I'd like to start by saying I don't mean this to be any kind of bragging or other self-promoting post. I've spent a lot of time researching various ways to make Elite Dangerous as immersive as absolutely possible. Personally I play in VR so a large part of my goal is to never need to take my Rift off to keep from breaking immersion. While I feel VR is a HUGE addition to this game this guide does not necessarily require you to use VR nor is it meant to be a discussion about the merits of VR. Hopefully each section should benefit players on an individual basis, while some compliment others you certainly don't need them all to enjoy their benefits. You'll also see that sim racing is also a huge passion of mine, this system was originally built for sim racing, only later did I get into Elite Dangerous. Fortunately the majority of the components work very well for either and it's as simple as swapping out my flight pedals for racing pedals and removing my joystick and I'm ready to race.
Of course let's first start off with a picture as we all like pretty pictures, right??
Let's start with a table of contents to make this easier. NOTE: If someone knows how to use internal anchor links for each of these please let me know, as I can tell that has to be added to vBulliten by the admins.
Computer
Software
Displays / VR
Chassis
Motion - Vibration / Transducer
Flight Controls
Racing Controls / Button boxes
Audio
Storage
Cooling / Miscellaneous
Costs
Questions / The Future
Pictures
Computer
While my PC is fairly nice it was built a few years ago and there are far too many options to fully discuss the best computer setup for Elite Dangerous. You could spend far less or far more on your PC than I have, that said here are the main specs of my system:
Asus ROG Hero VII Maximus board
Core i7 4770k 3.5ghz
32 GB DDR3 RAM
2x Zotac AMP!Extreme GTX 1080 GPU in SLI (SLI disabled while in VR)
2 Smsung EVO 850 SSD RAID 0
1TB 3.5" SATA HD
Intel Gigabit Ethernet
Onboard 5.1 Audio
Software
There are many small pieces of software that I use to make things not only easier to use but add significantly to immersion while playing Elite (and other sim games such as racing). Here is a list of all the various things I use specifically for Elite
Windows 10 Enterprise (I use Enterprise instead of Pro simply for work which while I do so seldomly I do use it for that)
Oculus Debug Tool (to set 2.0 Supersampling - more on this later)
Windows Media Player (for tunes while flying around)
WMP Keys - allows hotkey control of basic WMP functions
JoyToKey - This FANTASTIC little application is KEY for HOTAS/Joystick players. In short it lets you take any joystick or button box input and turn that into any kind of keyboard or mouse output. I use this extensively - one simple example is the "Brake Bias" knob on my dash button box (to the right of my steering wheel) can be mapped so that each click to the right executes "Ctrl+Shift+U" and to the left "Ctrl+Shift+D" then those hotkeys are added to WMP Keys allowing me to have a physical volume knob for WMP separately from the main system volume. It also allows you to use any joystick/button input into games that can only read from a single device or don't support Joysticks at all (like say No Man's Sky) TRULY FANTASTIC
VoiceAttack - You must know what this is. I've built many many custom commands for myself, such as "Share Screenshot to Discord", etc. There are MANY threads on this fantastic piece of software, must have for Elite
ShareX - Simply put the greatest screenshot application out there. Highly scriptable and customizeable, if there is something you want to do with screenshots you can do it with ShareX. Per above in combination with VoiceAttack I can say "Share Screenshot to Discord" and ShareX snaps a screenshot of Elite, selects Discord, moves my mouse to the chat input box, right clicks, moves to "Paste", clicks (ShareX uploads the screenshot to Imgur and puts the URL on the clipboard automatically) and then presses enter - pasting the screenshot into Discord to share with friends. I can do all this without ever taking off my Rift and without breaking immersion.
Discord - Again you must know what this is, currently the most popular voice chat application out there
JoyFocus - This is a simple little AutoHotkey script that watches for Joystick/Throttle/Pedal input and when anything is moved focus is set to the Elite window. When playing in non-fullscreen mode (very common for VR players) this is key as it's common for other applications to steal focus. When this happens your view in headset continues to function but your controls go dead until you get the keyboard/mouse to regain window focus breaking immersion badly (and if it happens during combat your life!) It does require AutoHotkey to be running but that's a fairly small price to pay for this little gem
OBS Studio - Another app too large for this guide, OBS allows you to stream to popular game streaming services like Youtube Gaming and Twitch. You can also use it to record high quality local videos. Note: Using this in VR isn't great as every tiny movement you make with your head is recorded and the output video is *very* shakey, just is what it is.
