State of VR in 3.3 Beta.

Dipso

Dipso
So obviously there are a lot of silly and annoying bugs in VR in the beta (Like the invisible help-screen in FSS)

And at first that made me a bit sad.

But then i started playing some more, and noticed that the boxes in the galaxy map that got in the way when i selected systems seemed to be moved a bit to the side and be less annoying now. And that made me happy.

Obviously polishing the VR presentation has not been prioritized at this moment. But they are commenting on and taking all VR reports in the bug forum seriously, so hopefully the worst offenders get worked out.

Honestly with the amount of UI and visual stuff this patch adds, I'm happy that the things are at least in a semi-working state.

If they just fix the FSS and the planetary probe stuff, i would say it is fully playable as is, although rough around the edges. :)

I don't think we are going to see any big investments in dev-time towards VR, but they are at least listening and making it "work" for us. Do I wish they could throw a bit more work into VR and update the Oculus SDK -stuff, etc? Yes. But as long as the game stays playable and enjoyable in VR I am happy I can still play the VR game I love and enjoy the most. :) [cool]

Now quick everyone get their friends to buy VR headsets and Elite if they don't have it, so Frontier have to put more priority on VR. :D

EDIT: I'm going to be testing more tonight. And can post more experiences if you want' (But you are all probably testing the beta yourselves). Feel free to leave any other things you notice in the beta below :)
 
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Wasp0

Wasp0
Tried, and tried again to get into the Beta last night, but........ I am sure we all got that issue, but on the odd few mins of in game time in VR that i managed before i gave up and went into the normal game, these are my thoughts:

I noticed all things that are bright in VR have a 'Halo' around it, like a flare, Not good and i may need to tweak a few things. My HUD brightness was down to zero!

Did not see an improvement in the Galaxy Map, but i may need more visits as i only managed 2

The orrery map is Meh!

and that is it, sorry not contributed much, but 27 game crashes in under 40 mins sent me to do other things. Have done many Beta's before, but this is the worst, and i suppose the volume of players in beta took FD by surprise and the servers could not cope. Hope to try again tonight.
 

Munial

Munial
Tried out the scanning and surface probes now and had a little fly about - apart from fairly serious graphical glitches it actually looks great.

The glitches are an issue though - being when at any level of zoom the blue layer that denotes point of interest is right up on your eyeballs and you cant discern where the hotspots are. The orbit lines go a bit janky as well, and we've all seen what happens to ringed planets. But the system does work and so far I think its a great improvement on honk, wahey you're done - hopefully the graphical issues can be ironed out in the beta.

I do think its odd that you have to do this in frameshift leaving you vulnerable. Is that the idea? It's weird, why wouldn't you be able to drop out of hyperspace and scan the system? Jumping into a 1st person camera is weirdly disconnecting as well - it would make more sense with space legs (!) where you have to go to a science station and look in a viewer like Mr Spock! :)

The orrery map view is a different story - I navigate the galaxy map just fine with hotas, but cant seem to work the orrery - I cant seem to get close enough, maybe I need to fiddle with bindings.

On the surface scanner, it seems to work ok, I've not experienced probes firing where I'm looking like I've read of others (I'm on CV1) - although I'm a bit baffled why it needs to go to another 1st person camera view at all - If you launch a probe and back out of the viewer straight away, you're there in your cockpit watching exactly the same view play out - the probe descends to the surface and the planet coverage readout is visible as part of the hud - why not just have the whole mechanism accessible from the cockpit and add the probe info to the hud? - that camera view seems totally unnecessary IMO and adds to the feeling of disconnection from the ship.

Also loving the lighting changes (once i'd dialed down my gamma) and witchspace and emerging from it look like they've had an overhaul?

Overall, v nice, fingers crossed they give the VR presentation the love it deserves - it is after all a flagship VR title, I'd expect Zuck to be phoning Lord Braben up saying, yo Dave, sort the game out we're trying to sell headsets over here!
 
