VRFPS Performance - Understanding how to read and work with it for DCS

Hi,

I'm running a 2080 Super on a 10900K with 64GB of RAM on SSD's. I seem to be getting less performance than what others are saying they're getting with lesser hardware.

The one thing of note is that I'm running SS at 150% on a HP Reverb. (There's significant difference to me when reading screens and labels between 100% and 150%. When I go back to 100% I feel like I need to visit the optometrist and buy glasses).

My main desire is to have sharp readable graphics in the cockpit followed by smooth frames. I don't care if the frames are only at 45FPS, or if textures outside the cockpit are not that great - as long as they're smooth and I can read clearly in the cockpit and I don't have the display flickering in my eyes. (Hence running at 90hz and not 60 in WMR).

In VRFPS I'm showing GPU cycles at around 17-18ms on 'Instant action - Fly' in the FA-18, so there's no other units to worry about clogging up resources.

CPU is in the green (often in the yellow with MP, but with instant action - flying only and no other units CPU seems fine in the green).

FPS is at 45 (running re-projection), and the GPU graph is in the high 'yellow'.

It doesn't go into red but I still get the occasional stuttering more often than I'd like especially when looking out the window to the side at lower altitudes.

I normally fly the FA-18 but have just purchased the Huey and I'm concerned about the stuttering at low altitudes ruining the experience especially if I start going into MP (which I haven't yet - I'm crashing too much at the moment ;)).

Is it normal and OK to run the GPU in the 'yellow' (in VRFPS), or is this doing the wrong thing and do I need to be aiming for running in the green with the occasional blip in the yellow? (My current thought was to run in the yellow but I read somewhere else someone saying that yellow is 'bad' and that you need to be in the green but I can't remember where and would like confirmation if my issues are caused by running the GPU too hard).

Settings:

Shadows are all off.

MSAA & SSAA are Off.

SLAA is 4x

Grass is 0

PreloadRadius is around 70

Water is Medium

Textures are High (although I have tried medium and didn't notice a huge difference).

In Cockpit Display is 1024

Smoke is 1

VSYNC is Off

edit: PD is 1.0

Windows Gaming mode is disabled. Antivirus is set on 'gaming mode' (ESET). WMR is at 90hz best quality. Nvidia power is set to best performance.

I'm also running the current shader mod for better performance.

I ran open beta for the first time in ages last night and it seemed to perform worse for me than the current stable release.

I've tried afterburner. (I have no idea what I'm doing with overclocking - but basically I launched the app, ran an auto-check and saved as profile one. There doesn't seem to be any noticable difference with afterburner running, and turned off).

I'm left with the conclusion that focusing on FPS may be leading me astray - that stuttering may not be linked to FPS's and I just wanted to double check that I'm using VRFPS correctly.

Any thoughts as to what I'm doing dumb would be greatly appreciated.

When you set the SS in SteamVR at 150% what does the resolution say? And are you using the beta SteamVR?

When you set the SS in SteamVR at 150% what does the resolution say? And are you using the beta SteamVR?

Using the beta yes, and I'll have to go back and confirm the res (not at home at the moment to check), but if I recall it it was in the high 2,000's resolution. (Somewhere around 2,800 at a guess, but I will confirm when I'm able to)

SLAA at x4 probably is a bit of a major hog, I don't think you need that for VR. Try with this off and if you feel you need a bit of jaggy smoothing add 2x MSAA but this also uses power.

Also ensure that you GPU control panel is optimised, (Use full power setting!) and that an AA is off here as it doesn't really do anything.

You can also play with the VR prerendered frames. Ideally this wants to be as low as you can but increasing can increase smoothness in certain scenarios.

Also visual distance is a DCS setting you didn't list, this can have a major impact. Ultra is generally too much at the moment, high is fine and doesn't have too much impact. Medium is a noticeable change but you do also get a noticeable performance increase

When you set the SS in SteamVR at 150% what does the resolution say? And are you using the beta SteamVR?

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you...

100% (220x2156) for "All Apps"

149% (2684x2632) for "DCS"

SLAA at x4 probably is a bit of a major hog, I don't think you need that for VR. Try with this off and if you feel you need a bit of jaggy smoothing add 2x MSAA but this also uses power.

 

Also ensure that you GPU control panel is optimised, (Use full power setting!) and that an AA is off here as it doesn't really do anything.

 

You can also play with the VR prerendered frames. Ideally this wants to be as low as you can but increasing can increase smoothness in certain scenarios.

