New to Oculus Rift and need help

richard_uk

R
Hi all.

I got a CV1 last week and absolutely love the experience of Elite Dangerous in VR. However, like many, I am a little bit surprised by the apparent loss of 'crispness' to the graphics such as blurry stars.

I have a GTX 1070 and I'm wondering if there is a comprehensive yet understandable guide to configuring the Rift/Elite/GTX 1070 to get the best experience from it? I've read DrKali's guide in the sticky but it seems more relevant to the DK2.

Any pointers much appreciated.

Thanks.

CMDR Buck Richard
 

[VR] Frank_G

[VR] Frank_G
Okay, here some tips, to get the crisp back in the rift.

The basics:

First go the Oculus website and download the free SDK. Once extracted you will find a tool folder, containing the Debug-Tool. Launch it and set Pixels per Display to a value between 1.5 and 2.0. Just hit return and close the tool, there will be no prompt or save option or else. Now your visual quality is already much better and you can change the setting anytime you want [edit] to tweak your performance. It is actually a setting for supersampling, that is independent of the game you play.

Second go to the ingame graphics settings and set Supersampling to 1.0. You can go lower to optimize FPS. Dont go above 1 as it is multiplied with your setting in the Debug Tool. This can get your graphic card on its knees in no time.


The missing contrast, blurry images and washed out colors:

Now it gets a bit strange...
Go to amazon or else and buy a Display Port to HDMI adapter for around 10 bucks. Make sure it uses HDMI 1.2 and supports 4k resolution. Once you got it, plug the adapter into your graphic card and the Rift into the adapter. And there is your contrast, your saturated vibrant colors and nice crispy details.

Why is that? The GeForce cards use a predefined TV config with "smart" color palette for teir HDMI ports. You can turn this on and off in the monitor settings, but as the Rift does not show up in the monitor list, you cant do that for the Rift. However, the Display Connector is meant for monitors and does use full color range by default. Using the adapter makes the Rift use monitor settings with fixed color range and not the dynamic color range for TVs... And thats it. There is also a thread here on the VR forum by user Y2K. There you will find links to the right adapters.

Follow this and you enter the world of crisp and vibrant colored VR.
 
Last edited:

[VR] Frank_G

[VR] Frank_G
So far i noticed no disturbing banding at all, but as the color range is greater, it is most likely to decrease the banding issues. Space and planet dark sides are deep black, nebulae are bright, vibrant and full of detail. When you land on planets, Elite adds a little ambient lighting to surfaces, but actually, i needed lights to make out details on the surface during touchdown. If you dont care about 10 € / $ / £ then just test it. For me it adds the the crown on top.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

And check the thread by Y2K. There are other users that already tested it as well. Some non NVidia cards and some adpters seem to have problems.
 

Nebula109

N
That's interesting to hear, the oculus forums have several posts on the issues, not just in Elite but some scenes in Apollo 11 and its very noticeable in Oculus Cinema with the moon setting.
I'll get one for myself and see how it goes.
 

Nebula109

N
It's the Lunar Orbit scene that really hurts, all shades of grey and whatnot until the sun pops out and then proper blackness. Let us know how it goes [yesnod]
 

richard_uk

R
Frank_G said:
Okay, here some tips, to get the crisp back in the rift.

The basics:

First go the Oculus website and download the free SDK. Once extracted you will find a tool folder, containing the Debug-Tool. Launch it and set Pixels per Display to a value between 1.5 and 2.0. Just hit return and close the tool, there will be no prompt or save option or else. Now your visual quality is already much better and you can change the setting anytime you want [edit] to tweak your performance. It is actually a setting for supersampling, that is independent of the game you play.

Second go to the ingame graphics settings and set Supersampling to 1.0. You can go lower to optimize FPS. Dont go above 1 as it is multiplied with your setting in the Debug Tool. This can get your graphic card on its knees in no time.


The missing contrast, blurry images and washed out colors:

Now it gets a bit strange...
Go to amazon or else and buy a Display Port to HDMI adapter for around 10 bucks. Make sure it uses HDMI 1.2 and supports 4k resolution. Once you got it, plug the adapter into your graphic card and the Rift into the adapter. And there is your contrast, your saturated vibrant colors and nice crispy details.

