SleepyDelegate's Chronicles - taking the DBX around the Galaxy

Regarding my graphics card: it is a 1660Ti (I play on a gaming laptop with external monitor at the moment). I play in 4K for the reasons I explained above (I wear reading glasses and my previous monitor produced some screen door effect when using reading glasses).
Ah the screen door effect, my constant companion in VR. I play mostly with Oculus Rift S. Use monitor only when I know I need to use multi monitor to have tools open such as eddb, edsm, neutron plotter etc. My monitor is just an ordinary one.

My graphics card is GTX 1070. Looking at the specs the 1070 should have slightly higher performance than 1660Ti. But I dont really feel it. I was never really happy with the display quality. I always had plan to go VR so never upgraded my monitor. But my experience with the Rift S was not satisfactory either because of heavy screen door. But..... it is great to be in VR nonetheless. Other than occasional instances most of shots are taken while on monitor. Since you are using 4K perhaps thats what making your shots look so good, high quality without much jagged lines.
 
Ah the screen door effect, my constant companion in VR. I play mostly with Oculus Rift S. Use monitor only when I know I need to use multi monitor to have tools open such as eddb, edsm, neutron plotter etc. My monitor is just an ordinary one.

My graphics card is GTX 1070. Looking at the specs the 1070 should have slightly higher performance than 1660Ti. But I dont really feel it. I was never really happy with the display quality. I always had plan to go VR so never upgraded my monitor. But my experience with the Rift S was not satisfactory either because of heavy screen door. But..... it is great to be in VR nonetheless. Other than occasional instances most of shots are taken while on monitor. Since you are using 4K perhaps thats what making your shots look so good, high quality without much jagged lines.

Yeah, probably that is the reason, 4K is of course much smoother and more detailed... But I started playing in 4K just two weeks ago... Before, I was playing in UHD...

So you're saying, that VR is great?

I'm so much looking forward to my Reverb to arrive. My pre-order should finally arrive in two weeks or so, after I was told in October that HP would ship all pre-orders in November 2020, just to let me know a month later, that I'm out of luck, as my country is not on the list for deliveries in 2020... But I got an email from HP saying, that they will start deliveries in second half of January... Fingers crossed...

At least I will have enough time to build my PC... Last missing component was a graphics card, which I snatched yesterday, after waiting for weeks, as there are shortages everywhere... Scalpers driving prices up... Even normal stores are inflating prices, knowing that the market is hungry as a hippo...

So again, should I be looking forward to the VR? What would be your list of 3 most important things to keep in mind when switching to VR? :)
 
So you're saying, that VR is great?

So again, should I be looking forward to the VR? What would be your list of 3 most important things to keep in mind when switching to VR? :)
VR experience is different for different people, at least what I have personally seen people reacting to it. To me, it is Great! VR allows you to play full scale. What you see in there is all real size. When you zoom past a planet you can really see how big that is or a canyon even your own cockpit. Cockpit alone makes it worthwhile. You are looking around like you would in a real cockpit.

My biggest complaint about VR though is that screen door effect. No matter how high your graphics settings are my Oculus Rift S does not seem to be able to make things crystal clear. Also Anti-aliasing is an issue as well. Edges are not sharp either. With better card I was told I can solve many of this issue but the screen door effect most likely wont go away. I will wait to see your experience with updated hardware and think on upgrading perhaps.

I used to cryptomine Ethereum on bunch of GTX 1070 so I have glut of them. That's one reason I have hard time going for an upgrade. Seems such a waste not to use them up. :D Also as you mention the shortage. I am in Canada. Graphics card shortages is everywhere. I have my eye on GTX 3080 and Raedon RX 6900XT. Even if i wanted to upgrade, I cant because neither of these cards are not available and wont be for a while.

So three important things to keep in mind switching to VR:
1. Expect screen door and accept it if it exists.
2. Enable Horizon view lock for SRV, without it pretty good chance you will get bad motion sickness.
3. If you are used to multi monitor using ED on one and various EDtools on the other, it will be difficult to replicate. On Oculus there is a feature called Screen Overlay where I can open Desktop windows inside the VR and somewhat make them look like part of the Ship consoles but quality is just not the same and clicking is difficult. If the window is something you just watch and not touch then its good. For example, you can open netflix window inside your cockpit and watch a movie while on long flight.

