Elite Dangerous developer Frontier is focusing on SteamVR over Oculus

Elite Dangerous developer Frontier is focusing on SteamVR over Oculus

 

In an interview with Frontier developments, the creators of the Space Flight game Elite Dangerous, Eurogamer has has found out that the development of Elite Dangerous has now moved to Focus on SteamVR/ HTC Vive over the Oculus Rift as they have found that Oculus SDK difficult to integrate into the game.

Elite Dangerous already has support for Oculus SDK ).6, but has had major difficulties updating to the latest iterations of the SDK, saying that they have had much more success with Steam VR. The company is be working to support both headsets, but at this time development is focusing on the HTC Vive.

As a first person space flight sim Elite dangerous has been a very popular VR title at many early VR events and showcases, with Frontier saying that Elite is “arguably the world’s leading VR-ready game”. 

 

•         We’ve supported VR for a few years now, and Elite Dangerous is arguably the world’s leading VR-ready game. We want to give players the best possible VR experience however they play – it’s something we talked about with Digital Foundry recently – and that means focusing our efforts. Right now, we’ve chosen to focus on SteamVR. We haven’t cut an exclusivity deal with any VR manufacturer, and we’re still working with Oculus on Rift support.

 

The company has confirmed that they still plan on supporting both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive with future patches to the game, but that they are currently focusing on gaining HTC Vive functionality as Valve has released a “Stable driver” before Oculus.

Frontier has stated that they will support both headsets and that they have no exclusivity agreements with either headset maker. 

 

• •     In case people are alarmed by the headline or confused on the details, we thought it best to reiterate what we’ve been saying since the release of the Oculus 0.6 SDK. As quoted in the story, we are actively working with Oculus and will keep the community updated as soon as we are able to do so.
  • We are keen to support VR in all its forms and we are proud to be leading the way in VR gaming.

  Valve released a stable driver before Oculus but we remain in close contact with Oculus.

  

 

Frontier developments have recently announced the games VR minimum requirements, stating that a GTX 980 is needed as a minimum for a good VR experience. Please note that this is higher than the Oculus Rift’s Minimum required GPU. 

 

MINIMUM:

 

VR MINIMUM:

• • OS: Windows 7/8/10 64 bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K Quad Core CPU or better / AMD FX 4350 Quad Core CPU or better
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GTX 980 with 4GB or better
  • Network: Broadband Internet Connection
  • Hard Drive: 8 GB available space

 

• In VR we see the CPU requirements remain the same in Elite Dangerous, but the memory and the GPU requirements rise from 8GB to 16GB on the memory side and from a GTX 770 to a GTX 980 on the GPU side, which is a very significant change. This is expected given the complexity of VR and the high resolutions and framerates it demands. Sadly we were not provided with a AMD recommended GPU for VR. 

It is a simple fact of any development that things happen in stages, Frontier is working to support both Headsets and their “Focus” on the HTC Vive only serves to develop this support first, which makes sense given that they say that it is the most stable. Elite Dangerous will work on both VR headsets, so VR gamers need not worry about frontier favoring one side over the other.   

 

You can join the discussion on Frontier focusing on HTC Vive development over the Oculus Rift on the OC3D Forums.