Why is that? The GeForce cards use a predefined TV config with "smart" color palette for teir HDMI ports. You can turn this on and off in the monitor settings, but as the Rift does not show up in the monitor list, you cant do that for the Rift. However, the Display Connector is meant for monitors and does use full color range by default. Using the adapter makes the Rift use monitor settings with fixed color range and not the dynamic color range for TVs... And thats it. There is also a thread here on the VR forum by user Y2K. There you will find links to the right adapters.

Follow this and you enter the world of crisp and vibrant colored VR.
Click to expand...

I've never seen this mentioned before but I'm certainly going to give it a go. I've repped you just in case it does work!

Cheers

Buck Richard
 

Stygian

Stygian
I thought turning off the tool after setting the override meant it would be dropped once a new area was loaded after a jump.
 

[VR] Frank_G

[VR] Frank_G
i only did change the setting once. Games not launched, but Oculus shop open. Since then, i enjoy nice readable text in all games... it is a global Rift setting.
 

[HJ]-RedRaven

[HJ]-RedRaven
richard_uk said:
Hi all.

I got a CV1 last week and absolutely love the experience of Elite Dangerous in VR. However, like many, I am a little bit surprised by the apparent loss of 'crispness' to the graphics such as blurry stars.

I have a GTX 1070 and I'm wondering if there is a comprehensive yet understandable guide to configuring the Rift/Elite/GTX 1070 to get the best experience from it? I've read DrKali's guide in the sticky but it seems more relevant to the DK2.

Any pointers much appreciated.

Thanks.

CMDR Buck Richard
Click to expand...

Hi richard_uk - welcome to the VR forum.

Yes, you're seeing the noticeable drop in resolution compared to a normal monitor (each eye is seeing 1080x1200, not 1920x1080 for most HD monitors). Effectively, you're seeing a bit more than half of the resolution of a regular monitor.

The reason for this is that even high end 3D cards like the 1070 and 1080GTX don't have the grunt to push 90fps for higher resolutions - something has got to give, and so current-generation VR displays have got lower pixel counts to compensate and help keep frame rate up. The Rift is using a lot of pixels (2160x1200, a bit wider than WUXGA monitors at 1920x1200) but because you're being shown a stereo image, you really only perceive half (1080x1200).

You will get used to it. And future resolutuions will be better (but only insomuch as 3D are needed to drive more pixels, even for the same detail)

And, everyone is different. To me, the stars do look a bit flat (they are being rendered in monoscopic view as they're so far away there's no parallax anyway. Some are more sensitive to this trick, others less so. Same goes for the feeling of motion sickness etc that soem feel in the SRV on planets.

Some improvement tips:
As FrankG etc have said, using the Oculus Debug Tool goes some way towards improving the quality, but it is a brute force approach; render many more pixels than needed and then downsize to suit the 2160x1200 rift image.

With a 1070, you'll realistically be limited to a pixel density setting of 1.2-1.5. Try it with 2.0 and you should see a LOT of judder (missed frames), especially on planets and in stations.
You can also try setting ED's SuperSampling higher than 1.0 (it achieves a similar effect to the Oculus Debug Tool, but is even heavier on performance). Don't use them both above 1.0 at the same time as even a 1070 will be reduced to a slide-show!

So, Oculus Debug set to say 1.2, 1.3, leave the window open (and you must set this each time before you launch ED )
Turn off blur.
Turn off bloom, or reduce it to medium.
Reduce shadows to high or medium
Everything else should be hgih/ultra if it doesn't impact your frame rate too much. (I'm on a 1080GTX so I started with all-ultra and worked my way down).

As I said, everyone's mileage is varying (by quite a lot, its a much more visceral experience and thus way more subjective than using a monitor).

Let us know how you go!
 

Globusdiablo

Globusdiablo
Frank_G said:
...The missing contrast, blurry images and washed out colors:

Now it gets a bit strange...
Go to amazon or else and buy a Display Port to HDMI adapter for around 10 bucks. Make sure it uses HDMI 1.2 and supports 4k resolution. Once you got it, plug the adapter into your graphic card and the Rift into the adapter. And there is your contrast, your saturated vibrant colors and nice crispy details.

Why is that? The GeForce cards use a predefined TV config with "smart" color palette for teir HDMI ports. You can turn this on and off in the monitor settings, but as the Rift does not show up in the monitor list, you cant do that for the Rift. However, the Display Connector is meant for monitors and does use full color range by default. Using the adapter makes the Rift use monitor settings with fixed color range and not the dynamic color range for TVs... And thats it...
Click to expand...

