VR minimum specification for Elite Dangerous (DK2)

Assimilator1

Assimilator1
CV1? Do you mean OR 1? Why's it called CV1? lol

Re Rift S, yea you could be right, I've just done my 1st quick read about it on wiki, & this sounds promising, particularly as I find the OR 1's resolution is just too low for my liking.
'This screen is expected to deliver higher detail image with reduced screen-door effect (compared to the original Rift) ...' and this 'The device can pass through the video from the built-in cameras onto the display so that the user can navigate the real world without taking off the headset ', very handy for type chatting!

However, this could be a problem for Elite & the Rift S 'but can not display deep blacks of OLED screens used in the original Rift.'
(And I didn't know the OR uses OLED screens!).
 
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Assimilator1

Assimilator1
Wargfoot said:
Instead of the minimum for the game I should think people would be interested in what the headset manufacturer recommends.
Also, for those of you getting a headset, be aware that the Oculus uses 3 USB ports and one HDMI port.
So in addition to the graphics card, mind your ports.
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IIRC the minimum Oculus states for it is less than ED states for VR.
Also, re USB ports, they're ought to be USB3 spec.

And my PC has USB 3 spec ports, but Oculus seems to forget they are after a while, & then thinks they are USB 2 making them 'incompatible!' Grrr.
Btw chipset drivers are the latest ones.

Gortron (et al)
I remember now, ASW is on with my system, what do I need to turn down/off to stop that? (CPU usage was at about 25% btw).
 
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Gortron

Gortron
Assimilator1 said:
IIRC the minimum Oculus states for it is less than ED states for VR.
Also, re USB ports, they're ought tom be USB3 spec.

And my PC has USB 3 spec ports, but Oculus seems to forget they are after a while, & then thinks they are USB 2 making them 'incompatible!' Grrr.
Btw chipset drivers are the latest ones.

Gortron (et al)
I remember now, ASW is on with my system, what do I need to turn down/off to stop that? (CPU usage was at about 25% btw).
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I agree, the manufacturer minimums aren’t a good guide for VR in ED. ED is very demanding compared to some VR games. That new HP Reverb has a minimum GPU recommendation of a GTX 1080 and I reckon ED would run like a sack of spuds at that Things native resolution.

You can turn off ASW with the debug tool or Ctrl+numpad1. You can’t turn off the old version ATW though and it will still lock to 45 with that instead if you push things too far. You are more likely to get frame rates between 45 and 90 with it off though. I turn it off with ED as I’d rather the odd blip below 90 than it kicking down due to low headroom. I think in that video it blips below at one point but if ASW was on it would have flipped to 45 instead.
 

Wargfoot

Wargfoot
Gortron said:
I agree, the manufacturer minimums aren’t a good guide for VR in ED. ED is very demanding compared to some VR games. That new HP Reverb has a minimum GPU recommendation of a GTX 1080 and I reckon ED would run like a sack of spuds at that Things native resolution.

You can turn off ASW with the debug tool or Ctrl+numpad1. You can’t turn off the old version ATW though and it will still lock to 45 with that instead if you push things too far. You are more likely to get frame rates between 45 and 90 with it off though. I turn it off with ED as I’d rather the odd blip below 90 than it kicking down due to low headroom. I think in that video it blips below at one point but if ASW was on it would have flipped to 45 instead.
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I meant to communicate the Oculus recommended video card, not the Oculus minimum card.

I've never found a game anywhere to run well with the manufacturers minimum recommendations - because they don't care if you're playing a pixelated mess as long as you buy the game.
 

Gortron

Gortron
Wargfoot said:
I meant to communicate the Oculus recommended video card, not the Oculus minimum card.

I've never found a game anywhere to run well with the manufacturers minimum recommendations - because they don't care if you're playing a pixelated mess as long as you buy the game.
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Ah I see sorry, very true.
 

Gortron

Gortron
I've given this a lot of thought and I think a reasonable recommend spec for the Oculus Rift in VR with current hardware and a good (not ultimate) experience is:

Processor – recent 6 core: i5 9600 or Ryzen 2600 (K or X preferable)
Memory: 8GB DDR3 (2600 MHZ min, the higher the better for Ryzen)
GPU: RTX 2070 (or equivalent)
HDD: Game installed on a M.2 Nvme drive with sufficient capacity. (the fast loading speeds stop all the jerking when you arrive at a space station).

