I use the GTX960, which is now officially the lowest spec. And i dont have any problems. Sure, if could be alot better but all is working fine and the immersion is great.
VR vs Monitor?
- Thread starter Viscera
- Start date
On the 8K VR (4K per Eye) question it is probably worth noting the following:-
These last two appear to be limited by the bandwidth of the Display connector(s) fitted and I suspect something similar can be said of the other cards.
Given the above... in theory the minimum for Current HD VR would be any NVidia GTX 9xx Series and in theory any NVidia 10xx series card should be able to handle UHD VR (or DCI 4K VR).
However, as per my earlier assessment I believe we would need above UHD resolution VR (double the resolution by my estimate - 7680x4320 per eye) before VR display quality in terms of pixels per degree could match a standard HD (1080p) monitor.
- GTX 770 maximum display support = 4096x2160 (notionally at 60Hz) - Bandwidth of 126.5 RGB8 MPixels/second (HDMI limits?)
- GTX 780 Ti maximum display support = 4096x2160 (notionally at 60Hz)
- GTX 950 maximum display support = 5120x3200 (notionally at 60Hz) - Bandwidth of 937.5 RGB8 MPixels/second (Single Display Port Limits?)
- GTX 960 maximum display support = 5120x3200 (notionally at 60Hz)
- GTX 980 Ti maximum display support = 5120x3200 (notionally at 60Hz)
- GTX 1050 maximum display support = 7680x4320@60Hz - Bandwidth of 1898.4375 RGB8 MPixels/second or ~1.854 RGB8 GPixels/second (Dual Display Port Limits?)
- GTX 1080 Ti maximum display support = 7680x4320 @ 60 Hz
- GTX TITAN Xp maximum display support = 7680x4320 @ 60Hz
These last two appear to be limited by the bandwidth of the Display connector(s) fitted and I suspect something similar can be said of the other cards.
- For current HD NVidia 3D Ready (1920x1080x2 @ 72Hz) a theoretical bandwidth of 270 RGB8 MPixels/second is theoretically required, in practical terms I know the 770 can handle NVidia 3D Ready displays and I would not be surprised if an NVidia 7xx card could provide an acceptable VR experience - the devil would be in the details.
- For Rift/VIVE Res VR (1200x1080x2 @ 90Hz) a bandwidth of ~222.473 RGB8 MPixels/second is theoretically required
- For HD/Eye Res VR (1920x1080x2 @ 90Hz) a bandwidth of ~355.957 RGB8 MPixels/second is theoretically required
- For UHD/Eye Res VR (3840×2160x2 @ 90Hz) a bandwidth of ~1423.828 RGB8 MPixels/second (~1.390 RGB8 GPixels/second) is theoretically required.
- For DCI 4K/Eye Res VR (4096x2160x2 @ 90Hz) a bandwidth of ~1518.75 RGB8 MPixels/second (~1.483 RGB8 GPixels/second) is theoretically required.
Given the above... in theory the minimum for Current HD VR would be any NVidia GTX 9xx Series and in theory any NVidia 10xx series card should be able to handle UHD VR (or DCI 4K VR).
However, as per my earlier assessment I believe we would need above UHD resolution VR (double the resolution by my estimate - 7680x4320 per eye) before VR display quality in terms of pixels per degree could match a standard HD (1080p) monitor.
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![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
Yes! VR is not perfect yet but it's the difference between playing a game and flying in a ship. It is jaw on the floor superb. Since dk2 support was patched in I only play in vr and I would not still be playing like I do without it.
ED in VR has meant that some games I have zero interest in now that don't have vr. The same has happened for racing games
Some important things
Your pc needs to be up to it, poor performing vr will ruin it and may make you feel ill.
It's all about immersion. If immersion is not important to you (and there are a lot here who it isn't) then it may dissapoint. I would also suggest a hotas is needed
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That much for theory. Practice looks slightly different, though. Depending on your graphics settings, a GTX1080 is just about sufficient to run ED on an Oculus Rift CV1 at sustained 90 fps. And you want those 90 fps (dropping down to 45 fps + ASW) for avoiding simulator sickness. Scale down on the graphics settings, and you can use a 980 or equivalent, but that's about it.
So there's a difference between handling the display and handling the game - as also evidenced by all those GPU reviews/comparisons where different games on the same GPU easily score a faactor of two in fps difference.
As mentioned earlier, i play ED on a GTX960 in low settings and have no issues. Sure, it would be nice with more details but it is very much playable and much better that high quality on the monitor.
Just want to throw my experience with VR into the discussion here 
I never thought it would be as good as it was. Putting the Rift on just puts me straight into the cockpit of whatever ship I am flying, and you forget all about screen door effect and resolution and whatnot, it is simply amazingly immersive. I went back to using my Asp for a while just for the view from the cockpit!
I would only play in VR if we could sort out the in flight entertainment. I need to be able to check the forums, check EDDB, check my materials spreadsheet, change my spotify tunes or whatever while flying. Oculus Dash will hopefully solve this soon Once that is done I could easily spend hours and hours in VR without ever taking the headset off!
