# EDVR: an unofficial patch for Elite Dangerous in VR DLSS, FSR and XeSS upscaling for Elite in VR, and two dozen fixes for things that make Odyssey uncomfortable in a headset, in a native OpenXR package that takes about three minutes to install. [Upscaling: DLSS, FSR and XeSS](#upscaling-dlss-fsr-and-xess) covers the upscalers. The short list of fixes is under [What it fixes](#what-it-fixes), and [docs/fixes.md](docs/fixes.md) describes each one in full. If something is not working, [open an issue](https://github.com/characterecho-sean/edvr-unofficial-patch/issues/new/choose). Bugs get fixed there because you can attach the log, and the log usually shows the cause. The [Discord](https://discord.gg/AWJ6djKKzr) is for setup questions, "is this normal", or just talking about it; chat loses attachments and threads, so bug reports belong in an issue. To contribute code, start with [the build and validation guide](docs/building.md), make the change in your fork, and open a pull request with the checks you ran. C++ changes need a full native Windows validation build. For rendering changes, say which headset and VR runtime you tested, or say that a headset flight is still needed. The maintainer handles merging and releases. EDVR is free and stays free. If it improves your VR experience, [tips are welcome](https://ko-fi.com/seancharacterecho), but please do not feel any obligation. > **Already running EDHM or ReShade?** Both run alongside EDVR. EDHM also > installs itself as `d3d11.dll`, and only one file can have that name, so > don't overwrite it. The installer handles this for you; by hand it takes one > rename and one setting, described under [Running alongside other > mods](#running-alongside-other-mods). ReShade has needed nothing at all since > 0.7.2. ## Headsets and VR runtimes EDVR's native OpenXR route has been checked in the field on Pimax over PiOpenXR, Quest 3 over Virtual Desktop's VDXR, and the latest Air Link flight. Nothing is claimed for other headsets and runtimes. Elite still starts VR through its OpenVR-facing path, and EDVR keeps that entry point for compatibility; behind it, EDVR's native runtime owns the OpenXR session. The bundled Khronos loader reaches whichever runtime Windows has set as its active OpenXR runtime, whether SteamVR, PiOpenXR, VDXR or Meta's, and all of them run on the same native EDVR backend. The package has no backend to choose and never falls back to the legacy EDVR pair; Elite's legacy LibOVR path is not supported, even as a fallback. The release installer checks the Elite executable's profile and refuses Elite Dangerous (Horizons) or an unreadable executable before it writes anything. An Odyssey revision that build was not checked against installs with a warning: the game starts, the fixes tied to the game build stand down and the gfx log names each one, and the Oculus PC runtime may bypass EDVR's OpenXR runtime until an EDVR update for that revision. Before launching Elite, set the Windows active OpenXR runtime to the one you intend to use, since that is the one the bundled loader picks, and make sure that runtime is available and your headset connected. EDVR needs no SteamVR loader; do not install OpenComposite or a vendor OpenXR loader to make it work. Then launch Elite as you normally would. Canted Pimax headsets (Vision 8K X, 8K Plus, 8K, 5K Super, 5K Plus, 5K XR and Artisan) should turn "Enable Parallel Projection" off in Pimax Play and restart the game. EDVR renders canted displays correctly without it. With it on, the headset renders much larger frames (8268x3948 instead of 5016x3160 per eye on an 8K X at FOV Wide), and turning it off cut GPU time by up to about 30% in testing. This works with PimaxXR as the OpenXR runtime; with Pimax Play's own OpenXR runtime the toggle may have no effect. When EDVR sees the setting on with PimaxXR, it shows a notice in the headset. ## Install **Download `edvr-installer-.zip` from the release, unzip it, and run `edvr-installer.exe`.** It is a single file once unzipped, with nothing else to extract or put in the right folder, and it carries the native graphics/runtime pair, the bundled OpenXR loader and its notice, `edvr.ini`, `edvr-flat.ini`, and the optional DLSS runtime. It finds the game and keeps your settings and other mods working. Before it changes anything, it shows you exactly what it is about to do and waits for a yes, and it copies every file it replaces into `edvr_backup\` first. [docs/installer.md](docs/installer.md) covers its buttons and explains what it decides and why. The same installer serves flat-screen players. Under "Install EDVR for:", choose "VR and flat" (the default), "VR only" or "Flat only"; the choice can be changed later with an ordinary Update, and no settings file is deleted by it. Because the installer is unsigned, Windows will say the program is unrecognised; choose **More info → Run anyway**. Every