X4 VR & Head Tracking control capability?

[CBJ]

You repead was bernd told us at the presentation from gamescom but its a lie, cause VR need only 90fps (45fps for Asynchronous Spacewarp) and not 200fps and the developer could get some graphics options for the VR version, to disable some effects its not magic... and btw x-rebirth was a console port, they got a deal with microsoft to release it for xbox, to bad it never comes out to xbox after the bad release.
And this is why we got stupid gamepad controlls there and why u see in x4 now this low poly character modells everywhere.

I said already, people are playing the non-VR version in VR now, cause there is no need for a seperate version.

So many false accusations and misunderstandings in one post!

1. What Bernd said in the presentation is absolutely true. In order to achieve the consistently high framerates required for VR, we had to make significant changes to the game universe to reduce the number of ships and stations, and also to the UI to make it pleasant to use in 3D. Your assertion that adding a few graphics settings would solve the framerate problem suggests that you have completely misunderstood what the issue really is. In most situations, the framerate in X-series games is much more dependent on the universe simulation than the graphics settings. You can't just "dial down" the simulation, and for non-VR players (who constitute the vast majority of our player base) to have the size and depth of their game universe being determined by VR framerate requirements would be completely unacceptable, both to them and to us.

2. Continuing to circulate the completely false rumour that XR was a console port does not make it any less false, and embellishing it with even more ridiculous nonsense about a "deal with Microsoft" doesn't change that. Bernd acknowledged in the presentation that the heavy focus on gamepad support early on (which was a priority at the time because it was being heavily pushed by Steam as part of their Big Picture concept) was a mistake, and one that we've already worked to rectify, at least partially, in various XR updates.

3. Being able to "run" a non-VR game while wearing a VR headset is a very long way from actually having a releasable game that fully supports VR and is comfortable to play. If you have even the slightest experience of VR games, you will know that having menus in screen space rather than world space can be disorientating and immersion-breaking, and that's just one of a number of examples. And as already explained, framerate is very much an issue here, and not one that can be solved by changing a few settings or throwing some more GPU cycles at the problem.

4. Suggesting that we are just making a separate VR version for the money is, quite frankly, absurd. The size of the current market for VR doesn't even come close to justifying the cost of developing for it.

Finally, I advise you to be very careful about insulting people by accusing them of being liars. The forum rules on insults are clear, and they apply to insults directed at developers as well as other forum members.

[Ketraar]

If you had ever flown around a massive space station that you had just finished building ir get up close and personal to the drones doing their work, you would truly appreciate the scale of it all.

No one suggested it was not a good experience to FLY in VR. Not sure what your point is, you dont need to convince of the powers of immersion of VR, I'm aware of them.

And I totally disagree with you; the economic sim and the building aspect are BOTH enhanced by VR. I spend hours in XRVR flying around watching ships delivering to my stations, waiting for them to arrive or watching the plate foundry process from ore crushing to container packaging, all in massive, 3D, real-life scale.

Sorry but you make no sense. Watching ships fly by and stations being built is NOT the economic sim or building aspect of the game. We have already established the flying bit and its immersion, finding deals, min/max profits is NOT enhanced by VR at all. Which is the part that would need striping the most for VR as its also the less important for it, it "hurts" players that have their play style focusses on those game mechanics.

Don't knock it if you haven't tried it...and if you have tried it and still say VR does not enhance the building and economic aspects, I feel sorry for you.

You dont need to feel sorry, my ability to form opinions is pretty good, for example I really dislike excrements even though I have never tried it.

Enjoy your prehistoric television screen...but let the rest of us enjoy X4 in VR.

Are we being entitled much? I suggest a descent from that high horse of yours, one can get hurt badly when falling from it.

MFG

Ketraar

[Koboldx]

So many false accusations and misunderstandings in one post!

1. What Bernd said in the presentation is absolutely true.

Im not believe it, since what he said in the past about x-rebirth in presentation
with gamestar, to fool people that pathfinding wasnt working at the moment and
to hide all the big problems in the past, why should i/we someone like him, trust now?

In order to achieve the consistently high framerates required for VR, we had to make significant changes to the game universe to reduce the number of ships and stations, and also to the UI to make it pleasant to use in 3D.

I bought the Rift CV1 since day 1 and i know the UI need to get calibrate for the clearness in VR. But this doesnt mean, it cant be developed compatible to the TFT screen and this showed Project Cars and Elite Dangerous that is possible to develop the same game for both VR and non-VR users together.