Now this right here, this is clever! :) Thanks.

Do you know if this "fix" is relevant for the Vive as well?
 
Last edited:

[VR] Frank_G

[VR] Frank_G
Globusdiablo said:
Now this right here, this is clever! :) Thanks.

Do you know if this "fix" is relevant for the Vive as well?
Click to expand...

No i dont, but it most likely is, as it is an NVidia HDMI thing and not HMD related. I dont know, if the Vive shows up in the monitor settings. If yes, you dont even need the adapter, as you can deactivate the dynamic color range manually in the monitor settings.
I did that with my TV, i was playing Elite on, before the Rift. Sadly those configs seem to be linked to the connected device and not the port itself. If you have the knowledge to locate and change the config file, i am pretty sure, you can achieve the same without the adapter.
 

requ1em

requ1em
[HJ]-RedRaven said:
Hi richard_uk - welcome to the VR forum.

Yes, you're seeing the noticeable drop in resolution compared to a normal monitor (each eye is seeing 1080x1200, not 1920x1080 for most HD monitors). Effectively, you're seeing a bit more than half of the resolution of a regular monitor.

The reason for this is that even high end 3D cards like the 1070 and 1080GTX don't have the grunt to push 90fps for higher resolutions - something has got to give, and so current-generation VR displays have got lower pixel counts to compensate and help keep frame rate up. The Rift is using a lot of pixels (2160x1200, a bit wider than WUXGA monitors at 1920x1200) but because you're being shown a stereo image, you really only perceive half (1080x1200).

You will get used to it. And future resolutuions will be better (but only insomuch as 3D are needed to drive more pixels, even for the same detail)

And, everyone is different. To me, the stars do look a bit flat (they are being rendered in monoscopic view as they're so far away there's no parallax anyway. Some are more sensitive to this trick, others less so. Same goes for the feeling of motion sickness etc that soem feel in the SRV on planets.

Some improvement tips:
As FrankG etc have said, using the Oculus Debug Tool goes some way towards improving the quality, but it is a brute force approach; render many more pixels than needed and then downsize to suit the 2160x1200 rift image.

With a 1070, you'll realistically be limited to a pixel density setting of 1.2-1.5. Try it with 2.0 and you should see a LOT of judder (missed frames), especially on planets and in stations.
You can also try setting ED's SuperSampling higher than 1.0 (it achieves a similar effect to the Oculus Debug Tool, but is even heavier on performance). Don't use them both above 1.0 at the same time as even a 1070 will be reduced to a slide-show!

So, Oculus Debug set to say 1.2, 1.3, leave the window open (and you must set this each time before you launch ED )
Turn off blur.
Turn off bloom, or reduce it to medium.
Reduce shadows to high or medium
Everything else should be hgih/ultra if it doesn't impact your frame rate too much. (I'm on a 1080GTX so I started with all-ultra and worked my way down).

As I said, everyone's mileage is varying (by quite a lot, its a much more visceral experience and thus way more subjective than using a monitor).

Let us know how you go!
Click to expand...
1.5 on the SDK and 0.65 in Elite works great on my 1070
 

[VR] Frank_G

[VR] Frank_G
Connecting a small low resolution monitor also delivers a load of extra performance. My PC was built for VR exclusively and uses a 13" 800 x 600 TFT as its only display, which i could luckily rescue, before the IT threw em all in the bin.

I have a GTX 970 and my settings are Debug 1.5, SS 1.0, VR high and Shadows Ultra. I havent checked FPS, but Elite runs smooth with no judder, even in stations, and on planets. I get slight judder, when the SRV is being deployed from the ship, but thats it. The only game, that really gives me headaches is Subnautica.
 

Globusdiablo

Globusdiablo
Frank_G said:
Connecting a small low resolution monitor also delivers a load of extra performance. My PC was built for VR exclusively and uses a 13" 800 x 600 TFT as its only display, which i could luckily rescue, before the IT threw em all in the bin....
Click to expand...

Are you suggesting that running a low res external monitor leaves more grunt for the HMD? If so, would it not be even better to drop the external monitor completely and use something like Steams Virtual Desktop?:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/382110
 
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