SteamVR + Rift poor performance

[EricNoir]

Hello,

I just got myself a Rift, but unfortunately UPS doesn't seem very hurried to deliver my 1070, so I'm stuck playing on a 960.
As I already had Elite installed, I played the first couple days launching it from Steam VR, but I had poor performances, even in VR Low, and landing on a planet was impossible due to very low framerate (it even got me sick). I just blamed the poor GPU...

Yesterday, I started the game from Oculus Home. The performances are so much better! I can now go everywhere, land on planets. without dropping to the point where low framerate causes nausea.

Do you know what's the cause of this performance gap between the two versions? Who is to blame, Steam, Oculus or Frontier?

I was planning on buying all my VR games from steam (I actually already got EVE Valkyrie ), for convenience, but now I'm seriously reconsidering.

 

[conceit]

Hello,

I just got myself a Rift, but unfortunately UPS doesn't seem very hurried to deliver my 1070, so I'm stuck playing on a 960.
As I already had Elite installed, I played the first couple days launching it from Steam VR, but I had poor performances, even in VR Low, and landing on a planet was impossible due to very low framerate (it even got me sick). I just blamed the poor GPU...

Yesterday, I started the game from Oculus Home. The performances are so much better! I can now go everywhere, land on planets. without dropping to the point where low framerate causes nausea.

Do you know what's the cause of this performance gap between the two versions? Who is to blame, Steam, Oculus or Frontier?

I was planning on buying all my VR games from steam (I actually already got EVE Valkyrie ), for convenience, but now I'm seriously reconsidering.

Interesting point. Are there "oculus" tagged games at all that *require* SteamVR? I've tried ED, Project Cars, Time Machine VR and Adrift from my Steam Library, and I think none of them started SteamVR beforehand, but all connected to the Oc. Service directly.

 

[xyphic]

Hello,

I just got myself a Rift, but unfortunately UPS doesn't seem very hurried to deliver my 1070, so I'm stuck playing on a 960.
As I already had Elite installed, I played the first couple days launching it from Steam VR, but I had poor performances, even in VR Low, and landing on a planet was impossible due to very low framerate (it even got me sick). I just blamed the poor GPU...

Yesterday, I started the game from Oculus Home. The performances are so much better! I can now go everywhere, land on planets. without dropping to the point where low framerate causes nausea.

Do you know what's the cause of this performance gap between the two versions? Who is to blame, Steam, Oculus or Frontier?

I was planning on buying all my VR games from steam (I actually already got EVE Valkyrie ), for convenience, but now I'm seriously reconsidering.

If there's an option between using SteamVR and using another VR API, use the other one. I can't remember if this is the case with ED (I still use the launcher).

The reason that the Oculus version works better than SteamVR is that it can take advantage of the Asynchronous Space Warp (ASW) feature. When frame rate is low (< 90 fps) it will switch to 45 fps and extrapolate alternate frames based on the positional and rotational movement of the headset. This makes it *seem* like you're getting 90 fps, even though you aren't. It does introduce some artifacting, especially when there's a lot of movement, but generally works quite well.

Your GPU meets the Oculus minimum specification (which dropped from a 970 when ASW was introduced) but doesn't meet Elite's minimum, which I believe is a 980. ASW will be making your experience tolerable, and when the 1070 arrives you should be able to crank up the eye candy a bit. Make sure that you still use the Oculus version of the game so that you still get the advantage of ASW when you hit those situations where even the 1070 can't quite cope.

 

[EricNoir]

Thank you both for your answers.

So the goods news are:
1- Despite Elite minimum requirement, the game is perfectly playable in VR with Rift and a 960.
2- The 1070 is in my hands right now, so I'll try that tonight after work.

It seems that I made a mistake/confusion. I thought that SteamVR was mandatory to play games in VR with steam, and supported the Oculus Rift 9assuming the game has a rift Icon).
Based on your replies, the good method would be:
- Delete Steam VR
- Launch my games from the steam library as usual, and the game should detect the Rift

I didn't realise that, when Steam is Oculus Rift compatible, steam VR isn't. I was basically playing the Vive version, which requires better hardware as it doesn't offer ASW.

Thanks again!

 

[Scrat]

You could also deactivate the automatic launch of steamvr under the developer tab in steamvr settings. So you can still use steamvr for games which don't support the Rift natively.

 

[Wood67]

The reason that the Oculus version works better than SteamVR is that it can take advantage of the Asynchronous Space Warp (ASW) feature.

Wait - is that really true? ASW will ONLY work if the game is launched from the Occulus home?

I have 3 ways to launch ED:
SteamVR
Elite Launcher direct
Occulus Home

So are you really saying ASW will only work for the third option (which requires anther install of ED on my HDD)? I thought ASW was software built into the Rift itself and not dependent on an environment wrapper.

 

[CMDR Reaper]

Wait - is that really true? ASW will ONLY work if the game is launched from the Occulus home?

I have 3 ways to launch ED:
SteamVR
Elite Launcher direct
Occulus Home

So are you really saying ASW will only work for the third option (which requires anther install of ED on my HDD)? I thought ASW was software built into the Rift itself and not dependent on an environment wrapper.

Nope. That is not the case.

I launch Elite through Steam, and set the HMD option under 3D settings in Elite. The rift runs with the Oculus software, and the ASW works just fine.

No need to install it from the Occulus store.

 

[THE BLOB]

Well since I downloaded elite thought steam and oculus with the redeem key I've been having issues with loading times. Takes in the region off 1/2 minutes to load. I never had an issue when it was just from ED alone. Plus also having trouble turning ASW off I run a 1080 and it even drops to 45 in places it shouldn't like outside the stations. I know how to turn it off it just doesn't

Rob