POLL: Should Egosoft make X4 VR compatible?

[vvvvvvvv]

Where to invest? In 3 million growing +20% OR 150 million growing +100% in the same time.

Or... "Niche marked with people starved for content vs large market saturated with products, with huge number of releases daily by companies with way more funding". It is often possible to flip statistics around, to suit one's argument. You can also check current number of active users for x4 and compare it to 3 million of headsets.

There's likely profit that could be made with current egosoft assets. For example...
* Rebirth VR could receive few fixes it badly needed, an upgrade to modern APIs, then there could be adverts (Rebirth, Reborn). It could've been a solid experience with few major flaws, which can be addressed (cut content and render distance issue).
* For Rebirth VR likewise, could it be feasible to make it run on Quest 3 and leverage Meta and Pico store. Given the age of the game it will probably run on the hardware.
* For X4, check if the lowest effort VR implementation bears fruit. There's no alternative title to X4. That doesn't mean those things will remain unchanged forever.

Like I said before I wouldn't mind paying for VR functionality either. As long as it isn't abandoned later.

[Crimsonraziel]

Or... "Niche marked with people starved for content vs large market saturated with products, with huge number of releases daily by companies with way more funding". It is often possible to flip statistics around, to suit one's argument. You can also check current number of active users for x4 and compare it to 3 million of headsets.

Sure you can do that, but neither did I flip statistics around nor did I dig up that link in the first place. If you say you are willing to pay for VR and the VR community is starved, fine. It's a valid argument. But the link is not helpful and even weakens the position. That's all I was saying.

[vvvvvvvv]

Sure you can do that, but neither did I

You were trying to imply that it is wiser to invest into 150 million user base compared to 3 million. That's one side of the coin.
This argument can be turned around by pointing out that in that 150 million user base competition is much higher, and current player count does not even reach that 3 million. That would be another side of the coin.

Those points do not oppose each other and they exist simultaneously and could be both true. However, in the end neither of them matter, because the only important question here is: How much money will it bring.

The answer to that is "nobody knows until they try".

[Crimsonraziel]

This argument can be turned around by pointing out that in that 150 million user base competition is much higher, and current player count does not even reach that 3 million. That would be another side of the coin.

And some source that supports that argument would have been useful. Besides that, current players aren't sales numbers (especially not when we know the no-steam.exe has some popularity). Comparing this to 3 million VR users is actually twisting numbers. Bring some link that shows how those 3 million actually translate into sales or current player numbers. Steam charts for some remotely comparable VR game maybe.
No Man's Sky has VR support, according to Steam Charts around 10-11k current players and around 14 million copies sold according to PlayTracker (compared to X4 with about 3-4k current players and about 1 million sold copies. And for good measure X Rebirth around 500k and X Rebirth VR around 30k sold copies). Bring something that shows VR makes up a significant fraction of those No Man's Sky players and you have an argument. The provided link only shows that VR is a tiny fraction of the customer pool and is significantly slower growing than the customer pool in general.

Those points do not oppose each other and they exist simultaneously and could be both true. [...]

They could be, or both are wrong, but the provided link supports one. The other one might as well be an ass pull.

The answer to that is "nobody knows until they try".

Might be a motto to start your business, but I wouldn't recommend it to run it on. Ofc, you're free to do as you please with your business.

[vvvvvvvv]

Comparing this to 3 million VR users is actually twisting numbers.

Same goes for 150 million users you brought up. That's also twisting numbers. Because current steam users also aren't sales. For the record, that number is quite close to correct. Current number of steam monthly users is 132 million.

It is true that there are more steam users than vr users.
It is true that the vr users do not necessarily translate into sales.
It is, however, true that steam users do not necessarily translate into sales either.
It is true that VR users are starved for content, and for non-vr users steam is saturated with it.

This back and forth can continue forever without conclusion, but it is meaningless to begin with because neither of us are actually making decisions. So none of this matters. Someone has to try, until then outcome is unknown.

[Crimsonraziel]

Same goes for 150 million users you brought up. That's also twisting numbers. Because current steam users also aren't sales. For the record, that number is quite close to correct. Current number of steam monthly users is 132 million.