 

Also visual distance is a DCS setting you didn't list, this can have a major impact. Ultra is generally too much at the moment, high is fine and doesn't have too much impact. Medium is a noticeable change but you do also get a noticeable performance increase

Thanks so much for your reply and sorry - I got my acronyms wrong. It's Anistorpic Filtering I had to 4x.

SLAA isnt even a setting in the game - whoops. (SLRR is but that is already off).

I've kept MSAA off. I read somewhere that you can either use it, or as a substitute increase SS to do a similar task - and if I get some spare overhead available I think I'd prefer the latter as it would make things even sharper again. I'd love to hit MSAA at 2x still to get rid of jaggies but at the moment I don't think I have spare power available - I'm chasing good image and smoothness first.

I'll try turning Anistorpic filtering from 4x to off and see if that helps. Thanks

I'll play around with the settings out of the game and see what I can find. I see there's a new driver available as of 2 days ago... so maybe that will help.

Visual distance is set to High but I can try dropping that. I like it on high when flying fast movers, but with the helo's - if that's going to be a big boost in performance by dropping it - it'll be well worth it! Thanks for the tip!

Ansio filtering will make almost no difference in terms of perf try dialing back the Steam VR SS to 120% bear in mind that the native resolution for the Reverb is 4k+ and you are driving almost 1.5 that, about 14m pixels... my guess is you are choking on memory in the Super

Thanks for the tips all.

I've dialed the SS back to 120%. That makes me feel like I need glasses again, but it has reduced the FPS (although still not in the green).

So going back to the original question in regards to how to work with FPSVR - can someone please advise if it's OK to run with settings where FPSVR is in "the yellow", or should I be looking at reducing my settings constantly until it's in the green?

(If I now in the yellow is OK - I can keep playing with settings there, but if I'm doing the wrong thing and need to be keeping it in the green and that's the problem with stuttering - I'll have to compromise more, and maybe consider going negative with SS and give up on clear cockpits).

green is where you would like to be to achieve 90 fps, yellow is fine aiming at 45 fps

Thanks for the tips all.

 

I've dialed the SS back to 120%. That makes me feel like I need glasses again, but it has reduced the FPS (although still not in the green).

 

So going back to the original question in regards to how to work with FPSVR - can someone please advise if it's OK to run with settings where FPSVR is in "the yellow", or should I be looking at reducing my settings constantly until it's in the green?

 

(If I now in the yellow is OK - I can keep playing with settings there, but if I'm doing the wrong thing and need to be keeping it in the green and that's the problem with stuttering - I'll have to compromise more, and maybe consider going negative with SS and give up on clear cockpits).

If it *feels* good enough, it's good enough. Some people get motion sickness if it's too herky jerky. I see you had it cranked to a much higher resolution. I had to ask because SS% changed over time. So absolute resolution makes it easier to compare.

Do you wear glasses in real life? Meaning are you near sighted? If so, even though the lens is up close, the focal distance is still few meters out.

Don't chase the green/red or even FPS. If it feels smooth enough for you, just go with it.

I find that 45FPS is the minimum for me to enjoy it. If it constantly dips below that, it gets annoying.

green is where you would like to be to achieve 90 fps, yellow is fine aiming at 45 fps

Aah - sweet. So the yellow isn't a warning that I'm over-cooking the cpu or anything and need to back off - it's just simply advising that I'm in 45FPS territory instead of 90. Great to know. :thumbup:

If it *feels* good enough, it's good enough. Some people get motion sickness if it's too herky jerky. I see you had it cranked to a much higher resolution. I had to ask because SS% changed over time. So absolute resolution makes it easier to compare.

 

Do you wear glasses in real life? Meaning are you near sighted? If so, even though the lens is up close, the focal distance is still few meters out.

 

Don't chase the green/red or even FPS. If it feels smooth enough for you, just go with it.

 

I find that 45FPS is the minimum for me to enjoy it. If it constantly dips below that, it gets annoying.

I don't wear glasses in real life. I've got better than 20/20 eyesight (at least the last time I went and had my aviation medical exam last year :)).

I can see clearly many of the things in VR (including the pixel lines) - it's just the text and DDI images that comes from DCS that appears blury in VR (at 100%. It get's better when I crank it above 150% - and looks quite amazing when I do 500% - but of course it's more like still clear photo's jumping from one to the other at that resolution).

I find it confusing that given the same number of pixels and resolution that static 2D text (such as labels and the monitor) improves with increasing SS. It's such a pitty they haven't found a way to give nice clear readable text in the cockpit in VR without having to SS.