I think with that sort of setup you will be able to get 90FPS with HMD quality set at 1.25 (if you are susceptible to motion sickness like me) or be able to increase resolution (via HMD quality) to around 1.5 if you don't suffer from motion sickness (so don't mind 45FPS) and want a sharper image.

If you decided later on you wanted loads of performance in other areas I think the rest of the system would be capable enough and you would only need to upgrade the Graphics card..... for ED in VR this is.
 

Assimilator1

Assimilator1
Wow, the RTX 2070 is at least £420! That's a ridiculously expensive card! :(
What would be an AMD equivalent?

Btw, surely at least my CPU would cut it? (see sig)
 

Gortron

Gortron
Assimilator1 said:
Wow, the RTX 2070 is at least £420! That's a ridiculously expensive card! :(
What would be an AMD equivalent?

Btw, surely at least my CPU would cut it? (see sig)
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I don't think there is an AMD equivalent at the moment but stuff is on the horizon.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying you can't enjoy ED in VR with lower specs but if someone was building a PC from scratch that's what I think the recommended specs should be. I started VR with a i5 4670K and a GTX 970 and it was playable. I'd certainly not try to put anyone off VR, its amazing. It is like the difference between playing a spaceship game and having a spaceship! I'd much rather go back to my old setup in VR than keep what I have and play on a monitor.

Both your CPU and GPU are better than what I started with, just be prepared to covet more power 😁
 

Assimilator1

Assimilator1
Lol :).

The AMD Radeon VII seems to be comparable in performance, slightly faster if anything, no idea on cost though, I just looked at the benchmarks here.

Comparing my i7 4930k (o/ced to 4.1 GHz), which is an Ivybridge E CPU, the Skylake/Kaby lake CPUs IPC is 15-17% faster on average than Ivybridge (AnandTech's reviews), not yet looked at the Coffelake reviews, or vs AMD. But it would seem my CPU isn't massively behind recent CPUs at least (like the i7-7800X), I'll be comparing it to the i7 8700k next.
 

Assimilator1

Assimilator1
Thought I mentioned that way back........ yep April 22nd;) .
Also, don't forget that my CPU is o/ced to 4.1 GHz, so is going to perform more like an i7 4960X (aside from the 4930k's slightly smaller cache). Not that the extra 200 MHz makes a huge difference;) (it's a 5% o/c).

That site you linked shows the i7 8700k as about 29% faster than my CPU, which is close to the information I've gleaned from various AnandTech's reviews (on the Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kabylake & Coffelake, phew!), in the range of 15-17% more IPC, plus 5% with the 8700k's all core clk of 4.3 GHz. A decent, but not massive amount (of course single or dual core clock will be much better, & it'll use less power).

JFYI the i7 8700k is about 2-5% faster than the i7 7800X in multi threading tasks, and about 5-10% faster in single or low threaded tasks. (I was just looking at similar spec i7's, 6C12T). Although the platform of latter will be more expensive, & presumably use more power. Still, the 8700k's price of £380 (ebuyer) is rather steep!

Btw, read this about the Rift S, which means it's likely not suitable for ED :(.
It's definitely not the original Rift's color-accurate OLED display, however, and that's most apparent when pixels go "black." Light bleed on the Rift S's display is some of the most pronounced I've seen in a consumer VR headset. So, that's the trade-off.
From Arstech

Gortron said:
I don't know where that comes from (I've seen it before) but it isn't right. It has always used as many cores and threads as it gets. All 12 threads get used on my PC when playing ED and Planet coaster which uses the same engine will send them all to 100% if enough stuff is in the theme park.

I've done loads of testing in the past and I'm 100% sure uses more than 4 threads. In fact I'd recommend 6 cores minimum if you want 90FPS.

Ryzen R5 2600x for VR ?