It does make me angry to see how bernd said at gamescom that VR support would cut X4 for even the non VR Users. I still not agree with this statement and the mod supporters from X-R proofed that they can fix the Vanilla game with a modpack:
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=395702

They tweaked the old galaxy almost VR ready but egosoft cant?
I dont think it wont take long after X4 comes out to see some Traffic Reducing Mod or some other stuff like this for better fps.

Where is the problem to set a button in graphicsettings about Advanced Traffic?
I dont think its a game changer to remove or reduce the traffic around a station for better FPS.

Your assertion that adding a few graphics settings would solve the framerate problem suggests that you have completely misunderstood what the issue really is. In most situations, the framerate in X-series games is much more dependent on the universe simulation than the graphics settings. You can't just "dial down" the simulation, and for non-VR players (who constitute the vast majority of our player base) to have the size and depth of their game universe being determined by VR framerate requirements would be completely unacceptable, both to them and to us.

So what you talking about is a CPU Bottleneck, right? And u think the coming Intel i7 CPU's in 2 Month or the next Icelake CPU cant handle this simulation?

6Cores and 4,5Ghz or with oc 5GHz on each core +HT isnt enough?

The biggest problem in VR is to 90% in all games the GPU, of course in simulation this changes... but i never though that OOS Simulation would be really though and demanding for CPU when X4 is going to release, that maybe is in more than a year... and who knows if X4 maybe delayed to 2019 and how many performance u got out of Vulcan (a low level API) at this time, i though u guys not done yet with the Vulcan optimisation.

Maybe im wrong here, i have to confess i dont know how demanding OOS calculation is and how much CPU Power its required to get stable 90FPS or still enough CPU Power for the GPU at the same time to hold the required 90fps.

2. Continuing to circulate the completely false rumour that XR was a console port does not make it any less false, and embellishing it with even more ridiculous nonsense about a "deal with Microsoft" doesn't change that. Bernd acknowledged in the presentation that the heavy focus on gamepad support early on (which was a priority at the time because it was being heavily pushed by Steam as part of their Big Picture concept) was a mistake, and one that we've already worked to rectify, at least partially, in various XR updates.

Okay im accept this and it was wrong from my side to call it out as a fact... i had should it called by its name, its just a rumour. Anyways this gamepad feature or how ever u want to call it, was a step back for almost every PC user, maybe some people who always play with consoles would like it.

3. Being able to "run" a non-VR game while wearing a VR headset is a very long way from actually having a releasable game that fully supports VR and is comfortable to play. If you have even the slightest experience of VR games, you will know that having menus in screen space rather than world space can be disorientating and immersion-breaking, and that's just one of a number of examples. And as already explained, framerate is very much an issue here, and not one that can be solved by changing a few settings or throwing some more GPU cycles at the problem.

Im already responsed about this at the top

4. Suggesting that we are just making a separate VR version for the money is, quite frankly, absurd. The size of the current market for VR doesn't even come close to justifying the cost of developing for it.

You dont release X4 tomorrow dont you? Even today i saw another price drop from Rift CV1 Bundle from 450€ to 399€ postet on reddit, if u guys think VR is small and will keep small, what did you people saw on the gamecom? TFT's everywhere, everyone ignored there VR, cause its not justifying?

If u guys want to ignore the future okay, but why released XR-VR 1Month ago?
If this market is really this small at the moment and not justifying. Even to know that the shitstorm about XR might/will related to XR-VR.

Doesnt make sense.

Even for me, i owned X2 on day one, X3 Reunion on day one even x-rebirth bought as preorder (i know i was dumb to trust egosoft in the past, i remember how i defend this company in every forum)... and i hated XR, not cause of the one ship stuff that was clear for my side, cause ground breaking pathfinding, this was a disaster, not sync language with npcs and and and, ongoing list everyone knows this, not neccessary to repeat this.

Im a really big scify fan and played Elite Dangerous almost 500 Hours in VR only since last year. But i dont think im buying XR-VR now or soon and im pretty sure alot other people think the same and they not forget how egosoft fooled us with XR.

Of course u guys lost costumer and if no one buy XR-VR doesnt mean the market is small, its because some people not forget this easy.