Which video card did you get?
 
Thank you for the tips! (y)

The reason I was waiting for the Reverb is exactly the problem you are facing: the screen door effect... The Reverb G2 should be virtually SDE free, so ince it arrives, I will let you know how it works...

Regarding the graphics card, I was originally wanting the Radeon 6800 or 6800XT, depending on the availability... But the situation here in the Czech Republic developed to the point, where there are no new generation graphics cards available for weeks, then some appear and scalpers immediately buy them out and post them on various auction sites for ridiculous money, I decided to grab immediately the first RTX 3070 available...

So, fingers crossed my Reverb arrives quickly, so that I an report back! ;)
 
Love reading this thread.

Will be heading back out into the Black myself soon. My first trip was before the advent of AFMU's, FSD Boosters etc - great fun.

Since you enjoy the Laika story you should check out this song by Will Wagner - I cry every time I put it on.. so.. ya know, Enjoy,

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBZnMF20zhg


Bax

Thank you, Commander! 😥 I confirm a have a wet eyes after listening to that song...As a dog lover, I get always emotional, when dogs are mistreated... Luckily, in this case, Laika was at least made immortal... There are other dogs on this planet, that suffer beyond imagination, by human cruelty... And other animals for that matter... But that is not a topic for this forum... An dont get me wrong, I am not some lunatic activist, I just appreciate life... Except for spiders... And I usually dont kill them, I just try to avoid them... :)

Happy you like my chronicles! :)
 
What an interesting system I have found today...

11 out of 13 bodies have rings...

All landable bodies have bio signals...

Three ringed bodies inn the middle are landable, ringed high gravity bodies (two exceeding 3,5G, one 3,4G)

The rest is Class III, Class IV and Class V, plus T Tauri stars...

Exploration begins, wish m luck landing on this high G bodies...

Screenshot_0771.jpg
 
The first body to explore was quite easy 1.28G... Landed safely and discovered... wait for it... pumpkins... again... 🤔 Is the Galaxy conspiring against me? All I am seeing in these regions of space are crystal shards and pumpkins... 🙃🙂🙃

But Im happy anyway, as the views were stunning...

Landing... slowly... 1.28G is a piece of cake, but with D rated thrusters and 2D distributor (no boost at all), you need to be careful... Especially, when you can fly like a brick... :)

Screenshot_0775.jpg


Exploring... When you leave your ship a start driving around and then you stop a just look at those skies, the music starts playing, really beautiful music and you just dont want to leave...
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But then you do... :)
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After a while, I have attempted landing on 3.55G body... It was quite scary... Every slight touch to the "Thrusters down" button resulted in fast drop, difficult to control with "Thrusters up"... My last "down" movement was clumsy drop from 230m, when my BT keyboard translated my soft touch as a "Go down full speed!", which I countered with long press "up", stopping mere 2m above ground... And then, I landed softly... :cool:

Screenshot_0777a.jpg


Pumpkins again... More planets to explore tomorrow...
🙂
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Commanders, apologies for not taking any pictures (spoilers) today, but I was busy setting up my VR... :eek::D

And boy, was it an experience!

First of all, what did I invest my hard earned money on, just to give you an idea what I am talking about, in case you decide to try the VR yourself:

PC:
Ryzen 5 5600X
16GB 3600MHz DDR4 memory
1TB NVMe
Gainward GeForce RTX 3070
4K 27" monitor Philips (60Hz)

VR set:
HP Reverb G2 (90Hz)

Now what needed to be done in order to make it work:

I play on Steam, so I had to download SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality for Steam. Went through the setup process ,in 20 minutes I was ready to go... However, my VR headset wasnt doing anything... The audio was there, but no picture... I had to go to settings and the moment I opened the settings up, the picture poped up...

So Im in this VMR setting and Im quite amazed... The HP Reverb has resolution of 2160x2160 per eye, so you perceive it moreless like a full HD from upclose... Not bad,, but compared to the 4K monitor, it was a step down... If you were to expect the same level of clarity as 4K monitor, you would be dissapointed... But if you play in HD, then this is probably similar experience...