Roger that with not chasing the green or red. I was just trying to figure out how to 'use' VRFPS correctly as I had concerns I was using it in an incorrect manner.

I feel like I've spent more hours since I've gotten into VR over the past month playing with graphic settings than being ingame! :huh:

Also you mentioned the hornet, if you happen to be using the winwing throttle, you might want to disable stuff in your export lua, though it sounds like you cpu times should be ok.

But you should NOT be limited (in the yellow) in those single player missions. IF you are something is wrong.

I'd download the FPS VR app from steam or wherever. Its the gold standard and I've been kicking myself for not getting it long ago for the 4 bucks it costs. My frame times with winwing were like 20+ ms, in single player, and they went to like 8fps when I disabled it. (lower is better)

That being said, something seems off. I'm at 100% SS and DCS PD1.0, and at worst in missions like that its 45 fps, but usually more like 60-70 and even up to 90.

Shadows are killer, as is traffic, you try to change water to low?

Also you mentioned the hornet, if you happen to be using the winwing throttle, you might want to disable stuff in your export lua, though it sounds like you cpu times should be ok.

 

But you should NOT be limited (in the yellow) in those single player missions. IF you are something is wrong.

 

I'd download the FPS VR app from steam or wherever. Its the gold standard and I've been kicking myself for not getting it long ago for the 4 bucks it costs. My frame times with winwing were like 20+ ms, in single player, and they went to like 8fps when I disabled it. (lower is better)

 

That being said, something seems off. I'm at 100% SS and DCS PD1.0, and at worst in missions like that its 45 fps, but usually more like 60-70 and even up to 90.

 

Shadows are killer, as is traffic, you try to change water to low?

Thanks for your reply!

I'm assuming when you say I shouldn't be limited in SP in the yellow - you're talking CPU, not GPU. All I'm talking about at present is the CPU.

I figure if I try chasing both I'm going to get myself very confused, so I'm staying in SP to concentrate solely on the GPU at this time, so I know how what I'm changing is affecting the GPU only.

I have the Logitech X56, not the winwing, so I don't think that is a factor but thanks for the tip.

I already have the VRFPS app from steam. That's the whole reason for this thread. :smilewink: I have it - I just wanted to make sure I was using it in the correct way - not chasing the wrong things.

When you're talking about your 'frame times' with winwing - can you please clarify - are you talking GPU or CPU frame times? If you're talking GPU - that's surprising that a peripheral like that could make changes to the GPU and maybe I need to look further into what's going on. (Or consider a second installation of my OS). It's pretty clean as it is, but maybe it could be 'cleaner'.

Water is on medium. I'll try reducing that to low and see how I go. I'm getting the feeling that my expectations for having things clear in VR aren't going to be met for some time. Maybe I should have experienced the RIFT first and I might be appreciating more the HP Reverb... but the HP reverb is all I know and when I see fuzzy text at 100%, and it's much clearer when I raise it beyond 150 - I'd like to be able to read clearer without thinking I need glasses. (Which I don't - it's just that it's rendering that way for some reason).

Winwing is an example, but a number of utilities have entries in exports.lua, some of those can have a pretty adverse effect on CPU frame rate depending on how frequently (?) they sample for state, HELIOS is another, and some of the scripts that people use to support streamdeck... All have a horrendous perf impact for cpu.

Check and see, either backup exports.lua, and delete it, or comment out each line and add them back in one at a time to find the culprit.

Winwing is an example, but a number of utilities have entries in exports.lua, some of those can have a pretty adverse effect on CPU frame rate depending on how frequently (?) they sample for state, HELIOS is another, and some of the scripts that people use to support streamdeck... All have a horrendous perf impact for cpu.

 

Check and see, either backup exports.lua, and delete it, or comment out each line and add them back in one at a time to find the culprit.

Oh sweet - that's a great way to test things out. Thank you!

I have played with various mods and addons so it would be good to go back and compare to see what differences (if any) I'm running compared to a clean setup.

if you want to really test it, try making backup of your saved games directory and trashing it ... people add stuff here and assume it has no perf impact ... but it can and does

I don't wear glasses in real life. I've got better than 20/20 eyesight (at least the last time I went and had my aviation medical exam last year :)).

 

I can see clearly many of the things in VR (including the pixel lines) - it's just the text and DDI images that comes from DCS that appears blury in VR (at 100%. It get's better when I crank it above 150% - and looks quite amazing when I do 500% - but of course it's more like still clear photo's jumping from one to the other at that resolution).

