Valve Index Hands On

@AA Thank you sir.

@Alec Delorean - I know there is a penalty to MSAAx2 to a degree, but I will say that the game shimmers something awful without it for any fine textures - buildings, ships, even some planes. I mean really bad. No other Anti Aliasing has had significant effect for me in DCS other than MSAA. I don't use SSAA because I agree with you, the penalty not worth the gain. I have also tried the nvidia settings with nearly unnoticeable results.

Also, the biggest change I made with 2.5.5 is moving the SS from DCS to Steam. Since the SteamVR engine is working with WMR to reproject at 45FPS, moving the SS values to 180% or 200% gave me much better performance and a lot less ghosting and artifacts with higher clarity. I mean A LOT. I guess that makes sense since it reduces the complexity by limiting the render process to 1-2 engines (either just steam, or steam and WMR) vs 3 (Steam, WMR, AND DCS).

I think there may still be issues with DCS's rendering engine for Super Sampling. And with them changing the code to add in the VR optimizations, my ghosting and artifiacting with DCS at PD 1.3-1.5 was high after the patch.

If you look at the link I put in for the o+ settings earlier, you will see my GPU isn't pegged, my CPU is just above idle, and I am getting what I consider to be excellent image clarity @ a consistent 45FPS.

Where the rubber meets the road for this thread is I plan to continue with the Index to use Steam for motion reprojection and SS, and leave DCS at PD 1.0 with MSAAx2 and AF.

I am very much looking forward to seeing how the Index performs!

@Nagilem

No problem with using MSAA if you like it and you are ok it's trade-offs...

Do you have fpsVR?

It shows more detail on whats going on with the CPU. DCS is CPU-bound and very bad at multithreading, fpsVR shows me that one core is on 100% load the whole time. Only cpu package (all cores) usage shows 9%, that does not mean that it's bored. High Core clock speeds on that particular core help a bit.

@Alec D - not yet but on the list to purchase. Using MSI I get what you suggested with all cores showing 30-40%

Will get it so we can see what that tape says.

@Nagilem

 

No problem with using MSAA if you like it and you are ok it's trade-offs...

 

Do you have fpsVR?

It shows more detail on whats going on with the CPU. DCS is CPU-bound and very bad at multithreading, fpsVR shows me that one core is on 100% load the whole time. Only cpu package (all cores) usage shows 9%, that does not mean that it's bored. High Core clock speeds on that particular core help a bit.

Where does fpsVR show you one core values? Are you saying you get 100% CPU on your Vive Pro? What SS or PD values are you using?

@Alec D - not yet but on the list to purchase. Using MSI I get what you suggested with all cores showing 30-40%

Forget MSI, fpsVR is the only way to go in VR.

@imacken - yeah I know I need it, just waiting for some other stuff to clear up so I can purchase and install. Having tacview issues, but getting them solved.

I cannot release any info until the NDA expires but I can say the Index is the absolute best I have personally experienced when it comes to setting IPD. (and I have personally tried the Rift, the Rift S, the Samsung Odyssey Plus, the Vive Pro, the Pimax 5K and a few custom made headsets made here in the College of Engineering)

Do you get a better sense of speed in DCS than with say the Vive? I don't own VR, but when I used it and watched the video the Pimax had a better sense of speed from the larger FOV than the Vive did and that the video basically showed me the same things I felt when using it.

I haven't tried the Pimax, but I had the same experience with the Vive.

It seems the 150 degrees is ideal, but the Index I guess is supposed to only be 130.

Appreciate your thoughts and experiences.

I would caution on the Pimax. Currently it's a crapshoot if it's going to work for you regardless of your system. You get a real sense of speed and visual cues with any VR HMD as opposed to a monitor. You are in the jet. You're not in your room, office, man cave or whatever but inside the cockpit of the jet. Everywhere you look around you is DCS world. But yes, the wider field of view increases the feel of speed as you're able to see more of your surroundings flashing by peripherally. I would consider the Index a safer bet than the Pimax and I have one. Pimax is a kickstarter company whereas the Index has the money of Valve behind it and I'm sure it will be a more polished product. It will still suffer from lack of pixel pushing hardware that all of them do though. It's still worth making the switch however, even if only to a CV1.

@imacken

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3950016&postcount=190

lower section of the fpsVR window - CPUmax/thread(core)

This is the bottleneck of DCS, too many tasks on the main CPU thread, you can only fight this with clock speed :(

The good thing is, it's getting better and better over time, they are working on this...

2.5.5 might already be a bit better.

@imacken

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3950016&postcount=190

 

lower section of the fpsVR window - CPUmax/thread(core)

 

This is the bottleneck of DCS, too many tasks on the main CPU thread, you can only fight this with clock speed :(

The good thing is, it's getting better and better over time, they are working on this...

2.5.5 might already be a bit better.

Yep, I was aware of that indicator, but it doesn't show one core value, it shows the max usage of any core.

I never see it at 100%. Mine is usually way down at 50-60%.

People's opinion on whether DCS is CPU bound seems to vary a lot from what I've read in many threads here.

In my case, my GPU maxes out long before the CPU. I think it depends a lot on settings. Some are CPU intensive, and some GPU.

Also, I've never been convinced about the accuracy of that CPUmax/thread indicator in fpsVR. It seems to give a different result than TM. It's the one aspect of that excellent app that I don't like.