So I finish the setup and launch the game... First impression - terrible... I was not able to control anything, I did not know how to center the headset, I attempted driving the SRV on that 3,5G planet and got sick after couple of minutes....

But, the drive around my ship was monumental... This is the first time you can see how big the ship is... And it is really impressive!

So I exited the game, a bit dissapointed I have to say and started playing with settings and mainly looking for a way to control the game... I finally got the keyboard and mouse working, but the problem is, you cant see the keyboard while in game...

Then I downloaded Voice Attack and that was another hour setting it up... Also downloading and setting up the Windows speech recognition feature...

In the end, I got everything to work and I also figured out how to program the voice attack: now when I enter my ship, I say "Hello CML" and the ship answers "Good Day Commander! The ship is ready for your inspection, all systems nominal!" And I respond by "Than you CML, proceed" and the ship responds with "Roger Commander, waiting for your command!"... :LOL::cool:

When I say "Landing configuration", the ship deploys Landing gear, or whenn I say "Ready for departure" the ship retracts landing gear... etc etc... Of course always saying something like "Deploying Landing gear" with another confirmation from the ship itself (Landing gear deployed) etc... When I say "Engage", it would say "Roger Commander, engaging warp drive!"...

(Note to self: replace all "rogers" with "aye aye Sir!" )

So when I had everything set up, I went back to the game and decide to perform landing on the last Bio planet of the above...

"Sector map!" - "opening sector map!"
"Cruise!! - "Roger, engaging supercruise!"

Flying this thing in VR is amazing! You ca freely look around and see the depth you would not be able to see in 2D... The difference is breathtaking! It is like truly being inside your ship... Yes, the focus sweet-spot makes it a bit difficult to see things with your peripheral sight, it is like wearing a glasses with a bit of grease on its edges, but no problem, you just have to look directly on whatever you want to see... If I hd to explain the difference, for example: when you drive a car and you want to check your speed, you do not move your whole head, you just move your eye bulbs to focus on the speedo... You can't do it in VR, because the lenses do not provide focus in their entire field of view... The picture is clear only in the direct line of sigh and close around your line of sight... Everything else is blurred to some degree... So moving your eye bulbs does not give you the results you expect... You need to move your head and put the thing you want to see in the direct line of sight...

And then you approach the planet and it just leaves you speechless... The sense of depth, altitude, the way you can approach the landing site, the way you can see and feel the depth below you, that unimaginable easiness with which you are landing, looking around and not having to look at the instruments, because you see everything like in a regular space ship... I was always kind of nervous when landing on a planet... Not anymore... Here you just KNOW... You see everything, you get the feeling of where you actually are, how your ship is leveled etc.. That is beyond anything you can experience in a 2D game...

"Landing configuration!" - "Deploying landing gear!!

and a touchdown....


Yes, it cost me money... But I do not regret... It was a fantastic experience to fly and land in VR! (y)(y)(y):):cool:
 
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Commanders, apologies for not taking any pictures (spoilers) today, but I was busy setting up my VR... :eek::D

And boy, was it an experience!

Flying this thing in VR is amazing! You ca freely look around and see the depth you would not be able to see in 2D... The difference is breathtaking! It is like truly being inside your ship...

Yes, it cost me money... But I do not regret... It was a fantastic experience to fly and land in VR! (y)(y)(y):):cool:
So my short sales pitch about VR experience was spot on then. :D
I always had joystick some sort so going to VR was not a big issue control wise. After experiencing ED VR for a week I decided to get a hotas joystick set. I got the Cobra F5 to simulate the joystick for right hand and the throttle for left hand as in all the ship in ED.

I would not recommend this to any one though. The joystick started squeaky sound badly after 3 months. Opening the thing I realized it's all cheap plastic. The throttle on the other hand is very nice. It got enough button that I programmed mostly engine/landing related stuff all on the throttle unit. I replaced the joystick with Thrustmaster T1600. Have been using the setup for over 1 year. With the joystick and the throttle unit I almost never have take my hands off. If I could figure out how to use 3rd party tools (EDSM.net, EDDiscovery, EDDB etc) seamlessly while in VR, I would be living in VR full time.

