VR FPS (2.5.1.16543.355)

I'm also messing around a bit and it seems in vr PD 1.2 and msaa 2x and AA 2x i can get quite stable 45 fps but not flying on vegas

The image quality in 2.5.1 seems better than previous versions with msaa 2x only but may be it is just an impression.

The strange thing is, in my graphics options I only have msaa 2x or 4x.

has the 8x disappeared?

Does anyone have a VIVE and use the SteamVR beta and can run the sim ok in 2.5.1? I cant at this time so wondering if its just my machine being weird or not.

Does anyone have a VIVE and use the SteamVR beta and can run the sim ok in 2.5.1? I cant at this time so wondering if its just my machine being weird or not.

I have to use steam VR but it's the steam VR for windows mixed reality app that you install separately from steam. I use a Samsung Odyssey though.

Do you use the beta branch of the standard release?

Do you use the beta branch of the standard release?

Although I didnt fly much because I'm doing the maple flag tactical misisons and there is a bug where your wingman don't show up on the tdc sadl. It does do a weird thing where it loads shaders first now and I do have to say loading is a bit faster than before.

Download the windows wmr for steam app from the steam store and then try using your vive. I had the same issue when I first bought the odyssey because I was trying to go through directly by the steam VR button in steam.

Steam VR is a separate install through and I don't think you need to install it because all I needed was the steam VR app for wmr.

Yes I'm on 2.5.1 as of yesterday. .

Sorry I wasnt clear I meant the beta version of Steam VR or the standard released version.

Sorry I wasnt clear I meant the beta version of Steam VR or the standard released version.

Hi all.

I hate to be negative but...

The latest update really killed the FPS for VR players. I hope ED takes notice and comes up with a solution.

The disaster comes from the "forced deferred shading".

I used to get about 80 to 90 fps on my test flight which is the Nevada free flight with the KA50.

Now I get 30 to 37 with terrible visuals (anything below 45 is catastrophic for VR as all hell breaks loose).

 

As probably most of you know the deferred shading has a very big enemy called MSAA.

Which (MSAA) is an absolute must (for me at least) for the low native resolution of the Oculus headset.

So I had the deferred shading off, MSAA at x4, shadows at medium and pixel density at 1.5. And I had a nice 80 to 90 fps. With ASW on a SOLID 45.

 

All this heaven is lost as the deferred shading is now forcibly on. I have to either turn off shadows completely or turn off MSAA.

With MSAA at x2 I almost get my 45 fps with bad visuals that kill the VR immersion.

 

I really hope the ED will reconsider their decision forcing this very questionably good / bad (depends who you ask) shading method on.

 

.

Very good post and it depicts exactly the current situation...very disappointing indeed!

IMO DS isn't ready for VR yet and here's why.

1) There's a massive GPU performance GPU hit causing FPS to halve.

2) Resolution looks lower so image quality reduced

3) Colours look over saturated and unreal.

4) Contrast is all over the place, seems one extreme or the other.

5) Night lighting is barely visible, no where near as good as it was in 1.5 and other sims.

Its a real shame DS has been forced upon us, but I suspect it's for the benefit of monitor users, and I suspect there's a lot more of them than us VR players.

Despite the great game, so far, I'll be sticking with 2.5 and not spending any more money here until things improve.

IMO DS isn't ready for VR yet and here's why.

 

1) There's a massive GPU performance GPU hit causing FPS to halve.

2) Resolution looks lower so image quality reduced

3) Colours look over saturated and unreal.

4) Contrast is all over the place, seems one extreme or the other.

5) Night lighting is barely visible, no where near as good as it was in 1.5 and other sims.

 

Its a real shame DS has been forced upon us, but I suspect it's for the benefit of monitor users, and I suspect there's a lot more of them than us VR players.

 

Despite the great game, so far, I'll be sticking with 2.5 and not spending any more money here until things improve.

Spot on points. I do have an Asus 34 inch monitor but it`s very hard going back that route. Let`s hope for fixes soon and above all a bit more information and reassurance the problems are addressed!

Entirely agree. And IMHO VR without MSAA is a no-no.

