Play Star Citizen (and more) in VR Today

Here at VR Toolbox we love Star Citizen and following along in it's development. We are excited for the upcoming release of 3.0! This guide will walk you through the steps to set it up on your PC with fully immersive VR; including 3D depth and headtracking TODAY! Own a Vive or Oculus? This guide will have you inside the game in only 10 minutes.

Based on the epic original Star Citizen Forum post by @turwenugi including more precise sub-settings from @Mongrel.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50174/thread/new-and-free-simple-vr-workaround-smooth-headtrack

Our edited version here, is to specifically leverage VRToolbox (turwenugi's 'Version B'). We have distilled the post and comments down to 12 steps for your convienience. We then layout the quick 5-step boot order you'll need to get in even faster the next time you play!

VR is not on the development schedule for Star Citizen yet. Until they add it we will continue to support VR injection here!

Step 1 - Start with VR Toolbox

Install VR Toolbox from the Steam Store (Vive) or Oculus Store. If this is your first time in VR Toolbox; you begin in a tutorial and you are asked to add a screen. This you have to do with your motion/touch controllers and following the hints on your screen. Get familiar with it by completing the tutorial. You can also choose to leave the tutorial at any time. Then close VRToolbox. We will start it up again shortly.

Step 2 - Get ReShade

Open your browser and download Reshade: https://reshade.me/

Step 3 - Setup ReShade

Follow this (video) guide for downloading and installing 3D Depth Map Base for Reshade.me: https://reshade.me/forum/shader-presentation/2128-sidebyside-3d-depth-map-based-stereoscopic-shader:

A. Run Reshade.exe as admin and select Star Citizen.exe in the public\bin64 folder
B. Choose DirectX 10+
C. Choose YES when asked and in the next list, keep only SMAA activated and select OK
D. When it is done close Reshade
E. Copy the files SuperDepth3D.fx and Polynormal_Barrel_Distortion.fx you extracted from Depth3D-master.zip to the StarCitizen\Bin64\reshade-shaders\shaders folder

Step 4 - Start Star Citizen

Start the Star Citizen Launcher as an admin

Step 5 - Inject ReShade

Start Star Citizen with the Launcher. If step 3 was done right you see a message by Reshade showing that injection is successful (on some machines you have to reinstall Reshade before every start).

Step 6 - ReShade Settings

In StarCitizen open Reshade (press shift+f2). Then create and name a new preset (press the + button).

Click on "superdepth 3d" to activate it, make your depth customization (we use 25), then click on SMAA and on Polynormal_Barrel_Distortion and lastly press shift+F2 again to close it. You can change these settings on the fly, but make sure superdepth 3d is dragged to the top of the list and gets activated first. *To do this you'll need to drag either one of the 2 superdepth 3d's sub-items, upward to the top.

It should look like this:
Superdepth3d.fx
-Depth3D_Reprojection enabled
-Cross_Cursor not enabled
Polynomial_Barrel_Distortion.fx
-Polynomial_Barrel_Distortion.fx enabled
SMAA.fx
-SMAA enabled
All other shaders have been left disabled. If there are shaders listed here that you don’t have, don’t worry, so long as you have Superdepth3d.fx and Polynomial_Barrel_Distortion.fx you will be good to go (the others are cosmetic - but they really do add to it; so experiment with them!)

Recommended Individual Shader settings (accessed via bottom half of the menu page) are as follows:
SuperDepth3d.fx
Custom Depth Map = Depth Map 3
Depth Map Adjustment = 50.00
Divergence Slider = 3
Weapon Depth Adjustment = -100.00 (negative 100)
Perspective slider = -52.000/ -54 (negative 52) --> play with this to effect 3d strength
but can cause divergence/scale issues etc...
Weapon Depth Map = Weapon DM 3
Weapon Adjust Depth Map = 0.010 , 5.00 , 1.000
Weapon Cutoff Point = 0.00
3D Display Mode = Side By Side
AO Power = 0.750
Ao Falloff = 2.5
AO Shift = 0.000
Cross Cursor Size = 25.00
*Leave the rest Default
Polynomial_Barrel_Distortion.fx
Interpupillary Distance = 66
3d Display mode conversion = Side by Side
Lens Center = 0.500
Lens Distortion = 0.200
Polynomial Color Distortion = 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
Lens Zoom and Aspect Ratio = 1.100 , 0.860
Edge Selection = Black Edges
Diaspora Fix = Off
HMD Profiles = Off
*Leave the rest Default
SMAA.fx
Default settings

We encourage experimenting with the following settings until you get something that suits you:

The size of the screen: Increase and decrease with Shift + Ctrl + Numpad+/Numpad-
Polynomial_Barrel_Distortion.fx
- Interpupillary Distance
- Lens Zoom and Aspect Ratio
SuperDepth3d.fx
- Custom Depth Map
- Depth Map Adjustment
- Perspective slider *especially this one

Step 7 - Restart VR Toolbox

Restart VR Toolbox again through Steam/Oculus. If you cannot see it in your library be sure to choose the software library.

Step 8 - Activate FPS Mode

In VRToolbox, the "FPS SETTINGS" tab, click on "Side-By-Side Stereo", slide the Mouse Sensitivity slider all the way to the right and then click on "Enable" below the line "First Person Mode (FPS) Settings".

Step 9 - Return to Star Citizen

Go back into the Star Citizen game. (Everything should work now).
But in 2.6.3 the mouse pointer won't draw in the HMD. It will only be shown on your physical monitor and the pointer destination might be shown wrong. In fact the pointer destination is still mapped as if you were playing without VR, fullscreen on just one monitor).

Step 10 - Keybindings for Head-tracking

Go into options -> key bindings tab -> Advanced Controls Customization -> within flight movement unbind the mouse if you wish to look around and aim without turning the ship around. If you want to, switch into the game settings tab and turn flight lead pip reticle to on, as it makes targeting with gimbaled weapons easier while head-tracking is activated.

Step 11 - Start a Game Mode

Start any game mode you wish and enjoy smooth head-tracking and 3D. Use a HOTAS/Joystick/Dual-joystick/Gamepad to control the ship.

Step 12 - Adjust the VR Screen Distance

Use shift+control+ - (numpad) or + (numpad) to choose your external-gamescreen-display-distance; via VRToolbox hotkeys.

Conclusion

Once you are done setting-up the above 12 steps, the clean boot order the next time you play is this:

1. Run StarCitizen Launcher client and log in, launch, start the mode you want to play, let it fully load the scene.
2. Alt+Tab out, then run Steam
3. Run VRToolbox from Steam, in the FPS SETTINGS tab; enable SIDE-BY-SIDE, move the slider for Mouse Sensitivity; all the way to the right and then ENABLE FPS.
4. Go back to StarCitizen, put on your HMD, adjust screen size up a bit (Ctrl+Shift+NUMPAD Plus/Minus)

BONUS:
Using the techniques in this guide you can now use Reshade & VRToolbox together, to play many of your favorite games. Revisit the link in Step 3 for more info on 20+ current games you can inject VR into just like this!

Mind-bending VR graphics are here to stay with the amazing VR community around the globe and VR Toolbox in your corner!

[Captain Lump]

Do we have any feedback that this method works?

[flyer]

is it safe to use vr toolbox? comments are saying that it deletes everything on the hard drive during uninstall

[gafil001]

is this setup still good for the oculus and the star citizen 3.4?

[daggey]

Hi - the post on the Star Citizen Spectrum has been updated substantially - there are now a number of different settingsto what is listed here (has taken many hours of trial and error to determine) and edited shaders and an opentrack profile. Is a much improved experience - cheers. (@Mongrel on star citizen forums).