Greetings Commanders! I mostly play ED with a Rift in VR. I am currently running an i5 4460 with my newly purchased RTX 2070 graphics card. I had a 980ti (bought used) that burned out, so I have decided on an upgrade path going into the new year. The graphics card was the first buy (as I...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk
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I was just reading back through some of the thread, and I realised I hadn't responded to this.
In spot checks I've made of ED 2D I've never seen it use more than 4 cores, in fact I leave BOINC running on 3 cores (+3 HT) with ED on 3 (+3 HT) & very rarely have problems, sometimes in very battle intensive scenes I do (e.g AX CZ or high intensity CZs). Then leaving ED with 4 cores (+4 HT) is fine.

But I assume you were referring to ED+VR, in preliminary testing I did (in a station), it seemed according to task manager that ED VR should be fine with just 4 cores available, their was plenty of spare cpu power going to system idle. Yet the FPS was low (~30 IIRC), shutting off BOINC completely increased the FPS to about 40 odd, & strangely system idle time went up! But yes I see now that ED VR does like more than 4 cores.

Anyway, I've still yet to do proper testing, but my RX 580 is indeed struggling! I know I can get it to a steady 45 FPS, I've just got to play with quality settings & see if it's visually acceptable. But even if it is, I don't think I'll be going for this Oculus Rift (too low res & can't see the keyboard), or the Rift S (quite likely not good enough blacks, & I'd need a another GPU upgrade!). I will play around with my mates OR some more to see if I can get over a more fundamental issue of motion sickness, which might be an issue during battle.
 
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Gortron

Gortron
Assimilator1 said:
Thought I mentioned that way back........ yep April 22nd;) .
Also, don't forget that my CPU is o/ced to 4.1 GHz, so is going to perform more like an i7 4960X (aside from the 4930k's slightly smaller cache). Not that the extra 200 MHz makes a huge difference;) (it's a 5% o/c).

That site you linked shows the i7 8700k as about 29% faster than my CPU, which is close to the information I've gleaned from various AnandTech's reviews (on the Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kabylake & Coffelake, phew!), in the range of 15-17% more IPC, plus 5% with the 8700k's all core clk of 4.3 GHz. A decent, but not massive amount (of course single or dual core clock will be much better, & it'll use less power).

JFYI the i7 8700k is about 2-5% faster than the i7 7800X in multi threading tasks, and about 5-10% faster in single or low threaded tasks. (I was just looking at similar spec i7's, 6C12T). Although the platform of latter will be more expensive, & presumably use more power. Still, the 8700k's price of £380 (ebuyer) is rather steep!

Btw, read this about the Rift S, which means it's likely not suitable for ED :(.
It's definitely not the original Rift's color-accurate OLED display, however, and that's most apparent when pixels go "black." Light bleed on the Rift S's display is some of the most pronounced I've seen in a consumer VR headset. So, that's the trade-off.
From Arstech

I was just reading back through some of the thread, and I realised I hadn't responded to this.
In spot checks I've made of ED 2D I've never seen it use more than 4 cores, in fact I leave BOINC running on 3 cores (+3 HT) with ED on 3 (+3 HT) & very rarely have problems, sometimes in very battle intensive scenes I do (e.g AX CZ or high intensity CZs). Then leaving ED with 4 cores (+4 HT) is fine.

But I assume you were referring to ED+VR, in preliminary testing I did (in a station), it seemed according to task manager that ED VR should be fine with just 4 cores available, their was plenty of spare cpu power going to system idle. Yet the FPS was low (~30 IIRC), shutting off BOINC completely increased the FPS to about 40 odd, & strangely system idle time went up! But yes I see now that ED VR does like more than 4 cores.

Anyway, I've still yet to do proper testing, but my RX 580 is indeed struggling! I know I can get it to a steady 45 FPS, I've just got to play with quality settings & see if it's visually acceptable. But even if it is, I don't think I'll be going for this Oculus Rift (too low res & can't see the keyboard), the Rift S (quite likely not good enough blacks, & I'd need a another GPU upgrade!). I will play around with my mates OR some more to see if I can get over a more fundamental issue of motion sickness, which might be an issue during battle.
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I didn't know there was a 6 Core Haswell chip. I saw i7 4x and RX580... and ignored the rest.

This is the ED VR forum and having blown loads of money trying to get 90FPS I know you can't get 90FPS with a 4 core CPU in VR unless nothing much else is going on.
 
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Assimilator1

Assimilator1
It's an Ivy bridge chip ;), due to it being based on a server platform, the HEDT Intel platform had until recently been at least 1 generation behind the main stream one.

