VR Test Discussion

One thing I noticed on my test was that the game really wanted to be at 45fps. Starting the scenario was at 45fps, and it would go up to 60s or 70's, at t times 90 when looking at sky. And that it seemed to want to go back to 45. I.e. at 45, look up at sky till you get 90, then look at the same scene, and its a 60-70 for a bit (5-10sec), and then it goes back down to 45, look up again. Its almost like there is a buffer or something that you are unloading when looking up, that fills back up.

One thing I noticed on my test was that the game really wanted to be at 45fps. Starting the scenario was at 45fps, and it would go up to 60s or 70's, at t times 90 when looking at sky. And that it seemed to want to go back to 45. I.e. at 45, look up at sky till you get 90, then look at the same scene, and its a 60-70 for a bit (5-10sec), and then it goes back down to 45, look up again. Its almost like there is a buffer or something that you are unloading when looking up, that fills back up.

Perhaps it is averaging the FPS? so when you look up it locks to 90 but it takes a moment for the average to get there, then when you look down the same in reverse. don't know really.

Okay - I haven't done an extensive test or anything, but last night after doing some clean-ups and updates, the Persian Gulf really seemed to scream FPS-wise, unlike the Caucuses. If I didn't know better, I'd say they fixed PG but hadn't fixed Caucuses.

I also do not skimp too much on trees (I tend to set them to be somewhere between 60%-75%), so maybe that accounts for the differences. And maybe I was imagining it. It seemed like Dubai seemed to fly more smoothly and at a higher max frame rate (I'd forgot to switch my Pimax back down to 72 FPS, so it was running 90 FPS + Smart Smoothing), and I was even able to improve some settings. Going back to 72 FPS + Smart Smoothing in the TF-51 Free Flight scenario they had us testing with, it struggled to maintain a consistent 36 FPS with the same options.

Just re-iteration of some things that have been proven by others' testing:

In VR:

1. MSAA has a serious negative effect on FPS.

2. Shadows on the ground and in the cockpit have a serious negative effect on FPS.

3. PD settings above 1.2 on Rift S or 1.5 on Rift CV1 have a serious negative effect on FPS (can't speak to all the others)

On my system with MSAA and Shadows OFF I can stay pinned at 80fps mode in nearly all situations. As soon as I enable either, I drop into 40fps ASW mode. With both enabled I begin to see some stutters. While the various other graphics settings do affect FPS they seem to be in the 1-3fps each. Turning ASW off makes it a stutter fest unless FPS are pinned on 80. Setting PD above 1.2 on my rift s kills FPS without any noticeable visual clarity benefit.

some other settings:

vsync: off

Civ traffic: off

ground clutter: 150

trees: 70%

Visibility range: High

Anis. Filtering: 16x*keeps the lines on the runway from fading out

Preload radius: 120000

Chimney smoke: 0

***Also enabling Windows game mode gave me a significant FPS bump (windows 1809)

Check your PD, shadows and MSAA settings.

It looks to me like folks that aren't seeing any FPS improvement from the beta patch have graphics settings that are keeping their systems bogged down at or below 40-45 FPS. Check your PD, shadows and MSAA settings people.

Not true in my case. Also others have reported no improvements with FPS>45.

Just re-iteration of some things that have been proven by others' testing:

 

In VR:

 

1. MSAA has a serious negative effect on FPS.

2. Shadows on the ground and in the cockpit have a serious negative effect on FPS.

3. PD settings above 1.2 on Rift S or 1.5 on Rift CV1 have a serious negative effect on FPS (can't speak to all the others)

.

Agreed...but more than anything else the thing that kills frames for me is looking at another hornet. The object count goes way up and my frames go the opposite direction. Try the instant action caucsaus Hornet ' ready on the ramp' mission and taxi down towards the parked hornets.

Agreed...but more than anything else the thing that kills frames for me is looking at another hornet. The object count goes way up and my frames go the opposite direction. Try the instant action caucsaus Hornet ' ready on the ramp' mission and taxi down towards the parked hornets.

Experienced the same situation when in the "Cold and Dark" instant action, where there are Hornets parking at each side of me...

Agreed...but more than anything else the thing that kills frames for me is looking at another hornet. The object count goes way up and my frames go the opposite direction. Try the instant action caucsaus Hornet ' ready on the ramp' mission and taxi down towards the parked hornets.

That's not really ED fault, MSAA is brutally resource intensive. It's better than straight super sampling, but it's essentially executing 4x shaders per pixel where the coverage mask is non-zero. It produces great visuals but with deferred shading/lighting that DCS uses its going to kill fps, nothing they can do to change that. Post processing techniques are usually much easier on the GPU, but don't look very good in DCS. Perhaps that is something they could improve?

Honestly I don't think we are going to see any big rasterization changes until vulkan, as it doesn't make sense to put resources into it. Even then early ray tracing implementations in vulkan give a lot of reason to be optomistic, and open up a number of more modern approaches

NineLine was right. A problem with the oculus keyboard shortcuts (LCTR + KP1, kp2...) so all previous tests would be in ASW AUTO. :doh:

NEW TEST VERIFYING THAT ASW IS OFF. :music_whistling: (Using OculusDebugTools).