I didn't just pull it out of my butt. Those are the numbers in the link from the comment I was responding to. I rounded a bit, yes. I could use the 132 million current monthly steam users but I'd then have to use the current monthly vr users as well, wich aren't 3 million but ~2.2 million (Feb 2025). Math is fun: 3/150 = 2% ; 2.2/132 = 1.6667%. But then again I could also just use the percentage from the very same source, ~1.35% . So, for the record: If I did "twist" the numbers, I did so in favor of VR, because I saw no reason to be overly anal about it. I could have also went with the ~1.8% value from the trend line, which would be less gracious still.

It is true that there are more steam users than vr users.

And also quite an understatement.

It is true that the vr users do not necessarily translate into sales.
It is, however, true that steam users do not necessarily translate into sales either.

That's why I didn't claim that and pointed it out when you were seemingly attempting an illegal move by comparing current monthly X4 players with 3 million VR users.

It is true that VR users are starved for content, and for non-vr users steam is saturated with it.

I don't have much trouble believing that (at least the first part), but the data I was addressing says absolutely nothing about it. If you have some, share it. It would be tremendously helpful for the case.

This back and forth can continue forever without conclusion, but it is meaningless to begin with because neither of us are actually making decisions. So none of this matters. Someone has to try, until then outcome is unknown.

Oh it absolutely matters for business decisions. It might just be a bold assumption but I think Egosoft tries to be better than coin toss when making their calls.

[vvvvvvvv]

Oh it absolutely matters for business decisions. It might just be a bold assumption but I think Egosoft tries to be better than coin toss when making their calls.

Dude.

When you assume "this will work and this won't", that's a hypothesis. Which needs to be tested in practice. There can be counter hypothethesis, and counter-counter-counter, but that'll be a waste of time, because you have to try. To see if you're right. Because there's an infinite number of data points you coudl focus on and very large number of possible hypotheses.

The game has been available to those "150 mil" people for years. I'm sure you know where to find the data for current active users. Then again you can also compare it to elite dangerous data. Because the game was available for a long time and company has to turn profit, the company will try something. They did turn something. Trying VR is another version of doing something. There were repeated requests of "low hanging fruit" version. Then you can see my back and forth with CBJ. His point was "we tried, it didn't work"... valid, that happened. But. That happened many years ago, before half life alyx, before oculus quest, before OpenXR. "You can't enter the same river twice". So my point is also valid. Which is more valid? Nobody knows, one would have to try. That's what it is about. Not about random luck. You'll arrive at some idea, but at the end of the day at some point you simply have to try.

[Crimsonraziel]

Dude.

When you assume "this will work and this won't", that's a hypothesis. Which needs to be tested in practice. There can be counter hypothethesis, and counter-counter-counter, but that'll be a waste of time, because you have to try. To see if you're right. Because there's an infinite number of data points you coudl focus on and very large number of possible hypotheses.

That is the approach for science, where you actively try to falsify your hypothesis. This is a business. You have limited funds, can't invest in everything, and your existence may be on the line. You try not be wrong, ideally never. Risk management is the key word here. You should look that up.

The game has been available to those "150 mil" people for years. I'm sure you know where to find the data for current active users.

I've no clue what you are trying to achieve here. I rounded 1.35% current active VR users up to 2%. How much further do you need me to inflate the number in your favor?

Then again you can also compare it to elite dangerous data. Because the game was available for a long time and company has to turn profit, the company will try something. They did turn something. Trying VR is another version of doing something. There were repeated requests of "low hanging fruit" version. Then you can see my back and forth with CBJ. His point was "we tried, it didn't work"... valid, that happened. But. That happened many years ago, before half life alyx, before oculus quest, before OpenXR. "You can't enter the same river twice". So my point is also valid. Which is more valid? Nobody knows, one would have to try. That's what it is about. Not about random luck. You'll arrive at some idea, but at the end of the day at some point you simply have to try.

I see no reason to do your work for you, especially if it doesn't have any impact on the assessment of the source I was talking about.

