Wow and Wow again : DK2 and new ED patch and Oculus 1.3 : TIPS FOR SETUP

spacehamburger · Mar 30, 2016

I have a DK2, SDK 1.3 installed. Been using SDK 0.6 for a very long time, never had issue but I thought I could try the new 1.3 SDK. I'm Running the Steam version. I also have a Titan X with and CPU @ 4.0GHZ so I can pump ultra setting. Anyway, I don't know what you're smoking OP but I don't see any improvement with images quality, at all. Is there anything I'm missing here? The text look much worst then previous SDK and and anti-aliasing doesn't seems to be working. It just feels like the game is running in low resolution (hence the non-working anti-aliasing). Yes, I tried on "Ultra" with AA 2x + 2.0 SS and the text still look worst then previous SDK.

What I am missing here or is the OP drunk?

Simon853 · Mar 30, 2016

I thought the text looked awful with DK2 and 1.3 and the whole thing looked a little smeared. Then I eventually realised it'd automatically adjusted my graphics settings and had set SS to 0.75 and put FSAA on. When I set the SS to 1.5 and FSAA off it looked as good as it did before. "Possibly" even a little crisper, but that's possibly subjective.

spameroo · Mar 30, 2016

I'm just curious, because there seem to be two distinct groups on this forum, one who feel Supersampling in 1.3 is now either improved, or no longer even necessary, and another group claiming SS in the 0.5-0.6 runtimes was giving them a much clearer picture than it is now.

I am wondering, for the record, how many people in the first group (see no reduction in SS) previously had played ED with SS enabled before the 0.8/SteamVR runtime? It's hard to tell if both groups are speaking from the same baseline of comparison...

Raptoyd · Mar 31, 2016

All I can say is that I always used 1.5 SS in game and Reshade. I was very happy with the view have not seen anything better visually including this mess. I really notice it sitting on pad in a station looking around not nearly as nice as before or approaching the station from space. Really was hoping for a jump in both visual and operational quality but guess 1 out of 2 means it could be worse. Just dissappointed don't ever like going backwards could you imagine going back to a 28.8k modem?

davidmi58 · Mar 31, 2016

Raptoid said:
All I can say is that I always used 1.5 SS in game and Reshade. I was very happy with the view have not seen anything better visually including this mess. I really notice it sitting on pad in a station looking around not nearly as nice as before or approaching the station from space. Really was hoping for a jump in both visual and operational quality but guess 1 out of 2 means it could be worse. Just dissappointed don't ever like going backwards could you imagine going back to a 28.8k modem?

I have to agree with the Reshade comment. I wonder how many DK2 users are really missing the Reshade/SweetFX improvement compared to vanilla ED. I haven't played vanilla for so long, I don't remember what ED is like without it.

spameroo · Mar 31, 2016

davidmi58 said:
I have to agree with the Reshade comment. I wonder how many DK2 users are really missing the Reshade/SweetFX improvement compared to vanilla ED. I haven't played vanilla for so long, I don't remember what ED is like without it.

Well, Reshade (specifically LumaSharpen as described by drkaii long ago) certainly was a factor contributing to the sharpness and clarity of the image; that one setting allowed a lot more texture and text detail to be resolved in the DK2. I don't think it's the primary reason the image seems worse now, however, because I spent a lot of time over the last 6 months playing without it enabled (I usually forgot to add the files back after each ED patch...).

catanonia · Mar 31, 2016

Indeed, I think there was a lot of messing with 3rd party apps to get the older Runtimes on the DK2 to an acceptable level. Suddenly we don't have to do this and people are forgetting this. This is just the visuals, let us not forget the performance enhancements.

Yes we have black smearing, but this has been a problem before by all accounts and has in the past been dealt with with patches which I am sure will follow soon.

Javert · Mar 31, 2016

Thanks for the previous advice all.

I've installed the Oculus software per the instructions in this thread.

Seem to detect my DK2 OK (I skipped all the stuff about hardware setup and xbox controller setup).

There is a warning message that I may need to update my USB drivers. Shouldn't that happen automatically through windows update? If not, how do I do that?

Syrox · Mar 31, 2016

I concur. ED now looks like a cartoon. Space looks like a cloudy night in my back yard. Milky way spread in glops across half the visual field. Giant black smears on any place there's contrast. Yeah it's smoother, frame rate wise, but I'd take the jutter back in a hart beat. ATW is fantastic, but at the cost of wrecking the visual beauty of the simulation. Here's to hoping it looks better in my CV1 in a couple months. Looks like I'm playing in 2D until then.

vic · Mar 31, 2016

Syrox said:
I concur. ED now looks like a cartoon. Space looks like a cloudy night in my back yard. Milky way spread in glops across half the visual field. Giant black smears on any place there's contrast. Yeah it's smoother, frame rate wise, but I'd take the jutter back in a hart beat. ATW is fantastic, but at the cost of wrecking the visual beauty of the simulation. Here's to hoping it looks better in my CV1 in a couple months. Looks like I'm playing in 2D until then.

Perfect description. ED sky/environement looks like cartoons now on my DK2!

spacehamburger · Mar 31, 2016

What I don't get from the OP :

- Graphics / Text are MUCH clearer in 1.0 SS and 1.5 SS (slight improvement)

What are you smoking OP cause I want some. The images quality with 1.3 and DK2 is MUCH MUCH worst then previous SDK. SS does barely anything at all. Jaggy all over the place, it look like crap.

drkaii · Mar 31, 2016

I have found that there is a general improvement in clarity of text and lines. Yes no SS, but compared to vanilla before 1.3, text is more readable, things are a little clearer.

Just look at orbit lines. They hold their colour and don't jag so much.

It's the smearing and colour that are bad. BTW has anyone opened a ticket about SS not having any effect?

-DK2 user

catanonia · Apr 1, 2016

drkaii said:
I have found that there is a general improvement in clarity of text and lines. Yes no SS, but compared to vanilla before 1.3, text is more readable, things are a little clearer.

Just look at orbit lines. They hold their colour and don't jag so much.

It's the smearing and colour that are bad. BTW has anyone opened a ticket about SS not having any effect?

-DK2 user

yup, text is clearer to me. I used to run about 1.5 SS on the nVidia control panel in 0.5 extended mode and of course I can't do this now in direct mode. But the text is much clearer.
The smearing and SS options has been done and ticketed to death now and is obviously a problem that will hopefully be patched.
Overall, I stand by my OP and I think FDev have done a great job with just a few tweaks needed. Considering 2 months ago when all the dummies were being spat out of the pram by all VR owners, we have come a long way.

grodenglaive · Apr 2, 2016

I didn't change a thing in my settings after upgrading to Oculus home, it just works (I'm launching directly from ED - I don't have the Steam or Oculus version). Wow - huge framerate improvement, headtracking improved as well. It defaulted back to orange text - I didn't switch back to green yet, so I can't say if text is much better. Graphics... well I was using sweetfx before, so a bit of a downgrade since that no longer works, but everything is so smooth now though - overall it is a big improvement. Nice updates they did to the VR bits too; the system map works great now and the Galaxy map is well optimized (it always juddered terribly before).
Great job Frontier!