I'm rather gutted as enforced DR is going to FAQ it all up for me. I'll stay on 2.5 for now, but I have the F18 on preorder and assume upgrade will be necessary.

Sun-screen advice

Hi All.

Always use sunscreen.

For the tl;dr :

- with DS, my VR experience is bad no matter the tweaking.

- On line streaming is out of the question (Oculus mirror).

- Deferred Shading does not produce better results. Bad implementations produce bad results.

- D.S. may be the wrong selection for a flight simulator. Creates more problems that solves.

- We have more than enough computing power to have excellent VR experiences and performance.

- DCS seems in a permanent state of "work in progress"; including all (?) modules; prepaid W.I.P. that never get finished.

Still awake ? read on, we'll fix that.

I spent the entire weekend trying to find a set-up that will let me use the new scheme. Unfortunately, although I tried to see only the positive side, I was left with disappointment. The previous "experience quality" (for VR) is not comparable to the new one.

I was toying with on-line streaming. I did a couple of tests and all was fine. I use Oculus mirror to create another window with proper ratio, let's say 16:9. Then capture, compress and stream that; while playing is VR. Well,,, you can forget that now. Plus the sacrificed visual quality is BAD on a monitor.

While searching the forums for any missed tips, I noticed an interesting trend. People defend Deferred Shading because "it produces better image quality". I do not know how on earth this came about, at least on the technical side. Both available rendering pipelines (and many many more), IF WELL IMPLEMENTED, should be able to produce indistinguishable results.

And like any tool, each one is better at one thing or the other.

The strong point of deferred shading is the ability to produce lighting and shadows from many many light sources quite fast. That's about it.

Now think, is this an FPS game, let's say Battlefield, where multiple light sources illuminating the scene (and producing shadows), really make a difference in the scene itself (and immersion) ? Is THIS the one thing that is missing from DCS ? Why on earth do you want that on a flight simulator ? We cannot even use "Cockpit Global Illumination" because of the extra FPS hit.

And the biggest irony of all is that in order to have a decent frame rate in VR, you should turn off shadows completely (has even been suggested above !!!!!) Why the hell do I need DS in the first place then ? half of it's job is gone wasted.

Another misconception is that at the moment there is not enough computing power to have a decent VR experience. This is very far from the truth. We have two key components, massive processing power and parallelism. If used properly the results may be amazing.

I saw Aerofly FS2 mentioned elsewhere. I have this title and although of a totally different nature, is amazing in visual quality.

IL-2 (I have almost all of them) are very, very good when it comes to VR quality.

Even prepar3d v4 is getting very good at VR. And they have one unique and valuable feature : you can switch between monitor/ VR headset mid-game.

But the title that is the golden standard (for me) of VR performance is Combat Air Patrol 2 (another title I bought). It demonstrates the capability of VR. Has to be flown to be believed. The fluidity at PD of 1.5 and everything maxed out, makes for an unforgettable experience.

So, everybody is improving and DCS is going in reverse ? It's my favorite flight simulator for God's sake. I pay and run two servers for them, I talk with actions not simply words.

Anyway, I still hope that they will rethink their decision and will at least give people the choice. Even if it costs them extra man-hours.

I also hope that for a change we start seeing things finished. Anything I see in DCS is half done. Pre-paid and half done that is.

There is no sense or "production grade" product; the type that you do not touch before you have tested thoroughly.

Let's hope that they realize this never ending trouble pattern and put a stop to it.

And as the famous song says, the sunscreen advice is the only sure thing about this post; everything else is my personal opinion and I reserve the right to be very, very wrong.

Keep smiling !

Great post. Hope someone's listening.

Yet - perhaps slightly unfair on ED. They are now the only study-level combat sim game in town; and I guess their development tactic is what they've found to work best for them - so it's that or nothing I suppose.

Still, they do sometimes drop significant changes like this on us out of the blue, and with no explanation, which I find a bit frustrating.

:thumbup:Absolutely all of the above!

