X4 VR

[Rastuasi]

Maybe y'all missed the part where I said

Hmm looking through the forum posts, there's less than 12 individual voices posting about wanting VR, they're just restarting threads every few months. For "literally dozens", I'd expect at least 24..

I'm speaking for the silent ones, the lost souls out in the wilderness and those who don't post in forums

Understandable, except then you should not add the qualifier of "literally" onto "dozens". Using "literally" means that it is backed up with actual voiced individuals. "Hypothetical dozens" would be more accurate or "silent dozens" could be used, albeit not as accurate without the ability to prove there are dozens that are silent.

[Socratatus]

CBJ recently said in an X4 topic:

"The issue with VR (and for that matter multi-player) is not just about whether there's a market for it, but whether the cost of implementing it relative to the size of that market actually makes sense.

Implementing VR is not as cheap and easy as the VR manufacturers would have you think. Aside from the overhead of supporting numerous different VR implementations in order to capture enough segments of the fractured market to make it viable at all, making it comfortable to use means cutting down on key elements of the game to achieve the high framerates required, adapting the user interface and control system, and making numerous other smaller changes, all of which takes a considerable amount of work. Our experience with XR VR showed that while it was a really nice addition to the game, and great fun to work on, the numbers simply didn't add up. Nothing that has happened since then has convinced us that that situation has changed, and we cannot afford to keep throwing money at VR on the off-chance that it may one day pay off."

Well that`s unfortunate. I`m a VR user too. I have and run Fallout4 and Skyrim and they work extremely well, though Bethseda very poorly implemented it. However, just the VR framework was enough for Modders to help improve it greatly. It`s one big advantage that Elite now has, although it`s online all-the-time thing puts me off. Perhaps one day Egosoft`s view will change.

[Imperial Good]

Main problem is the frame rate. One needs a very high and consistent frame rate when making a game VR. Where as X4 can achieve this while flying, platforms often suffer frame rate dips which could negatively affect 3D playability.

[Dexatronn]

Well I'm not sure if they will ever Make X4 VR But they do have Some VR options already in the Options Menu..So here's Hoping

[Raevyan]

Well I'm not sure if they will ever Make X4 VR But they do have Some VR options already in the Options Menu..So here's Hoping

Most likely just leftovers from X Rebirth VR.

[csaba]

VR has to halve in price before the market is large enough for small developers to consider putting out games with as much content as X onto it.

As it has been stagnant the past 5 years cost wise I don't see people suddenly picking up the stuff in millions so it's very likely that not even X5 will be on it.

[Imperial Good]

Main issue with X4 being made VR would be the performance. VR needs consistent high refresh rates with low frame times to avoid motion sickness, something X4 is not that good at.

[Panos]

Main issue with X4 being made VR would be the performance. VR needs consistent high refresh rates with low frame times to avoid motion sickness, something X4 is not that good at.

The main issue is that there are no new 3d monitors any more. It would look amazing with 3d glasses (Nvision kit) like previous X games.

[XD733]

If they can't even get the base game together, there is no hope that they would be able to pull off a VR version.

[Clownmug]

Too costly for Egosoft apparently. They're not like IO Interactive that can announce vr for their game franchise 2 years after having to buy back the ip rights.

[Slashman]

If they can't even get the base game together, there is no hope that they would be able to pull off a VR version.

Really? Because they pulled it off with X Rebirth. They simply said it was not economical for X4. It really is just that simple.

[Tolmos]

I'm holding out hope for an X4 VR one day. The reality is that VR is growing more mainstream by the day, and yet X Rebirth VR is the only offline VR space sandbox available for it. And while it's a great game, it's been abandoned so a lot of folks are out of luck there if their controls aren't supported (like the Rift S).

The market when Rebirth VR launched and today are incomparable; it's unfortunate but back when Rebirth VR launched there were only a handful of headsets that were all super expensive and kinda sucked. Now even the $400 ones run laps around them in terms of quality.

As someone who plays the hell out of Elite Dangerous VR, I can't begin to express how amazing of an experience it is. If you've never had a chance to really experience that, I don't think I can really explain it in a way that would do justice to how immersive it is. The best I can say is that there have been times where I've gotten so engrossed in the game that I reached out to touch a control panel, forgetting it wasn't actually there. After 500 hours of flying the same ship in ED VR, I feel as comfortable in my ship's cockpit as I do in my truck's driver seat or my desk at home.