So how is the screen door effect in the Reverb?
 
Thanks for your sales pitch, Commander! :) I was planning to go VR for over 6 months now... I finally placed my pre-order for HP Reverb in September, but your opinion cemented my determination to go this route...

Regarding the joystick: there is a shortage of joysticks in my area... I have placed an order for Saitek X52 Pro 5 months ago, still nothing, still out of stock... If it doesnt get delivered soon, I will probably invest in a Thrustmaster Warthog... The only problem I see is the rudder control, or yaw in ED... I dont want to use pedals and with Warthog, pedals are the only option I guess... I will see how I get used to the VR... Then I will make a decision...

Regarding the screendoor effect: it is barely noticable in Reverb G2, but it is noticable... Some reviewrs say it is gone, but that is not true... Maybe compared to headsets with smaller resolution, the SDE is minimal, but my picky eyes can see it... :) And I am not wearing glasses in VR... :)

One thing I noticed, comparing the experience in VR with monitor: the background in space, the Galaxy etc, is more like a wallpaper... You can see that it lacks depth, compared to the rest of the picture... That is a bit immersion breaking, but not as bad as to complain about it...
 
Yesterday I have programmed some new voice commands, like "Full impulse", "Half impulse" etc. I am experiencing occasional problems with voice attack, probably my accent not being recognised every time... But overall, so far, solid experience with the voice attack...

The problems I have so far:
  1. how do you work with the galaxy map in VR? I was not able to select almost anything... I am able to interact with different tabs on the left side menu, but when i want to select a system from the map, the cursor is not picking up anything...
  2. the wallpaper style Galaxy background is annoying... I guess I am just spoiled by that 4K 2D image...
  3. I am getting a bit sick when driving around in SRV, even with that "Keep horizon" feature enabled... The body simply expects a movement the head is perceiving... Especially in case of very rough planet surfaces... Yesterday I landed on one, that was full of small hills and ridges and it was a "close to vomiting" experience...
  4. sometimes the video output stutters (like once in 10 minutes), although usually I am getting steady 75-90fps on my RTX 3070 when playing ED... Nothing major, it is just annoying when it happens...
What I really do enjoy: approaching the planet and landing... That is simply übercool...
 
Yesterday I have programmed some new voice commands, like "Full impulse", "Half impulse" etc. I am experiencing occasional problems with voice attack, probably my accent not being recognised every time... But overall, so far, solid experience with the voice attack...

The problems I have so far:
  1. how do you work with the galaxy map in VR? I was not able to select almost anything... I am able to interact with different tabs on the left side menu, but when i want to select a system from the map, the cursor is not picking up anything...
  2. the wallpaper style Galaxy background is annoying... I guess I am just spoiled by that 4K 2D image...
  3. I am getting a bit sick when driving around in SRV, even with that "Keep horizon" feature enabled... The body simply expects a movement the head is perceiving... Especially in case of very rough planet surfaces... Yesterday I landed on one, that was full of small hills and ridges and it was a "close to vomiting" experience...
  4. sometimes the video output stutters (like once in 10 minutes), although usually I am getting steady 75-90fps on my RTX 3070 when playing ED... Nothing major, it is just annoying when it happens...
What I really do enjoy: approaching the planet and landing... That is simply übercool...


here's some useful feedback on the forums:


