Valve Index Hands On

When I say screen grabs I mean screen shots whilst in 3d which as far as I know are the single eye screen visible on pc rather that what eyes see in the HMD. So yes my pic is what I see as far as it can be shown to others not wearing my HMD. And I think its acceptable. (again my settings are for fps not eye candy)

One difference is that the cockpit looks distinctly better than it does in that pic and as I said before in the 3D view the 2 aircraft were closer than seems in the pic.

When I say screen grabs I mean screen shots whilst in 3d which as far as I know are the single eye screen visible on pc rather that what eyes see in the HMD. So yes my pic is what I see as far as it can be shown to others not wearing my HMD. And I think its acceptable. (again my settings are for fps not eye candy)

 

One difference is that the cockpit looks distinctly better than it does in that pic and as I said before in the 3D view the 2 aircraft were closer than seems in the pic.

I just went back through some of my older screen shots which truly look like shit. One thing that will effect the quality is how close you are to the object you're looking at. If I'm leaning back the SS's looks terrible. The screens I posted were to show that both the cockpit and outside objects are easily discerned. If you're seeing a worse image outside the cockpit and the object is within a mile somethings out of whack. Object outside at that range should be as easy to identify as the SS. These screens were in response to Mr. Big Bigg's post.

We are on the same tack if you did not realise :)

We are on the same tack if you did not realise :)

:thumbup:

I’m obsessive when stuff doesn’t act like it should lol. The whole reason I made the switch to DCS was for VR. I happily flew a different Viper sim for 20 years regardless of shitty graphics because of the immersive nature of its gameplay. DCS is totally lacking in this area, for me anyway so if my VR totally sucks I’m out of here. I get it that others focus more on the visuals of DCS for their enjoyment and that VR is a far cry from from a 144hz 4KUHD monitor. Who knows when we’ll see that kind of quality. There would have to be a major overhaul to the core engine in DCS for that to happen and ED doesn’t seem interested in doing it as it would not bring in any cash. That is unless they make another new DCS world branch and sell it. If it accepted all previous modules I would buy it. Until then VR is what it is but for me it’s been enough to keep me interested, especially now that the Viper MFD’s have been fixed with a mod.

Question, with steam running there is a little “monitor” or meter thingy that shows up on my desktop. When in flight it pegs red. Obviously I am overloading some function or functions. What exactly is that represent?

Would show some pictures but unsure how.

Thanks!!

The meter shows when motion smoothing is activated by going from green to yellow. Red means that even though motion smoothing is on you’re falling below acceptable FPS.

Several things can cause this but as I’ve said before, your system specs are close enough to mine that something is amiss.

One thing you should check is The second type of motion smoothing available in the SteamVR/Settings/Applications/DCS. You have 4 options. 1. Global setting (default) use this one.

2. Always On. 3. Force On NEVER USE. 4. Always Disable.

Check the first option and forget about it. If you force it on it will show results in the meter like you’re seeing. If that’s not it, you need to set a good baseline that should damn sure work lol.

In SteamVR/Settings Tab/Video

1. check box for motion smoothing.

2. Check box for custom resolution

3. Set Custom Resolution 188%

This is the only slider that should be above 100%.

Next go to SteamVR/Settings/Applications/DCS and make sure it is set to 100%. Do the same thing for every application listed. Make sure everyone of them are at 100%. This includes SteamVR App, Dashboard et al, EVERY APP needs to be at 100%. Also if there’s an option for any type of motion smoothing like there is for DCS, set it to Global.

Next, set Pixel Density in game to 1.0.