VR FPS:

Using the TF-51D Instant Action mission Flight Over Tbilisi the first few seconds

DCS BETA 2.5.5 = 81 - 85 FPS

DCS Stable 2.5.4 = 59 - 62 FPS

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3955759&postcount=47

Yes VR improvements!!!, BUT.... I created a mission with an F18 in the same config, same position, altitude and direction as the tf51 on tiblisi, result:

DCS BETA 2.5.5 = 45 - 54 FPS

DCS Stable 2.5.4 = 45 - 48 FPS

:huh: :noexpression:

it goes better, but these improvements are marginal, ????????

it goes better, but these improvements are marginal, ????????

I don't think the improvements are marginal, but I'd say that the performance impact of the modules themselves is larger than that of the core engine, and as such the *perceived* performance difference is only minor when you're flying a full-fidelity module.

That's how I read those results, at least...

You can easily see that DCS runs far smoother when flying a FC3 module compared to say an F-18 or F-14.

Any performance gain is more than welcome, but I think the largest gain when it comes to the core engine itself, especially for us VR users, would come from support for a post-process anti-aliasing technique that is compatible with PBR/deferred shading.

That's not to say that a poorly-optimised map can't have a major performance impact. Look at Normandy...

This is quite confusing. So in the end, the 50% optimization is included. I thought it was coming and had not gotten into the update because of a problem in the build.

Now it seems that it is included.

I do not understand anything.

I say this because I have not noticed this 50% improvement in VR performance. 50% is a huge improvement and I am the same.

Well yes, I have improved because I have gone from the Oculus Rift CV1 to the Oculus Rift S. But this has nothing to do with the 50% improvement mentioned in the VR.

I noticed an improvement, but I haven't quantified the improvement other than "I can now turn on grass and smoke without killing my FPS". It's a nice touch, and helps.

@A2597 - that is similar to my results. The update made things slightly more smooth in repro but not much on overall FPS.

I think my biggest revelation from all of this is not using PD to change the SS in DCS. I have a WMR headset and I use Steam to address both my repro and super sampling. That has resulted in a much better experience for me. My only config in DCS for clarity is post processing the image via AF and MSAA, texture quality, and number of objects to render.

The question is - did we get all of the improvements, or just some? Are the improvements broken and when fixed will they provide even better performance that what is on the table now? Lots of questions, and waiting patiently for devs to work out some answers...

I don't think we are going to see any big rasterization changes until vulkan

does vulkan use MSAA?

I don't think the improvements are marginal, but I'd say that the performance impact of the modules themselves is larger than that of the core engine, and as such the *perceived* performance difference is only minor when you're flying a full-fidelity module.

That's how I read those results, at least...

 

You can easily see that DCS runs far smoother when flying a FC3 module compared to say an F-18 or F-14.

 

Any performance gain is more than welcome, but I think the largest gain when it comes to the core engine itself, especially for us VR users, would come from support for a post-process anti-aliasing technique that is compatible with PBR/deferred shading.

That's not to say that a poorly-optimised map can't have a major performance impact. Look at Normandy...

I agree. The high-fidelity third-party modules would explain this discrepancy with the TF51 of the DCS core. Is true that the performance of my Hornet and Tomcat module has improved a bit, but I would like more improvement :(

This is quite confusing. So in the end, the 50% optimization is included. I thought it was coming and had not gotten into the update because of a problem in the build.

 

Now it seems that it is included.

 

I do not understand anything.

 

I say this because I have not noticed this 50% improvement in VR performance. 50% is a huge improvement and I am the same.

 

Well yes, I have improved because I have gone from the Oculus Rift CV1 to the Oculus Rift S. But this has nothing to do with the 50% improvement mentioned in the VR.

Not all systems are seeing improvement. If you look at the test request thread I'd say 70-80% of users see no improvement or a tiny improvement which may be more of a figment of their imagination. But there are a few guys reporting differences in the 10s-30s of FPS which are likely real and it means its working for them for some reason.

... of their imagination. But there are a few guys reporting differences in the 10s-30s of FPS which are likely real and it means its working for them for some reason.

I read post from ED Staff 3 days later from patch release saying that this optimization wasnt included. Now seems that this is. This is confusing i said.

Agreed...but more than anything else the thing that kills frames for me is looking at another hornet. The object count goes way up and my frames go the opposite direction. Try the instant action caucsaus Hornet ' ready on the ramp' mission and taxi down towards the parked hornets.

In my OB (not the one that was released today, but the previous), using HP Reverb, it starts at 45FPS. But doesn't dip any lower. And as soon as i leave the ramp, it shoots up to 80-90 FPS.

With these settings in my Odyssey I'm actually getting 90 fps over Caucasus instant action missions, TF-51 over Tiblisi, Harrier weapons practice, Hornet weapons practice.

Can't really be bothered to install stable release, but these framerates were impossible to achieve before the VR optimizations.

