Increase pixel density - VIVE - improve text readability

[ElectricZ]

From here...

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=169141

Only one ED player in the thread so far (msg 19) but says it makes for a huge improvement in text readability, though of course it costs performance. Still, it's a simple change and worth trying out. Gonna try it when I get home from work tonight.

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How to:

go to your steam install path for me this is C:\Games\Steam for many it will be C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam
Enter the config directory
Open steamvr.vrsettings in notepad or your preferred text editor(sublime etc not word)
Under "steamvr" add "renderTargetMultiplier": 2.5 (with a multiplier of your choice)

IMPORTANT: between each item there should be a , EXCEPT for the last one(so Python programmers beware)

Mine looks like this for example:
Code:

"steamvr" : {
"allowReprojection" : true,
"background" : "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\ViveSetup\\Updater\\viveNight.png",
"renderTargetMultiplier": 2.5
},

Notice my renderTargetMutliplier has no trailing ,

Beware this will affect all games so you may want to adjust or remove it between games. You may also need to tweak your graphics settings again.

Finally... PROFIT

 

[cmdr awesome]

I can confirm - I set this to 1.5 and had no dropped frames sat in the station, and everything looks SO MUCH SHARPER!

Strictly speaking though this is supersampling - the term "pixel density" refers to the screen hardware.

 

[shadragon]

Curious what the performance impact is and what range of numbers are acceptable.

Do you know what this is actually doing?

Maybe Dr Kaii can add this value to his Graphics Tool.

 

[Kroy]

Need to update the thread topic title like the post on reddit. Perhaps a mod can help if you can't do it directly by editing your post.

Not very scientific, but a couple of folks have now said it makes text more legible at the expense of performance.

How is this any different from the in-game supersampling option that FDev already provided via ingame options menu?

 

[Mike Kangaroo]

It will affect the performance just like setting SS in game would. Setting it in the Vive just gives you more freedom. you can set 1.215 for example. you are not locked to 1, 1.5 2 etc.

 

[stumblingdrunk]

It will affect the performance just like setting SS in game would. Setting it in the Vive just gives you more freedom. you can set 1.215 for example. you are not locked to 1, 1.5 2 etc.

I have a 1080 and when I try 2.0 SS in elite its a juddery mess, I just did this as 2.0 in the config file and its not juddering at all. Im sure reprojection will kick in during stations/planets but a space battle just looked amazing and text is pretty much spot on. The only negative seems to be more screen door effect, but I just flew next to a cobra and it looks beautiful. Give it a go guys its a game changer graphically.

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

There are several improvements you can make to performance and quality.

I used the Rifts debug tool, you get with the free SDK. There you can set Pixel per Display without the need of code.

Second, i forbid my system to park cpu cores. You can find those settings in the advanced energy save stuff (i use a Windows version with german localization, so i dont know the exact function in english). Set minimum cpu speed power to 100% and you get much less juddering and those grey flashes you read of here in the forums can also be eliminated by doing that.

I heard, setting your monitor to a 75 hz setting should also help with a smoother VR experience. I did so, but i did not recognize any improvements. However, better to do everything to ensure good VR performance.

 

[PvtTUX]

The Vive has no debug tool as of yet, hence the config change the OP had posted but good suggestion about the CPU cores .

I've just tried the steamvr change and used 1.5, it makes quite a difference from what I can tell.

 

[stumblingdrunk]

I have a 1080 and when I try 2.0 SS in elite its a juddery mess, I just did this as 2.0 in the config file and its not juddering at all. Im sure reprojection will kick in during stations/planets but a space battle just looked amazing and text is pretty much spot on. The only negative seems to be more screen door effect, but I just flew next to a cobra and it looks beautiful. Give it a go guys its a game changer graphically.

Sadly after trying stations they go back to being a juddery mess at 2.0. That said the sweet spot for my 1080 and 3570k seems to be VR High, SMAA and set the render target at 1.65. Looks great, cant wait for the further fixes FD are planning.

 

[shadragon]

Tried 1.5 in the vrsettings, but it kept locking my HMD.

 

[Kroy]

From Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4q2zvl/pixel_density_setting_for_htc_vive_its_here/d4qcmss

Not the same thing(reposting my comment from another thread):

It should look a lot better than the in-game supersampling. The in-game one doesn't work right since the image is rendered at increased resolution, downsampled to the render target size, and then again resampled to screen pixels, so you get unnecessary blur and aliasing artifacts where the supersampled pixels get smeared across 4 screen pixels. With the increased render target size, each screen pixel can use the corresponding source image pixels directly without the intervening downsample step.
​

Specifically, the issue is that the resampling to screen pixels uses a nonlinear distortion function, so there's no 1:1 correspondence between input pixels and output pixels even when using the recommended render target size.

