Questions from a new Rift owner with a GTX 1060

Soothsayer · Jul 4, 2017

I recently got my Oculus Rift after getting the VR itch again, and for a person experiencing VR for the first time, it's pretty mind-blowing (I'm afraid of heights, so the skyscraper portion of the Oculus demo was genuinely terrifying). However, I'm wondering if my performance is normal for the settings I'm playing Elite at -- I've had to turn my VR quality settings down to medium, and I can only manage about 0.75 SS + 1.25 HMD quality before my framerate starts to frequently dip below 90 inside station interiors (although it still occasionally dips below 90 and goes straight to 45, although the game remains perfectly playable). Turning my HMD quality up to 1.5 causes a bunch of wonky things to happen, the worst of which is occasional client freezing that lasts several seconds. I'm using an i5 7600k that's overclocked to 4.4GHz, and my GTX 1060 is overclocked a fair bit, as well.

The quality is tolerable, and all text is legible, but I'm sometimes noticing individual pixels. Note that I'm using SteamVR. I've taken a peek at the stickies, but for the most part, they're really, really outdated.

So, are there any other Rift (or Vive) owners with a GTX 1060? If so, what settings are you playing at? Do you use any kind of external tool?

Also, is there any software (drivers, etc) I should know about? I'm running with the latest nVidia driver, but I have no idea whether I should worry about drivers for my Rift.

Are there any HUD color configurations that people prefer in VR over the default orange?

Finally, is it possible to use the mouse and keyboard effectively for the galaxy / system maps? I've found them to be a bit awkward to use.

Sometimes, the mouse cursor works just fine, but most of the time, it's... extremely weird. Like, the mouse sensitivity drastically increases for no reason, the cursor becomes larger, and I find that I can't select anything by using the tip of the cursor.

dogbite · Jul 5, 2017

New VR users ask these questions about once a week.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/251930-How-to-use-the-galaxy-map-in-VR
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/278921-Using-the-galactic-and-system-map-while-in-VR
http://arkku.com/elite/hud_editor/#theme_0.45_0_0.35_-1.99_1.5_0_0_-0.3_1.5
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/251324-VR-ED-Colors-Vive
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/275433-Elite-Dangerous-specific-benchmarks-of-the-G

Add: The gtx 1060 seems to fall between the 970 and 980 so I would start around VR medium, ss=1 HMD=1.25 aa=0, post processing low, bloom off, blur off shadows low. effects low, material med, terrain med kind of thing and tweak from there.

TorTorden_VR · Jul 5, 2017

Don't have a 1060.
Had a 980ti and upgraded to a 1080ti.

The 980ti also had to use medium to high settings, ss at 1 and HMD q at 1, or downsample SS before upping hmd q. Also turn off ambient occlusion it does little and cost a lot of fps.

There is no magic fix for the pixelation, it's what we have for now and ED can be a worst case scenario with the great distances and far away objects that suddenly has only one pixel to mark their presence.

As for drivers, I subscribe to the philosophy of , if it ain't broke, don't mess with it.

Mot · Jul 5, 2017

Thats similar to what I get with an RX 480 (which is a similar card). I use a gamepad to play everything on my PC, and it just so happens that a xbone controller with chatpad is makes the galaxy map very manageable. If i need to input a system name, I can peek through the nose gap and see my chatpad.

[VR] Merkir · Jul 5, 2017

dogbite hit it. I'm using a 1070 and his settings are close to what I'm using, specifically ss=1.0 and HMD = 1.25 or 1.5. 1.25 probably best for you.

The HUD scheme I like best (after many many hours of tweaking) is:
Red: 0.18, 0.03, -1
Green: -1, 1, 0.5
Blue: 0.15, 0.25, 0.9

And use EDProfiler, Dr. Kaii's excellent little tool to switch configs:
http://www.drkaii.com/tools/edprofiler/

Soothsayer · Jul 5, 2017

Mot said:
Thats similar to what I get with an RX 480 (which is a similar card). I use a gamepad to play everything on my PC, and it just so happens that a xbone controller with chatpad is makes the galaxy map very manageable. If i need to input a system name, I can peek through the nose gap and see my chatpad.