Turn off MSAA, Texture Shadows, Terrain shadows, cockpit global illumination, SSAA, Depth of field, civilian traffic and motion blur. Set everything else on the left column to high. Set preload to 130,000, Trees to 80%, grass clutter low for now and chimney smoke off. Lastly set Anisotropic Filtering to 16. Once you’ve made these changes restart SteamVR and DCS and then see how it looks. It will not be spectacular but you should be able to see everything clearly and your frame rates should be rock solid at 45 unless it’s super busy. Even if it dips it shouldn't be bad enough that you don’t enjoy it. If these settings work, making DCS playable, while also being clear both in the pit and looking out of the pit you can begin to turn other settings up again. If these settings don’t work, my suggestion is you look at your SSD and M.2 configuration. With DCS, it’s best to have the game on the same drive as the OS. Lastly, how does the Index perform with other games?

Last question.. What refresh rate are you using? 140Hz, 120Hz, 90Hz or 60Hz?

Wicked - thank you for your detailed posts on settings and what has worked for you. I ordered an Index, but it won't arrive until January sometime. I'm saving these to reference for the setup process!

Following those instructions, my framerate dropped from 45 to 30FPS and now getting "tearing" with either head or jet movement. I never get above 30FPS with these, however...I assume that is from motion smoothing holding it steady which also may causing the tearing

Visibility to gauges may have gotten a bit better but the downsides outweigh that aspect.

Perhaps you should also include your nvidia settings as well as those can make a difference. I've played around with settings for months.

I know my machine isn't top of the line any longer, but DCS is pretty much unplayable in VR for me in even single player....multiplayer it is an even more a disaster.

Following those instructions, my framerate dropped from 45 to 30FPS and now getting "tearing" with either head or jet movement. I never get above 30FPS with these, however...I assume that is from motion smoothing holding it steady which also may causing the tearing

 

Visibility to gauges may have gotten a bit better but the downsides outweigh that aspect.

 

Perhaps you should also include your nvidia settings as well as those can make a difference. I've played around with settings for months.

 

I know my machine isn't top of the line any longer, but DCS is pretty much unplayable in VR for me in even single player....multiplayer it is an even more a disaster.

I have a worse system then you, and I'm not having any problems, single or mp (pending the sever). What speed is your ram? What PD are you running on steam and/or DCS? I've found PD to have the biggest impact on FPS and I only run 1.2 PD in steam, which is enough for clarity without killing FPS (no MSAA). Some compromise's will have to be made in visual quality until the hardware/software optimization catches up.

Following those instructions, my framerate dropped from 45 to 30FPS and now getting "tearing" with either head or jet movement. I never get above 30FPS with these, however...I assume that is from motion smoothing holding it steady which also may causing the tearing

 

Visibility to gauges may have gotten a bit better but the downsides outweigh that aspect.

 

Perhaps you should also include your nvidia settings as well as those can make a difference. I've played around with settings for months.

 

I know my machine isn't top of the line any longer, but DCS is pretty much unplayable in VR for me in even single player....multiplayer it is an even more a disaster.

Start Custom resolution at 178% instead of 188% to get a baseline, if that doesn’t work well go to 168% then to 158%. Also the percentage doesn’t have to end in 8. I think I’m currently at 194% from a starting value of 204%. What are your current settings? What Nvidia driver are you running and what version of Steam VR? My Nvidia settings are currently pretty tame. I only have prefer maximum performance, low latency mode at ultra and pre-rendered VR frames at 3.

So I have spent lots of time tuning and have found I can consistently keep frame times in the 16-19MS with NO RED flying f18 low over Dubai with the following settings -

Process Lasso set affinity with DCS using 12 threads (6 CPU, and 6HT), VRCompositor using 2 threads, and the rest on 2 threads

I shut off the Windows 10 game DVR - https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=257972&highlight=registry+game

I set steam for:

auto resolution in video tab - 150% SS

per app resolution setting - 150% SS

motion smoothing ALWAYS ON

80Mz

The rest of the settings can be found in this post -

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4138265&postcount=5

This has performed very well in most situations - especially with MP A2A Refueling where my other settings left me with a slide show with MSAA on. I still get *some* aliasing and shimmer, but it is very light and the detail is amazing.