Someone: Here is data.
Me: Rather discouraging.
You: I have a different idea. It may be right, may be wrong. I don't have data. We're even. Let's try.

This is not how that works and the data is still as discouraging as before ... dude.

[MarStrMind]

Good thing I already went ahead and built myself a working VR implementation.

This discussion can go on in circles forever... chances are low that Egosoft will actually do it. And I doubt it will come with X5 (or whatever comes next) either.

[vvvvvvvv]

That is the approach for...

I think we've covered this line of discussion extensively and I'll not be continuing it further.

I'm only interested in VR space game and not this. Continuing this direction of discussion does not make a VR space game happen.

Have fun.

[Glockshna]

Just throwing my name in the hat for the most basic of VR support. Even if it's just stereoscopic projection and head tracking. Not looking for No-Man's Sky level integration necessarily, cool as that would be budget is of course a reality.

[MarStrMind]

Just throwing my name in the hat for the most basic of VR support. Even if it's just stereoscopic projection and head tracking. Not looking for No-Man's Sky level integration necessarily, cool as that would be budget is of course a reality.

Stereoscopic vision and head tracking can already be achieved with ReShade and SuperDepth3D, together with OpenTrack. You will also need something like VirtualDesktop that has a head lock for the projected screen. As I said before - I've done that and keep doing so, that is working relatively well. If you are willing to invest the time to set it up and configure it properly that is.

[MarStrMind]

Okay so... I finally had some time to play around with this once again.

Before I go into further detail, it should be noted that I used Mouse Emulation as output this time, and mapped X to Yaw and Y to Pitch. This enables registering the headset movement while in ship AND walking. The walking part I did not manage to enable before. So there's that. You will need to set your sensitivities for that in OpenTrack individually for you and your movements.

What I have achieved tonight are three critical points often wanted from a VR game:

- Close to Elite: Dangerous VR stereoscopic vision - much better than before
- Motion Controller support
- On-Foot VR

ED VR view: This took some time to fiddle around with the settings, as the SuperDepth3D shader does a little more than just splitting the image. Similar to the Nintendo 3DS at the time, there are sliders that control the screen pop-out effect. While this boosted the immersion by levels I had not seen before, it also came with other issues like distortions which have to do with how the depth map is interpreted. After some fiddling around I believe to have found the best compromize.

Motion Controller support: Turns out Virtual Desktop for Pico (and probably for Quest too) allows the motion controllers to be detected as a XBox 360 Controller. You can then simply map the controls how you want, but make sure you enable the controller in the settings. I set it similar to No Man's Sky in terms of walking and rotation. You can also map buttons to interactions like talking to people or using the console in the turbolifts.

// EDIT: If you are using a controller already, if only for on-foot, and you prefer that, then obviously you do not need to use your Motion Controllers. But you can if you want to.

On-Foot: Goes in line with Motion-Controller-Support. With this you can seamlessly switch between HOTAS and motion controls - just like you could in No Man's Sky for example (I prefer to use HOTAS in ship and Motion Controls on foot).

I however do highly recommend to set Mouse Look Toggle to ON in X4, then a button to toggle that, and another mouse button or key to toggle the headset tracking. Remember, X4 is not a VR title and you will spend some time in the map. Being able to turn these off at will is extremely helpful when managing your fleet in the map. For example, I have both of these mapped to the two side buttons on my mouse.

HERE is my current ReShade ini config in case someone wants to test. I can also upload it somewhere. You would need to copy the contents and save it as a .ini file in your X4 main folder.

It is probably time I update my guide on Steam.

[aXeL_UK]

Just read this, having not looked at the forums properly in a few years. I too have X4 running nicely in VR with my Pico 4U. I'm using OU rather than SBS - just because. The only thing that bugs me ( aside from the, thread worn, VR afficionado complaint of 'lack of native support' ), is the mouse cursor. I've tried various approaches but I don't really like having to drop back to 2D for mouse activities because it really breaks the immersion. If there's a way to crack that then, for me personally, X4 2D is finished and I'll be VR only going forward.