VoiceMeter - This is a small audio mixing application that allows you to route different audio sources to different output devices. This allows me to have OBS record audio from the game and not from other applications like Windows Media Player or Discord. Very handy if you want to produce a video while playing but still want to listen to music or chat with others online
Motion Systems ForceSeat - specific to my Pagnian 2DOF motion system. Unfortunately Elite doesn't support external telemetry like racing titles (and some flight like War Thunder) but it can track my flight stick input and act accordingly. More on this later.
Games
I also thought I'd list most of the games that I play on this system. I'm excluding shooters and other non "simulation" games, only including racing and flight. Basically those games that take advantage of a large portion of my system.
Flight
Elite Dangerous Horizons (duh)
DCS World
Descent Underground
House of the Dying Sun
Eve Valkyrie
MechWarrior Online
Star Citizen
Void 21
War Thunder
Racing
iRacing
Assetto Corsa
Project Cars
Dirt Rally
F1 2013
rFactor 2
Euro Truck Simulator
Displays / VR
When I first built my system VR wasn't available so I went with 3 27" Asus curved 1080p LCD monitors. I chose them due to the curved display with the hope of creating a wrap-around effect adding to immersion in racing titles. While they are nice monitors the curve is essentially useless and at the distance they are and way they are mounted I have to point it out to people for them to even notice. I wish I'd instead gone with high refresh rate gaming monitors instead, that said they are still nice displays. I actually prefer them to VR for racing titles as the field of view is wide enough for what I need to see and the image quality is so much higher. While you do look left or right at times in racing for the vast majority of the time your looking forward so VR is far less important than in flight titles with combat.
For VR I have the Oculus Rift. Discussing the difference between the Rift and Vive is way outside the scope of this guide, I chose the Rift as I was a Kickstarter backer and prefer it due to the lighter weight. I also game sitting down (duh) so don't need nor care about the hand controls. That said when Oculus releases them I'll likely pick up a set to see if I enjoy using them for other styles of gaming. While there are many disadvantages to VR, again outside the scope of this guide, I will say the immersion it adds in Elite is incredible. For me it is the difference in playing a video game and flying a spaceship, it's that huge. It's easily dismissed by those that haven't lived with it for at least a short time, when my Rift arrived I was so disappointed I posted it online within hours of opening it. Once I got an offer I thought "I should try it and my Warthog with Elite at least once just to see" and from that point on I was sold and told the buyer sorry I was keeping it. VR in Elite is simply incredible, plain and simple.
A note on Oculus Debug Tool mentioned above. Again there are many guides on getting the best quality out of the Rift while playing Elite Dangerous. As my Zotac AMP!Extreme is one of the fastest of the GTX 1080 series I run Elite in 1.0 Supersampling then run the Oculus Debug Tool in 2.0 Supersampling. I find that this combination along with Elite set in full Ultra settings makes everything very crisp and easily readable. Is it as crisp and beautiful as on my 1080p displays or 4k - of course not but the trade off for immersion to me is well worth it. In fact saying it that way doesn't even remotely do justice to what VR adds to Elite.
Chassis
The chassis / cockpit system I use is the Obutto Ozone distributed in the US by Main Performance PC (who also build custom gaming PCs, etc). It's an extremely well built system with high quality tube steel that is all powdercoated black. The system is very modular allowing you to customize the various addons you'd like. The seat is very comfortable, even for long gaming sessions and it on sliders allowing forward/back adjustment with an adjuster for seat angle, just like a car. I have the following modules for mine
Triple Monitor Mount
Warthog Flight Stick Mount
Cup Holder (included with the main system now I think)
Articulating Keyboard/Mouse tray
5.1 Speaker Mounts
Shifter Mount (included with the main system now I think)
One last thing to mention with the chassis is that as I hope you can see I'm a complete freak when it comes to cable management. When I added the motion system recently I decided to pull apart the entire system, every cable and part and put it all back together with great attention to detail paid to hiding any and all cables. There are easily 50 zip ties back there (pictures below) and likely many more than that. When looking at the system you can see the main power cable, a power/network cable running out my window to my network upstairs (old house, only way to do that) and the cable for the Rift headset. Everything else is either zip tied to the chassis or routed in cable management tubing (between the chassis and chair base). While I can't see this while in VR knowing it's so clean adds to my immersion.