Finally, I advise you to be very careful about insulting people by accusing them of being liars. The forum rules on insults are clear, and they apply to developers as well as other forum members.

Understood

[Player]

4. Suggesting that we are just making a separate VR version for the money is, quite frankly, absurd. The size of the current market for VR doesn't even come close to justifying the cost of developing for it.

At least I hope that when the VR version of the game is released, a good discount will be given to those who already own the non-VR game.

Now that the VR is already arriving at 8K (upscaled) resolutions with much less SDE I finally decided to get one.

[Reprisal]

However, as VR requires major changes to the game interface, balancing as well as severe changes to ensure a proper framerate (read: performance), it's not viable to add VR support from the start.

There doesn't need to be severe changes to guarantee performance. I think you'll find that a lot of people with VR also have some seriously high end PCs to match.

The changes to X Rebirth VR were excessive, as much as I love it.

[X2-Illuminatus]

However, as VR requires major changes to the game interface, balancing as well as severe changes to ensure a proper framerate (read: performance), it's not viable to add VR support from the start.

There doesn't need to be severe changes to guarantee performance. I think you'll find that a lot of people with VR also have some seriously high end PCs to match.

The changes to X Rebirth VR were excessive, as much as I love it.

So you acknowledge the changes made to X Rebirth VR, yet ingore those that were made to increase performance?

[Reprisal]

So you acknowledge the changes made to X Rebirth VR, yet ingore those that were made to increase performance?

What am I ignoring? The layout of the map was changed to optimise for VR, but the original map can be modded back in. People with capable computers can run the original map.

Personally I don't want to play X4 in flatscreen, VR is simply superior. If we get a bare bones VR experience without any optimisations, so be it. I have an i7 7700K and a 1080ti Xtreme for a reason and I think you'll find most people who spent significant money on a VR HMD have high end PCs as well.

[X2-Illuminatus]

What am I ignoring?

You ingore that several changes had to be made to XR VR to guarantee a stable, VR suitable framerate. If you really don't see any other changes besides the map between XR and XR VR, then I can only assume you have played either of the games only for a short time.

[Vandragorax]

Bernd acknowledged in the presentation that the heavy focus on gamepad support early on (which was a priority at the time because it was being heavily pushed by Steam as part of their Big Picture concept) was a mistake, and one that we've already worked to rectify, at least partially, in various XR updates.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing how well the Steam Controller will map as an alternative to kb+m. Would be nice to play on my TV sometimes from the sofa as I should be able to manage my empire at the very least (using the Steam Controller's 'mouse pad').

[Reprisal]

What am I ignoring?

You ingore that several changes had to be made to XR VR to guarantee a stable, VR suitable framerate. If you really don't see any other changes besides the map between XR and XR VR, then I can only assume you have played either of the games only for a short time.

What changes are you referring to? What is making such a major difference to the framerate that I'm missing? Telling me that I'm missing something, that you apparently know about, rather than just saying what I'm missing is pointless.

If the choice is X4 with no VR support whatsoever, or a completely vanilla X4 experience with no motion controls, no VR specific optimizations. I'll take X4 with bare bones VR. PCs will advance, VR requirements will drop.

[X2-Illuminatus]

What changes are you referring to? What is making such a major difference to the framerate that I'm missing? Telling me that I'm missing something, that you apparently know about, rather than just saying what I'm missing is pointless.

Well, it's not like almost everything has been mentioned in this topic or is quite readily available in the XR VR forum already.

This was explained in detail during the presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T10iR69-PqQ&t=2447

Edit: bah - got distracted rewatching parts of the presentation and now I've been beaten to the punch...

Please developers, VR is available in a good state... we dont need VR exclusive, just the optional VR support, that dont take much development time... its not need to be perfect,
even if its limited to cockpit view it would be awesome.

We were working on X Rebirth VR Edition for a year, that is a LOT of development time. And "just make it optional" doesn't make it any less work, on the contrary.
And especially with a market as young and relatively small as VR if you throw out a low quality product it'll hurt the ecosystem as a whole.

1. What Bernd said in the presentation is absolutely true. In order to achieve the consistently high framerates required for VR, we had to make significant changes to the game universe to reduce the number of ships and stations, and also to the UI to make it pleasant to use in 3D. Your assertion that adding a few graphics settings would solve the framerate problem suggests that you have completely misunderstood what the issue really is. In most situations, the framerate in X-series games is much more dependent on the universe simulation than the graphics settings. You can't just "dial down" the simulation, and for non-VR players (who constitute the vast majority of our player base) to have the size and depth of their game universe being determined by VR framerate requirements would be completely unacceptable, both to them and to us.

