X4 VR & Head Tracking control capability?

[SVoyager]

I see, that's quite the challenge.

It is too bad that the simulation cannot be untied or at least done in a way where it would allow the rendering to be unaffected and not screw everything else. It would allow you guys to do so much more but indeed we are certainly not the ones in front of those lines of codes so it is difficult to contribute and in my case, is out of my level of knowledge. At least all the threading related challenges you mentioned are things I heard before in other games and I know of it being a pain in the *** or at least a good source of revenue for pain relief pills .

So I have to say thank you for having spent the time to read and respond in details! It is very appreciated and helps to understand what are the challenges you are facing.

Hopefully we can eventually get a VR version, and maybe have something that wouldn't make it a toned down version of the game. X4 certainly has the potential to be a huge VR hit !
Cheers

[multox]

Another challenge to developing VR is that the user interface that is good enough for pancake is often nowhere near good enough for VR. I really dislike having to hunt for the "m" key on the keyboard when wearing a VR headset.

That being said, I would be absolutely thrilled if X4 some day comes out with VR support. As has been said numerous times before, Elite Dangerous with VR is quite a bit more fun than without VR. I've found that I love looking at the universe in VR. The space stations, ships, planets and stars are all much more interesting. It's like the difference of looking at a picture of a sunset versus the experience of observing it first-hand.

I will be purchasing X4 for pancake. In addition, because I understand the work that will go into converting X4 to VR, I will also *happily* pay full price a second time for X4 VR if it ever comes out.

Thanks for continuing to make the best damn space game ever, Egosoft!

[BigBANGtheory]

AMD has an interesting solution where you can use their API to render to multiple GPU's i.e. GPU1 > left eye & GPU2 > right eye

This to me always seemed like a sensible approach but of course its not mainstream and requires multi-GPU setups which again are very specialist. Without something like this though I can't see us getting 4k per eye HMD's working anytime soon even with a better pun

[JunMcKill]

I have been playing X rebirth VR for a while, and I can tell you, after that I will never play again in 2D, period!. The question here is if we have to buy the VR version months later when is released, and you already have the 2D version!, or will be a discount for the current owners!

regards!

[HDP]

Another challenge to developing VR is that the user interface that is good enough for pancake is often nowhere near good enough for VR. I really dislike having to hunt for the "m" key on the keyboard when wearing a VR headset.

That being said, I would be absolutely thrilled if X4 some day comes out with VR support. As has been said numerous times before, Elite Dangerous with VR is quite a bit more fun than without VR. I've found that I love looking at the universe in VR. The space stations, ships, planets and stars are all much more interesting. It's like the difference of looking at a picture of a sunset versus the experience of observing it first-hand.

I will be purchasing X4 for pancake. In addition, because I understand the work that will go into converting X4 to VR, I will also *happily* pay full price a second time for X4 VR if it ever comes out.

Thanks for continuing to make the best damn space game ever, Egosoft!

I Second every word this person said and also recently bought the Full version X4 with expansions and would love to see a VR Release later and would happily pay again for it as it is VR is a awesome experience altogether and i can positively say that VR is here to stay if you google and see how many people in different fields are using it and of coarse in the entertainment industry alone it is making strides and the technology will eventually me a standard peripheral cheap enough for most people as demand goes up for cheaper devices and eventually end up like the mouse and keyboards we got used to.

[Sahvion]

I'll just get both, though I am looking forward to the VR version if/when it comes out

[braven25]

I just hoping for Tobii Eye Tracking support

[wrmiller]

I just hoping for Tobii Eye Tracking support

I was going to upgrade from my TrackIR to Tobii, but then I read on their website that it won't work with my 34" monitor. So I'm stuck with my TrackIR for now.

[Alan Phipps]

Regarding Tobii, also see this thread which has Egosoft dev comment.

[GeFar]

I just hoping for Tobii Eye Tracking support

I was going to upgrade from my TrackIR to Tobii, but then I read on their website that it won't work with my 34" monitor. So I'm stuck with my TrackIR for now.

Right now I am running Dell Alienware AW3418HW with Tobii 4C on that.
No glue to attach Tobii to the monitor, no any problems with that monitor is curved.
(Issue solved by using two small cubes of neodim magnets in between Tobii and monitor metal stip at the bottom... 100% hit!)
More than that! I am with my glasses that are -3.75 each eye!

And I can put my feedback:

• It is working super well!

• It is great even in the corners of monitor!

• It is great and comfortable!

Two moments that are worse than in TrackIR, but that are not key moments for me:

• Number of tracked dimensions is less. (by the nature of device)

• I had to spent 0.5 hour and set of attempts to calibrate things for me to achieve best result I can... But that was only once. And after - things just work.

Finally:
Just that your monitor is 34" monitor - should not stop you with Tobii 4C!
But that fact that X4 is for some weird reason without support of this controller - it can disappoint you easily.... As it was for me. (I am still only 1.5 hours in X4... and spent a lot more time in monitoring "X4+Tobii" issue...)
But device itself - worth attention.

