Launching ED

[Kaltern]

I imagine there is little if any difference.

But is there any advantage in launching ED from Oculus, or Steam? For whatever reason, I'm struggling to get (to my eyes) a 'good' image. I also believe I'm having ASW issues, where the frames become quite blurry when it drops to 45. My system isn't what I would call weak, yet it feels that at medium settings, the PC just strains to keep up with demand.

 

[lenna]

Generally speaking, VR will look blurry compared with current 1080p monitors due to the fact that it is a lower resolution in terms of pixels per degree of FoV. However, the net experience offsets this somewhat IMO thus it is worth the compromise in pixel density.

As for frame rate, I have a 980 Ti personally and with standard Ultra VR settings I seem to get a steady 44-45 fps (more than acceptable IMO).

Where launching ED is specifically concerned, it will make little or no difference but you may need a VR desktop extension to restart ED since exiting to desktop does not terminate the ED launcher application.

 

[Franc Kaos]

I found Oculus 1.13 to be fairly problematic on my system - or maybe it was the Win10 Creator update or ED 2.3 update or Nvidia's drivers...

I run it thru Oculus alone, why have another launcher taking up precious system resources? In fact, the only things I have running in the background is Fraps, Win Defender (I run weekly scans with decent software) and some joystick app. No Steam, no Nvidia fluff, no Onedrive, no iTunes.

For me, the stars are the only real issue in VR, not sure how they could fix it without godrays getting worse, plus I hated the flickering textures at stations (in the distance) but minimised them by killing AA, DoF, blur & bloom, upping HMD to 1.25 and Supersampling to 1 (mid range system - i5, 1060), but keeping textures, FX and Material Qualities High (Shadows medium).

 

[Kaltern]

VR in 45 fps is not acceptable when you're playing a game such as this IMO as the blurriness of images are very obvious when ASW blends frames together to mimic a full frame being drawn.

I had a Rift last year, and I don't recall the fps being quite so much of an issue - and that was on a 970. Could be just me I suppose.

I was asking about the launchers, as you can start it from Steam, using SteamVR, or Oculus. I believe you can also just start it manually too, never bothered to try that. I was just curious to know if anyone else havd noticed any differences in rendering quality depending on launch method.

 

[lenna]

VR in 45 fps is not acceptable when you're playing a game such as this IMO as the blurriness of images are very obvious when ASW blends frames together to mimic a full frame being drawn.

IIRC I have been running VR at around 45fps in ED since I got the VIVE (Oct 2016). I can tell you one thing with almost 100% certainty - the vast majority of the blurriness issues in VR are down to pixels per degree rather than FPS. In addition, I have a reasonably high end PC (i7-6950X, 64GB DDR4, 980 Ti 6GB GDDR5) so it is unlikely to be a performance issue. Too much emphasis is put on FPS IMO.

All launchers effectively do the same thing where ED is concerned, the only thing that would affect rendering quality would be in-software rendering settings. If you are concerned about FPS and related issues the only factors that seem to make a difference is the resolution used for the "mirror" window which is displayed on the desktop and can be used for screen captures using NVidia Experience. Steam screen shots when in VR seem to result in a split screen L/R image being captured (at least IME).

A primary cause of blurriness in VR headsets would be improper calibration of the eye (L pupil to R pupil) distance. If you do not wear glasses and/or do not have access to the prescription details then it is largely trial and error getting this setting right. Get the distance too small or too large and things will look blurry and could induce headaches. I do not know if this can change as people get older, but I would not be surprised if it can (even 0.1mm error can increase blurriness).