Urgh. I tried using the Xbone controller for ED, but I ended up eating a 2.5m rebuy in my Asp after failing miserably while trying to dock in a space station. I wouldn't mind getting more comfortable with a controller, but I doubt I'll ever be able to fly as well as I do with a mouse and keyboard.

Good to know that my performance is in line with what other people with similar GPUs are experiencing, though. I'm a bit OCD about optimal performance, so...

Yachats · Jul 5, 2017

I will admit I haven't bothered tuning my system so maybe it could do better but I have a 1070 and don't get 90 in stations either. I turn off spacewarp whatevermacallit (alt + ctrl + NumPad 1) and let the FPS settle between 70 and 90 on station and surfaces. I've read many of the threads about making the game look it's best, but really it runs smoothly and it is the reason I upgraded after all so I can't complain.
ive fiddled with EDProfiler. It then start the game to check how the new settings are and end up just playing instead!

i noticed the mouse cursor problems in the last patch, much worse. I has to do with the position of your head, you can lean forward or to the side and the mouse finds its proper plane of existence.

Fieldx · Jul 5, 2017

I feel like upping the supersampling in the Oculus Debug Tool gives me a more stable image quality increase. I usually go for 1.5 SS in the debug tool (I have a gtx 980ti) with these settings in elite:
https://us.v-cdn.net/6024342/uploads/editor/rh/cxi2dchgdey0.png

Although lately I've instead set in game supersampling to 1, and set debug tool ss to 1.3, which makes it look slightly better imo. With a 1060 you could try to use the same settings as me but set debug tool to 1.25 or something similar.

FPS will drop down to 45 in stations but I honestly can find a way around this unless i make everything look like a pixelated mess.

dogbite · Jul 5, 2017

Yachats said:
. I turn off spacewarp whatevermacallit (alt + ctrl + NumPad 1) and let the FPS settle between 70 and 90 on station and surfaces.

You shouldn't need to include the ALT key. CTRL/NP 1-4 control the ASW settings.

Alec Turner · Jul 5, 2017

Soothsayer said:
I recently got my Oculus Rift after getting the VR itch again, and for a person experiencing VR for the first time, it's pretty mind-blowing (I'm afraid of heights, so the skyscraper portion of the Oculus demo was genuinely terrifying). However, I'm wondering if my performance is normal for the settings I'm playing Elite at -- I've had to turn my VR quality settings down to medium, and I can only manage about 0.75 SS + 1.25 HMD quality before my framerate starts to frequently dip below 90 inside station interiors (although it still occasionally dips below 90 and goes straight to 45, although the game remains perfectly playable). Turning my HMD quality up to 1.5 causes a bunch of wonky things to happen, the worst of which is occasional client freezing that lasts several seconds. I'm using an i5 7600k that's overclocked to 4.4GHz, and my GTX 1060 is overclocked a fair bit, as well.

The quality is tolerable, and all text is legible, but I'm sometimes noticing individual pixels. Note that I'm using SteamVR. I've taken a peek at the stickies, but for the most part, they're really, really outdated.

So, are there any other Rift (or Vive) owners with a GTX 1060? If so, what settings are you playing at? Do you use any kind of external tool?

Also, is there any software (drivers, etc) I should know about? I'm running with the latest nVidia driver, but I have no idea whether I should worry about drivers for my Rift.

Are there any HUD color configurations that people prefer in VR over the default orange?

Finally, is it possible to use the mouse and keyboard effectively for the galaxy / system maps? I've found them to be a bit awkward to use. Sometimes, the mouse cursor works just fine, but most of the time, it's... extremely weird. Like, the mouse sensitivity drastically increases for no reason, the cursor becomes larger, and I find that I can't select anything by using the tip of the cursor.