Motion - Vibration / Transducer
There are many many different motion systems on the market and as such discussing the various choices are far outside the scope of this guide. I chose the Pagnain V2 Motion Platform sold in the US by Next Level Racing. I chose this platform because it is very small and compact making it extremely easy to integrate into my Obutto seat. I simply detached my Ozone seat base from the main chassis and bolted it directly to the top of the V2. This raised the seat by about 4" making me raise the rest of my system (pedals and wheel base) to match. The other main reason I chose this system is someone was selling it locally still new in box for a drastic price reduction making it far easier. It is a 2DOF system only supporting Pitch and Roll. As Elite doesn't support external telemetry applications the software for the V2 (which is excellent) allows you to track Joystick input. If I stick left the seat rolls left, pull back and it pitches back. It took quite a bit of fiddling with the extremely customizable software to get it to feel natural but now that it does I can barely play without it. When I turn it off it feels like my ship it broken in some way!
I also use a ButtKicker Gamer 2 tactile transducer to add "feeling" effects to the game. As Elite doesn't support telemetry applications I have to run the ButtKicker off the subwoofer output of my soundcard using a simple splitter. By listening to the bass channel you can set the ButtKicker to only respond to very low frequency sounds adding a vibration effect. When using my Discovery Scanner to honk a system the vibration effect is extremely intense since that's such a low frequency sound. When my shields go down and I get a hull impact I can feel it in my chair. I have it bolted to the front of my Ozone seat chassis which is then mounted to the V2 from above. The two systems together add an incredible dynamic effect to the game and while the motion system is quite expensive a ButtKicker is under $150 and is a HUGE addition to immersion, I highly recommend them.
Flight Controls
Ah yet another topic that can be and has been discussed to death. Rather than discuss all the various options from various manufactures I'll simply discuss what I have, the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS. With the main negative to the Warthog being his high price and lack of twist-to-yaw (you must use pedals) the extreme build quality and attention to detail is incredible. There is nothing that matches the feel of the metal stick and throttle and quality of the buttons and switches. While it is daunting to learn the immersion it adds to Elite is nothing short of amazing. I have every button, switch and hat mapped for Elite and still have to use VoiceAttack for some commands as there just aren't enough inputs for Elite!
As I mentioned the Warthog doesn't have twist-to-yaw like many of the other sticks that are just one tier down, such as the Saitek X52 which is an excellent HOTAS, especially for the cost. For this reason I have the VKB-SIM T-Rudder Mark IV pedals which are fantastic. They are extremely well made with a number of adjustments. They don't offer toe brakes like many other pedals on the market but while they have that limitation the extremely high all-metal build quality matches the Warthog perfectly. They are very easy to move around using a breakout box to conver USB to Cat5 (which attaches to the pedals). This makes it very easy to move them so I can put my racing pedals in place.
Racing Controls / Button Boxes
As this is an Elite forum I won't spend too much time on these other than a short list with a little bit of detail on each.
Thrustmaster TX Wheel Base
Thrustmaster Ferrari 599XX Evo Wheel
Thrustmaster Ferrari F1 Wheel
Fanatec Sequential / 6-Speed selectable shifter
Fanatec ClubSport V2 Pedals with inversion kit (no longer available, the newer V3's are linked here)
Custom USB Handbrake
SimRacing Hardware TX Dash / Button Box
SimRacing Hardware Wheel Plate (LED Shift Lights)
Dual Android Displays w/DashMeterPro (Nexus 7 / LG G3)
Magnetic mounts for Android displays
As for the button boxes while they were originally purchased and designed for racing I use them extensively for Elite. For example I use the 3 large safety switches on the left (the type you lift the cover the flip the switch) for Deploy Hardpoints / Super Cruise / Frame Shift Drive. Other buttons and knobs control ship lights, music volume, set throttle to 75% (for coming out of Super Cruise), etc. While I obviously can't see these while playing in VR I know them by feel well enough that they add extensively to immersion.