I never thought it would be as good as it was. Putting the Rift on just puts me straight into the cockpit of whatever ship I am flying, and you forget all about screen door effect and resolution and whatnot, it is simply amazingly immersive. I went back to using my Asp for a while just for the view from the cockpit!
I would only play in VR if we could sort out the in flight entertainment. I need to be able to check the forums, check EDDB, check my materials spreadsheet, change my spotify tunes or whatever while flying. Oculus Dash will hopefully solve this soon
Once that is done I could easily spend hours and hours in VR without ever taking the headset off!Having a 980 Ti myself I disagree with your assessment after happily using it with a VIVE and noting no perceivable FPS drops - unless you are claiming the Rift is more vulnerable to FPS drops than the VIVE.
There is one caveat... if using a 2D repeat window for the VR on a monitor you need to ensure the resolution of the repeat (which is largely unnecessary for normal VR use) is lower than normal (I run my repeat at 720p - changing this does not alter the in Headset resolution I might add) in order to ensure smooth frame rate in the VR headset. If you do not use a repeat at all then that particular issue would go away. The repeat can be useful if you need to remove the headset to type though.
IME The biggest problem with ED VR and motion/simulator sickness is SRV driving but that is resolvable with an in-game setting. Other than that, it has not been an issue for me personally. Some people are more vulnerable than others to motion/simulator sickness though and that can even be a problem with some non-VR games.
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Just want to throw my experience with VR into the discussion here
I never thought it would be as good as it was. Putting the Rift on just puts me straight into the cockpit of whatever ship I am flying, and you forget all about screen door effect and resolution and whatnot, it is simply amazingly immersive. I went back to using my Asp for a while just for the view from the cockpit!
I would only play in VR if we could sort out the in flight entertainment. I need to be able to check the forums, check EDDB, check my materials spreadsheet, change my spotify tunes or whatever while flying. Oculus Dash will hopefully solve this soon
Have you checked OVRDrop or VirtualDesktop? These tools allow you to overlay any window or monitor in VR.
Recently replaced my 980 Ti with a 1080 Ti for reasons not relating to VR performance and started noticing "walking edge" issues when docked at stations after the upgrade. Such effects could aggravate motion/simulation sickness if you are vulnerable to it.
This issue plus changes in connectivity made me look more closely at cabling bandwidth concerns since the VIVE supports both Display Port 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 connections to the graphics card. FTR the Rift by comparison only supports HDMI 1.3 so I will factor that in as well.
1 RGB8 MPixels/s = 24 Mbits/s therefore given the Rift/VIVE (1200x1080x2 @ 90 Hz) require ~222.473 RGB8 MPixels/s that equates to a bandwidth demand of ~5339.352 Mbits/s or ~5.214 Gbits/s
HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.4 have a maximum display bandwidth of 8.16 Gbit/s, the main difference between these being 1.4 has a greater range of features thus the difference seems to be moot.
Display Port 1.2 has a much greater bandwidth than HDMI but given the above calculates the bandwidth aspect is moot and therefore Display Port is not worth using for Rift/VIVE unless absolutely necessary due to video card connectivity issues.
The upshot of this is that the walking edge issue must have another root cause that I will have to look into, but I have noted a similar issue previously in another VR game with the VIVE and the 980 Ti. It could be due to a software bug or some video card setting (anti-aliasing of some sort would be my guess).
In the context of this discussion though, it does highlight another concern where true 4K and higher VR is concerned... video cable bandwidth... assuming 4K/eye = 4 times the horizontal and vertical resolution of Rift/VIVE then the bandwidth demand increases by a factor of 16 to >80 Gbits/s... even next generation Display Port standard can not handle that (32 Gbits per second predicted video bandwidth). 2K/eye or double the horizontal and vertical resolution of the Rift/VIVE on the other hand (~20 Gbits/s) is at about the limits of current and imminent consumer level display cabling technology.
Where VR is concerned for the foreseeable future we will have to accept some drop in optical image resolution (v. 1080p display technology) until a breakthrough in the cabling and display throughput is achieved.
This issue plus changes in connectivity made me look more closely at cabling bandwidth concerns since the VIVE supports both Display Port 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 connections to the graphics card. FTR the Rift by comparison only supports HDMI 1.3 so I will factor that in as well.
1 RGB8 MPixels/s = 24 Mbits/s therefore given the Rift/VIVE (1200x1080x2 @ 90 Hz) require ~222.473 RGB8 MPixels/s that equates to a bandwidth demand of ~5339.352 Mbits/s or ~5.214 Gbits/s
HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.4 have a maximum display bandwidth of 8.16 Gbit/s, the main difference between these being 1.4 has a greater range of features thus the difference seems to be moot.
Display Port 1.2 has a much greater bandwidth than HDMI but given the above calculates the bandwidth aspect is moot and therefore Display Port is not worth using for Rift/VIVE unless absolutely necessary due to video card connectivity issues.