I've tried it at 1.5 on my 2700k @ 3.8ghz, and my OC'd 970 strix. It works, definite improvement on clarity on text, but my FPS drops. My CPU is quite a bit lower than recommended for VR. Trying at 1.2 to see if that offers a compromise before I feel like ponying up for new CPU/mobo/ram...

 

[betc]

so happy to see a guide on this... was not happy with CV1 improvement over DK2 i hope this helps

 

[Jhnny407]

Tried this with a 4790K and GTX980 - bumped to 2.5 - fantastic clarity improvement on text, but a bit juddery. Going to go down to 1.5 and see how much better it is for smoothness.
Fantastic improvement for HUD clarity!

 

[Star Lion]

I have a 1080 and i put 2.0ss, then i fireup Elite and and had to go the bathroom cause i      in my pants cause it look so godly good, as if my 1440p predator monitor was inside the headset, but i got judder, i lower it to 1.5 and i      in my pants again cause i still look godly but it was playable. I just bought a Vive 1.5. Even the steam dashboard look so good i stay looking at it in awww

 

[BillD]

1.5 is all I use for the same setting in the oculus debug and it still allows me to have SMAA on as well.
I am looking forward to trying this on the Vive tonight when I get home.
Now if ED could stop scaling the UI through the Vive by .75 I would be able to read it without my glasses. I want the UI to be the same size as it is in the oculus.
Although I have the oculus and it looks wonderful, I prefer the bigger sweet spot on the Vive and the more vivid colours.

 

[Mike Kangaroo]

1.5 is as high as I can get on my single 980 before I lose too many frames and in my eyes it doesn't make enough of a difference.

at 2.5 it was absolutely glorious, but I'd need VR SLI support to push those pixels through. If they could make that happen faster I'd take it

 

[BillD]

1.5 is as high as I can get on my single 980 before I lose too many frames and in my eyes it doesn't make enough of a difference.

at 2.5 it was absolutely glorious, but I'd need VR SLI support to push those pixels through. If they could make that happen faster I'd take it

Tried it on my 1080 (using the same settings I use on the Rift with its 1.5 super sampling on), the frame rate is much worse on the Vive unfortunately. The oculus driver must be that much more efficient.
It does however show a marked improvement. So there is hope if steamvr can just make their renderer more efficient.

I have been playing using the rift for about a week now and one improvement I did notice when I tried going back to the vive is that the rendered image has less posterisation so the subtle changes in the space nebulae looks much better. In the rift subtle colour changes are patchy

But unfortunately the frame rate going through SteamVR render is too unstable for me.
I could drop back some of the other graphics settings but since I have the Rift, I will use that.

 

[Derage]

It will affect the performance just like setting SS in game would. Setting it in the Vive just gives you more freedom. you can set 1.215 for example. you are not locked to 1, 1.5 2 etc.

I've tried every single combination of settings in Elite itself and none of it seems to improve readability and quality for the Vive (other than visual changes). SS settings in the actual game seemed to do nothing but ever so slightly change bluriness on edges for a massive performance drop.

However, the fix OP linked works wonders. I tried setting it at 2.0 first on my GTX980 and booted the game, I was shocked by how incredibly sharp everything was. Everything perfectly readable and visuals looked glorious. However the 980 isn't capable of playing with 2.0 smoothly, constant juddering. So I turned it down to 1.5. The difference is noticable but 1.5 is sharp enough to have the game at least playable. I've only tried the training mission in the asteroids and in solo play I'm about 1k out of the bubble so I haven't checked stations yet, planets seem to judder at 1.5 tho'.

Frontier needs to get their crap together, the game looks awesome with proper sharpness. But we shouldn't need a workaround like this to make the game even remotely playable in the Vive, also it breaks performance in other games so I'm not constantly going to switch it around.

 

[shadragon]

Could someone post the entire vrsettings file contents as text please? The original post has a few parenthesis missing and I suspect that is what screwed me up last night.

Also, when you turn on the vrsetting renderTargetMultiplier do you turn off the Elite SS or make it the same value?

 

[RaistlinUK]

Could someone post the entire vrsettings file contents as text please? The original post has a few parenthesis missing and I suspect that is what screwed me up last night.

Also, when you turn on the vrsetting renderTargetMultiplier do you turn off the Elite SS or make it the same value?

Turn SS off