1080 user here but yeah, what you're getting sounds entirely believable to me. I'm using 1.0 SS + 1.5 HMD and I still have to turn some things down to avoid dipping below 90fps (and that's with a 1080 remember).

For reference I turn off Bloom, Blur, DOF, Ambient Occlusion and set anti-aliasing to FXAA (or have I turned it off entirely? sorry, can't remember). The other GPU hungry setting to watch out for is Shadow Quality. I like shadows so I've got mine set to High but turning that down can make a big difference if you're not that bothered about them.

As for software, I think someone else mentioned it but get drkaii's EDProfiler. It will make all this graphic tinkering a doddle, allow you to have multiple profiles (e.g. a VR one and a non-VR one) and it will provide more HUD colour options than you could ever possibly want (his "Spiritual Teal" colour set is particularly nice for VR). Oh, also ... turn down the gamma until space is nicely black and turn down the HUD brightness until the god rays stop bothering you.

Enjoy!

o7

Alec Turner said:
As for software, I think someone else mentioned it but get drkaii's EDProfiler. It will make all this graphic tinkering a doddle, allow you to have multiple profiles (e.g. a VR one and a non-VR one) and it will provide more HUD colour options than you could ever possibly want (his "Spiritual Teal" colour set is particularly nice for VR).

Oops, forgot the link ...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...er-Robust-Settings-Profiler-Switcher-Detector!

Soothsayer · Jul 5, 2017

Thanks for all the feedback and advice, folks. Here's a question I've been curious about, and something that I've seen a bit of conflicting information on -- does decreasing the monitor resolution of Elite while in VR increase performance any? I've noticed that what I'm seeing in VR is being projected on my monitor, as well, albeit at a different resolution than the fixed resolution of the Rift. Does turning down the resolution to 640x480, for example, help any?

Alec Turner · Jul 5, 2017

Soothsayer said:
Thanks for all the feedback and advice, folks. Here's a question I've been curious about, and something that I've seen a bit of conflicting information on -- does decreasing the monitor resolution of Elite while in VR increase performance any? I've noticed that what I'm seeing in VR is being projected on my monitor, as well, albeit at a different resolution than the fixed resolution of the Rift. Does turning down the resolution to 640x480, for example, help any?

I have no empirical evidence but it must do musn't it? Personally I only have a 1920x1080 monitor. I sometimes increase the screen resolution to that when I'm in VR so I can grab some vaguely useable video and haven't noticed a massive (any?) performance drop, but I wouldn't recommend running the monitor window at 4K for example.

Kaltern · Jul 6, 2017

Alec Turner said:
I have no empirical evidence but it must do musn't it? Personally I only have a 1920x1080 monitor. I sometimes increase the screen resolution to that when I'm in VR so I can grab some vaguely useable video and haven't noticed a massive (any?) performance drop, but I wouldn't recommend running the monitor window at 4K for example.

Pretty sure the window just mirrors what is being shown on one HMD screen, so I don't think any extra GPU power is really bring used. Some games on Stream don't do this, and the game renders both HMD AND main displays - there is usually a warning window that pops up when this happens.

I'm happy to be corrected tho

-VR- Max Factor · Jul 6, 2017

Soothsayer said:
I recently got my Oculus Rift after getting the VR itch again, and for a person experiencing VR for the first time, it's pretty mind-blowing (I'm afraid of heights, so the skyscraper portion of the Oculus demo was genuinely terrifying). However, I'm wondering if my performance is normal for the settings I'm playing Elite at -- I've had to turn my VR quality settings down to medium, and I can only manage about 0.75 SS + 1.25 HMD quality before my framerate starts to frequently dip below 90 inside station interiors (although it still occasionally dips below 90 and goes straight to 45, although the game remains perfectly playable). Turning my HMD quality up to 1.5 causes a bunch of wonky things to happen, the worst of which is occasional client freezing that lasts several seconds. I'm using an i5 7600k that's overclocked to 4.4GHz, and my GTX 1060 is overclocked a fair bit, as well.