The upshot of this is that the walking edge issue must have another root cause that I will have to look into, but I have noted a similar issue previously in another VR game with the VIVE and the 980 Ti. It could be due to a software bug or some video card setting (anti-aliasing of some sort would be my guess).
In the context of this discussion though, it does highlight another concern where true 4K and higher VR is concerned... video cable bandwidth... assuming 4K/eye = 4 times the horizontal and vertical resolution of Rift/VIVE then the bandwidth demand increases by a factor of 16 to >80 Gbits/s... even next generation Display Port standard can not handle that (32 Gbits per second predicted video bandwidth). 2K/eye or double the horizontal and vertical resolution of the Rift/VIVE on the other hand (~20 Gbits/s) is at about the limits of current and imminent consumer level display cabling technology.
Where VR is concerned for the foreseeable future we will have to accept some drop in optical image resolution (v. 1080p display technology) until a breakthrough in the cabling and display throughput is achieved.
What in-game setting is that? The only time I get motion sickness in this game is in the SRV.
If you set the view locked to the horizon that should deal with it. The other secret is to just get back in the ship if you start feeling ill.
Also, lay of the sauce at first, it doesn't help the vestibular system !
Also, lay of the sauce at first, it doesn't help the vestibular system !
It makes a huge difference to me. I've not used my monitors to play ED for over a year and I've got a triple monitor setup.
For me it is like the difference between going out for a nice drive in my car or watching car reviews on YouTube!
Totally agree, though I'm not a 100% VR user currently (more due to set up limitations than anything else), the immersion aspect well and truly makes up for the other shortfalls.
Personally, I'm looking forward to VR that doesn't need any external tracking devices, the camera system for Oculus is an absolute pain in the buttocks, I spend my working life trying to hide everything that is audio/video related, and having to have USB cables all over the place (which isn't a particularly good standard for long distance runs, anyways...) really aggravates my OCD. Lighthouse is probably better, as you could hide the power cables, but you still see the towers...
Anyways, it's fun, I still love it, and it's amazing how much extra detail you can pick up because you can stand up and look around.
I know, for example, that Faulcon Delacey is a poor ship builder, they cables hanging form the Anaconda canopy are just the start, look around in their other ships, and you'll see cables strewn careless all over the place!
Z...
I got this game at pretty much the same time that I got my Rift CV1, and immediately fell in love with it. I’ve logged roughly 1200 hours since then, and only one was on my “monitor” (60” LEDTV). I came away from that experience thinking “Holy cow, how can people play like this!? It’s terrible!”.
VR is soooooo much better for ED. You get depth-perception, 360-degree head tracking, and an unmatched sense of presence that turn this from a decent game to an amazing one.
VR is soooooo much better for ED. You get depth-perception, 360-degree head tracking, and an unmatched sense of presence that turn this from a decent game to an amazing one.
Elite has become a place that I want to be, rather than a game that I want to play. That strikes me as a pretty profound difference. The faults and frustrations regarding the mechanics and content of the present game are still valid, but for me it’s so much more palatable within the context of the beautiful aesthetic experience that Elite is in VR. It’s pretty jaw-dropping at times - just simple things like a silhouetted planet passing across a star, the subtle bloom of light in it's atmosphere as it does so, can catch you off guard. Flying through nebulae is often a stunning experience. I think that VR also changes your relationship with the ships - you feel more connected and invested, and it's genuinely exciting when you find yourself in a new cockpit for the first time. There are challenges too, but I couldn’t imagine playing it on a monitor at this point.
Little surprised this thread is still going, but good to read about different experiences players have had with VR.
I've had VR for about a year and haven't been back to the monitor since. Just too weird now to look at the monitor, bit like an out of body experience. For me, lower image quality is a small price to pay for the immersive VR environment of ED.
Would add this though. Agree with comments in this thread to the effect that you do need to decent set up to get the best out of VR. For me its a 1080ti / i7 CPU and 16Gb of ram. Even then ED pushes the limits on max settings. As for the controls, in my view VA is a must for VR, wouldn't even consider using a keyboard with VR. As for image quality, it's good with the Rift, just not buttery smooth. No problems with text, etc. The real hit for me is the appalling aliasing in ED. Really has to be managed in VR to get rid of the jaggies. Can do it, but needs a set up that can run high HMD, SS or antialiasing (whatever your flavour).
I've had VR for about a year and haven't been back to the monitor since. Just too weird now to look at the monitor, bit like an out of body experience. For me, lower image quality is a small price to pay for the immersive VR environment of ED.
Would add this though. Agree with comments in this thread to the effect that you do need to decent set up to get the best out of VR. For me its a 1080ti / i7 CPU and 16Gb of ram. Even then ED pushes the limits on max settings. As for the controls, in my view VA is a must for VR, wouldn't even consider using a keyboard with VR. As for image quality, it's good with the Rift, just not buttery smooth. No problems with text, etc. The real hit for me is the appalling aliasing in ED. Really has to be managed in VR to get rid of the jaggies. Can do it, but needs a set up that can run high HMD, SS or antialiasing (whatever your flavour).
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