It's a compromise to lower my pixel density and fly without shadows.. but at the same time it's kind of like "OMG 90 FPS VR in Dcs World".. finally all this expensive hardware paid off lol

raising PD to even 1.2 i get lows in the 70's.. 1.5PD im seeing around 60-75 fps.

I like the higher pixel density but to be frank motion reprojection makes aircraft flying around me look weird sometimes.. so I think Im going to stick with 1.0 even though it's not quite as sharp a picture as higher pixel density levels.

*Edit- now I'm sitting here wondering if we're also going to see a nice performance bump from Vulkan whenever that gets here. Might be able to get away with higher pixel density values with my setup or a higher res headset.

*edit* - just did a campaign mission for the A-10C, which I won't name the campaign or mission as not to spoil anything but flying over areas with a nice amount of units on the ground tanked my framerate even at the settings described above.. so going back to motion reprojection and higher pixel density for now.

performance wise this latest patch introduced the worst performance i ever had with DCS, especially in VR. i'm on HTC Vive and flown the last 2 years more or less with stable frames between 40-60. my settings are already dialed down for VR, no shadows, medium view distance etc. with the latest patch fps suffer a lot with rising object count. having a few static objects (2-3 f18c, hawkeye, s3b) on the stanton and looking around in the hornet cockpit on the ramp gives me fps in teens and loads of reprojection. especially i feel the lower parts of the cockpit suffer from fps loss. also some black screen flashes and massiv stutter. it gets worse with several contacts on datalink SA screen. i changed nothing on my system since the last 2.5.4 OB patch. cleaning metashaders and fxo changed nothing. would love to report a change to the better, but unfortunatly it's the opposite.

nvidia 430.86, i7-4.8Ghz, 32GB RAM, GTX 1080Ti, htc vive

performance wise this latest patch introduced the worst performance i ever had with DCS, especially in VR. i'm on HTC Vive and flown the last 2 years more or less with stable frames between 40-60. my settings are already dialed down for VR, no shadows, medium view distance etc. with the latest patch fps suffer a lot with rising object count. having a few static objects (2-3 f18c, hawkeye, s3b) on the stanton and looking around in the hornet cockpit on the ramp gives me fps in teens and loads of reprojection. especially i feel the lower parts of the cockpit suffer from fps loss. also some black screen flashes and massiv stutter. it gets worse with several contacts on datalink SA screen. i changed nothing on my system since the last 2.5.4 OB patch. cleaning metashaders and fxo changed nothing. would love to report a change to the better, but unfortunatly it's the opposite.

nvidia 430.86, i7-4.8Ghz, 32GB RAM, GTX 1080Ti, htc vive

did you try running "dcs_updater.exe repair" from cmd prompt or using the start menu shortcut?

did you try running "dcs_updater.exe repair" from cmd prompt or using the start menu shortcut?

i am running steam version but i'll try a repair, thx. not very optimistic as that never helped in the past, but worth a try.

... cleaning metashaders and fxo changed nothing...

I noticed a crapload of files now in metashaders2 folder after flying in Caucasus map. The first few flights I made after this update were in the Persian Gulf area and metashaders2 folder had only one file in it. After flying a mission in Caucasus the folder filled up with many .meta2 files.

Is this part of the optimization for Caucasus?

I did notice an improvement in smoothness when flying at tree tops in Caucasus. On the second flight over the same area basically there were no stutters... there was one "blink" at one point and that was it:) The FPS didn't change a lot. I usually fly with Fraps running at 45 and it acts as a frame limiter so the fps never goes above but... my settings are maxed. PD for my Rift is set to 1.5 and MSAA x2:noexpression: (anxiously waiting to upgrade to new VR... Pimax5+? Reverb? I don't know yet)

I9-7900x @4.1 32gigs @3600, 2 ssd's (raid0... for other purposes:smilewink:)

New to VR here on the Rift S. Been following this thread and the VR test results thread trying various settings for a couple of weeks here. I’ve disabled ASW via the Oculus Tray Tool, the Oculus Debug Tool, and NVIDIA settings... I’ve experimented with the hotkeys in game to disable them as well. I am locked at 40 FPS no matter the settings, unless I go above 1.6PD, then the FPS goes below 40. Still testing over here and monitoring these threads.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

New to VR here on the Rift S. Been following this thread and the VR test results thread trying various settings for a couple of weeks here. I’ve disabled ASW via the Oculus Tray Tool, the Oculus Debug Tool, and NVIDIA settings... I’ve experimented with the hotkeys in game to disable them as well. I am locked at 40 FPS no matter the settings, unless I go above 1.6PD, then the FPS goes below 40. Still testing over here and monitoring these threads.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi mrushforth,

Without more details on your system specifications, GPU, and DCS setting ist is prttey hard to suggest anything specific.

The link below is somewhat dated but does a pretty good job of explaining what settings have the most impact on fps.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Youtube+All+things+VR&view=detail&mid=5645616A5D472B510C9A5645616A5D472B510C9A&FORM=VIRE

Also, I would suggest looking through the thread below to find a system similar to yours and try those settings.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=243521

S!