Odyssey VR specific bug reports - please contribute!

[Darkfyre99]

@Arioch,

Once again I can’t thank you enough for maintaining this thread. It sometimes feels like I may be naturally blessed not to encounter most of these issues, but I suspect it’s usually more of a combination of good equipment that addresses common ED bottlenecks, and being too engaged with gameplay to actually notice some of issues.

As for the new issue… Frontier’s poorly performing anti-aliasing doesn’t bother me enough to be willing to trade performance for a tiny visual improvement. Especially when I hardly ever stay still in one place long enough for it to be an issue. It’s like that single-frame flash when dropping from Supercruise. It’s too brief for me to register, but noticeable when I’m recording and playing it back in slow motion.

 

[jojon]

I have actually had quite a few moments, lately, where I have had to make an effort to sort of "unfocus", and consciously "ignore" the aliasing. Usually I can more easily "take in the overall impression of the view", so to speak, and filter it out, but recently...

I guess it comes across differently on-screen, where whole lines on typical human-built stuff (EDIT: square and level) blink on and off, instead of breaking up into discontiguous segments that "pour" along the length of thing, since there the view is always perfectly upright, and those edges orthogonal, unlike in VR, where you can tilt your head. (EDIT2: ...there is the limited resolution factor as well, of course.)

 

[Arioch]

Two of the recently confirmed reports -Peter Pan spot shadows and Holo-Me zoom view - have both now got the green tick of Acknowledgement

Holo-me zooms into the popularity chart in third-from-last position () but the spot shadows are doing slightly better up at number #81.

 

[Arioch]

New issue report - https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/63195 - where the user is experiencing poor performance pretty much everywhere even with low settings. Sounds like an Oculus HMD though they don’t specify which.

It seems odd to me because prior to upgrading my PC it was also an i7 8700, 32 GB DDR4, though an RTX 3070ti as opposed to the issue reporter’s RTX 3080ti, and I was getting fairly steady 72fps with High/Ultra except for busy areas.

 

[JR250]

My guess is something's not configured right with the reporter's setup. I wish they had posted here or on Reddit first so we could have a back and forth on it to nail it down.

WiFi could be a source of latency if they're using that. Or maybe they've dialed the Oculus app or SteamVR resolution too high? Maybe they're trying to drive their flat monitor at full 4K, 120hz, and vsync on while also trying to use VR? You can mess up things quite a bit by randomly changing stuff the Oculus Debug Tool. The possibilities are endless. Hope they see this and start a thread on Reddit so we can help them.

 

[Arioch]

My guess is something's not configured right with the reporter's setup. I wish they had posted here or on Reddit first so we could have a back and forth on it to nail it down.

WiFi could be a source of latency if they're using that. Or maybe they've dialed the Oculus app or SteamVR resolution too high? Maybe they're trying to drive their flat monitor at full 4K, 120hz, and vsync on while also trying to use VR? You can mess up things quite a bit by randomly changing stuff the Oculus Debug Tool. The possibilities are endless. Hope they see this and start a thread on Reddit so we can help them.

Indeed - it might just be one setting that needs changing. Accidentally stacking super sampling can easily cripple performance, for example.

 

[Arioch]

The VR runtime selection request has even resubmitted having previously expired with 4 confirmations. If you want to be able to use your Oculus headset but (for example) use SteamVR+OpenComposite instead of the Oculus runtime, this is one to add a contribution to.

 

[JR250]

That would be nice though I'm currently using OpenComposite with my Quest headset. I did that by replacing the default openvr_api.dll file with the one provided by OpenComposite. The Oculus app always needs to be present and running as that's how ED connects to the headset. Even if we use SteamVR, the Oculus app needs to run (unfortunately).

I thought there was a way in SteamVR to set it as the default API handler. In that case, Oculus shows that it is not the default VR provider. IIRC, I did this early on when I had SteamVR installed.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Question: Back when I had a Rift S, Elite Steam would ask me on every launch if I wanted to run in Oculus or SteamVR mode. Does it not do that anymore, or am I too dense to understand the issue?

 

[jojon]

I have not used an Oculus headset since CV1, but how do you get Elite to run on SteamVR, with an Oculus headset?

It at least used to be the case that if an Oculus headset was present, Elite would go to the Oculus runtime first, and the only way to get the game to run on a simultaneously connected other headset, on SteamVR, was to disable OVRservice before launching. Has this changed with more recent (than that ancient one) versions of the Oculus runtime?

The thing where you can choose runtime is for OpenXR, which Elite does not (yet) use.

EDIT: Ah, so the game got a lauch option (which I have never encountered, myself), at some point... Thanks, Helmut.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

More correctly, Steam would ask me, not the game. Sorry for the confusion. Haven't used an Oculus HMD in years.