X4 VR may never happen, but I won't stop hoping for it all the same. In the meantime, I still play X Rebirth VR... even if it gets a bit repetitive at times lol.

[Rastuasi]

As proven by the stats, even if VR is larger community than at XRebirth's day, it still accounts for less than 10% of the sales of the mainstream VR games compared to the non-VR version. When accounting for that fact alone, it will not net enough profit in sales, not even enough to break even for how many copies would actually sell. The stats just don't back up any argument for VR at this time and those stats have been shown and are current to the current day environment of gaming. There is not simply a switch that the devs can click within the code that then turns VR on with perfect functionality. As CBJ has mentioned, it would require a complete overhaul in the game's underlying design and framework. Along with that, menus will need reworked, interfaces adjusted, and computers would need to have advanced to thirty times the current average home computer to just hold the frame rates necessary for VR at a stage that is even considered mid-game. CBJ has already clearly stated in the linked thread, as to such was on page one, no VR is planned, not even to be debated for later points in the game.

[Earth Shine]

I only got interested in the X series because of X Rebirth VR. and they will absolutely love this game in VR, space games in VR are something amazing.
In XRVR only with the use of hotas (+mouse in extreme cases), I do not use VR controllers at all. For this reason I don't think the game requires a lot of work because just headset tracking support is enough, on the internet you can find a method to run X4 VR using reshade+virtual desktop +OpenTrack, so adding only hedset support like in "elite dangerous" can't be that hard.

[chew-ie]

I only got interested in the X series because of X Rebirth VR. and they will absolutely love this game in VR, space games in VR are something amazing.
In XRVR only with the use of hotas (+mouse in extreme cases), I do not use VR controllers at all. For this reason I don't think the game requires a lot of work because just headset tracking support is enough, on the internet you can find a method to run X4 VR using reshade+virtual desktop +OpenTrack, so adding only hedset support like in "elite dangerous" can't be that hard.

Nekro - and nothing has changed:

CBJ recently said in an X4 topic:

"The issue with VR (and for that matter multi-player) is not just about whether there's a market for it, but whether the cost of implementing it relative to the size of that market actually makes sense.

Implementing VR is not as cheap and easy as the VR manufacturers would have you think. Aside from the overhead of supporting numerous different VR implementations in order to capture enough segments of the fractured market to make it viable at all, making it comfortable to use means cutting down on key elements of the game to achieve the high framerates required, adapting the user interface and control system, and making numerous other smaller changes, all of which takes a considerable amount of work. Our experience with XR VR showed that while it was a really nice addition to the game, and great fun to work on, the numbers simply didn't add up. Nothing that has happened since then has convinced us that that situation has changed, and we cannot afford to keep throwing money at VR on the off-chance that it may one day pay off."

[ZeroAffex]

I only got interested in the X series because of X Rebirth VR. and they will absolutely love this game in VR, space games in VR are something amazing.
In XRVR only with the use of hotas (+mouse in extreme cases), I do not use VR controllers at all. For this reason I don't think the game requires a lot of work because just headset tracking support is enough, on the internet you can find a method to run X4 VR using reshade+virtual desktop +OpenTrack, so adding only hedset support like in "elite dangerous" can't be that hard.

For the dogfighting vr would be okay but I can't see how it would be fun to play the rest of the game in vr. This game requires much too much kbm for vr, it's not a simple dogfighter like ED. Building stations, buying and building ships, setting up trades or organizing fleets to attack a station would all be horrible in vr with all the keyboard inputs required. Would be a waste to enable vr for such a very very small portion of what the game offers. If you just want a space game to drool over space stuff and shoot stuff mindlessly, ED serves that role. X4 is way more elaborate than that and can't be confined to such limitations that vr would pose. That's why XRVR is brilliant as it gives you a bite sized chunk of the X universe in vr and simplifies a lot of stuff to make it palatable to enjoy an X game in vr.

As it stands, you'd fly 5 minutes. Stop, lift up your headset, type stuff, pull the headset down, continue. Rinse repeat. Not very good and probably won't be enjoyed in the long term. I'd much rather devs devote time to things we'd enjoy for many many hours in more content, polish and fixes than adding a half baked vr experience myself. Anyways, if that's all you want, there's 3rd party software out there that does just that.

