Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous

tonechild Sep 18, 2018 @ 7:56pm
VR setup
I'm thinking about setting aside some money for a kickass VR setup. What are the things you consider a "must have" for elite dangerous VR?

Such as:

1. Flight control setup, HOTAS and special chair or desk?
2. Head tracking??
3. Clearance? How much room do I need, how big of a desk?
4. Something with comfort for hours of play?? (8 hours a session or so)

I'm currently playing on a small desk in the corner of my basement. I do have clearance for a bigger desk but man I'm very much overwhelmed by all the VR things.
Last edited by tonechild; Sep 18, 2018 @ 7:57pm
Originally posted by OGNocturnal:
My room is 10ft x 10ft.
Im using a two metre desk for dual screens a 4K 28" as a main and a smaller 19" for youtube etc. Along with my ATX-E tower (E=Extended).Underneath in the legspace i have thrustmaster pedals which i use rarely and is more a foot rest than anything,so not advised unless your really going to use them.
On my desk also are 2 x Thrustmaster T16000M because i cannot use HOTAS. Mouse,keyboard and speakers are there too along with a 36" extended mouse mat. For seating i have a DX racer Formula black and white version with head cushion for when im chilling,its expensive for what you get,if your interested in seating like that im sure a quick look around the web will give you results for similar but cheaper seating .i can spend easy 8hrs+ in this chair and sleep in it,the cushions are worth the extra cash.
The lighthouses for VR are not on the wall yet but they work ok for being seated playing elite.One is on top of my tower to the right and one is on a tall bookcase to my left,both pointing at a 45 degree angle downwards and towards me thanks to 2 x hitchikers guide to the galaxy books ive already read and placed under the lighthouses to angle.
Inside my tower which is a Level 10 GT case for elite (i wanted more but ..budget) i have a asus rog rampage extreme V motherboard,the processor is a I7 6850k with a H100i cooler,GTX 1080 G1,16 gigs of Corsair Vengence ram 3200mhz.So that should be enough until elite is completley finished.(in 5 years or so) and im not experiencing any slowdowns yet.

For VR im using the Vive and the setup took around 30 minutes to thoroughly read through the instructions and install along with installing the viveport and steam vr software.The cable length of the lighthouses are adequate for a 10 x 10 room but you can also make them connect via WIFI on a 2.4 Ghz wireless protocol unless they added a 5ghz band with the new build.

A bit of a wall of text but i hope that helps you out.
Regards,
BB
< >
Showing 1-15 of 29 comments
Turd Ferguson Sep 18, 2018 @ 7:59pm 
I have a Vive and a Saitek X56. about a 15x15 area for roomscale. No Desk.
Josey Wales Sep 18, 2018 @ 8:18pm 
Vive here and a T16000M FCS. Also recommend VoiceAttack for voice commands. Between the Hotas & VA, I only touch the keyboard to type search parameters or chat.

Head tracking is a given with VR, so nothing else required there.

I only have about 6'x8' for roomscale which works, but is bare minimum. ED is seated anyway so it doesn't matter for that.

Comfortable chair is certainly preferred, some have fancy setups with the Hotas mounted on the chair arms, etc. I'm just using a quality desk chair and have my Hotas velcro'd to a desk. Not fancy, but works fine. You don't need a huge desk, just enough room to setup throttle and stick in positions that approximately line up with your avatar's controls in VR (for best immersion), and some room to stick a keyboard where you can get to it. Most likely your small desk will be fine.

How long you can play will really depend on how comfortable you are in VR. At first I was slightly prone to VR sickness. More than sickness, it was actually similar to what some people experience after a cruise. I'd feel wobbly *after* a long VR session. After about a month or so of adjustment it went away. It no longer bothers me at all now and I can play pretty much as long as I want. The SRV doesn't even bother me now, and that's been known to be puke-worthy for some folks. ;)
Last edited by Josey Wales; Sep 18, 2018 @ 8:27pm
The room scale is not needed for Elite Dangerous, so you will be ok with just a chair space. A simple chair will suffice. Just make it to be comfortable enough to sit for hours.

With Vive you will need to mount 2 small lighthouse boxes at a diagonal above you. They should be looking at you and still be able to see each other, to avoid connecting them with a cable. They both require to be plugged into a wall power.

Using a HOTAS and a Voice Attack helps, as you can't see around you (blind typing is good if you still want to chat with other commanders).

The Vive box gets warm on your face. So if you have high temperatures in summer - you better don't sit in a far corner, but somewhere with an air conditioner blowing around you.
Turd Ferguson Sep 18, 2018 @ 9:01pm 
new newer revision of Vive (after March or so of 2018) are 20% lighter and do not get hot.

They also have a newer lighthouse design that's less.prone to failure after prolonged use.