release lists the installer's SHA-256, and without a signature that hash is the only way to check where the file came from. To place the files yourself, follow [docs/manual-install.md](docs/manual-install.md), which is the same install done by hand. It shows where each file goes and covers the `openvr_api.dll` rename that most manual installs get wrong. ### Linux on Steam (Proton) Download `edvr-installer-linux-.zip` from the release and unzip it. It contains `edvr_installer.sh`, `edvr-installer-linux.py`, the Windows `edvr-installer.exe`, and `README-linux.txt`. The launcher needs Python 3 and the Proton installation already used by Steam. It needs no Protontricks or system Wine. Run Elite once from Steam, then close it. On Steam Deck, use Desktop Mode and run as your normal user: ```sh ./edvr_installer.sh ``` This opens the Windows installer GUI with the Odyssey product folder preselected. For a flat install with a current installer build: ```sh ./edvr_installer.sh --install --scope flat ``` To see the Windows install plan without changing game files: ```sh ./edvr_installer.sh --preview --scope flat ``` Preview starts Steam's Proton and runtime and may update prefix bookkeeping. `--dry-run` resolves and prints the exact launch command without starting anything or writing files. See `README-linux.txt` in the ZIP for options. The shell launcher forwards all options to the Python wrapper; you can also run `python3 edvr-installer-linux.py` directly. ### Checking it worked Logs appear in `edvr_logs\` next to the game, and there are two of them. Once the native OpenXR path is up, the second one, with `vr` in its name, says `runtime,,`, naming the runtime it reached; an `error,` line in its place means that startup step failed. **If there is no second log at all**, the game is not on its OpenVR path and half the patch never loaded: see [Headsets and VR runtimes](#headsets-and-vr-runtimes). If you still see a flash, press **Pause** straight after it and send the logs. Pause writes the temporal pass's recent camera history and says whether the jump-flash hold was armed. A `transition flash: frame N held` line near the moment means EDVR held a frame and the flash got through anyway; no such line means it held nothing. ### Reporting a problem **Run `edvr-installer.exe` and press Save logs.** It writes one zip to your Desktop with the last session's two logs, `edvr_breadcrumbs.txt`, any `edvr_FATAL.txt`, your `edvr.ini` and, on a VR install, the OpenXR runtime's `edvr_openxr.ini`. That is everything listed below, all from the right session. Then **open an issue** and attach the zip. If the game crashed in that session, Save logs also writes a second zip, `edvr-crash-dump-.zip`, with the game's crash dump. The dump holds a copy of the game's memory, so it is kept out of the log zip: attach only the log zip to a public issue, and send the dump privately if you are asked for it. To do it by hand, attach `edvr_logs\` (both files if there are two). The log records the build stamp, which fixes EDVR managed to install, and what each one decided, so a report with the log attached can usually be diagnosed in one pass; without it there is very little to go on. If the game will not start at all, send `edvr_breadcrumbs.txt` from next to `EliteDangerous64.exe`. It is written unbuffered, so it survives a crash that eats the log. If something has gone wrong and the log has not answered it, [docs/troubleshooting.md](docs/troubleshooting.md) covers the faults with a known cause and what each one needs, among them a game that dies a second or two after launch and VR that fails to start after an EDVR update. ### Uninstall Run `edvr-installer.exe` and press **Uninstall**. It removes EDVR's files and renames the game's `openvr_api.dll` back. If another mod was chained behind EDVR, it also puts that mod back under its own name, the step a manual uninstall usually forgets. It leaves your `edvr.ini` alone unless you ask for it to go, so a reinstall finds your settings again. To uninstall by hand, delete `d3d11.dll` and `edvr.ini` from the game folder, then, in whichever `Openvr` folder you used, delete EDVR's `openvr_api.dll` and rename `openvr_api_orig.dll` back. ## Upscaling: DLSS, FSR and XeSS EDVR can hand each frame to an upscaler that calms the shimmer: NVIDIA's trained DLSS on an RTX card; AMD's FSR 3.1, which runs on any GPU and needs no extra file; or Intel's XeSS-SR, which also runs on any GPU and is fastest on an Intel Arc card. On other cards XeSS costs more than DLSS or FSR: on an RTX 5090 in VR it took about 1.2 ms a frame more than DLSS. With Elite's HMD Quality below 1.0 the game renders smaller and the upscaler brings it back to size, which is what saves frame time. At 1.0 or above DLSS runs at your full render size, which is DLAA. **Important** Do *not* change the Supersample Quality (leave at 1.0). Pick DLSS, FSR or