Have a nice time of the day!

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

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.

That is demonstrably false - Elite Dangerous is a prime example of a game that is seemlessly both VR and not VR.

I was not impressed with Egosoft's attempt at making a dedicated VR X-game with X-Rebirth VR. I found the overall implementation too problematic for a number of reasons, they would have been better just implementing basic VR head tracking support like Frontier have done with ED.

[Socratatus]

Just do TrackIr already. It`s not half as complex as VR.

Just do it, it might you some good will.

[Axeface]

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.

That is demonstrably false - Elite Dangerous is a prime example of a game that is seemlessly both VR and not VR.

But high frame rates are required for VR? This is problematic for X but not for ED, ED's servers do all the work of tracking everything going on in the universe not the client.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

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.

That is demonstrably false - Elite Dangerous is a prime example of a game that is seemlessly both VR and not VR.

But high frame rates are required for VR? This is problematic for X but not for ED, ED's servers do all the work of tracking everything going on in the universe not the client.

Not necessarily true, X4 is essentially X-Rebirth with some relatively minor but significant changes - X-Rebirth had it's performance issues but they were still able to make X-Rebirth VR. Frame rates need to be more regular than high - at least to a point.

The issues with frame rates in X4 seem to be less to do with state tracking and more to do with general bugs. ED still does most of the computation locally - and it does not get even close to stressing the capabilities of my CPU. FTR neither does X4 at the moment - currently 95 threads running but the load is not even close to being more than two cores according to the perfmon I have running. The biggest issue is seemingly resource management at the moment - Egosoft did this best in X2 and in that game it had reliable frame rate management too (something Egosoft have not done well - if at all - since then).

The problem with X-Rebirth VR in my books is that Egosoft (like most VR conversions) they tried to do a total conversion with too much focus on the standard VR controllers - which was a big mistake IMO. Egosoft seem to have a fixation with the X-Box controller which is perhaps the worst choice of controller to get fixated upon IMO. The Steam controller is a close second worst controlled, with the VIVE Wands being on par with that.

What ED has done right wrt the VR aspect is design the controls essentially for a HOTAS solution but kept things user configurable. Egosoft seem to have attempted to do the same with X4 but the end result was so buggy at release that I went back to keyboard and mouse. Not sure about the current state of play in that regard, but I am not in a hurry to move away from keyboard and mouse for X4 now I have got used to it again (it is still buggy but the consequences are less dire).

FTR I do not find the performance in X4 to be that bad in the main - there are some "seconds per frame" bugs as with X-Rebirth at release but I am sure they can be resolved - but whether Egosoft are capable of doing so these days is in doubt.

[Bourrinopathe]

Bumping for visibility and because I'm now irremediably addicted to X4 and headtracking would be great!

This would add a very welcome feature to X4 (flying around, visiting stations searching for data leaks, combat, harvesting crystals and mining in the roids, etc.).
And as we can already use different view angles in the cockpit using the num keys, I guess everything is almost there

Happy new space year everyone!

[blanmgr]

Then the choice would be full HOTAS support with VR.

1. HOTAS joystick has at least 17 configurable control with view controls
2. Throttle control to be used for acceleration and deceleration and it has at least 10 two position switches.
3. Peddle controls for strafing and turning.

This will help or even "eliminate keyboard usage" with a VR headset.

BL

[Tapsman]

Why did Egosoft waste time and resources on VR for Rebirth when X4 is so lacking at launch?

[Socratatus]

Then the choice would be full HOTAS support with VR.

1. HOTAS joystick has at least 17 configurable control with view controls
2. Throttle control to be used for acceleration and deceleration and it has at least 10 two position switches.
3. Peddle controls for strafing and turning.

This will help or even "eliminate keyboard usage" with a VR headset.

BL

This can all be done with Track ir which is a lot cheaper for most people thanVR and easier for the Devs to implement.

[Kai Lae]

Because I don't want to read through 7 or pages of people talking about VR, is there any reason headtracking couldn't be done? Using either TrackIR, opentrack, freetrack etc.

[Bourrinopathe]

I didn't read through all of it, but I think the dev who answered explained why VR is not supported. I didn't see details about headtracking support.

My guess would be that it's very low priority and that Egosoft has a larger user base not equipped with any of these solutions (TrackIR, OpenTrack, Freetrack, …).
Still. It's frustrating as the camera angles are there, so the cockpit view angles limits can't be that hard to set and the tech was there in Rebirth apparently.
Maybe the guy who implemented and tested it does not work with Egosoft anymore. No idea, really.

Headtracking would be fantastic. Flying and looking at the ships, combat, etc. It would just be brilliant and would probably encourage people to embrace headtracking.
Right now I feel like I'm flying with a neck brace