HTC Vive resolution and focus

theEmohawk · Jun 30, 2016

wstephenson said:
I wonder whether Frontier could use an adaptive renderTargetMultiplier, depending what's on the screen?

I read somewhere (sorry can't remember where) that The Lab uses some adaptive supersampling and that the openVR API supports this. Sorry, vague information but I suspect the answer is that if FDev got some help from Steam then adaptive image quality might be possible.

Harmoniser said:
I might be nieve but why was never a option within the steam VR settings? I know you need a lot of horse power to get it running but that can't be the only reason.

I'm very happy!!! [yesnod]

ED has it's own supersampling method, which doesn't work as well as the API-level method. So the option was there in the settings, just more limited and didn't give the same results.

J'Zargo · Jun 30, 2016

theEmohawk said:
I read somewhere (sorry can't remember where) that The Lab uses some adaptive supersampling and that the openVR API supports this. Sorry, vague information but I suspect the answer is that if FDev got some help from Steam then adaptive image quality might be possible.

Here is a talk by Alex Vlachos, one of the lead VR developers at Valve. One of the topics he is covering is 'Adaptive Quality', which they implemented into the Aperture Demo in the Lab. They have made this ( and a lot of other techniques) freely available as Unity rendering plugin, so it is not part of the SteamVR runtime.

After watching this talk and more in general this talk as well, I think FDev might have quite some amount of work ahead of them putting all this stuff into their COBRA engine. So it might be a good sign if they are actively getting help from the outside ( maybe even Valve itself, but that might be wishful thinking on my side).

Anyways, these talks show you just how insanely complex VR rendering really is and how young those techniques still are.

Zatoichie · Jun 30, 2016

Aio said:
Why on Earth would super sampling damage the hmd? It is like the argument that heavy metal would damage the loudspeaker..

Lol well I don't know that's why I asked. But thanks for the clarification.

CMDR StackOfCups · Jul 1, 2016

Mike Kangaroo said:
the bridge of my Anaconda was an awesome experience, bad graphics and all , then dog fighting in my Courier in an asteroid belt, oh man, so much fun.

That worked? You were able to just get up and walk around and it didn't break things?

BillD · Jul 1, 2016

babypowder84 said:
Lol well I don't know that's why I asked. But thanks for the clarification.

Super sampling should not confused with overclocking or changing output clock frequency (which could kill old analogue monitors) .
Super sampling is rendering to a higher Screen resolution in the card t and then down sampling it to the device's native resolution on output. The down sampling is done in a way that improves the quality of the final image. The only real bad affect of super sampling is that the rendering reduces the frame rate and with silly high multiplier values will exceed the ram in the vid card and cause all sort of graphics issues. Nothing will get damaged unless you card has a faulty cooler and overheats, but it would do that under load regardless of the resolution.

Gazwarke · Jul 1, 2016

BillD said:
Super sampling should not confused with overclocking or changing output clock frequency (which could kill old analogue monitors) .
Super sampling is rendering to a higher Screen resolution in the card t and then down sampling it to the device's native resolution on output. The down sampling is done in a way that improves the quality of the final image. The only real bad affect of super sampling is that the rendering reduces the frame rate and with silly high multiplier values will exceed the ram in the vid card and cause all sort of graphics issues. Nothing will get damaged unless you card has a faulty cooler and overheats, but it would do that under load regardless of the resolution.

.65 in game ss is a massive improvement to performance whilst using this newly discovered external rendering method. Is it possible Frontier could provide an even lower option than .65?

Calv45 · Jul 1, 2016

Angry Fish Smell said:
Coming in late to the VR game-- I heard the Vive and ED had serious issues, are they now completely resolved/resolvable or just "better than they were before"? I'm kinda opposed to the Oculus for...reasons...nowadays, but E is basically the sole reason I'd be picking up a VR headset in the first place, so getting reassurance that it wouldn't be a total waste of money would make me a happy camper indeed.

I have a Vive and Oculus CV1.If i had to choose it would be the Vive,easy decision.Changing the SS multiplier in the steamvr config file has now made ED and alot of other games look amazing.It's not perfect but not so far from it now.You won't be disappointed.It's a gift to yourself that will keep on giving.Enjoy

Mike Kangaroo · Jul 1, 2016

Calv45 said:
I have a Vive and Oculus CV1.If i had to choose it would be the Vive,easy decision.Changing the SS multiplier in the steamvr config file has now made ED and alot of other games look amazing.It's not perfect but not so far from it now.You won't be disappointed.It's a gift to yourself that will keep on giving.Enjoy

This! Roomscale added so much more to an experience than I was expecting.

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CMDR StackOfCups said:
That worked? You were able to just get up and walk around and it didn't break things?

Yeah of course. I have actually bought several ships now just so I can walk around and explore their bridges. One of the recent patches to Elite actually fixed pilot seats because they were flat and missing texture before, now there is detail behind them, the Imperial Courier has quite a snazzy chair now

Harmoniser · Jul 1, 2016

Hello, could someone send me the user name or link to the people who got the multiplier to work. It would be nice to thanks or send them a donation.

