Review of Subnautica in VR (using the Vive)

[shponglefan]

Previously I tried playing Subnautica in VR (via Revive) a month or so ago. At the time, there were considerable performance issues (stuttering) and graphical glitches that made it a less than ideal experience. It was fun to visit for an hour, but I wouldn't want to play a proper game in it.

This past weekend, I gave it another go.

While the game still suffers from some stuttering, it feels more playable in VR now. The Kelp Forest gave me the most trouble, but beyond that frame rates were smooth most of the time. There is still a lot of scenery pop-in, which is jarring in VR. But it's a consequence of the current state of the game. Hopefully future optimization will smooth things out.

Control is primarily via the gamepad with the keyboard for select duties (i.e. entering locker names or beacon labels). Playing on a gamepad is less than ideal as the keyboard controls don't translate for some things (i.e.quick slot items). I also discovered that "reload" is not automatically bound and had to set that manually. Control is serviceable, but feels less elegant than with the keyboard/mouse combo.

The biggest advantage of VR is seeing the world of Subnautica in full-scale. You really appreciate the size and scope of the environment and its fauna once you see them "life-sized". Stalkers and Bonesharks, which I used to swim with completely carefree, suddenly become a lot more intimidating when they appear over 6 feet long. The Aurora especially benefits from the scale in VR as it's hard to appreciate how massive that ship truly is on a monitor.

There is some graphical weirdness in VR, however. The red moon which orbits the planet appears odd in VR, especially at night. Instead of appearing like a large object, off in the distance, it looks strangely close; as though it was floating only a hundred feet away. The interface is also clearly not geared towards VR. 2D text often looks odd overlayed on top of 3D objects. This causes depth-of-field confusion when certain text or graphics overlap on top of objects that should otherwise be closer to the player. The result is jarring and even eye-strain inducing at times.

There are also some VR bugs. The Seamoth desperately needs an option to "reset" the player position. Most of the time my view was offset from my avatars virtual body. As a result, I'd usually be staring at my decapitated self. It's also not possible to climb on the vehicle constructor with the gamepad. To build the Seamoth required loading the game on a 2D monitor, executing the actions, then returning to VR. Other issues include not being able to see certain information (i.e. base hull strength), the PDA is too small and text too hard to read, and trying to view the player's depth is difficult.

Overall, Subnautica is passable as a VR game, but it needs a lot of work. Coming from the Vive world of room-scale and motion control, Subnautica feels less immersive as a VR experience played in a chair and with a gamepad. I never really felt like I was "inside" the game, as I do with proper VR titles. Still, it's impressive to see the sheer size of everything in its virtual world.

[Ben B]

Nice review mate of the VR aspect for the Vive.

Can I check as I had ths game running on the Vive last week, but can't recall how I did it.

I have placed the revive injectors next to the .exe files in the folder. I have switched off the in-theartre mode in Properties. However if I launch via Steam, I get a choice of VR or none VR, so choose the VR option, press yes when it says imcompatible, but then just launches the game in normal mode.

Any ideas where I am going wrong mate?

[TommyHawkster]

i can't figure out how to play this on my VIVE, please do tell.

[T1MB3R]

No stutter on the Rift, great game overall.

[shponglefan]

引用自 Ben B：

Can I check as I had ths game running on the Vive last week, but can't recall how I did it.

I have placed the revive injectors next to the .exe files in the folder. I have switched off the in-theartre mode in Properties. However if I launch via Steam, I get a choice of VR or none VR, so choose the VR option, press yes when it says imcompatible, but then just launches the game in normal mode.

Any ideas where I am going wrong mate?

You just need to put the ReviveInjector files in your Subnautica folder, then click and drag the Subnautica.exe file onto the RevieInjector executable file.

It should load up Subnautica in VR.

[shponglefan]

引用自 TommyHawkster：

i can't figure out how to play this on my VIVE, please do tell.

Download ReviveInjector (https://github.com/LibreVR/Revive/releases/tag/0.8).

Then unzip the files to the application directory (i.e. your main Subnautica folder). Then click and drag the Subnautica executable file onto the ReviveInjector executable (ReviveInjector_x64.exe).

[Ben B]

引用自 shponglefan：

引用自 Ben B：

Can I check as I had ths game running on the Vive last week, but can't recall how I did it.

I have placed the revive injectors next to the .exe files in the folder. I have switched off the in-theartre mode in Properties. However if I launch via Steam, I get a choice of VR or none VR, so choose the VR option, press yes when it says imcompatible, but then just launches the game in normal mode.

Any ideas where I am going wrong mate?

You just need to put the ReviveInjector files in your Subnautica folder, then click and drag the Subnautica.exe file onto the RevieInjector executable file.

It should load up Subnautica in VR.

Cheers mate, I was doing it arse about face, works great now.

Tommy: make sure to go to properties and choose the Experimental build from the drop down.