I've been reading up about rendering today, I wanted to know what DS is all about.. And well now I have a much better understanding. It's right, it's intended for improved rendering of scenes with multiple light sources, but adds another process to render shadows after the Base image. One advantage it does have though is to only render shadows for surfaces and objects you can see.. So this will save time over traditional forward shading. Based on these differences should we expect a performance increase or decrease? I'm guessing ED were aiming for the increase, but somethings not working right.

Will they fix it, will it ever be better than before.. Who knows!

What I do know is as Flighter says, I am not buying better kit when I have other sims and games running VR with superb performance.

I think it's not a good thing to focalise on FPS.

See my configuration and I can say that with 30-25 fps in VR it's fluid and quite playable and I don't feel sick after hours above the Caucasus. I don't use MSAA in game but AA X2 multisampling in nVidia inspector and AA transparency in supersampling X2 and pixel X1.8 with Oculus Tray Tool and not in game. I don't use ASW set to Off and for me it's absolutly playable with all other settings to high ( water, trees, texture quality, distant view on far, heat effects on high) .

Why wanting to use high AA values when the VR helmet are unable nowadays to restitute a so good picture than on a monitor ?

After, I've tried several setting of the V-synch and I have chosen the best fluidity for me when I turn the head on the left then on the right and I can say that with a highly density of trees on Caucasus, it's totally playable and I fall around 27 FPS looking at the left and the right without feeling any discomfort.

Always make sure to do a DCS cleanup/repair. Can cause performance impact, i forgot at first and had terrible performance, after the clean back to if not better then 2.5

Dear Jef, an intriguing post.

I think it's not a good thing to focalise on FPS.

Totally agree with you. Good example was X-Plane vs FSX. The irregularity in frame presentation (jitter) of FSX was ruining it for me, while x-plane, although in the 25 to 30 fps range (on my rig at the time) was much more consistent and looked much better.

See my configuration and I can say that with 30-25 fps in VR it's fluid and quite playable and I don't feel sick after hours above the Caucasus.

I don't use MSAA in game but AA X2 multisampling in nVidia inspector and AA transparency in supersampling X2 and pixel X1.8 with Oculus Tray Tool and not in game. I don't use ASW set to Off and for me it's absolutly playable with all other settings to high ( water, trees, texture quality, distant view on far, heat effects on high) .

I am very curious to try your setup. I am under the impression that we cannot (I have tried and failed) override in-game settings other than PD from any external tool (at least with oculus). AA level and it's method, including MFAA, even post filtering with FXAA (sacrificing all texture crispiness) etc. Is nVidia inspector able to do that ? I will give it a try and report back.

Why wanting to use high AA values when the VR helmet are unable nowadays to restitute a so good picture than on a monitor ?

Two visible reasons : Looking at dials, and looking on scenery with straight outlines (see buildings) flashing all over the place as you move. The in-game MSAA at x4 is a must for me for these two reasons. They vastly improve the perceived quality of the admittedly limited capabilities of the current mainstream HMDs. The same goes for Pixel Density (I find 1.8 ideal, 1.5 good compromise).

After, I've tried several setting of the V-synch and I have chosen the best fluidity for me when I turn the head on the left then on the right and I can say that with a highly density of trees on Caucasus, it's totally playable and I fall around 27 FPS looking at the left and the right without feeling any discomfort.

As I said, I do not mind how, as long as the result is good. It was near perfect in 2.5. If I can get the same overall quality, I do not give a damn about the fps.

I will try your recipe, I hope you will provide some tips if I run into problems.

Thanks again !

Dear Jef, an intriguing post.

 

Totally agree with you. Good example was X-Plane vs FSX. The irregularity in frame presentation (jitter) of FSX was ruining it for me, while x-plane, although in the 25 to 30 fps range (on my rig at the time) was much more consistent and looked much better.

 

I am very curious to try your setup. I am under the impression that we cannot (I have tried and failed) override in-game settings other than PD from any external tool (at least with oculus). AA level and it's method, including MFAA, even post filtering with FXAA (sacrificing all texture crispiness) etc. Is nVidia inspector able to do that ? I will give it a try and report back.

