Supporting VR Development aka Bringing Attention to an Issue

[FrostByghte]

As an avid player of both Fallout 4/Skyrim etc, I was wondering what would be the _best_ way I can encourage further integration of Fallout 4 VR with Sim Settlements? Should I toss out donations, become a patron and spam the discord with FALLOUT VR!!! once or twice a year, help troubleshoot something?

I've come back to Fallout 4 several times now. I have over 500+ hours between the pancake version and the VR version. I have yet to finish any main quest I just keep running around, building, exploring, and with the VR version I am finding areas I never even noticed before. It's brilliant! So when I head out to do some city building, Sim Settlements is my GOTO mod of course. I have seen a lot of brilliant community guys over my years of playing Fallout, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim...but this is one of the most impactful projects I have ever witnessed. Least this is from my perspective it sure is.

So what prompted me to start this thread is hudframework. How in the heck can I motivate either registrator2000 or someone in the community to pick the mantle up and get this framework working with VR? I have seen several requests for this and even kinggath chimed in on this thread:

https://simsettlements.com/site/index.php?threads/attention-fallout-4-vr-players.5009/#post-40368

That's back from April 2018. Check over at the nexus there is nothing that I could find that even indicated the author of hudframework is active. So what recommendations are there to help spur this along in some fashion? I'm thinking this post coupled with signing with Patreon, then once a quarter go into the support discord and beg for attention.

 

[WetRats]

"pancake" heh.

Great term!

 

[FrostByghte]

I wish I could take credit for coming up with it. Once I grabbed fallout 4 vr, I started doing my usual _mod mod never play the game_ cycle. So I caught the term being used on the Fallout 4 VR reddit group. To play the DLC and such, specifically Automatron, VR players had to shift back and forth between the "pancake" version and the VR version to get past specific points in the game. I think there is a mod that take care of this now.

So let's talk hudframework!!! And getting this working in VR! I hear kinggath has a Vive? *cough*

 

[kinggath]

I've actually contacted registrator2000 in the past and sent him the files he needed to make it work for FO4VR, but he hasn't had the time (or motivation - since he lacks a VR headset himself).

Someone else has recently contacted me about HUD dev, if they are capable - I'll bring this up to them.

 

[FrostByghte]

This is _possibly_ great news, I hope the person will pick that project up. So is there anything like the 'kinggath Advanced School for modding & Stuff' available anywhere?

I'm going to sign up for a Patreon account for at least a few months to show some support for this issue getting rectified, but I would really like to learn more about modding in general. My main interest is in porting mods, providing patches, and fixing up old abandoned mods where needed.

 

[VersusXV]

This is definitely something that would get me interested in FO4 VR, exploring Sim Settlements in VR would be the most appealing possibility that VR likely could ever offer me. It's definitely a requirement for me to consider getting a headset & FO4 VR since I won't go back to non-Sim Settlements building, it's much too crucial for my gameplay and continues to become even more so with each patch/expansion. It is the most organic gameplay experience there is today since any player can step in and create their own new Plots, City Plans, Leader Packs & related contents. Builder's Toolkit & City Planners Toolkit make it reasonable to learn and the process itself is more fun than many current AAA games.

Though I still feel it's still somewhat early going for VR. I feel we still need:

• Cheaper, more powerful headsets. Likely we'll start to see this with version 2s of Vive & Oculus, maybe some new ones that might appear.
• More powerful PC hardware since VR itself is more demanding due to rendering independently for each eye plus it's generally needed to target 90fps as lower rates can cause motion sickness. Right now I'd need considerably more powerful specs to run Fallout 4 VR, most likely considerably less visual quality since I run on 4K with many texture overhauls that include selections that enhance pieces used by Sim Settlements plots(image is linked), ENB, custom generated LOD, full load order based on BiRaitBec Modlist, etc. What I have on regular FO4 is most likely impossible on FO4VR without specs like RTX 2080 Ti, i9 9900k or maybe even more than that. For me that's quite far out of reach since aside from this scenario there are not many reasons for me to spend big money on a 2080 Ti & i9-9900k(Plus fancy new motherboard, huge 1000W/1200W PSU, etc)
• Fallout 4 Script Extender support, sadly the F4SE devs have said "There are no plans to support the VR version of Fallout 4 - I don't own it nor the equipment needed to run it"
• Mods like HUDFramework being able to work with VR, which I think are going to need F4SE in many cases.