Ive had both and there's definitely a difference.
d[-_-]b (Banned) Sep 18, 2018 @ 11:24pm 
I use a cheap ass Acer Windows MR headset and an XBOX 360 controller and it's awesome (and low cost). AMD Ryzen 1700 OC'd to 3.8 ghz w/ GTX 1060 OC
tomg2012 Sep 19, 2018 @ 6:48am 
Any decent HOTAS, wireless keyboard, and a lazy boy. I have Vive, but only need one light tower plugged in. I personally didn’t like voice attack, but I may try it again someday.
tonechild Sep 19, 2018 @ 7:26am 
So for some reason I've got the impression that the head tracking can fail if you dont put sensors in the right spots. Have any of you ran into situations where the head tracking was wonky?
Last edited by tonechild; Sep 19, 2018 @ 7:27am
Josey Wales Sep 19, 2018 @ 7:36am 
Originally posted by tonechild:
So for some reason I've got the impression that the head tracking can fail if you dont put sensors in the right spots. Have any of you ran into situations where the head tracking was wonky?

It should be in opposite corners of your space (for Vive anyway). My desk is in the corner of my room, so for seated stuff I have one of the lighthouses about 3' above and 2' left of where I sit, angled slightly downward and toward the center of the playspace. The other is across the room in the opposite corner of the space.

I haven't had any issues with head tracking (except for when Valve put out a couple of crappy forced SteamVR updates, but I digress...). I think it is fairly robust as designed. My HMD and handheld controllers seem to track pretty flawlessly for the most part. I have read about people having issues if there are too many shiny surfaces in the room, but I have a couple of large, framed, glass covered pictures in my playspace and I've had no issues.
Last edited by Josey Wales; Sep 19, 2018 @ 7:41am
Gropax Sep 19, 2018 @ 10:17am 
if you got a cellphone with a VR headgear like a S7 S8 or S9 there is a program that can make it into a poor mans VR for just 15

https://riftcat.com/vridge
tomg2012 Sep 19, 2018 @ 11:06am 
My experience with the Vive is that for stationary games, I only need one light box and I just needs to be within view of the headset. If it gets blocked by people walking in front of it, then the world goes gray.
Holzinternet Sep 19, 2018 @ 11:37am 
Thrustmaster Hotas X (the cheap one), Keyboard, mouse, Voice Attack, Oculus Rift CV 1. Powerd by a Ryzen 5 2600X @4.2 GHz, 16 GB RAM 3200 MHz, Palit GTX 1080 @ 2GHz Core, 11,5 GHz RAM. Ingame HMD Resolution 1.25, Downsampling 1.25 all other @max settings. Solid and non stuttering gameplay. Sound via Logitech G920 Headset.

I play for hours if i like to... yesterday i bought my first Krait MK II. Holy moly, it fun in VR !!!! Best experience so far for me.

I use a small corner with a comfy seat. Seated VR is that what i like...
funkynutz Sep 19, 2018 @ 11:39am 
Originally posted by tonechild:
I'm thinking about setting aside some money for a kickass VR setup. What are the things you consider a "must have" for elite dangerous VR?

Such as:

1. Flight control setup, HOTAS and special chair or desk?

I use a HOSAS setup (dual sticks) instead of the traditional HOTAS.

2. Head tracking??

Already built in as part of the VR experience... Before I had VR I did use a homebrew IR headtracking thingy...

3. Clearance? How much room do I need, how big of a desk?

I just set the boundaries around my armchair.

4. Something with comfort for hours of play?? (8 hours a session or so)

Plush overstuffed reclining leather arm chair.

I'm currently playing on a small desk in the corner of my basement. I do have clearance for a bigger desk but man I'm very much overwhelmed by all the VR things.

That'll probably do. Elite's best played sat down, so you're not going to need much room.
Dolphin Bottlenose Sep 19, 2018 @ 11:07pm 
Originally posted by tonechild:
Have any of you ran into situations where the head tracking was wonky?
I had - it was plasma-TV-induced. I sat about 1.5m from a working plasma, that was mirroring my game screen. And when I was close to stars, my Vive was constantly dropping the head tracking (a momentary grey screen).

Keep in mind strong infrared sources, if your VR behaves like that.
Valis Sep 20, 2018 @ 2:46am 
Voice attack is a must if youre going VR, I recomened it even for none VR
funkynutz Sep 20, 2018 @ 8:09am 
Originally posted by St.Valis:
Voice attack is a must if youre going VR...

Why? It's easy enough to map all your controls to joysticks (assuming you have enough buttons).
< >
Showing 1-15 of 29 comments
Per page: 1530 50

Date Posted: Sep 18, 2018 @ 7:56pm
Posts: 29