Btw, I've just read AnandTech's review of the Radeon VII, it mostly sits between the 2070 & 2080 on price & performance (nearer to the 2070 mostly). It does draw more power than those though.
1 day I will get around to more testing with my RX 580! (Now that I've mostly finished reading a load of CPU & GPU reviews).
 
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Milner

M
I didn't know there was a 4 series 6 core 12 thread version. That and a rtx 580 will definitely be playable on low settings, but as always you won't get 90fps everywhere.

For reference I'm on a i5 4690k which seriously bottlenecks a gtx 1060 6gb, but is still playable.

I've now looked this up on Ebay and there are some on buy it now for around £130, but it's a different socket to the i5 I have.
 

Assimilator1

Assimilator1
Roger that, but I doubt my CPU would be a bottleneck, looking at Gorton's testing my CPU should be a little better than his cpu @3.7 GHz with HT off.
Obviously my CPUs HT will be on, & I have since upped it a whole 100 MHz to 4.2 GHz ;). After I've finished stability testing it, maybe I'll get around to VR testing it!
 

Assimilator1

Assimilator1
Finally did some testing, throughout it I didn't see CPU usage go above 20%! That doesn't seem right to me, maybe it's a limitation of win7's task man.?? Also I couldn't find out how to disable ASW with the current version of OR, unless it was working & my grx card just isn't powerful enough to raise FPS over 45.

Anyway, to the graphics testing, sitting in an corollis station in Mellise, in open play (no sight of cmdrs so far).
So with the following settings:-
HMD Image Quality 1 & Supersampling 1 I get 45 FPS, but the image quality is dire like this, lots of flickering edges (dancing pixels!) :(.
HMDIQ 1 & SS 1.25, ~30 FPS, static image quality is mediocre with many dancing pixels along various angled straight edges. Fairly blurry in general
HMDIQ 1.25, SS1. ~30 FPS, static image quality is mediocre with many dancing pixels along various angled straight edges. Fairly blurry in general. Looks about the same as above.
HMDIQ 1.5, SS 1, 22-23 FPS, static image quality is ok.
HMDIQ 1.5, SS 1.25, 15-17 FPS, static image quality is nice, but the screen door effect on the panels writing is still significant & makes reading it hard.

Obviously an FPS below 45 isn't really playable, I just wanted to see what it looked liked. But I noticed the screen door effect significantly on all settings above, I guess the OR isn't for me then, even if it could run fast enough on my card.

Btw, I don't get why it doesn't do better, is this what would be expected from a GTX 980 or a 1060 6GB?? (The RX 580 is similar performance to them).
A few points to note, the Ivybridge CPU is 6 core with hyper threading, also the RAM is quad channel, so RAM bandwidth isn't an issue.

1 more thing I need to test out with my mates VR whilst I still have it, is to see if motion sickness is an issue, although the choice between poor img quality or poor FPS isn't going to help.......
 
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Bier00t

Bier00t
What would be recommended specification to play in ultra?
I guess it was answered in this thread already but too lazy to go through all the posts ;)

I got HTC Vive, i7-8700, 16 GB RAM, SSD drive, and GTX 970. VR experience is pretty bad with this if I want to see detailed planet features and nice shadows.

Question is: will replacing GTX 970 with RTX 2070 allow me smooth 90 fps ultra settings in VR?
 

Assimilator1

Assimilator1
Yea your graphics card is the problem.
No need to read the whole thread, start from this end & read back through the last few pages, especially Gortron's posts. He actually posted a spec for a good experience with VR........& it's on this page! :p. Read post #226
 

sewerratuk

sewerratuk
Bier00t said:
What would be recommended specification to play in ultra?
I guess it was answered in this thread already but too lazy to go through all the posts ;)

I got HTC Vive, i7-8700, 16 GB RAM, SSD drive, and GTX 970. VR experience is pretty bad with this if I want to see detailed planet features and nice shadows.

Question is: will replacing GTX 970 with RTX 2070 allow me smooth 90 fps ultra settings in VR?
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I think if I was going to get the latest generation GPU I would save a few extra pennies and get a 2080 or wait a little time to see what happens with the new ’super’
 
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