XeSS-SR in the Anti-aliasing row on the in-headset menu's Performance page, or set `fix.temporal_aa = dlss`, `fsr` or `xess`. It is off by default and takes effect at the next frame; set Elite's own anti-aliasing to Off or SMAA with it on. DLSS needs NVIDIA's runtime, which the installer places on a machine with an NVIDIA card; without an RTX card or the runtime it runs EDVR's own TAA instead and says so in the log. XeSS needs Intel's runtime, `libxess.dll`, which the installer places beside the game with its licence notices. The DLSS preset, on the same page, is K by default (`fix.temporal_aa_model = k`). Sharpening, also on that page (`fix.render_sharpness`, 0 to 1, off by default), runs AMD's RCAS to hand back some of the edge contrast the temporal pass trades for calm; 0.3 is a fair start. ## What it fixes Almost every one of them has the same shape: something correct on a monitor is wrong in a headset, because it is drawn once for two eyes, pinned to your face instead of standing in the world, or sized for a screen you are not looking at. - The two eyes are made to agree. Without the fixes, one eye stops down near a star while the other does not (1.5 stops apart, measured; 0.4 with the fix), a planet renders as a black disc in one eye in the scanners, the FSS shows each eye a different scan, and the RemLok helmet's edge lines hang along your nose instead of at your temples. - Things are put back in the world: a star's whole glare, which the stock game rolls and tilts with your head like a camera overlay; geyser plumes and solar prominences, which swim as you look past them; the loading ship's head-locked scan pattern; and the launch movie, moved off its 27-degree rectangle onto the splash screen's own surface. - The one-frame flash each time you jump or drop out of supercruise is caught and not sent, so the runtime holds the previous frame. It is always on and has no setting; a game build EDVR does not recognise gets no hold, and the log says so. - For shimmer and frame time there is DLSS, FSR or XeSS, under [Upscaling: DLSS, FSR and XeSS](#upscaling-dlss-fsr-and-xess). - Over planets, Elite culled terrain with a head pose about 42 ms older than the one it drew with, so squares of ground at the edges of view went undrawn when you moved your head. EDVR answers the game's request for the head pose "now" at the instant of the frame being drawn. On a headset whose eyes see further out than the centred frustum Elite culls terrain against (a Quest 3, a cropped Pimax), EDVR also widens that frustum to what each eye shows, which stopped the black flashes at the outer corners over flat ground. There is no setting. - On foot, EDVR answers the game's request for its flat on-foot screen with the headset's own stereo, so you see the world in 3D from your commander's eyes. Where the game still shows the flat screen, the grey surround is made properly black and the screen is moved, bent and raised above its forced 1920x1080. [docs/fixes.md](docs/fixes.md) covers each fix in full: what it costs, what it is measured at, and which setting turns it off. The defaults are what most people want, and the exceptions are called out there and in the in-headset menu. ## On foot On foot, Elite asks for a flat screen and shows the same image to both eyes. With `fix.native_on_foot` on (the default), EDVR answers that request with the headset's own stereo while a game session is live, so the world is drawn for each eye from your commander's head, and your commander's own head is hidden from the inside. The setting and the other on-foot options are on the menu's Native on foot page. Everything it changes is on your machine only. Explorer Cam, the free-camera view that came before it, has been removed. An older `edvr.ini` that still carries its settings is read without complaint: the settings are ignored, and one that differs from its last default is named once in the log. [docs/design-native-onfoot-vr-2026-10-13.md](docs/design-native-onfoot-vr-2026-10-13.md) covers how native on foot works. ## Settings Everything is in `edvr.ini` next to the game, and if the file is missing you get the defaults. Most settings take effect while the game runs, within about a second; `edvr.ini` marks the ones that need a game restart. Press **F8** in the game (the key is `hotkey.menu`) to open the in-headset menu: a settings panel appears where you are looking, anchored in the world so it stays put while you read it. Up and Down pick a row, Left and Right change it, Enter toggles, Tab changes page and Escape closes. The keys you already use to walk Elite's own cockpit panels work in the menu too, read from your Elite bindings (`hotkey.read_game_bindings`), and the panel's bottom line names them. While the menu is open the game sees no keyboard at all, though your HOTAS and mouse still do. Every change is written to `edvr.ini` and applies the way a hand