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Sierra_Hotel

Sierra_Hotel
Gave it a try for a few minutes last night and was very pleased with the left/right panel changes and the lighting enhancements. Tried the FSS and that's when it went south. Definitely shows promise, though. Looking forward to the rest of the beta.
 

Dipso

Dipso
I'm really looking forward to what they are doing with mining. Have been mining with a friend a few times last week, just hanging out talking trash and shooting rocks. It's a really chill way to enjoy the game. :D
 

The Lawful

The Lawful
Well, my contribution at least:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...No-jet-cone-animation-etc-for-right-eye-image

Now this is a bug that's so obvious that it leads me to the conclusion they didn't test in VR at all. Or maybe some intern did in his leisure time.

Worst thing for me are the stars, I think. Brighter than ever. Say hello to the god rays again, Oculus.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/453038-New-shaders-make-everything-look-overbright

I'm content if the game doesn't permanently damage my eyes in VR. Could be 3.3 is hitting that baseline, though.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-overall-please-provide-better-gamma-controls

And that background pulse effect in the new FSS scanner alone clearly shows where VR stands, in ED terms. Must look great on consoles.

O7,
[noob]
 
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Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Wasp0 said:
and that is it, sorry not contributed much, but 27 game crashes in under 40 mins sent me to do other things. Have done many Beta's before, but this is the worst, and i suppose the volume of players in beta took FD by surprise and the servers could not cope. Hope to try again tonight.
Click to expand...

Do you happen to use an NVidia GPU? If so, grab the latest drivers: people have reported tons of crashes with older NVidia drivers.
 

Camlis

Camlis
I have made this suggestion in the beta feedback forum, regarding FSS VR: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...hy-not-make-it-like-the-gunner-multicrew-view

Basically I am not fond of the skybox-wireframe-room in current the FSS VR UI and me being suspended in free space without having a reference to my ship. A view like the gunner turret in multicrew, I would consider an improvement (photoshopped pic in the mentioned thread). The ability to turn off the wireframe wall, is the minimum I would like to have. Anybody else thinking the same regarding the wireframe wall?
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
TheLawful said:
Well, my contribution at least:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...No-jet-cone-animation-etc-for-right-eye-image

Now this is a bug that's so obvious that it leads me to the conclusion they didn't test in VR at all. Or maybe some intern did in his leisure time.
Click to expand...

I think it aint so simple. People have been reported stuff being only visible in one eye in VR that I can clearly see in both. There is some reason why it shows for some but not others, and my first guess is going to be drivers. This beta seems to really want the latest drivers, seen all kinds of weird things and crashes being reported that stopped after an update.
 

The Lawful

The Lawful
sleutelbos said:
I think it aint so simple. People have been reported stuff being only visible in one eye in VR that I can clearly see in both. There is some reason why it shows for some but not others, and my first guess is going to be drivers. This beta seems to really want the latest drivers, seen all kinds of weird things and crashes being reported that stopped after an update.
Click to expand...

NVIDIA 416.34, latest available, dating from 11th of October. Neutron stars work in 3.2 and don't in 3.3, Oculus software unchanged. Sometimes it is that simple, and I have 20 years of developer experience in the software industry under my belt. Drivers is what our support would say, too, but usually, problems are neither introduced nor go away by magic (not even dev magic). FD changed the functionality in question, but didn't test the changes in VR. Same might very well be true for the gamma issue, and there's a ton of new clipping bugs with the vanity cam. 24 hours since the beta came out, and really easy to find. They certainly would have tested a lot better if VR were still considered a first-class citizen ;)

The real problem, though, is basically the same as the new JDK schedule Oracle recently introduced. The release date is already fixed, one or two weeks before Xmas I'd say, but no later. That's only two sprints, and the bug list is not even complete. So they go categorizing by importance, showstoppers first, major bugs next, minor bugs never, consoles are more important than PC or vice versa, time has also to be taken into consideration, and then fix as many issues as time allows.

