Vive Pre - I've got to be doing something wrong. Anyone else?

[ltx]

Found something interesting.

GeForce Experience settings for Elite Dangerous: Horizons VR are reporting that in HMD mode Elite Dangerous is running at 1280x720 resolution (both current and optimal):
http://i.imgur.com/m58Ivri.png

There is no way to change the HMD resolution through GeForce Experience (the option is grayed out).

This seems incorrect because Vive resolution is 2160x1200 or 1080x1200 per eye. So the recommended resolution setting should be 2160x1200 or 1080x1200, not 1280x720.

Also if you drag the slider all the way to Quality in GeForce Experience for Elite VR, it changes the HMD image quality from 0.890 to 1.000 and the game looks better in HMD but still not quite right.

 

[wstephenson]

GeForce Experience settings for Elite Dangerous: Horizons VR are reporting that in HMD mode Elite Dangerous is running at 1280x720 resolution (both current and optimal):
http://i.imgur.com/m58Ivri.png

I am pretty sure that whatever resolution setting in EDH's config file GFE looks at to get that 1280x720 is only used for the preview window and for 2D mode. The new ED VR entry in GFE's database is simply a copy and name change of the existing ED entry, to allow GFE to configure ED differently for VR and for 2D usage. The configured resolution is not used by the game in HMD mode to set the HMD displays' resolution.

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I'm not saying that there isn't a rendering issue, but as a VIVE and Oculus user (320+ hours of ED w/DK2) I can tell you that VIVE hardware is being largely overlooked in this discussion. The Fresnel lenses along with the anthropometric differences of each user is playing a big part in the aliasing that is mysteriously present for some users and not others, or the fact that setting AA has no effect.

I would highly suggest FD stop wasting their time asking for DXdiag and screen shots from VR (how the hell do you do that anyway??) and actually put a VIVE HMD on your face. In fact, put one on all your developers faces, and ask them what their experience is...

Why would the Fresnel lenses affect aliasing in the 'sweet spot' of the HMD? Fresnel lenses are known to introduce rings (coarse steps like Vive) or glare (fine steps like CV1) off-centre, but should not affect the clarity or introduce pixelation in the centre.

And ignoring the lens end, the preview screenshot posted by /u/Mr_Thumpy I referred to is apparently rendered at <1.0 SS, so it's worth asking the question if this is also happening on the render for the HMD display, or whether this sub-sampling is only used on the preview window to reduce its render time.

 

[wstephenson]

Yep, and that's what it looks like for everyone.

Again guys, if you have a rig that can handle it, set graphics to "VR Low" or whatever it's called, and bump the Supersampling to 1.5x or 2x. It'll be tolerable until FDev fixes this (or some 3rd party team makes an injector or something like what we got yesterday for Lucky's Tale).

Really, it's FDev's responsibility. I hope their focus on Engineers doesn't cause them to miss this issue. ED is a featured game on Steam for VR and it's an awful experience visually right now without a 95th percentile level rig to brute force supersampling.

H-H (Breeders fan, possibly?), could you post us your preview window, with and without 1.5x/2x supersampling and a summary of your other graphics settings?

 

[Ryder35]

DK2 is a better ED experience. Text is easier to read, no aliasing, no god rays. The only thing good I can say about the VIVE is blacks are nicer and when things aren't obscured by aliasing and god rays, micro judder and flickering, well.. it looks good.

Really? Wow something is clearly wrong then as it should be much better

 

[Calv45]

Really? Wow something is clearly wrong then as it should be much better

Sad but true ,silky smooth on the DK2.After getting a Vive i thought i'd never touch my DK2 again but will be using it for CQC until they fix it.

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Sad but true ,silky smooth on the DK2.After getting a Vive i thought i'd never touch my DK2 again but will be using it for CQC until they fix it.

Ooof. Yea, not a good look. Hopefully the mod of this forum has the ability to pass this along to someone in position to do something about this. As you said, it just isn't a pleasant experience. I like the presence, but not at the expense of a headache or irritation. My bigass monitor and trackIR work for now without the laundry list of negatives.

 

[wstephenson]

Heavenly-Hammer, did you raise the bug report and support tickets Frontier have requested?

 

[traveltrousers]

I concur.... never played ED on a monitor, just hundreds of hours in a DK2 and the vive looks worse.... Getting my CV1 on monday so I'll be interested to see how the vive and it compares....