edit would, and a row that only takes effect at the next launch says so. EDVR's own keys have a page of their own, **Hotkeys**: the menu key, the AA comparison key and the camera-history key. Pick a row, press Enter, then press the key you want, with Ctrl, Shift or Alt for a chord, a gamepad button, or a button or hat on your HOTAS. Escape cancels and Delete clears (the menu key can be changed but never cleared from the menu). A choice that Elite also binds is flagged "also in Elite", because EDVR watches these keys and never takes them from the game. In `edvr.ini` they read `F5`, `CTRL+SHIFT+F9`, `GamePad_Back` or `231D0200:Joy_12` (the device is the vendor and product, as Elite's own bindings file spells it). The Monitor page is fpsVR's readout with a frame-time strip, and `menu.fps_overlay = on` pins a one-line version of it to your view while the menu is closed. `menu.developer = on` adds the advanced and experimental sections. The whole design is in [docs/settings-menu.md](docs/settings-menu.md). ## Running alongside other mods **The installer does this for you**: it recognises what is in the `d3d11.dll` slot, renames it, writes the setting, and tells you what it did. EDVR then passes everything through EDHM. [docs/manual-install.md](docs/manual-install.md#running-alongside-edhm-by-hand) has the same procedure by hand. **EDHM's uninstaller runs `del d3d11.dll`**, which after this is *EDVR's* file. If that has happened, leaving EDVR gone and EDHM still parked under the renamed file, the installer's Repair recognises it and puts both back. ReShade needs no configuration. Install it the way ReShade tells you to (normally as `dxgi.dll`) and EDVR composes with it, so both mods' effects apply. ## Game updates The brightness, black-void, screen-distance and resolution fixes find their targets by what the game's code does or what its frames look like, whichever version of Elite compiled it. The two things measured from one build (330683 / 4.4.0.3) degrade instead of guessing, as [docs/fixes.md](docs/fixes.md#surviving-a-game-update) describes. Frontier's launcher may remove `d3d11.dll` when it verifies the install. Nothing is broken when it does: it has simply uninstalled EDVR, so copy the file back. ## What it does and does not do EDVR loads alongside the game as a `d3d11.dll` proxy that forwards every call to Windows' real `d3d11.dll`, and its `openvr_api.dll` is EDVR's own OpenXR runtime. Most of the fixes work on the frames and never touch the game. A few change the running game in memory: by default the resolution fix rewrites twelve numbers in the game's code, and two of the game's imports are always redirected so that EDVR handles VR startup and the menu's keyboard. DLSS, FSR, XeSS and TAA hook the game's object updates while they are on. [docs/fixes.md](docs/fixes.md#what-the-fixes-touch) lists each change, its safeguards, and which settings turn it off. No fix here touches the network, your account, or anything the server sees, and none reads or changes gameplay state (position, ship, cargo, credits, missions). None interacts with anti-cheat, and none attempts to hide from anything. ## Build Building needs Visual Studio 2022 with the C++ workload, and Python. [docs/building.md](docs/building.md) has the steps. ## Contributor credit [arturbac](https://github.com/arturbac) diagnosed the Linux/Proton constant-buffer readback cost in [issue #65](https://github.com/characterecho-sean/edvr-unofficial-patch/issues/65), confirmed it through PDB/perf/LBR profiling, and supplied the cached mapping approach, working staging patch and Proton A/B tests in [PR #66](https://github.com/characterecho-sean/edvr-unofficial-patch/pull/66). The adaptive map cache on main builds on that work. The [investigation](docs/issue-65-proton-cb-shadows-2026-10-02.md#contribution-and-attribution-2026-10-02) records the contribution and measurements. ## Antivirus A DLL that sits next to a game executable and intercepts graphics calls looks, structurally, like something worth flagging, and some scanners will flag it. The source is here so you can read exactly what it does and build it yourself. ## Licence and standing EDVR is MIT licensed; see [LICENSE](LICENSE). One file the installer carries is not: NVIDIA's DLSS runtime, `nvngx_dlss.dll`, is NVIDIA's software under the NVIDIA RTX SDKs licence. It is distributed unmodified as part of this application, as that licence allows, and only placed on machines with an NVIDIA card. The `fsr` engine is AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.1 upscaler through its community Direct3D 11 port (the optiscaler project's FidelityFX-SDK-DX11, MIT), compiled into `d3d11.dll`; its notice ships as `FIDELITYFX-SDK-DX11-LICENSE.txt`. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Frontier Developments plc or Valve Corporation. Elite Dangerous is a trademark of Frontier Developments plc.