Doesn't look too good for niche VR, obviously.

O7,
[noob]
 
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Gortron

Gortron
Munial said:
Tried out the scanning and surface probes now and had a little fly about - apart from fairly serious graphical glitches it actually looks great.

The glitches are an issue though - being when at any level of zoom the blue layer that denotes point of interest is right up on your eyeballs and you cant discern where the hotspots are. The orbit lines go a bit janky as well, and we've all seen what happens to ringed planets. But the system does work and so far I think its a great improvement on honk, wahey you're done - hopefully the graphical issues can be ironed out in the beta.

I do think its odd that you have to do this in frameshift leaving you vulnerable. Is that the idea? It's weird, why wouldn't you be able to drop out of hyperspace and scan the system? Jumping into a 1st person camera is weirdly disconnecting as well - it would make more sense with space legs (!) where you have to go to a science station and look in a viewer like Mr Spock! :)

The orrery map view is a different story - I navigate the galaxy map just fine with hotas, but cant seem to work the orrery - I cant seem to get close enough, maybe I need to fiddle with bindings.

On the surface scanner, it seems to work ok, I've not experienced probes firing where I'm looking like I've read of others (I'm on CV1) - although I'm a bit baffled why it needs to go to another 1st person camera view at all - If you launch a probe and back out of the viewer straight away, you're there in your cockpit watching exactly the same view play out - the probe descends to the surface and the planet coverage readout is visible as part of the hud - why not just have the whole mechanism accessible from the cockpit and add the probe info to the hud? - that camera view seems totally unnecessary IMO and adds to the feeling of disconnection from the ship.

Also loving the lighting changes (once i'd dialed down my gamma) and witchspace and emerging from it look like they've had an overhaul?

Overall, v nice, fingers crossed they give the VR presentation the love it deserves - it is after all a flagship VR title, I'd expect Zuck to be phoning Lord Braben up saying, yo Dave, sort the game out we're trying to sell headsets over here!
Click to expand...

I've not tried the beta, my "Broadband" is way to slow and I don't have much free drive space. On top of that I'm not sure they take any notice of beta 'feedback'.

Without trying it I'm baffled why they'd go for first person over putting a curved screen on the ship much like I'm baffled why making a curved market screen is so technically challenging? The system map should have been on a curved screen for months as should every other jarring screen they create. The simple answer seems to be they just don't care about VR. If they did many of the bugs being reported now would have been tackled before.
 

TorTorden_VR

T
Big beta's has always been on the verge of utterly unplayable until patch 3 or so.
This doesn't seem to be much different.

I barely tried starting the fss mode and all keybinds goes utterly unresponsive.
I can't move anything nothing responds.
In fact the only thing that does is the ESC menu and the only way I can leave it is to log off to menu.
And yes I bound all the keys.
Could be a corrupt DL again.
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
glad its not just me.
got in did scan moved about a bit but could not fgure it out then controls stopped working. game not crashed clock still working

even escape did not work.

time for bed.
 

VR_Yata_PL

VR_Yata_PL
TorTorden said:
Big beta's has always been on the verge of utterly unplayable until patch 3 or so.
This doesn't seem to be much different.

I barely tried starting the fss mode and all keybinds goes utterly unresponsive.
I can't move anything nothing responds.
In fact the only thing that does is the ESC menu and the only way I can leave it is to log off to menu.
And yes I bound all the keys.
Could be a corrupt DL again.
Click to expand...

The same here, plus the new lightning system literally burns my eyes in vr.
I have Vive with Gear Vr lenses mod that eliminating godrays.
With new beta godrays attacked again !
 

Sierra_Hotel

Sierra_Hotel
Mad Mike said:
glad its not just me.
got in did scan moved about a bit but could not fgure it out then controls stopped working. game not crashed clock still working

even escape did not work.

time for bed.
Click to expand...

Yup, that was the point I went back to 3.2 and worked on a faction war.
 
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