and a vid

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D8pQfmNoKo
 
  • How do you work with the galaxy map in VR? I was not able to select almost anything... I am able to interact with different tabs on the left side menu, but when i want to select a system from the map, the cursor is not picking up anything...
As the video posted by @Crumley, I too use the joystick to control the galaxy map. Mouse cursor is touch and go. The way I found to make it work when occasionally need it in the galaxy map is to zoom in/out till cursor focuses on what I want to click on. Takes few seconds. But thankfully I dont use the mouse always. Joystick is definitely the way to go for galaxy map in VR from my experience.
  • the wallpaper style Galaxy background is annoying... I guess I am just spoiled by that 4K 2D image...
Have to agree with you there. I was told the galaxy in ED is static image showing as a square box. We are just sitting inside the box and looking at 6 sides. I am hopeful this will get some serious attention to make the galaxy look more like a galaxy. It is too bright in my opinion. Of course with some tweaking we can adjust few things, still it always looks like wall paper.
  • I am getting a bit sick when driving around in SRV, even with that "Keep horizon" feature enabled... The body simply expects a movement the head is perceiving... Especially in case of very rough planet surfaces... Yesterday I landed on one, that was full of small hills and ridges and it was a "close to vomiting" experience...
What works for me in this scenario is to drive slowly and occasionally closing my eyes when I know I am going in straight line or I can see I have to cover some distance through hills without any obstacle. Or sometime I will climb the hill and close my eyes for moments as I am going over the dip and coming down. Or as you are driving around, just try to look around instead of looking straight. I also always drive with Drive Assist Off. With it on SRV seems to go much faster some uncontrollably.
What I really do enjoy: approaching the planet and landing... That is simply übercool...
Those tasks are really cool in VR. :) Wait till you are back to civilization and entering a station for the first time in VR! Even better try to find an asteroid station and try to dock! Simply WOW! :love:
During docking you are much more aware as you can feel the sheer size of stations and you are aware of you surroundings. Although I never like Krait, (simply because of the snake name :D) landing with it was always a treat. Because of the unobstructed view of the ground from your seat. DBX also gives similar experience with it's glass side windows close to the cockpit floor although not as good as Krait.

Try some CQC so you get to experience ships such as Sidewinder, Eagle in VR without leaving your exploration. I treat CQC as my on board video game console. You know break monotony playing a video game inside a video game. :LOL:
 
here's some useful feedback on the forums:


and a vid

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D8pQfmNoKo


🤦‍♂️ Search function.... Thank you my dear friend! :)

Last time I checked, you were still in the Formidine rift... Or have you moved back to the bubble already?

How is life? :)
 
As the video posted by @Crumley, I too use the joystick to control the galaxy map. Mouse cursor is touch and go. The way I found to make it work when occasionally need it in the galaxy map is to zoom in/out till cursor focuses on what I want to click on. Takes few seconds. But thankfully I dont use the mouse always. Joystick is definitely the way to go for galaxy map in VR from my experience.

Have to agree with you there. I was told the galaxy in ED is static image showing as a square box. We are just sitting inside the box and looking at 6 sides. I am hopeful this will get some serious attention to make the galaxy look more like a galaxy. It is too bright in my opinion. Of course with some tweaking we can adjust few things, still it always looks like wall paper.

What works for me in this scenario is to drive slowly and occasionally closing my eyes when I know I am going in straight line or I can see I have to cover some distance through hills without any obstacle. Or sometime I will climb the hill and close my eyes for moments as I am going over the dip and coming down. Or as you are driving around, just try to look around instead of looking straight. I also always drive with Drive Assist Off. With it on SRV seems to go much faster some uncontrollably.

Those tasks are really cool in VR. :) Wait till you are back to civilization and entering a station for the first time in VR! Even better try to find an asteroid station and try to dock! Simply WOW! :love:
During docking you are much more aware as you can feel the sheer size of stations and you are aware of you surroundings. Although I never like Krait, (simply because of the snake name :D) landing with it was always a treat. Because of the unobstructed view of the ground from your seat. DBX also gives similar experience with it's glass side windows close to the cockpit floor although not as good as Krait.

Try some CQC so you get to experience ships such as Sidewinder, Eagle in VR without leaving your exploration. I treat CQC as my on board video game console. You know break monotony playing a video game inside a video game. :LOL:

Im still waiting for my joystick to arrive... I'm using mouse and numerical keyboard (I'm a left hander, so my left hand does the precise control, while right operates buttons, I got used to this set up back in 1999, when I started playing FPS games...