The quality is tolerable, and all text is legible, but I'm sometimes noticing individual pixels. Note that I'm using SteamVR. I've taken a peek at the stickies, but for the most part, they're really, really outdated.

So, are there any other Rift (or Vive) owners with a GTX 1060? If so, what settings are you playing at? Do you use any kind of external tool?

Also, is there any software (drivers, etc) I should know about? I'm running with the latest nVidia driver, but I have no idea whether I should worry about drivers for my Rift.

Are there any HUD color configurations that people prefer in VR over the default orange?

Finally, is it possible to use the mouse and keyboard effectively for the galaxy / system maps? I've found them to be a bit awkward to use. Sometimes, the mouse cursor works just fine, but most of the time, it's... extremely weird. Like, the mouse sensitivity drastically increases for no reason, the cursor becomes larger, and I find that I can't select anything by using the tip of the cursor.

A question. Why are you using steam VR for a rift. Surely its better to use the oculus software?

Soothsayer · Jul 6, 2017

Max Factor said:
A question. Why are you using steam VR for a rift. Surely its better to use the oculus software?

I'd have to reinstall the game, and I don't really feel like doing that. I don't think I have to use SteamVR after installing EDProfiler, however.

Kaltern · Jul 6, 2017

Makes absolutely no difference in performance how the game is launched, as a few hours of testing on my part already checked. The only difference I can find is the executable itself is slightly different in build as to allow the Oculus Home launcher to run it without needing to click 'Launch' - you can actually run that version just as you would any other, you get a window telling you it's not recommended... but it works anyway.

TorTorden_VR · Jul 6, 2017

Soothsayer said:
I'd have to reinstall the game, and I don't really feel like doing that. I don't think I have to use SteamVR after installing EDProfiler, however.

Reinstalling shouldn't be necessary.

Just make a desktop shortcut to the EDlauncher.exe in your steamapps folder.
Easiest way to find that is to right+click on the game in the steam library, select the tab marked local files and then the button "browse local files", this might of course be called something different if you are localized to a non english language.
The actual game authentication shouldn't be handled via Steam for ED, but the Frontier store account your launcher is already setup for.

I don't have ED installed via steam anymore so using skyrim as an example.

Then you can just create a new desktop shortcut for the launcher and start the game via that.

Also make sure the option for unknown sources is enabled in oculus settings.

If you however go to the Frontier store and get the oculus redemption code for Elite, that would prompt a reinstall of the game via the oculus store, and of course take disc space with your other Oculus games.
Since I have my setup for ED in a manner I can't see the screen, I now put the hmd and headphones on, get situated.
And from the oculus store I start Bigscreen, that gives me a desktop view, so I can start Discord etc etc. then close and fire up Elite from within the store.
It just seems to be a few less bugs when starting from within the store now, used to work fine to just start through the launcher as always, but lately that has sometimes prompted ED to forget HMD settings as well resetting all graphics options.
And I have at times had to close ED completely, apply settings from EDprofiler before it works as intended.
Through the store it at least seem to be working ok.

As @Kaltern mentions, it shouldn't really matter, SteamVR is clever enough to just pass directly to Oculus's runtimes and not add any major interference.

Soothsayer · Jul 6, 2017

Here's one massive advantage SteamVR appears to have -- you can use a desktop overlay to multitask from within your headset. I've tried it, and while it's a bit clunky, it's better than having to remove your headset whenever you want to Google something (like engineer mats in INARA, forum browsing, etc).

[HJ]-RedRaven · Jul 7, 2017

Technically it'd be best to run the monitor window at the same resolution the rift is running at; ie at 1.0x SS and 1.0 HMD Quality, the Rift is rendering at 1080x1200.
Changing the SS and HMD Quality changes this value (you're rendering at a higher resolution to improve quality, although what the Rift shows you is always that 1080x1200 per eye resolution).

But modern video cards are tremendously fast at resizing any image, including a just-rendered frame.
Its no performance penalty at all, except at ridiculous high resolutions. Keep it at a reasonably low res and everything will be fine.