!

No issuses with the 980 here at all, breezes AA no problem too. The real issue for me is the harsh jagged lines and the overall graphical smoothness that ED presents can be much better. Assetto Corsa did it very well and very smooth, virtually no jagged lines at all.

 

[rennarda]

I've just upgraded to a 970 - only a smidge less powerful than the 980 for quite a lot less money. 3D Mark puts it at about the 90th percentile, and firmly puts my rig into the 'high end gaming PC' bracket.

I've been tweaking and fiddling around with graphics settings in E: D and the only thing that seems to make a difference to frame rate is Oculus Rift quality. I want this at the top - that was the point of upgrading - but FPS still isn't high enough for the Rift to feel natural.

OK - I lied - setting the Rift to Direct Mode also affects the frame rate, for the worse. Interestingly though, the GPU usage drops to about 60% when in direct mode, as opposed to 98% in extended. But the frame rate is only 35FPS-ish in direct. WHY ? Why can't I boost it higher if the GPU is 30% idle ?

For comparison, running in 2D mode (yuk!) at 1900x1200 I get 60fps up to 3.5km from a station, and then 30fps - with EVERYTHING on high. These numbers are suspiciously round to me - it seems like they are being deliberately pegged at 1 and 0.5 times screen refresh rate (although I have rate limit off).

(all these frame rates are taken flying just outside a Corolis station in a Cobra)

It's so frustrating. I get the feeling there's a whole bunch of optimisations that can be made somewhere, either by Nvidia, Oculus or Frontier. I really think this hardware can easily drive these scenes at 60FPS+ at this resolution, so something is missing. Hopefully we'll see much better driver level support for the Rift from graphics cards manufactures.

Edit: ok so I had a chance to take the new card for a proper spin and I'm actually really impressed. Whatever the fps numbers might say, everything felt buttery smooth. I was also able to run supersampled directly via nVidia's graphics setting control panel, without having to set up a fake monitor resolution in windows.

 

[tim74uk]

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing.

What does the registry edit do and did you find it made any difference?

Also, have you experimented with DSR? At the moment I'm finding it looks better at 1440p with most of the quality settings turned down.

I think you guys are not factoring in the rest of the computer here.

Things that will help enormously are running an SSD and having fast memory... not to mention ensuring your CPU is optimized and that you are not having any bottleneck issues on your motherboard.

The 980 is more than capable of running Oculus with all settings switched to ultra with supersampling to 4k, at a stable 75fps, so long as the rest of your pc is along for the ride!

CMDR NeoN HaZe

 

[KospY]

Sharing config is nice, but without result and FPS monitoring it's hard to say if everything is really "buttery smooth".
"Smooth", is a completly subjective term. Also, location is important, asteroid belt or station are really not as smooth as open space.

So that will be nice if people provide at least their FPS after waiting 1-2 min (for npc spawning) in :

Open space
Station
Extraction site

With my configuration (Core I5, 8Gb Ram, SSD, GTX 970), I get :

Open space 75 fps
Station 72 fps
Ressource Extraction site 62 fps

As you can see, it's not buttery smooth for me, especially in ressource extraction site. And I have everything set to low in elite (except oculus rift quality slider). So when I saw people doing DSR with one GTX 970 (or DSR 4x with one GTX 980), and saying that everything is fine, I wonder how that can be possible.
I want to see proof (and, if it's really possible, what they did on their computer to achieve that )

 

[tim74uk]

Sharing config is nice, but without result and FPS monitoring it's hard to say if everything is really "buttery smooth".
"Smooth", is a completly subjective term. Also, location is important, asteroid belt or station are really not as smooth as open space.

So that will be nice if people provide at least their FPS after waiting 1-2 min (for npc spawning) in :

Open space
Station
Extraction site

With my configuration (Core I5, 8Gb Ram, SSD, GTX 970), I get :

Open space 75 fps
Station 72 fps
Ressource Extraction site 62 fps

As you can see, it's not buttery smooth for me, especially in ressource extraction site. And I have everything set to low in elite (except oculus rift quality slider). So when I saw people doing DSR with one GTX 970 (or DSR 4x with one GTX 980), and saying that everything is fine, I wonder how that can be possible.
I want to see proof (and, if it's really possible, what they did on their computer to achieve that )

Sure thing... Will provide next time i'm in game.

What speed is your memory? What Mother board?

I'm running an I7 at 4.2ghz which appears to be the only other factor between your rig and mine... though I do have Corsair Dominator ram 8gb running 2700mhz.... Perhaps the computation of the game is more procerssor heavy?

I don't know but using frame lock at 75fps it's Smoooooth all the way through for me.

I'll load fapps and do a vid for you

I'm wondering also if OS has anything to do with the difference? I'm running Win7 Ultimate 64bit....

Either way I guess I should feel lucky to not have to cut back on the graphical niceties that you guys seem to have to....

And I agree enormously with the fellow that said Shadows are important.... they certainly are ma boy! You can't expect to have immersion if you mind is nagging you that it doesn't look and react as reality would.

Peace,

CMDR NeoN HaZe

 

[wingsuit]

thanks for this. I'm going to try out some settings when I get home. I've got a gtx980 and have been getting bad juttering in stations. though I havent downloaded anything to check what my actual fps is in game.

my machine should be capable, this isnt a new graphics card going on an old machine.

heres my specs:
Intel Core I7-5930K 3.70GHZ Six Core 15MB Hyperthreading
16GB 4X4GB DDR4-2400 16-16-16-39 PC4-19200
MSI GeForce GTX 980 TwinFrozr V 1216/1317MHZ 4GB

its been fine in space and outside the stations, its just in the stations that its been bad

 

[tim74uk]

thanks for this. I'm going to try out some settings when I get home. I've got a gtx980 and have been getting bad juttering in stations. though I havent downloaded anything to check what my actual fps is in game.

my machine should be capable, this isnt a new graphics card going on an old machine.

heres my specs:
Intel Core I7-5930K 3.70GHZ Six Core 15MB Hyperthreading
16GB 4X4GB DDR4-2400 16-16-16-39 PC4-19200
MSI GeForce GTX 980 TwinFrozr V 1216/1317MHZ 4GB

its been fine in space and outside the stations, its just in the stations that its been bad

What operating system are you running and do you have an SSD?

Are you Running DK2? do you have the latest run-time?

Cheers,

CMDR NeoN HaZe

 

[hapklaar]

I wonder, why you do not use supersampling/downsampling with a resolution of maybe 2.880 x 1.620!
It works great with my GTX 970 and the legibility is really much more better

Does this setting give a smooth 75fps framerate all the way for you? If I go higher than DSR 1.2 (2304x1440 I think) I get lots of judders. This is on a i7-3770K@4.4Ghz with 16GB ram, SSD and GTX970 OC'ed to the max (+150 GPU/+500 MEM).

I would love to be able to get rid of the moire effect in the menu's and running lines across the screen which look like a colony of ants running around your screen when slowly moving your head in station for example. Doen't how to explain better, but if you have a DK2 I'm sure you understand what I mean