 

Two visible reasons : Looking at dials, and looking on scenery with straight outlines (see buildings) flashing all over the place as you move. The in-game MSAA at x4 is a must for me for these two reasons. They vastly improve the perceived quality of the admittedly limited capabilities of the current mainstream HMDs. The same goes for Pixel Density (I find 1.8 ideal, 1.5 good compromise).

 

As I said, I do not mind how, as long as the result is good. It was near perfect in 2.5. If I can get the same overall quality, I do not give a damn about the fps.

I will try your recipe, I hope you will provide some tips if I run into problems.

Thanks again !

For reference i7 8700k, 32gb, 1080ti.

What are your specs and are you running on all low settings? I can't do PD 1.8 and msa x4 that's a bit crazy. Before 2.5 I could do 1.8 pixel density and mix of all high settings. It's nearly impossible to play smoothly with the odyssey at those settings now.

 

For reference i7 8700k, 32gb, 1080ti.

Hi !

2.5.1 is in no way able to produce anything playable with these settings. Thus this whole thread.

In 2.5.0 (current stable) as well as in 1.5.8 are all playable with 45 fps stable with ASW (very pleasant also).

Plus our HDMs do not have the same pixels :

Oculus : 2160x1200 = 2.592 Mpixels

Odyssey : 2880x1600 = 4.608 Mpixels

To match your pixel density I would have to start at 1.33 !

If you multiply your HMD's native pixels with increasing PD you run very fast to huge amounts of pixels. Do not forget that PD multiplies vertical as well as horizontal, so it's effect on GPU workload and memory requirements are squared !

Take also in consideration that one big disadvantage of Deferred Shading is big memory requirements (another reason why DS is bad for VR and high PD). The card you need probably does not exist yet.

My system :

i7 6700k at 4.6G

Gigabytes G1 GTX1080 / 8GB ram / 2Ghz GPU clock

16GB ram / 3200 Mhz

Separate SSD disks for DCS and windows

WIN10/64 pro.

See my configuration and I can say that with 30-25 fps in VR it's fluid and quite playable and I don't feel sick after hours above the Caucasus.

I don't use MSAA in game but AA X2 multisampling in nVidia inspector and AA transparency in supersampling X2 and pixel X1.8 with Oculus Tray Tool and not in game. I don't use ASW set to Off and for me it's absolutly playable with all other settings to high ( water, trees, texture quality, distant view on far, heat effects on high) .

Jef, I cannot force the AA settings using the NVIDIA Profile inspector. If I use the screen it seems to be working (for example I can see the green square if I set the FXAA on). But in the oculus, it completely ignores me.

Can you please provide some tips or a guide ?

Could you also post the exported profile form the nvidia inspector ?

Cheers.

Sorry I wasnt clear I meant the beta version of Steam VR or the standard released version.

Today dcs crashed though in a middle of my flight. So 2.5.1 isn't so stable sometimes it seems.

I used to be on the DS off, MSAA wagon. But I got off it after Caucasus map was updated and there was no longer a flawless VR experience option anymore.. I think what we should be pushing for is for ED to optimize VR better, rather than asking them to support multiple renderers. I am pretty sure that we will be crashed if we stay in front of that train... I am pretty sure that VR can be optimized further especially for rendering outside (non-stereoscopic rendering for outside etc. like FlyInside)

I used to be on the DS off, MSAA wagon. But I got off it after Caucasus map was updated and there was no longer a flawless VR experience option anymore.. I think what we should be pushing for is for ED to optimize VR better, rather than asking them to support multiple renderers. I am pretty sure that we will be crashed if we stay in front of that train... I am pretty sure that VR can be optimized further especially for rendering outside (non-stereoscopic rendering for outside etc. like FlyInside)

I improved my performance quite a bit last night on the odyssey by dialing back tree density from 100% to 80%. Now there isn't any black fragging across as I'm moving my head side to side and I kept 2x msaa, medium shadows, everything else except civ traffic on high.

To flighter asking, heres' my nVidia inspector profile for DCS

Sorry, impossible to attach the file

??????

Try again to attache the file.

Rename .zip in .nip

dcs.zip