[Earth Shine]

I only got interested in the X series because of X Rebirth VR. and they will absolutely love this game in VR, space games in VR are something amazing.
In XRVR only with the use of hotas (+mouse in extreme cases), I do not use VR controllers at all. For this reason I don't think the game requires a lot of work because just headset tracking support is enough, on the internet you can find a method to run X4 VR using reshade+virtual desktop +OpenTrack, so adding only hedset support like in "elite dangerous" can't be that hard.

Nekro - and nothing has changed:

CBJ recently said in an X4 topic:

"The issue with VR (and for that matter multi-player) is not just about whether there's a market for it, but whether the cost of implementing it relative to the size of that market actually makes sense.

Implementing VR is not as cheap and easy as the VR manufacturers would have you think. Aside from the overhead of supporting numerous different VR implementations in order to capture enough segments of the fractured market to make it viable at all, making it comfortable to use means cutting down on key elements of the game to achieve the high framerates required, adapting the user interface and control system, and making numerous other smaller changes, all of which takes a considerable amount of work. Our experience with XR VR showed that while it was a really nice addition to the game, and great fun to work on, the numbers simply didn't add up. Nothing that has happened since then has convinced us that that situation has changed, and we cannot afford to keep throwing money at VR on the off-chance that it may one day pay off."

A lot has changed in the field of VR and the future associated with it, the post from 2020 is outdated.
VR has gained a lot of popularity over these 2/3 years, the very number of headsets sold over the last 2 years is huge, in addition PSVR2 appeared, which will further increase the market.
Graphics also made up for the performance with the necessary performance.
Please note that all people who ask for VR support ask for support only the headset. As I wrote earlier, it can't be so difficult and many games have this option, what is more, you can do it with ordinary mods.
We do not ask for a change of interface (if it is necessary, we can handle it with the help of mods)

[Earth Shine]

I only got interested in the X series because of X Rebirth VR. and they will absolutely love this game in VR, space games in VR are something amazing.
In XRVR only with the use of hotas (+mouse in extreme cases), I do not use VR controllers at all. For this reason I don't think the game requires a lot of work because just headset tracking support is enough, on the internet you can find a method to run X4 VR using reshade+virtual desktop +OpenTrack, so adding only hedset support like in "elite dangerous" can't be that hard.

For the dogfighting vr would be okay but I can't see how it would be fun to play the rest of the game in vr. This game requires much too much kbm for vr, it's not a simple dogfighter like ED. Building stations, buying and building ships, setting up trades or organizing fleets to attack a station would all be horrible in vr with all the keyboard inputs required. Would be a waste to enable vr for such a very very small portion of what the game offers. If you just want a space game to drool over space stuff and shoot stuff mindlessly, ED serves that role. X4 is way more elaborate than that and can't be confined to such limitations that vr would pose. That's why XRVR is brilliant as it gives you a bite sized chunk of the X universe in vr and simplifies a lot of stuff to make it palatable to enjoy an X game in vr.

As it stands, you'd fly 5 minutes. Stop, lift up your headset, type stuff, pull the headset down, continue. Rinse repeat. Not very good and probably won't be enjoyed in the long term. I'd much rather devs devote time to things we'd enjoy for many many hours in more content, polish and fixes than adding a half baked vr experience myself. Anyways, if that's all you want, there's 3rd party software out there that does just that.

Do you look at the keyboard as you type? After all, using a keyboard and mouse with a headset is no problem. As I wrote above, everyone who asks for VR is only asking for head tracking support, we'll handle the rest.
3rd party software is not as good as the in-game tracking implementation and requires a lot of effort.

[merli]

Hello guys, I have found some overall instructions how to play X4 in VR ... Anyway I did not try it yet, but if someone will, some good deep manual would be fine ...
https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/ ... something/

[pittlebelge]

I tried those methods and it's a really strange experience. It's not quite what you'd get from an actual VR game. It's a bit hard to describe. Imagine you have the VR environment of a VR desktop, in that environment, there is a window that projects X4 in 3D, but with some headtracking. That alone makes the experience not quite right.

But then, there are other issues, the map is pretty much unusable, at least last time I tried. The HUD isn't collimated, that's also an issue with track ir when you go for 6DOF, so when you move your head around the aim point becomes useless. And the resolution isn't there either, X4 will use your flat screen resolution, not the VR headset one.

All in all, it's a really nice effort and I can't imagine how much pain it took to figure all the steps to get it to work as it is, but it's not there yet. Best bet is for every VR enthusiast to convince 100 random people to grab a headset so that it become a valid market for Egosoft.