 

[The Lawful]

Question: Back when I had a Rift S, Elite would ask me on every launch if I wanted to run in Oculus or SteamVR mode. Does it not do that anymorr, or am I too dense to understand the issue?

That's when you start it from Steam. You can still find the launcher and start it directly. I created a taskbar link as follows:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\EDLaunch.exe" /edo /autoquit

And there's always this option ofc, interesting as it's written in F#. Never tried it, though, but you can conveniently look up the possible launch options there

IIRC you can also tell Steam to always start the game in a desired mode, but I don't use that. As for the runtime, I use VDXR instead of Oculus and the Oculus software also supports it instead of its own implementation. You just have to set it elsewhere, either in Virtual Desktop streamer or (IIRC) Steam VR.

Spoiler

O7,

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

That's when you start it from Steam. You can still find the launcher and start it directly. I created a taskbar link as follows:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\EDLaunch.exe" /edo /autoquit

This only works for Steam purchases pre-April 2019. For later ones, you must launch it from Steam for the authentication to work - either Steam directly, or via "steam://rungameid/359320" in a shortcut.

Which still leaves my question unanswered: Does Steam still show the prompt to choose between Oculus and SteamVR? Does it still work? If yes, this means the game still listens to the supplied parameters - exactly what is the issue report about then?

I'm confused. A shocker, I know.

 

[JR250]

If you launch from Steam, it asks every time. I switched to standalone launcher and it now defaults to VR, no prompt.

Had to switch since Steam wouldn't show all the game versions available to me. FDev Support was kind enough to switch me to standalone. Best thing I ever did as Steam client (or SteamVR) doesn't have to run in the background anymore, freeing resources.

 

[Arioch]

New issue report having problems with Steam VR - which looks like the same user in this thread.

Steam VR issue or driver problem?

 

[Darkfyre99]

New issue report having problems with Steam VR - which looks like the same user in this thread.

Steam VR issue or driver problem?

I play using SteamVR, even starting the game on the virtual desktop. I also just tried loading Elite Dangerous using the Steam Home app. I had no issues what-so-ever. Which is fairly common when it comes to VR issues. I'd like to say that I'm simply that fortunate, but most likely I play in a manner where I'm simply not in a position to notice them.

And on a completely related note, for the first time I actually noticed the disappearing SRV shadow bug. May have been there all along, but I tend to drive towards the rising local sun when I need to choose a random direction in my SRV. I was following a metallic meteorite signal, and the sun was behind me for a change.

 

[JR250]

This is not entirely concluded as I'm still testing but I had pretty terrible stuttering and crashes to desktop recently. Hard to pinpoint what changed but it started about two months ago when I installed the legacy client. Switching between legacy and live seemed to be leaving something stuck with the Oculus files. Shutting everything down, restarting the Oculus service and clearing memory cache (or simply, rebooting), helped.

Three days ago, after much resetting all to defaults and 'clean' installs of drivers, I ran the 'validate files' function in the launcher. This downloaded a small number of files to replace locally. In those files, openvr_api.dll was downloaded and replaced the OpenComposite ones I had installed. This seemed to have cured my stuttering/crash issues. I can't tell if this was the root as other files were downloaded and others I had were deleted. I then downloaded the latest version of OpenComposite DLL and replaced the default again - no stuttering detected and all is well so far.

FWIW, during my testing with the default openvr_api.dll file, I noticed the reported issue of one eye being brighter the other, especially when flying near a star. Very uncomfortable to have, actually. Performance dropped somewhat, and graphics looked (too) much brighter. Visual seemed fuzzier, not as clear as before. I might have imagined some of these, and certainly didn't test long enough to be sure, but the OpenComposite file fixed all of the above.

 

[Arioch]

Fantastic news that

SRV and ship shadows will no longer disappear in VR and flatscreen

…but I’m away from my computer so I cannot check for any undocumented VR fixes or (fingers crossed there are none) new issues. I’ll be checking once I get back to VR in a week or so but if anyone can chime in with info I’ll appreciate it.

As always, if you’ve got a vote in for the no-longer-disappearing shadows then please remember to redistribute it to another worthy issue

 

[KingSkelli]

Fantastic news that

…but I’m away from my computer so I cannot check for any undocumented VR fixes or (fingers crossed there are none) new issues. I’ll be checking once I get back to VR in a week or so but if anyone can chime in with info I’ll appreciate it.

As always, if you’ve got a vote in for the no-longer-disappearing shadows then please remember to redistribute it to another worthy issue

Im eagerly awaiting the download now. I've been plagued by the weird shadows and left+right eye mismatches for a while now.

 

[pFVD]

Im eagerly awaiting the download now. I've been plagued by the weird shadows and left+right eye mismatches for a while now.

To be clear, the weird shadows in stations/ships that flicker on and off rapidly; they are still there. The patch notes are referring to SRV shadows, which I've not checked.