BTW, @MrStrMind, I use a flat panel in VR Desktop rather than curved, so I can keep headlock on, make the view window slightly bigger ( 137deg ) and still see enough of the text e.g. in map view. Still fettling though.

At the risk of re-igniting the 'Why no VR' flame war ( not my intention ), I'm not really following previous reasoning of 'too compute intensive' to do VR. I'm using the injector + SteamVR + 3rd party app, which has got to be the single worst way of doing VR and I'm not having any performance concerns. I guess I'm just not appreciating how a native implementation could be 'less' efficient than a kluge fix which is already running nicely ( phantom mouse cursor notwithstanding ).

[MarStrMind]

My guide (link in Sig) has a solution for the mouse cursor problem.

[vvvvvvvv]

I'm using the injector + SteamVR + 3rd party app, which has got to be the single worst way of doing VR

No, there's even worse way of doing VR. Specifically one where the game renders view for each eye in turn. GTA 5 VR mod did it this way, it was a horrible experience. Usually it halves performance.

Naive VR implementation could do that, but usually these days games render things in a single pass for both eyes, and opensource middleware with VR support exists. Those interested could check out The Forge on github, for example.

Regarding 3rd party apprach, as you could've seen it in previous posts, I never managed to get it to the level that's acceptable to me. To me it means being able to look to the side during the flight. It is incredibly useful in combat.

[aXeL_UK]

That's a slightly different lens ( pardon the pun ). AFR, as you rightly point out is one of the more laggy mechanisms because for fast movements there can be a significant difference in scene between the frames, however... It's just one of the techniques that the 'injector' part of my pipeline can use. As you say, it's not great but it depends. e.g. I'm using a 5090 so AFR is like having a 3090 on each eye, however it still needs to be stereo synced for AFR to work like a 3090 driving the display and not getting rubbish performance as you rightly point out.

[aXeL_UK]

My guide (link in Sig) has a solution for the mouse cursor problem.

Thank you, I had seen that but ( unless I completely misunderstood ), going into a folder and swapping filenames around every time I want to e.g. glance at a map view in 2D, is not something I want to do - but hey, maybe I'm not following your guide properly.

[aXeL_UK]

My guide (link in Sig) has a solution for the mouse cursor problem.

Oh hey, here's a question. For the two 'Virtual Desktop' software products. One being the 'VD Streamer' software and the other being Steam VD.

X4VR runs much much better if I only use Virtual Desktop Streamer in, e.g. SBS mode but then I can't have OpenTrack. If I run OpenTrack without Steam VD, I get stuck with the SteamVR circular grid construct taking over the HMD display because OpenTrack wants to use SteamVR for the input. If I try to use X4 OpenTrack, it still wants to use SteamVR input so I still get the SteamVR construct instead of X4 VR.

Did you ever find a way around this or are you using both Steam Virtual Desktop and Virtual Desktop Streamer at the same time? Is there a way to have OpenTrack without Steam VD because performance is so much better.

[vvvvvvvv]

My guide (link in Sig) has a solution for the mouse cursor problem.

Oh hey, here's a question. For the two 'Virtual Desktop' software products. One being the 'VD Streamer' software and the other being Steam VD.

X4VR runs much much better if I only use Virtual Desktop Streamer in, e.g. SBS mode but then I can't have OpenTrack. If I run OpenTrack without Steam VD, I get stuck with the SteamVR circular grid construct taking over the HMD display because OpenTrack wants to use SteamVR for the input. If I try to use X4 OpenTrack, it still wants to use SteamVR input so I still get the SteamVR construct instead of X4 VR.

Did you ever find a way around this or are you using both Steam Virtual Desktop and Virtual Desktop Streamer at the same time? Is there a way to have OpenTrack without Steam VD because performance is so much better.

AFAIK VD has two different ways of rendering. One is going through steamVR, and the other uses OpenXR. OpenXR offers better performance (eliminates a middleman), but bypasses steamvr completely, so you won't have steam home/etc. You can disable it somewhere. I think it was in streamer settings.

My question about being able to look right still stands, by the way.