Ok thanks. That's something to look forward to later at Least!
Does anyone else think that the scale issue is combining with the already fewer number of pixels per degree of visual angle might be the cause of the perceived difference between vive and rift? And that by fixing scale alone might bring them much closer?
An image painted pixel-wise across a 'larger' angular degree sector, because fewer pixels per degree, would make things look larger on the Vive than the Rift, not the other way around.
Aside from just FOV we don't know the relative optics between the two in great detail. Sure, one uses Fresnel lenses and the other uses modified Fresnel lenses to spread the small screen images over their FOV, but what's the nodal point of the virtual image? What's the effective view distance of that nodal point? Etc.
I think I read that the two are mapping things slightly differently. e.g. if you were to put your eye point at the center of a virtual sphere with latitude and longitude lines, then project those lines forward to the actual pixels that need to best generate that visual effect to the eyeball...it wouldn't be the same pixel on each screen(and not just a scaled version from one to the other). Maybe one unit has the two screens mounted coplanar while in the other they're slightly off of coplanarity, for example (haven't seen a side by side teardown).
I do use the RenderTarget switch at 1.8 and in-game at 0.75. It definitely helps with the text clarity. Using AMD I've turned on the morphological anti-aliasing option which is a kind of full-screen softener postprocessor pass and that helps with edge jaggies *a little*. The workload on the card (Fury, non-X) is pretty tough though and does require reprojection especially in stations with screen overlays. The depth of field to me is the biggest issue - all the cockpit holographic UI (especially the central 'aim dot') are way too close...and no I can't just lean in and re-center then lean back because then my "shoulders" (the pilot solid) get in the way annoyingly when I turn my head (and I clip through the seat looking 'up'). The pilot does look exagerratedly perspective-shrunk if I look down at "myself", and that's without jacking with the FOV slider to get it out of range, either. Contrasting other Vive titles like Steam's The Lab (especially the calibration cube one for example) I can see how good detailed moving graphics (all the crates and such tumbling, all the asplodey stuff) *can* look on the Vive even given the pixel limit, and I have to agree with others that Elite isn't at that limit right now. There's definitely things that need fixing.
I can play, and won't throw a tantrum and claim it's ruining my life. Sometimes 3440x1440 is more desirable anyway...although it's ironic I can run that rez with all eye candy turned way up but have difficulties with about the same rez (effective, 2 eye render) the Vive but have to kill ambient occlusion and turn shadow and reflection quality way down. But I do want Frontier to keep they eye on the ball and get a true render fix implemented when they can, so happy to do my part to keep this thread bumped.