Help getting ED and DK2 working under SteamVR

jonnysalad · Jan 2, 2016

I'm having a real tough time trying to get the DK2 working with ED:Horizons in Windows 10.

Having come back to ED after a good 7 or 8 months away, my system has been through a Windows 10 upgrade from Windows 7 (fresh install), a clean install of the newly purchased Horizons upgrade. Previously under W7, and I had ED and the DK2 working fine.

After scouring the web, I'm assured the the DK2, Windows 10, Rift runtime 0.8 will all play together if I install SteamVR, but I must be missing a step I think.

So, I know the rift is working under W10 and 0.8 - I can display the demo scene from the rift config utility.

Here is the "quick log" from the utility
--------------------
Display Driver Version: C:\WINDOWS\system32\OVRDisplay64.dll not found
Positional Tracker Driver Version: 1.0.14.0

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz

HMD Firmware: 2.12

Connected to OVRService server.
-----------------

I have 2 nVidia GTX570 connectd for SLI but currently disabled, with 2 monitors (primary is 2560x1600x60hz, secondary is 1200x1920x60hz - it's rotated) connected (one on each card via DVI). I have the DK2 connected to the HDMI socket of the card that isn't the primary card.

I set ED to Fullscreen, Primary monitor, 1920x1080, and select HMD (Headphones) (attached screen shot)

Before I click apply, I note I have blue lights on both DK2 and tracker. Afyer apply is clicked, screen goes blank, nothing appears on Dk2. After a few seconds, elite reverts back to settings (presumably because I haven't confirmed the new settings)

Can anyone shed any light on what I'm missing ?

--
Regards, J

BigDuke6ixx · Jan 2, 2016

The rift probably isn't your primary monitor. Try the secondary.

benj · Jan 2, 2016

GTX570 ... I don't like your chances. Yeah it is a DirectX 11 card but Nvidia drivers have a way of leaving old hardware behind. It might be that DK2 DirectMode with SteamVR requires some driver support.

So what you are trying to do works great for me on my GTX780. So it "could" work for you if you are lucky.

Try this.

---
- Upgrade SteamVR inside Steam to use the SteamVR BETA.
- Actually setup your SteamVR Room. You have to do the wizard and you can't choose Roomscale ... it has to be Standing/Sitting only.
- Change display to "Windowed" in ED:H

You are going to have to turn everything WAY down to get the framerate required. Even if you get a picture in your HMD ... don't expect miracles.

jonnysalad · Jan 2, 2016

BigDuke6ixx said:
The rift probably isn't your primary monitor. Try the secondary.

I don't even get the option of a secondary - but I thought that was only for extended mode anyway ?

jonnysalad · Jan 2, 2016

benj said:
GTX570 ... I don't like your chances. Yeah it is a DirectX 11 card but Nvidia drivers have a way of leaving old hardware behind. It might be that DK2 DirectMode with SteamVR requires some driver support.

So what you are trying to do works great for me on my GTX780. So it "could" work for you if you are lucky.

Yeah, I know I'm chancing it a bit - I guess I thought as it worked so well under windows 7 and 0.5 driver, there was no reason it shouldn't be as good.

benj said:
Try this.

---
- Upgrade SteamVR inside Steam to use the SteamVR BETA.
- Actually setup your SteamVR Room. You have to do the wizard and you can't choose Roomscale ... it has to be Standing/Sitting only.
- Change display to "Windowed" in ED:H

So, upgrade to SteamVR beta OK
When I "start" SteamVR, I get "Compositor is not available" (attached screenshot), then I get a popup "Init failed with Unable to initialize necessary OpenVR interfaces"

I'm unable to run room setup as it thinks the headset is off

benj · Jan 2, 2016

The only other thing is Nvidia Drivers.

Display Driver Version: C:\WINDOWS\system32\OVRDisplay64.dll not found

Is that an error in your config message.

Mine says
Display Driver Version: 1.2.8.0
Positional Tracker Driver Version: 1.0.14.0

Look for Nvidia drivers that mention Rift 0.8.0.0 compatibility or VR support. I had to upgrade my drivers to get Rift 0.8.0.0 runtime to work.

Jiminimonka · Jan 2, 2016

You can get Rift working under windows 10 with SDK 0.8 using Steam VR (and an nvidia card, in my case its a GTX 970)

I run elite from Steam in VR mode (its an option on the launcher in steam)
I set it to run on my second monitor in game - and when I put on the headset it runs fine on Oculus with a few setting tweaks which will different for every machine.
To get the refresh rate to 75, I set my second monitor in windows to run at a lower resolution (1024x768).

The latest Nvidia drivers support VR out of the box, no need for special ones anymore.

Minimum spec for VR is a lot higer than a GTX570, not sure you will get an enjoyable puke free experience with that card but if you had it working under Windows 7 there is no reason you can't also do the same under windows 10 - SteamVR saves the day while frontier are slacking on the Oculus support.

jonnysalad · Jan 2, 2016

I totally bailed on Windows 10. I rolled back to Windiws 7, and managed to get it working. Frankly quite disappointed in frontiers lack of support for rift as it stands.