Cheers

Aio · Jul 1, 2016

Calv45 said:
I have a Vive and Oculus CV1.If i had to choose it would be the Vive,easy decision.Changing the SS multiplier in the steamvr config file has now made ED and alot of other games look amazing.It's not perfect but not so far from it now.You won't be disappointed.It's a gift to yourself that will keep on giving.Enjoy

More fuel to the conspiracy theory

rauwman · Jul 1, 2016

2.5 Thats just amazing, it works! Looks fanatastic

.... using the ChaperoneSwitcher.
Update:
After some playtime.... best Setting is 2.0 in steam and 0.65 ingame + SSA.... (90FPS) on 2.0 Steam and 1.0 ingame + SSA it only runs @45FPS inspected in Frame Sync ...
Testet with gtx1080

CMDR StackOfCups · Jul 1, 2016

I've got a Rx 480 enroute and I'm wanting to get a Vive the beginning of August. It's sounding like the higher SS multiplier the better? How high do you guys think the rx 480 can go while maintaining 90fps?

imski · Jul 1, 2016

Likely 1.5, but it's worth playing around a bit

BillD · Jul 1, 2016

Calv45 said:
I have a Vive and Oculus CV1.If i had to choose it would be the Vive,easy decision.Changing the SS multiplier in the steamvr config file has now made ED and alot of other games look amazing.It's not perfect but not so far from it now.You won't be disappointed.It's a gift to yourself that will keep on giving.Enjoy

Yes early on I was using the CV1 with its super sampling but one thing that really stood out as a negative (well two) the godrays of course and the posterisation of the faint galaxy colours. Its like it was only in 12 bit colour with the transitions from black to red being very patchy. Maybe thats why oculus seems to render faster for the same SS values (less colour depth to render)
The Vive handles the faint transitions so much better and its more vibrant colour adds impact to the galaxy. I like VR High with Ultra Shadows, so I am still experimenting with the best combo of values to keep the framerates at 90.

MixedupJim · Jul 2, 2016

I can also confirm things are much better using the Render Target Multiplier and then choosing 0.65 Supersample in game....very strange why that works!

For comparison I have a Nvidia Titan Black & i7 4820K @ 4.5ghz and can run at 1.75 in steam and 0.65 in game but I do have to turn shadows down low and a few other bits off to get perfect motion when docked in a station.

Now if Frontier could just use either a better font and/or increase the size of the side displays it would be perfect.

Mike Kangaroo · Jul 2, 2016

I haven't decided which is better yet.

1) SuperSampling at 0.85 and RenderTargetMultiplier at 1.5 and get 90fps
2) SuperSampling at 0.65 and RenderTargetMultiplier at 2.0 and get 90fps

overclocked i7 and one of my GTX980's

come on frontier, be the first to offer VR Sli!

vizvayu · Jul 2, 2016

Mike Kangaroo said:
I haven't decided which is better yet.

1) SuperSampling at 0.85 and RenderTargetMultiplier at 1.5 and get 90fps
2) SuperSampling at 0.65 and RenderTargetMultiplier at 2.0 and get 90fps

overclocked i7 and one of my GTX980's

come on frontier, be the first to offer VR Sli!

What settings are you using? BTW did you check using the Frame Timing tool from SteamVR? Try inside a station and close to a planet. It shouldn't get over 11msec. CPU or GPU. Just to be sure it's not simply running at 45fps all the time, sometimes is not that easy to notice.

Mike Kangaroo · Jul 3, 2016

I am using VR low with a little more terrain added and special fx. I am very sensitive to frame rates (doesn't make me nauseous just makes me annoyed

) I hadn't actually seen that frame rate timing thing before, I am right at 10 and occasionally it spikes, but only for a second, being inside a station seems ok, only when there is more going on (a fight in a haz res site saw it do this from time to time). very interesting. my cards are still default clocked and have had a very easy life up to now. Might overclock a touch just to stop those spikes.

vizvayu · Jul 3, 2016

Mike Kangaroo said:
I am using VR low with a little more terrain added and special fx. I am very sensitive to frame rates (doesn't make me nauseous just makes me annoyed ) I hadn't actually seen that frame rate timing thing before, I am right at 10 and occasionally it spikes, but only for a second, being inside a station seems ok, only when there is more going on (a fight in a haz res site saw it do this from time to time). very interesting. my cards are still default clocked and have had a very easy life up to now. Might overclock a touch just to stop those spikes.

In my case most of those spikes are CPU related. You can check watching the CPU graph (the top one) and you'll see the same spike in both graphs. It doesn't really mean that the game is limited by the CPU.... many times the CPU is just waiting for I/O (hard disk/sdd or network) and the game for some reason stops the graphic output temporarily while waiting for the CPU.

I liked the render target multiplier very much, but if I run in VR Low I really miss all the shadows and blooms and effects. So right now I'm running almost all in ultra smaa (except shadows=medium and occlusion=off) without any ss or multiplier. It's blocky but I haven't lost hope for FD to fix the antialiasing and performance issues.

Mike Kangaroo · Jul 3, 2016

yeah I can run the Vive in Ultra if I leave everything alone and sometimes go back and forth. I'd love to keep all the details at maximum and up the resolution a touch, but that will have to wait until new gfx card (saving up for whatever is released that is an upgraded to the 1080). Or Frontier could.. fix the dam thing...