One last note on my racing control - as you might have guessed I use them in Elite to drive my SRV. While Elite doesn't support force feedback to my steering wheel, making it feel rather dead, it's still far more immersive to use it instead of the stick. As it's too difficult to switch out my pedals for driving I simply use yaw right for forward and yaw left for reverse making them feel like driving throttle and brake. I have several buttons on the wheel mapped to things like turret fire and use the shift paddles for left and right thruster (with another button for upward thrusters). A toggle button on the wheel and stick allows me to jump between cockpit and turret and I do use the stick to operate the turret. Driving with my left hand, turret with my right and forward/reverse with my pedals is a bit tricky to learn but it does work pretty damn well and once again adds greatly to my immersion.
Audio
While my audio system is fairly straight forward there are a few unique things I've setup. First I use an older Logitech z5300 THX 5.1 speaker system (I've linked to the current version). It sounds rather fantastic and allows for volume adjustment for each of the speakers which is key when the rears are less than a foot from your ears. I also have the large volume knob mounted on the platform for the steering wheel just to the right so it's within easy reach while playing (again and use it while in VR). I then have a second USB sound card, a SoundBlaster X-FI Pro USB - This is used exclusively for the ButtKicker in racing titles via Sim Commander 4. This software reads the telemetry data from virtually all popular racing titles and creates low frequency output to a ButtKicker amp. It is extremely customizable but unfortunately as I've mentioned Elite doesn't support external telemetry so I can't use this for Elite. So I've created a small switching system using a simple RCA stereo audio switcher and splitter cables that allows me to send either the SoundBlaster/SimCommander output to the ButtKicker amp OR the bass channel from the standard audio system. That way with the switch of the selector I can use the ButtKicker effects not only in Elite but in other titles like shooters, etc. to add the vibration effects, it works very well.
I'll also mention VoiceMeter again as this little piece of software lets me route various audio sources to various applications/speakers so I can split out my voice (Discord) and music (Windows Media Player) from game sounds when recording or streaming with OBS. There are several apps that have this functionality, I simply found VoiceMeter first and it works just fine for my needs.
Finally for chat audio (Discord) I use the Rift headset. As the speakers/headphones on the Rift are removable I simply remove the left ear piece using only the right. This gives me the feeling of a single ear headset which is more common in real world situations, again adding to immersion. The quality is surprisingly fantastic and the built in mic in the Rift is also great for voice chat. To be clear I have game audio come out of my 5.1 speaker system and only have Discord coming out of the Rift audio. Unfortunately Elite won't let you select different audio devices for game audio vs. Wing comm audio so as such I rarely use game comms. That's a shame as I love the radio effects that Elite adds to in-game voice, that said a friend did point out "so by 3302 we still haven't gotten cell phones to sound good???" Point well made.
Storage
While this isn't really directly related to Elite I get questions on it since my Drobo 5N NAS is sitting in the picture. I use this for both backup storage and for my rather extensive media collection. I'm a huge HUGE fan of Plex and while I won't gush about or discuss it in detail here if you are a fan of media consumption do yourself a favor and check it out. Think of it as Netflix with your own content. My Drobo has 2 4TB drives and 3 3TB drives giving me a usable 12TB of space (as it uses RAID 5). I originally started with 3TB drives but have had 2 fail over the years so I replaced those with 4TB so in the future I'll eventually have all 4TB bringing my usable space to 16TB. I currently have 11TB of media, made up of 2500+ movies, 19,000+ TV Episodes (120+ shows) and about 175,000 MP3s. I cut the cord over 8 years ago and use Plex for 95% of my media consumption with Youtube and NPR making up the rest.
Cooling / Miscellaneous
Ah cooling - while this is setup in a rather small bedroom in my basement where it's cooler than any other room in the house after about an hour or so of gaming between the CPU, Motion system and me it can get somewhat warm. I'm the type of guy who sweats when I think about getting hot so cooling is key for me. Currently you'll notice two small fans hanging below the monitors on the left and right. I'll admit the placement isn't ideal as they blow toward the dash blocking air from hitting me in the upper body or face. Instead I have them blowing on my legs and as I generally wear shorts this is usually enough to keep me cool. I have a third larger fan off camera that I can plug into the system if it's especially hot, if I have friends over the small room and heat up very quickly. I have all the fans plugged into a variable controller knob which is generally used to dim lights but works wonderfully to adjust power output to the fans allowing me to adjust how strong they blow. This controller is mounted next to the steering wheel base on the left side and is easily reachable in VR, it's like adjusting the fan speed in your car.