Come on FD.... sort it out!

ticket created... I want to play CQC!!

 

[KTMDirtFace]

I concur.... never played ED on a monitor, just hundreds of hours in a DK2 and the vive looks worse.... Getting my CV1 on monday so I'll be interested to see how the vive and it compares....

Come on FD.... sort it out!

It looks great on the CV1 for me ( for an HMD ). Looks really bad on my vive.

 

[Gundiok]

I am pretty sure that whatever resolution setting in EDH's config file GFE looks at to get that 1280x720 is only used for the preview window and for 2D mode. The new ED VR entry in GFE's database is simply a copy and name change of the existing ED entry, to allow GFE to configure ED differently for VR and for 2D usage. The configured resolution is not used by the game in HMD mode to set the HMD displays' resolution.

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Why would the Fresnel lenses affect aliasing in the 'sweet spot' of the HMD? Fresnel lenses are known to introduce rings (coarse steps like Vive) or glare (fine steps like CV1) off-centre, but should not affect the clarity or introduce pixelation in the centre.

And ignoring the lens end, the preview screenshot posted by /u/Mr_Thumpy I referred to is apparently rendered at <1.0 SS, so it's worth asking the question if this is also happening on the render for the HMD display, or whether this sub-sampling is only used on the preview window to reduce its render time.

There was a disclaimer in the first sentence. I'm aware there is a rendering problem. Whether it's related to SS or non-native resolution, shrug. The Fresnel lenses remain a huge contributor to the "Aliasing" and "God Rays". The image looks crisp on most parts of the main menu screen, but the text and edges on objects in the background are clearly being distorted and aliased by the ridges. You can actually see the rings breaking up and aliasing the lines. This is even more noticeable in areas where there is higher contrast of dark and light. If it was just a rendering issue, then the aliasing and pixelization would be consistent.

Also, the sweet spot that you are referring is not as big as you might think. I have to literally smash the HMD on my nose to find it. (http://i.imgur.com/RyTqVuV.jpg).


About Fresnel and God Rays for those who haven't tried either VIVE or CV1. http://doc-ok.org/?p=1414

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Heavenly-Hammer, did you raise the bug report and support tickets Frontier have requested?

I sent in a report ticket last Friday and linked one of our threads here. I have not submitted anything since or any DXdiag info or any of at stuff. You?

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Oh speaking of report tickets, I didn't realize they had replied to my ticket back on the 10th. Relevant bits:

"Nobody's doing anything wrong per se that I can see. I think this is mostly just where we are with the Vive at present and I can't really add any suggestions above what has been posted already in the thread you linked.

We will of course be continually working on improving the VR experience as a whole, though I regret that I can't provide a firm ETA for any updates as it stands."

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So there you have it. Until their team spends some time on their SteamVR/OpenVR implementation, we're stuck with a sub-par experience. Hopefully this means they know about it and I've added the thread to my signature in hopes of giving it further exposure. I might make a sticky-able thread about these issues with images/examples and recommended graphics configurations to get everyone by until they fix it.

But yea, I'm disappointed every day I wake up and see no small patch to fix it.

 

[aktywiec]

I tested Elite today with oculus compatibility layer https://github.com/LibreVR/Revive and manage to run it. Still desktop settings were the same and in training mission - docking vive image quality was the same. I suppose it still runs natively in Vive.
I run it also with War Thunder today and without aa (bug - aa made cockpit invisible) war thunder run and looked beautiful. Sky was clear and planes were visible far away. Only normal SDE reduced their details far away. Comparing it to elite it is like 720p to 360p where here spaceships are pixelated mess with more visible markers around it - inside and green text looks fine for me tho.

 

[Gunner Deckard]

Oh speaking of report tickets, I didn't realize they had replied to my ticket back on the 10th. Relevant bits:



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So there you have it. Until their team spends some time on their SteamVR/OpenVR implementation, we're stuck with a sub-par experience. Hopefully this means they know about it and I've added the thread to my signature in hopes of giving it further exposure. I might make a sticky-able thread about these issues with images/examples and recommended graphics configurations to get everyone by until they fix it.

But yea, I'm disappointed every day I wake up and see no small patch to fix it.

This is disappointing. I don't have my Vive yet and I feel like its broken. I'm buying the Vive for ED basically.

 

[ntsarb]

Found something interesting.