It's pretty easy to explain, i'm currently running my CPU on standard clock (boost at 3.6GHz) speed because it's summer and my AIO is not able to hold it at safe temps when i start a render job on all 18 (36 hyperthreading) cores overclocked to 4.4GHz. You are using a CPU more suitable for gaming (lesser cores) running at 4.8GHz. This way there is enough headroom for your CPU to run the game's main thread plus other tasks (CPU-GPU data transfers etc.). If i clock back to 4.4GHz my CPUmax/thread value will also drop. And that's the thing with DCS, too much workload going on on the main thread, the other cores are bored because there is nothing to do for them. It's inefficient. But good to know that the GPU bottleneck is reached at a lower clock speed than 4.8 GHz.

I just found another interesting thing, i tried to reproduce AugustusAurelius's settings. I set SS in SteamVR for dcs.exe to 42% (1600x1776 per eye) and PD in DCS to 2.2. Now something interesting happened, visually it's near the same resolution that i had with SS on 150% (2468x2740) but a tad lower: 2368x2628. BUT the game runs at less fps ~30 only.

My conclusion, ingame SS (PD value and whatever it does to supersample) is worse than using SS settings from your VR compositor (SteamVR etc.).

It's pretty easy to explain, i'm currently running my CPU on standard clock (boost at 3.6GHz) speed because it's summer and my AIO is not able to hold it at safe temps when i start a render job on all 18 (36 hyperthreading) cores overclocked to 4.4GHz. You are using a CPU more suitable for gaming (lesser cores) running at 4.8GHz. This way there is enough headroom for your CPU to run the game's main thread plus other tasks (CPU-GPU data transfers etc.). If i clock back to 4.4GHz my CPUmax/thread value will also drop. And that's the thing with DCS, too much workload going on on the main thread, the other cores are bored because there is nothing to do for them. It's inefficient. But good to know that the GPU bottleneck is reached at a lower clock speed than 4.8 GHz.

Thanks for that.

Be useful if you posted your system in your signature.

Sure, I understand the principle, but what I am saying is that DCS is not necessarily CPU bound. Depends on your system and how well balance it is in terms of CPU/GPU. It also depends on DCS settings as some are more CPU intensive and some more GPU as I said above.

I just found another interesting thing, i tried to reproduce AugustusAurelius's settings. I set SS in SteamVR for dcs.exe to 42% (1600x1776 per eye) and PD in DCS to 2.2. Now something interesting happened, visually it's near the same resolution that i had with SS on 150% (2468x2740) but a tad lower: 2368x2628. BUT the game runs at less fps ~30 only.

My conclusion, ingame SS (PD value and whatever it does to supersample) is worse than using SS settings from your VR compositor (SteamVR etc.).

Yep, I've always felt that. I whack up SteamVR SS and leave PD at 1.0 always.

I was having a little buyers remorse after reading how good DCS looks using the HP Reverb, but that went away after also reading the issues with the heavy cable disconnecting from the headset.

AA,

Thank you!

FYI, Valve Index is now status "shipping soon" for people who preordered the first batch.

Cannot wait for the feedback...

FYI, Valve Index is now status "shipping soon" for people who preordered the first batch.

Excellent news! Where did you see that?

https://www.valvesoftware.com/sv/index/deep-dive/fov

something to ease the long wait...

Excellent news! Where did you see that?

My own preorder status on Steam. It's also all over Reddit.

https://www.valvesoftware.com/sv/index/deep-dive/fov

 

 

something to ease the long wait...

This is good stuff

Angular pixel resolution. Measured in pixels per degree (ppd), angular resolution is a major factor in the sharpness and realism of your virtual world. In terms of HMD design, angular resolution is driven by the display resolution and the FOV. Unfortunately, providing a big FOV directly decreases the angular resolution as the available pixels are spread out over the large viewing area. Obviously this is a critical trade-off in HMD design as both visual clarity and FOV are important for great VR. The complete visual clarity story involves many factors beyond just pixels per degree, like subpixel layout, fill factor, optics, and even ergonomics. So that's a big topic for another day.

 

Display refresh rate and display illumination time ("persistence"). Some of the benefits of higher refresh rate are well understood in the Desktop PC space. But in VR, where the display is attached to your head, frequent update and lower persistence are both key to reducing motion blur. Similar to increasing resolution, reducing motion blur helps to improve the perceived sharpness of the system. But it also provides a couple of things that increasing pixels per degrees alone cannot: it improves the sense of physical permanence of virtual objects and at the same time improves the overall stability of the virtual environment. Due to the physiology of human vision, these qualities increase in importance as FOV increases.

I was just browsing the Index page on Steam - £37 for an additional "Face Gasket"!

Available from 31st July.

In fact, I've just seen on the www site that this is for two of them - that's more like it! :D

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1072820/Face_Gasket_for_Valve_Index_Headset__2_Pack/

edit: btw, I also read that the normal 30 day returns policy for Steam hardware is reduced to 14 days for the Index. That's long enough for a thorough test.

My own preorder status on Steam. It's also all over Reddit.

Thanks. Where is the pre order page? Can’t see it when I log in!

Thanks. Where is the pre order page? Can’t see it when I log in!

Account/purchase history

https://www.valvesoftware.com/sv/index/deep-dive/fov

 

 

something to ease the long wait...

The FOV rendered by the GPU for Index is similar to that of a Vive or Vive Pro, but more of that view is delivered to most users.

So as I suspected, it's a 110-degree (or close to) FOV headset, only it helps users see all of the FOV instead of users generally only seeing about 90 FOV on average due to lense distance etc. Finally a no-BS statement that it doesn't have a magical 130 degree FOV without sacrificing PPD over a 110 degree headset. People might be disappointed that it's not a 130 degree headset, but for me this has finally become a contender...