Oculus 0.7 SDK update

jabokai

jabokai
cherbert said:
How embarrassing for Oculus. I guess its HTC for me then. One lost customer Oculus.

This announcement seems strangely worded. Its almost like a prelude to saying we are no longer supporting Oculus. They could have toned it down and said we are still working closely with Oculus and hope to have it working by 1.0. But it just seems there is a tone that Frontier are unhappy with their relationship with Oculus.

The post even ends by rubbing it even more and mentioning their full support for Steam and Vive.

Might as well have said.. "Hey guys, go buy one of these instead. They are much better!"

Very odd.
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I'm not sure I understand the suspected issue that well, but extended mode was always a fudge to get the thing up and running, it was never suitable for a plug and play, easy to use, consumer version. Most of us with DK2s are fairly good fiddling about with display modes, driver tweaks and config files but your average Joe is not. And indeed, should not have to be. Direct mode is essential (IMHO) for an easy to use consumer product so I would not overly criticise Oculus for removing that as we get closer to release - they have a lot invested in taking VR from enthusiast to mainstream. More embarrassing for a software house that is relying on developer "fudge" modes to make the things work, perhaps! ;)

As someone above you said - how long before the Vive only works in direct mode too? Long term, it's the way VR should work.

All this assuming that extended/direct is the actual problem of course.
 

Mallmagician

M
Hi Zac,

This is my first post here but I've been supporting Elite for its rift support for a long time and have enjoyed playing it.

I have registered here now after all this time as frankly, I'm frustrated at the inability to give a specific reason as to the issues supporting Oculus going forward.

How can anyone have confidence in Frontiers ability to support even the Vive, when the official responses for information are so void of actual proper information and are more full of insinuations that the problem's lie in Oculus' camp and suggest that a new Oculus SDK may fix the problem. Why don't you come out with it and tell us exactly why you can't update to 0.7 like so many other devs have been able to? I'm not suggesting it's anything other than a technical issue, but you are leaving it wide open to speculation.

So far I've heard and thought and speculated all sorts. Secret backroom deals with Valve.... Frontier know their engine can't cope with direct modes and as such don't want to confirm that as they want to get money from Valve/Vive fans before they get the idea that even Vive support could be dropped in future. Frontier don't want to fix their own engine issues themselves even though they've made a boatload of cash from Oculus players, and want to pressure Oculus to fix it for them....

I'm not suggesting any of the above is true - but it might be....

Nobody can have any confidence in Frontiers ability to support VR for Elite Dangerous on Rift or Vive..... why? Because your official communications don't ever get to the point about what the issue or issues are...

Zac, with respect, get to the point. Answer the question that people want to know....

What SPECIFICALLY is the tech issue/s with getting 0.7 or above working with Elite?

And while you are at it:-

Does Frontier guarantee support for Vive going forward even if they implement a similar direct mode??

Cmdr frustrated-with-PR-speak
 

Obsidian Ant

Obsidian Ant
Zac Antonaci said:
Hi everyone,

We’ve had a number of requests for an update regarding the Oculus SDK 0.7. Over the recent weeks we have been working closely with Oculus to investigate the subject and we’re now able to give you an update. We understand that this news may disappoint some of you but we wanted to make sure you had the information at the earliest available opportunity.

We have supported Oculus as far as we can, but Elite: Dangerous is not compatible with Oculus SDK version 0.7, and 1.4 doesn’t change that. We hope a future version of their software can be made to work and we are continuing to work with them on this. Elite: Dangerous 1.4 does continue to work with Oculus SDK 0.5 and 0.6, but we continue to ask that players do not upgrade their Oculus SDK beyond 0.6 if they want to continue to play Elite: Dangerous. Our VR support continues to improve and we now also have support for SteamVR and the htc Vive.

I’m going to be checking in on the thread regularly so please do let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Zac
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Thanks for the update.

Do you know if Elite will be compatible with the final consumer version of the Oculus Rift?
 

Voyager_NL

Voyager_NL
Wow... the things I read here... C'mon people don't read to much out of Zac's wording.
All I read is:
It's a technical problem which is bigger than "easily solved"". Don't worry we're on it. We want to support ALL VR devices out there."

Some of the stuff I've read these last pages is just unbelievable.
 

Mallmagician

M
When I read this:-

"I understand that there are some concerns but I can put everyones mind at rest that the issues faced with Oculus are completely technical. both the Oculus team and the development team have worked hard to try and find a solution but sadly it has not been possible. It's something that the team would like to support in the future."