Other random things off camera are a small refrigerator, small square stools with tops that come off for storage and in the closet is my high-end Denon receiver, power distributor and Xbox One / Xbox 360 for the projection theatre room that is next door. I have a DisplayPort / HDMI splitter connected to my center monitor that takes that output and feeds it to my Denon so that the main screen is mirrored into the theatre room for both watching games or movies, etc. (but generally I use the Xbox One via Plex for that). Finally one wall to the left has the various steering wheels hanging and some custom art on a few walls. While it's a very small room it's the perfect size for this system and most importantly it has a door. This is key for me as I'm currently single and dating - as I'm in my early 40's the last thing I want is for a date to see this room as she would sure run through the door faster than Wile E Coyote leaving a woman shaped hole in the door in the process!!!!
Costs
So let's finally get to the big question - what did I spend on this entire system. First let me say I'm the type that doesn't really mind discussing money and income, it's just never been a big deal to me. I'm not jealous of those that make more than me, that's great for them and I try to be as generous as possible to those that make less. I just want to be clear again that the point of this post is not in any way for me to brag or show how much better I have it than others. We all have those things we spend our disposable income on and clearly this is mine. Okay, with that said here's the number you want to know
Roughly $14,000
That's all in, for everything I have if I had to replace the entire system. All the different cables and little bits I didn't list. Realize that I built this system over about a 2 year period from when I purchased the main chassis and PC to my more recent addition of the motion system. My PC is far more powerful that necessary for Elite, I use it for far more than just gaming as I work in IT myself and as such wanted to build a PC that would last me quite a long time. I should also note that the price above does not include my Drobo NAS and it's disks as while that's in the picture and I discussed it in reality it has nothing to do with the Elite or other gaming experiences.
Questions
I hope this short post (wait, I don't mean short, I mean incredibly long!) has been educational and has possibly inspired you to add some of the same elements to your Elite Dangerous experience. I think Frontier has done an amazing job with this experience, I can't bring myself to call it a game as we all know it is so much more than that. It's a space life experience as when I play I feel like I'm living in this incredible world that David and his team have created. I couldn't be more excited to see where it goes over it's lifetime.
So please ask away - clearly I hate discussing these things so I'll obviously be unwilling to answer any questions you have - HA! Please let them fly, if there are topics that come up that I haven't addressed here I'll certainly add them to keep this "guide" as up-to date as possible. If you like what I've done great but more importantly if you think I've made mistakes in various places please point them out. I still have a lot to learn about the options available to me and hope you will share your experiences where they differ from mine.
The Future
Well I'm not sure. As you'd guess there is little I want to add to the system at this point but like modifying a car you're never really done. The next small project I'm working on that I'd like to add is a speed based fan - something that would mount on the wheel base so the faster you go the faster the fan blows. This obviously wouldn't be for Elite but for my racing titles (when driving open cockpit or playing Roller Coaster simulators, etc). I've built a simple test system using an audio amplifier, the ButtKicker audio input and a case fan. As speed increases the road surface effects get "louder" and as they are at a low frequency using an audio amplifier a good deal of power it output to spin the fan faster. I sampled this with my Denon but don't want to risk using such a high end AV receiver so I'm exploring other options. As you might guess I spend quite a bit of time reading about various options in this space and I look forward to other VR additions such a suits that add tactile vibration on various points on your body, heat/cool fans so you can feel temperature, etc. It's a rather exciting time to be a gamer as there are so many great products out and on the Horizon (see what I did there.....)
Thanks for your time, I know this was an extremely long read, if it was beneficial let me know and if it was an utter and complete waste of time hell, let me know that too!!! I'll end with a quote from quite possibly my favorite Elite player
I'll catch you guys and gals next time.
-- Obsidian Ant
CMDR Exigeous
-- AKA Ross
Pictures
Oh yeah, we all know this is why you're really here - these were all taken with my phone so sorry for the somewhat low quality.
[IMG]blob:http://imgur.com/2fb2d9aa-0c4a-401c-ab43-5c61ca8031da[/IMG]