14. What game content is in XR VR Edition?

XR VR Edition is based on Home of Light and also includes all gameplay features from The Teladi Outpost. So most features from the very latest X Rebirth should also be included in XR VR Edition. However, the game is designed to take full advantage of Virtual Reality and this means that we had to make a lot of changes also to gameplay elements. Here is a quick list of some of the more obvious differences:
- The universe was modified. This affects the density of stations, the highways and many other things.
- There is no external camera: XR VR Edition is always played from cockpit perspective or 1st person on platforms.
- Platform gameplay is reduced: While you can still leave your ship and walk around stations, the need for this is much reduced.
- New missions and tutorial
- The X Rebirth original plot is replaced by a tutorial to learn the game and a series of missions. The later storylines from X Rebirth 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 including the addition of SETA, jumpdrive, weapon mods and much more are all included too.

Most importantly of course the whole UI is changed. As the launch trailer shows, the game can be controlled in a very unique way with VR controllers. See also the images in this gallery.

[Vandragorax]

I completely see where Egosoft are coming from here. The UI and UX in Rebirth VR are so completely different from the regular game, just look at that video of the launch trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM3TYjWfjgw

That takes a long time to develop and test and fine-tune, and it's completely understandable that they wouldn't want a half-arsed version of the VR game to be available (which would likely get ripped apart by reviews etc.)

That said though, I don't see what would be stopping them from making it on a clearly labelled "EXPERIMENTAL" branch on Steam, where people can opt in to the VR experience at any point through development. That way those who want to simply pop the headset on but play the game with regular UI/UX on a kb+mouse can do so from the start.

[Player]

That said though, I don't see what would be stopping them from making it on a clearly labelled "EXPERIMENTAL" branch on Steam, where people can opt in to the VR experience at any point through development. That way those who want to simply pop the headset on but play the game with regular UI/UX on a kb+mouse can do so from the start.

Exactly. This would contribute much more to the receptivity of the game.

[Ringo7]

They said in the presentation that they are not planning on VR at first, if at all. They make a point that VR is very different and requires huge changes to how the game works. As for track IR i dont think it's mentioned.

EDIT: Heres the answer https://youtu.be/T10iR69-PqQ?t=2445

That definitely rules out X4 for me. Have not purchased a non-vr game since getting the Oculus Rift 2 years ago. Will never go back to flat screen games. Never again. Once you've experienced VR space games/sims, like Elite Dangerous, Lone Echo, From Other Suns, XRebirth-VR, Star Trek, (and many more coming this year) for many of us, there is no way you can go back. I for one, will wait for X4VR, if it's ever released, or won't buy it at all, that I can promise.

[ice36bc]

I need X4 in VR in my live so bad. and the game isn't even out.

[Ringo7]

I need X4 in VR in my live so bad. and the game isn't even out.

Steam says it will be available in October 2018. Pretty soon!

[sd_jasper]

Steam says it will be available in October 2018. Pretty soon!

Where do you see that?

I only see "Available: 2018"

[Jawms]

Did I miss the answer on TrackIR?

I hear that TrackIR is a fairly simple addition to a game as long as it has some form of "Mouse Look" (Take this with a HUGE grain of salt because I DO NOT know what I'm talking about)

TrackIR has been a lovely addition to many games for myself, and would love to see a proper implementation in X4. The X3 version was very limited and did not allow you to look behind you, but I still used it extensively even with its limits.

I have not played enough XR to know how it was done, but I only discovered that it was implemented relatively recently.

[CBJ]

TrackIR support was added to XR in one of the later patches. We didn't get a lot of feedback on how well it worked for people, but there is no particular reason why that support would be removed in X4. It's possible that it might be disabled on initial release to keep things simple, but if so then I would be a little surprised if it wasn't added back in later.

[Knossos]

TrackIR support was added to XR in one of the later patches. We didn't get a lot of feedback on how well it worked for people, but there is no particular reason why that support would be removed in X4. It's possible that it might be disabled on initial release to keep things simple, but if so then I would be a little surprised if it wasn't added back in later.

That would be amazing considering the vast open windowed cockpits some of the ships have!