It seems to be quite blunt. It has not been possible. Maybe in the future.

For months and months we've been waiting for an update. And the best we get is "its a technical issue". Why can't Frontier just say what the issue actually is??

For me the frustration isn't in the fact that they haven't got it working (yet?), but rather in the months of these so called updates that say absolutely nothing....

Many VR and Elite fans want to make an informed choice about the VR headset to buy. If you want to factor in Elite compatibility, and Frontiers ability to support it going forward (including the Vive), then it's nigh on impossible with these empty statements from Frontier. And given that pre orders for either headset could be imminent and perhaps limited, then it's all the more frustrating.

I've invested a fortune in a new pc, peripherals, subpac, flight chair.... all fir VR Elite.. and yet I find myself not having any faith in Frontier any more. Not due to the inability to get it working- but due to the inability to communicate the issues properly.

Again - Zac, Frontier.... what are the specific issues with 0.7 that are stopping you moving forward?

And

Will you or can you guarantee that the same issues won't also become a problem with the Vive as their sdk progresses?
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
drkaii said:
Thanks! Quick Q: does Elite simply "work" with 0.6 or does it actually use 0.6?
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ED uses 0.5

Oculus promise to support all previous SDKs by 1 generation (maybe more work if you are lucky but they only promise backwards compatibility with the 1 previous SDK), up until 1.0 launches.

once 1.0 launches your app is supported and supported for life, and all future SDKs will have a fall back mode to support all previous SDK revisions from 1.0 onwards.

what this means is, if your ap works on 1.0 it works for life.

and it means all games built on SDK 0.3, worked on 0.4
all built on 0.4 work on 0.5
all built on 0.5 work on 0.6 (and this is where we are at will ED)
All apps built on 0.6 work on 0.7 (I am a little worried that some of the apps "working" with 0.7 are actually working in this mode and may break next release)

IF there is a 0.8 then there is a good chance that all apps built with 0.6 will no longer work.
 
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drkaii

drkaii
Mad Mike said:
ED uses 0.5

Oculus promise to support all previous SDKs by 1 generation (maybe more work if you are lucky but they only promise backwards compatibility with the 1 previous SDK), up until 1.0 launches.

once 1.0 launches your app is supported and supported for life, and all future SDKs will have a fall back mode to support all previous SDK revisions from 1.0 onwards.

what this means is, if your ap works on 1.0 it works for life.

and it means all games built on SDK 0.3, worked on 0.4
all built on 0.4 work on 0.5
all built on 0.5 work on 0.6 (and this is where we are at will ED)
All apps built on 0.6 work on 0.7 (I am a little worried that some of the apps "working" with 0.7 are actually working in this mode and may break next release)

IF there is a 0.8 then there is a good chance that all apps built with 0.6 will no longer work.
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Thanks Mad Mike. We all appreciate your madness, it shakes mountains and saves lives.
 

Javert

Volunteer Moderator
Javert
What's clear is that FD are not prepared at this point to make a commitment that they will support the release version of the Oculus rift - they are saying they want to, but not that they will definitely do.

Conversely, they have stated that they will definitely support the Vive.

Not sure if the Vive is available for pre-order yet, but the Rift is not I don't think?

Therefore it doesn't really matter at this point unless they say they are going to retire support for the current DK2 as this is the only kit you can actually buy today.

Once the consumer units go on pre-order, that's when there will be an issue as anyone who wants guarunteed support will have to order a Vive instead of a consumer rift.
 
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drkaii

drkaii
Javert said:
What's clear is that FD are not prepared at this point to make a commitment that they will support the release version of the Oculus rift - they are saying they want to, but not that they will definitely do.

Conversely, they have stated that they will definitely support the Vive.

Not sure if the Vive is available for pre-order yet, but the Rift is not I don't think?

Therefore it doesn't really matter at this point unless they say they are going to retire support for the current DK2 as this is the only kit you can actually buy today.

