Help with setting up ED on Meta Quest 3

[Dreamcaster]

Hi everyone,
old Beta Player (since 2014, purchased the Beta version on Kickstarter). Have been on a loooooong hiatus (several years), but now wanna go back to playing the game.
I have in the meantime purchased a Meta Quest 3 and tried to play the game today, to no avail.
I think I launched the game using the remote desktop but surely this is not the right way to play it in VR.
I have no Steam version of the game, just the stand-alone Frontier store one.
Please help.

 

[Arioch]

Hi everyone,
old Beta Player (since 2014, purchased the Beta version on Kickstarter). Have been on a loooooong hiatus (several years), but now wanna go back to playing the game.
I have in the meantime purchased a Meta Quest 3 and tried to play the game today, to no avail.
I think I launched the game using the remote desktop but surely this is not the right way to play it in VR.
I have no Steam version of the game, just the stand-alone Frontier store one.
Please help.

Quick version:

If you have the stand-alone launcher version then you need to do the following:

• Download & install Oculus desktop software
• Enable “external sources” in the software
• Connect your Quest 3 with either a USB-C cable or wireless AirLink
• Start Elite, go into Graphics options, 3D section, and enable “HMD headphones”

 

[Dreamcaster]

Hi,
thanks for your reply.
By Oculus Desktop Software, you mean the Meta Quest Link program?
External sources enabled.
Connected MQ3 via 5 Gbps USB type-c to type-1 cable, tested and the speed is 2.2 Gbps...
Cannot find the option you mentioned, though. HMD headphones is not on the list.
I am playing the Legacy Horizon version. Maybe that's why?

Quick version:

If you have the stand-alone launcher version then you need to do the following:

• Download & install Oculus desktop software
• Enable “external sources” in the software
• Connect your Quest 3 with either a USB-C cable or wireless AirLink
• Start Elite, go into Graphics options, 3D section, and enable “HMD headphones”

 

[Arioch]

Hi,
thanks for your reply.
By Oculus Desktop Software, you mean the Meta Quest Link program?
External sources enabled.
Connected MQ3 via 5 Gbps USB type-c to type-1 cable, tested and the speed is 2.2 Gbps...
Cannot find the option you mentioned, though. HMD headphones is not on the list.
I am playing the Legacy Horizon version. Maybe that's why?

With your Q3 connected, go into the desktop view in the headset (it’s on the bottom selection bar thing).
Start up Elite while wearing your headset and you should get the game on a virtual flatscreen - if you go into the game options you should see the HMD options.

You could also add /vr to the game shortcut icon command line.

 

[Dreamcaster]

With your Q3 connected, go into the desktop view in the headset (it’s on the bottom selection bar thing).
Start up Elite while wearing your headset and you should get the game on a virtual flatscreen - if you go into the game options you should see the HMD options.

You could also add /vr to the game shortcut icon command line.

Thank you very much.
That worked!
What about the graphic settings and resolution? Even if I increase the resolution that does not seem to affect what I see in the MQ3. What are the recommended settings?

 

[Arioch]

Thank you very much.
That worked!
What about the graphic settings and resolution? Even if I increase the resolution that does not seem to affect what I see sing the MQ3. What are the recommended settings?

The in-game resolution setting will only affect the monitor view - so you can put this to a low setting and it will save a tiny bit of performance.

To increase the clarity in your Q3 you can change the HMDQ setting. I have Super Sampling at 1.0 and HMDQ at 1.25 (these settings are cumulative and both do the same thing in slightly different ways - HMDQ is the more efficient way so I’d recommend playing with that). The VR preset levels are massively outdated and I’d stay away from them.

As for graphic settings, that all depends on your hardware. I’d knock off stuff like depth of field and blur for a start, then it’s a balancing act between HMDQ and the other settings - I prefer HMDQ 1.25 and other graphical stuff at High/Ultra though other people prefer the highest clarity they can manage and have lower settings to compensate.

Tinkering is the way ahead I’m afraid

 

[aXeL]

Q3 uses the same Broadcom Snapdragon processor XR2 as in my Pico 4U. Ergo there is some GPU work you can 'offload' to the headset. Upscaling and CAS I do on the headset rather than in the game. I used to use HMD 1.5x but now I do HMD 1.25x and let the headset do the upscaling internally. For the same reason, I don't use any of the supersampling techniques and just set CAS to 60% in the headset. Since the Q3 has the same HW capabilities as mine, you should be able to set this in your Quest software.

Disclaimer: It's unlikely that the settings which I'm 'offloading' to the headset to improve the GPU performance, are equivalent ( or even that I'm using the right ones! ) but it's a lot of fun tinkering with how much processing I can move to the headset and, in principle, improve frame times.

Those Snapdragons are powerful. It's nice having a hardware VR accelerator in the headset. I think this will be the way forward. I've not been able to do anything to push my VRGPU above ~30% ( more like 25%, IMO ). My poor little 3090 can't push it enough to tax it. Still, 5090 arrives in a few days and I'll see if that can give it a run for it's money. Probably not.

 

[Arioch]

Q3 uses the same Broadcom Snapdragon processor XR2 as in my Pico 4U. Ergo there is some GPU work you can 'offload' to the headset. Upscaling and CAS I do on the headset rather than in the game. I used to use HMD 1.5x but now I do HMD 1.25x and let the headset do the upscaling internally. For the same reason, I don't use any of the supersampling techniques and just set CAS to 60% in the headset. Since the Q3 has the same HW capabilities as mine, you should be able to set this in your Quest software.

Disclaimer: It's unlikely that the settings which I'm 'offloading' to the headset to improve the GPU performance, are equivalent ( or even that I'm using the right ones! ) but it's a lot of fun tinkering with how much processing I can move to the headset and, in principle, improve frame times.

Those Snapdragons are powerful. It's nice having a hardware VR accelerator in the headset. I think this will be the way forward. I've not been able to do anything to push my VRGPU above ~30% ( more like 25%, IMO ). My poor little 3090 can't push it enough to tax it. Still, 5090 arrives in a few days and I'll see if that can give it a run for it's money. Probably not.

It’s not possible to do SnapDragon upscaling from the Quest 3 settings - unless you purchase Virtual Desktop for Quest.

 

[aXeL]

Oh that's mean. For the P4U it's configurable in the headset menu. Could there be something tucked away in a menu setting on your Q3 itself and you've just not come across it yet? My menus are not exactly intuitive, some settings took effort to find the first few times, I had to write down how to navigate to them. It shouldn't need a 3rd party app or even a PC app for that matter. However, I don't own a Quest so I'm merely making assumptions based on a common processor.

 

[Arioch]

Oh that's mean. For the P4U it's configurable in the headset menu. Could there be something tucked away in a menu setting on your Q3 itself and you've just not come across it yet? My menus are not exactly intuitive, some settings took effort to find the first few times, I had to write down how to navigate to them. It shouldn't need a 3rd party app or even a PC app for that matter. However, I don't own a Quest so I'm merely making assumptions based on a common processor.

There’s nothing in the headset or desktop software menus as far as I can see - but after a little more digging it looks like there is a setting in the OculusDebugTool (separate PC software, but free unlike Virtual Desktop) that enables SnapDragon Super Resolution: setting “Link Sharpening” to “Quality” enables it.

As an added bonus you can drop the FOV-Tangent Multiplier for a little extra performance as well; I have mine set at Horizontal 0.95 - Vertical 0.90 and can’t see the reduced edges.

 

[aXeL]

Thanks for the tip about the FOV multipliers, it never even occurred to me to look for this, I learned something new