I think we would see a lot more use of FO4VR if someday you can run the same load order as on the non VR FO4 and if VR itself got more affordable. Maybe there is a chance of the F4SE devs having some interest in VR someday if when they build PCs in the future those end up naturally being capable for VR and if the headsets were much cheaper? I imagine it being a scenario where a future "GTX 1060" equivalent paired with a future i5 are able to do well with it as those are the specs most people will have, & headsets come down to $200. The current $500 for a Vive is still way too high for most people. which will prevent it from becoming more mainstream. We will have to see if in the future HTC & Oculus might want to take it more mainstream. I think it could be a possibility if headset prices do go down and hardware does advance decently during the timeframe between now and Starfield's release, since after that I imagine most likely they will want to create a Starfield Script Extender assuming that modding will be a thing for the game.

Someone else has recently contacted me about HUD dev, if they are capable - I'll bring this up to them.

That's pretty interesting!

 

[FrostByghte]

SteamVR recently included a change called Motion Smoothing that will assist with the more powerful PC hardware point that you bring up. You can find more out about that here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/250820/announcements/detail/1696061565016280495

It essentially works like the Rift's Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW) from my understanding. So you run at 45fps with reprojected frames helping smooth out the experience. If you check in the Fallout4 VR reddit, a lot of people with low end hardware are making this work.

If we can ever see foveated rendering really implemented, a lot of the cost issues will come more under control. Walking around cities with Fallout4 VR is pretty epic when you are in game, your mind tends to make you think its real after a bit.

So how can I help here? I setup a Patreon to kinggath and set one up to ElminsterAU because that Xedit tool I have been using for years. I constantly update hardware, I may have a spare vive HMD only (will need lighthouses and wands) and a spare rift for a developer that I could donate. But, I'd need a HARD "Hey Frost, I'm gonna do this!" before I would ship them off.

I love the idea of VR and I agree that it needs more pushing along, so I'm pushing it along

 

[VersusXV]

SteamVR recently included a change called Motion Smoothing that will assist with the more powerful PC hardware point that you bring up. You can find more out about that here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/250820/announcements/detail/1696061565016280495

It essentially works like the Rift's Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW) from my understanding. So you run at 45fps with reprojected frames helping smooth out the experience. If you check in the Fallout4 VR reddit, a lot of people with low end hardware are making this work.

If we can ever see foveated rendering really implemented, a lot of the cost issues will come more under control. Walking around cities with Fallout4 VR is pretty epic when you are in game, your mind tends to make you think its real after a bit.

Some amazing tech in the works! I think the combination will make it a more serious possibility. This could enable it to become mainstream if Vive 2 & stuff get lower MSRPs. I figured some technical miracles were needed and these might fit the bill.

Foveated Rendering sounds really cool but is it possible/likely for Bethesda to add it? I guess it might be since right now it's only a pretty exclusive group that can run it, if they can add Foveated Rendering then they can potentially gain sales. Unless it's something implemented into the headsets themselves, which would be extremely awesome? My PC's specs are GTX 1080 & i7 7700 and I can usually get 90-110fps on 1080p with GPU usage not being at 100%, so it's just enough for FO4VR on 1080p. Sure enough, 1070 is stated minimum & 1080 is recommended though usually Bethesda tend to lowball their stated requirements(you'll be able to play Oblivion/Skyrim/FO3/FO4 on minimum but tons more crashes and can't really mod them).

I only know what I get on 1080p since I build/test in 1080p windowed and have Load Accelerator. Load Accelerator dynamically disables Vsync & uncaps FPS during load screens since in Bethesda games the load screens are tied to FPS assuming the storage device in use is fast enough to not be a bottleneck so pretty much on any SSD. You can also manually toggle it with shift page up.

So how can I help here? I setup a Patreon to kinggath and set one up to ElminsterAU because that Xedit tool I have been using for years. I constantly update hardware, I may have a spare vive HMD only (will need lighthouses and wands) and a spare rift for a developer that I could donate. But, I'd need a HARD "Hey Frost, I'm gonna do this!" before I would ship them off.

I love the idea of VR and I agree that it needs more pushing along, so I'm pushing it along

That's pretty awesome! I can't really donate regularly right now unfortunately(Did buy a t-shirt though) so instead I make stuff. One of these days I should ask ElminsterAU if he has a Sim Settlements plot idea he would like.

When Foveated Rendering & Motion smoothing are in, you could try to ask the F4SE guys if they'd be a little more interested if you sent them a Vive HMD &/or a Rift.