Once the consumer units go on pre-order, that's when there will be an issue as anyone who wants guarunteed support will have to order a Vive instead of a consumer rift.
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Well at the latest expo the rift team explicitly stated that Oculus and Vive and all other VR devices will all support the same stuff. Work is being doing to abstract the APIs etc. to make sure it happens. So if it supports the VIVE it should support the rift too. Right now things are different but don't judge how the future will be based on the present :)
 

grammatonfeather

grammatonfeather
I'm now an Oculus DK2 Elite user. If Frontier drop support for Oculus then I won't continue with Elite. It was only last night I got to try Elite with Oculus for the first time. What we don't want is a situation where a sim like Elite is tied to one VR system.
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Tovrin said:
Hang on a sec. Steam VR supports the DK2 with SDK 0.7. So if Elite is supporting Steam VR then what's the issue?
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oooo this is interesting. last time i looked steam VR did not support 0.7.

are you sure about this? if so we may be ok (although i believe steam VR does not support the more advanced features of the rift, but even so, in the world of the blind even the 1 eyed man is king as they say).

- - - Updated - - -

Mallmagician said:
Just got a solid 100% commitment from support:-
Take a look at @Frontier_Help's Tweet: https://twitter.com/Frontier_Help/status/652052806774427648?s=09

It would be so much easier if they'd say this in the first place.

I'd still like to know specifics of the issues though. For no other reason now than I am interested in what they are facing to get it working.
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Yep Zac needs to get on posting this at the top of his post. :)
 

CMDR CPT. Boris

CMDR CPT. Boris
So right after installing the update of CQC yesterday, i had a lot of fun in it with the DK2. Everything was going fine and i thought, let's upgrade to WIN10 (was on 7)... Just found this post tonight.
I don't mind using a old SDK that won't be updated (as for now it's a dev kit), i just want to play Elite in VR. Is there a way to make it work with older versions ? I went back to V0.6 SDK i and have the extended mode. Problem is, i have updated my drivers for Win10 ans it seems they are the only one to work with WIN 10, but doesn't seems compatible with SDK V0.6.

for exemple in rift display mode (when choosing direct HMD or Extended) "there is a problem with your installation: OVRService is NOT connected! OVRServices is supposed to restart whan you log in...."
or
in configuration utility -> Help->About : Display Driver Version: C:\WINDOWS\system32\OVRDisplay32.dll not found Positional Tracker Driver Version: 1.0.10.0

so i'm on V0.6 with latest drivers for oculus (downloaded from Nvidia website)

Did i missed something somewhere or it won't work at all ?

can i download my old drivers to do the trick (and where) ?

... would love to go back in CQC in VR :)
Thanks
 

CMDR Dahak

CMDR Dahak
This is sad news. "We want to support Oculus but can't" is not what I was hoping to hear - especially after saying it would be supported with 1.0. It does, however, start to make the decision between retail HMDs easier, but I'm now feeling wary. If I get a Vive, they may do the same thing with that in the future. "Sorry all! Too much work to support it, bye!"
 

Juniper

Juniper
My big issue with this is that I'm running Windows 10, and (no matter what anybody says) the only version of the Oculus runtime that will work on Windows 10 is 0.7.

I have tried all the hacks available on t'internet to install earlier versions, and in every single case, they left my machine completely unable to boot. So I'm not even going to attempt another workaround.

0.5 or 0.6 is not an option.

Disappointing news here Frontier. My only hope at this point is that you will a) support 1.0 when it is released and b) the 1.0 runtime still supports the DK2.

I realise the latter part is out of your control.
 

jabokai

jabokai
Juniper said:
My big issue with this is that I'm running Windows 10, and (no matter what anybody says) the only version of the Oculus runtime that will work on Windows 10 is 0.7.
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Not sure how you got into the situation of not being able to boot at all but the whole process was a non-event for me. Had a PC with Win 8 and 0.5 SDK - upgraded to W10 - everything still just worked. Not saying you did anything wrong, but the old SDKs do work on W10... somehow! But it obviously varies from PC to PC. ;)
 

mattfor wehram

M
I have managed to get rift working with ED on windows 10 with 0.6.0.1 . I found a link on line how to do it (unfortunately I have lost the link but I will try to explain).
Basically remove all Rift software and install runtime 0.6.0.1. Errors will appear in windows 10 saying rift disconnected and rift will not attach.

Go into the program files where Runtime was installed and find the file OVRServer_86.exe. Check the properties of this file and ensure it is set to run in compatability mode for windows 8.

Then create a shortcut for this file on your desktop.

Click the shortcut before using Rift. The rift should now be attached and you can use the test screen and ED.

As I say this is from memory. If I find the link I will repost.

Safe flying :)
 
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