GeForce Experience settings for Elite Dangerous: Horizons VR are reporting that in HMD mode Elite Dangerous is running at 1280x720 resolution (both current and optimal):
http://i.imgur.com/m58Ivri.png

There is no way to change the HMD resolution through GeForce Experience (the option is grayed out).

This seems incorrect because Vive resolution is 2160x1200 or 1080x1200 per eye. So the recommended resolution setting should be 2160x1200 or 1080x1200, not 1280x720.

Also if you drag the slider all the way to Quality in GeForce Experience for Elite VR, it changes the HMD image quality from 0.890 to 1.000 and the game looks better in HMD but still not quite right.

Well spotted. I also have the same issue with ED on my new HTC Vive. Space stations looks horrible from the outside and even worse from the inside.

Also, in the main menu (i.e. front page of the game), the left hand side of the scene suffers from "floating" textures. I suppose it's the hot air effect that doesn't work well with the HMD.

It appears like the game is rendering with the wrong settings on the VIVE.

 

[ltx]

Here is a GIF that makes it 100% obvious that Elite Dangerous is rendering for the Vive at much lower resolution than the Vive's native resolution (2160x1200):
http://i.imgur.com/9vZbP8M.gif

It also shows the effects for the current 2.0x supersampling workaround on top of the low resolution ED sets for the Vive.

 

[PoxPreem]

I'm in the same boat.. Put it on, was disappointed. Played a bunch of VR games and haven't been back into Elite in a few weeks

 

[KTMDirtFace]

SO i had to take quite a few pictures with my phone through the lens to get one that was not way worse than what I see. this is the closest I could get to what I see in ED in my Vive. Ignore the "god rays" I dont care about those. My problem is everything(text) is so blurry even in the middle. The camera pic is worse than what I see but not by a whole lot.


https://ktmdirtface.smugmug.com/photos/i-FSNXW9q/0/O/i-FSNXW9q.jpg

My friends Rift CV1 looks about a million times better. to me. I have no issues with ED using his rift CV1. I can read everything. Its not a "you got it on wrong" problem. I have tried moving my vive into rediculus configurations, and unless I move it like 1-2" away from my face it doesn't change AT ALL..at that point it gets worse.

PS. On the image the main borders like the UI border lines that look like Dashes instead of solid lines.. that is because they are so un AA'd out that they are moving and flickering constantly.

Edit Aditionally, when flying towards something like a "nav beacon" where I have it lined up straight ahead.. I can just barley make out the numbers. I can't actually count the pixels because they are all blown out and blurry but if I had to guess it would be between 6-10 pixels tops that make up one number.

 

[wstephenson]

Here is a GIF that makes it 100% obvious that Elite Dangerous is rendering for the Vive at much lower resolution than the Vive's native resolution (2160x1200):
http://i.imgur.com/9vZbP8M.gif

It also shows the effects for the current 2.0x supersampling workaround on top of the low resolution ED sets for the Vive.

Great work, this shows it very clearly. Have you raised a support ticket as requested by Frontier Support? The info they ask for is given here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...basing_your_vr_hmd_purchase_on_how_ed/d212y6n

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SO i had to take quite a few pictures with my phone through the lens to get one that was not way worse than what I see. this is the closest I could get to what I see in ED in my Vive. Ignore the "god rays" I dont care about those. My problem is everything(text) is so blurry even in the middle. The camera pic is worse than what I see but not by a whole lot.

Where is the centre of the Vive lens in that image? The Empire logo, I would guess?

 

[wstephenson]

I sent in a report ticket last Friday and linked one of our threads here. I have not submitted anything since or any DXdiag info or any of at stuff. You?

Still waiting for my Vive to arrive, I'm afraid.

Oh speaking of report tickets, I didn't realize they had replied to my ticket back on the 10th. Relevant bits:

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So there you have it. Until their team spends some time on their SteamVR/OpenVR implementation, we're stuck with a sub-par experience. Hopefully this means they know about it and I've added the thread to my signature in hopes of giving it further exposure. I might make a sticky-able thread about these issues with images/examples and recommended graphics configurations to get everyone by until they fix it.

But yea, I'm disappointed every day I wake up and see no small patch to fix it.

Well, that's a disappointing response that they aren't specifically working on your report as a bug. I do have hope though, since their response to Lee_Ars' press enquiry was that it is a bug and is still being worked on. I hope that it's just that Support didn't join the dots.