I use this same approach even in ED... Left hand controls pitch, yaw and roll, I'm also using mouse wheel to control the thrust (wheel forward = 75% thrust, wheel back = -25% thrust... this works great in combat)... So for me, to operate the map with mouse was a breeze in 2D, but it is a nightmare in VR... I will try the tips found in the video and in the thread CMDR @Crumley has provided, hopefully that will do the trick... :)

Regarding SRV and dizziness: I solved that by looking at the wheels (magnificent view by the way, it looks so much more real in VR!)

Great tip with CQC, I'll give it a try! ;)(y)
 
🤦‍♂️ Search function.... Thank you my dear friend! :)

Last time I checked, you were still in the Formidine rift... Or have you moved back to the bubble already?

How is life? :)


You're welcome mate :) I'm parked at a guardian site to finally get the guardian FSD... Where I've been for about 6 weeks. Work and home life have overtaken my free time somewhat more than I'd like. Other than that, Still alive, still employed, still busy... so I can't really complain!
 
Slowly getting along with my new setup - and it is fantastic! :)

I have configured my voice attack, now the immersion is complete... I feel like a captain Picard...

Me: "On my mark..."

Ship:
  • starts FSD "FSD charging"
  • thrusters to 50%
  • "Preparing to enter witch space"
  • waits for the FSD to chage
  • "On your mark sir!"
Me: "Warp 9"
Ship: "Aye aye, warp nine!" and jumps by setting thruserst to 100%

Voice attack is so COOL! I am now using just a demo, but I will hapilly pay for full version, this is just great piece of software! :)

Anyway, today, I have discovered system with beautiful two gas giants orbiting each other:

Screenshot_0007.jpg


Screenshot_0009.jpg


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Then I have found another system with 76 bodies, a ton of GG and most of the moons have bio signals, there is one ringed landable body with bio signals...

Calling it a day after landing at one of them... Unfortunately again pumpkins...

Screenshot_0012.jpg


Have you ever noticed, how BIG is the landing gear? When I was inn game, being able to observe it in VR, it was monstrous... Now when looking at the 2D picture, it looks like a toy...

Screenshot_0013.jpg
 
So I bought the Voice Attack and installed a full version (this time non Steam version, I wanted all my money to go to these people) and by uninstalling my old one, I lost all my commands...

Nevertheless, I wanted to buy the HCS voice pack anyway... So I did... And what a piece of work that is! My hats off!

What I am not so impressed with, is Windows speech recognition... It is struggling with my accent. Google has little problems recognising what I say, before also Siri had little problems, but Microsoft... That is a different story... I have trained Windows SRE multiple times... Yet it still struggles with some words. Google recognises them instantly... The worst example being the word CAMERA.

Out of tens of attempts, Microsoft SRE only recognised this word once, all the other guesses were "," - comma.

So I opened the speech recognition and did exactly what Microsoft tells you to do. Opened WordPad and started dictating the word CAMERA. Whenever (meaning always in this case) SRE does a mistake, I would say "Correct comma" and SRE would select comma, I would tell it to remember that the sound it hears from me is in fact the word "CAMERA" and not "comma" and repeat this exercise roughly 20x. Even then, SRE would not be able to recognise this stupid word not even ONCE!

I tried with Google, and CAMERA was always recognised without a single issue... Also my friends from abroad do understand me correctly. In fact, when I compare my pronunciation of the word CAMERA with the way Google pronounces it, it is not that much different... But Microsoft, for some reason, considers anything that sounds similar to "comma" a comma... I tried everything... CAMERA is a forbidden word obviously... :)

In the end, I had to replace the word CAMERA with TV, because any other synonyms for CAMERA like cam, moviecam, digicam etc... were causing similar errors, usually resulting in something like "come" "movie com" "digi com"...

I wish there was a way of using Google speech recognition...

And I don't even have Scottish accent!

 
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Celebrating my 777.7 hours of playing ED (I swear this is a coincidence, I was not planning this, nor was I watching the count at all ;)) with a shiny new X52 Hotas from Logitech... I was waiting for X52Pro for 5 months already... Decided to cancel the order and bought in stock X52...

Just when I went to Steam to relaunch the game in non VR mode, I noticed the count... :)

Now the struggle begins... Learning everythig from scratch...

Screenshot 2021-01-18 204121.jpg
 
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