 

I find it confusing that given the same number of pixels and resolution that static 2D text (such as labels and the monitor) improves with increasing SS. It's such a pitty they haven't found a way to give nice clear readable text in the cockpit in VR without having to SS.

 

Roger that with not chasing the green or red. I was just trying to figure out how to 'use' VRFPS correctly as I had concerns I was using it in an incorrect manner.

 

I feel like I've spent more hours since I've gotten into VR over the past month playing with graphic settings than being ingame! :huh:

There is a lot to be said about lens design. Supposedly, G2 Reverb has a better lens design and has a bigger sweet spot. And I don't mind my Reverb, but I'm coming from Rift so the jump up was great (for me).

But that reminds me, play around with pulling or pushing the HMD side to side, in and out, up and down. Maybe you're off the sweet spot? might as well as rule it out.

There is a lot to be said about lens design. Supposedly, G2 Reverb has a better lens design and has a bigger sweet spot. And I don't mind my Reverb, but I'm coming from Rift so the jump up was great (for me).

 

But that reminds me, play around with pulling or pushing the HMD side to side, in and out, up and down. Maybe you're off the sweet spot? might as well as rule it out.

Thanks Hansangb,

I think I'm right on the sweetspot. I close one eye, adjust the other until I get the sweetspot, and then do the other, and then go back to the first to make sure it's still there. I seem to have lucked out with my pupil distance being smack bang in the human average as well. :)

There is a significant difference between 100% and 150% SS when it comes to readability. Again - maybe people just accept some blurriness and I have unrealistic expectations - I'm new to VR and are not sure what to accept but when I see the difference between 100 and 150 - it tells me it's not the lens, but it's the actual rendering of the graphics. If it was lens design I'd be expecting to see little to no improvement in clarity when upping SS as the lens would be 'off' focus.

Hopefully there's a way that the cockpit can be altered to either be more resolution or skinned in a way to make it work better with VR without having to super sample in the near future. Everything else I can put up with - but I like my writing to be clear when reading it.

Going back to the original topic, from what I can tell gleaning information here:

a) I shouldn't be focusing on FPSVR to get smooth video. I should be lowering my settings until I get good/smooth ignoring FPSVR as it seems as though it's possible to get stuttering even when operating below 20m/s frame rates. (ie, stuttering isn't directly related to frame rates alone).

b) FPSVR is more useful for checking for bottlenecks. ie poor graphics when GPU is fine but CPU is getting knocked about VRFPS will indicate that lowring graphics isn't going to do jack and I need to focus elsewhere.

c) Use FPS as an assistant - but not as the primary tool. Focusing on FPS and frame rates alone will not guarantee no stuttering and I've been wasting my time chasing these with VRFPS.

I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions. Higher frametimes will cause stuttering especially on the cpu... But stuttering "may" be caused by other things such as disk performance...

I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions. Higher frametimes will cause stuttering especially on the cpu... But stuttering "may" be caused by other things such as disk performance...

Sorry - I haven't explained correctly.

I absolutely agree - higher frametimes / lower FPS rates will definitely cause stuttering, but what I mean by the above is that thinking if I hit 45FPS I will get no stuttering because 45FPS should be fast enough for the eye is wrong.

There are other factors that can cause stuttering, so by looking at the frame times / FPS as my center point for graphic settings I was doing myself a disservice.

I need to get DCS operating smooth first, and then increase settings. If I hit my preferred frame times then fantastic - stop there - but I realise I need to be aware that I may need to stop before hitting my preferred frame times because other factors may cause stuttering before frametimes do - so focusing on FPS only was misleading me.

Sorry - I haven't explained correctly.

 

I absolutely agree - higher frametimes / lower FPS rates will definitely cause stuttering, but what I mean by the above is that thinking if I hit 45FPS I will get no stuttering because 45FPS should be fast enough for the eye is wrong.

 

There are other factors that can cause stuttering, so by looking at the frame times / FPS as my center point for graphic settings I was doing myself a disservice.

 

I need to get DCS operating smooth first, and then increase settings. If I hit my preferred frame times then fantastic - stop there - but I realise I need to be aware that I may need to stop before hitting my preferred frame times because other factors may cause stuttering before frametimes do - so focusing on FPS only was misleading me.

OK yes that makes sense chasing frame rate is not helpful per-say in VR, yep i would agree with that, and i have done it myself.

For me around 45 fps is actually the most fluent

Above 60 seems to cause weird stutters every now and then.

The absolute best would probably to get a 90 fps constant @ 90 hz but, dream on :d