As always, I am looking for smoothness first and quality second, and this for me seems to be checking both boxes. YMMV

My Settings:

SteamVR: 1.9.13 (I've tried Beta/Release with no difference)

General tab: 100% SS, no motion smoothing

Video tab: 100% SS, no motion smoothing

90Hz

So basically I am using the native resolution of the index for all my applications.

DCS settings

PD: 1.0

MSAA: 2x (I find this makes the cockpit instruments easier to read over upping the resolution and there is no noticeable performance hit for me)

View distance: medium

Trees: 30%

AF: 16x (I don't see a change in lower values, plus it seems to reduce shimmers quite a bit)

shadows: low

dirt...: off

cockpit lighting: off

Nvidia settings are default or application controlled. I too have set prefer max performance.

version: 441.66 which is the latest. I've not seen a difference in performance over the last 6 months of driver releases.

My fps never goes above 45, and will drop to low 10s while on the ground at larger airfields (the first mission in the F16 list)

Using FPSVR, It is using > 90% of the CPU, and around 80% of the GPU and 10GB out of 11 on the VRAM. Reprojection is at 55%ish

I also do iracing, and can run at 144Hz if I wanted. the CPU load is extremely heavy in iracing, GPU not so much, Elite dangerous I can run at max graphics with no fps issues, so I would think if there was something so wrong with my hardware/settings/drivers/etc that I would have issues with other games/simulations.

MSAA: 2x (I find this makes the cockpit instruments easier to read over upping the resolution and there is no noticeable performance hit for me)

No noticeable performance hit? Wow, you're pretty unique there then! :)

No noticeable performance hit? Wow, you're pretty unique there then! :)

I'd rather not be if it fixed my fps :) It seems if I up the res to compensate for no MSAA, I take a bigger hit. Now going from 2x to 4x that is a no-no for me.

Start Custom resolution at 178% instead of 188% to get a baseline, if that doesn’t work well go to 168% then to 158%. Also the percentage doesn’t have to end in 8. I think I’m currently at 194% from a starting value of 204%. What are your current settings? What Nvidia driver are you running and what version of Steam VR? My Nvidia settings are currently pretty tame. I only have prefer maximum performance, low latency mode at ultra and pre-rendered VR frames at 3.

Set up per your initial post several back and it was choppy. Modified it with the changes above in custom resolution and it got better. Still a bit of a “flicker” in a snap roll but no crashes and actually had a dog fight on a MP server.

Still some tweaking to go obviously but better.

Going to bump my GPU and CPU to some very mild over clock to see if that brings things around a bit more. Im at 90 refresh rate on headset fyi.

Thanks for help so far!!

Maximum resolution of human eyes

I think there's frame interpolation available.

 

 

My hope in the future is having 8k panels at 240hz, with onboard upscaling of lower resolution inputs, as well as onboard frame interpolation.

 

The key is making you feel like you're in real life, even if not all the frames are drawn.

I think you have to first update your eyes in order to process that:

I'd rather not be if it fixed my fps :) It seems if I up the res to compensate for no MSAA, I take a bigger hit. Now going from 2x to 4x that is a no-no for me.

If your only super sampling is 150%, even with MSAA at 2x your frame rates should be fantastic. Even with a 1080Ti. I don’t know what to tell you, especially if your other games are good to go. Maybe do a wipe and and reinstall of DCS clean, which means wiping your saved games folder as well.

Obviously it’s not the the Index or your hardware.

Set up per your initial post several back and it was choppy. Modified it with the changes above in custom resolution and it got better. Still a bit of a “flicker” in a snap roll but no crashes and actually had a dog fight on a MP server.

Still some tweaking to go obviously but better.

Going to bump my GPU and CPU to some very mild over clock to see if that brings things around a bit more. Im at 90 refresh rate on headset fyi.

Thanks for help so far!!

If you haven’t done so already turn off Hyperthreading in BIOS. That is unless you need it for something other than gaming. The most I’ve been able to get out of my 9900K is 5.1. Turning off hyperthreading will lower temps by about 8c and possibly make make DCS less choppy as well. I don’t OC video cards. Personally I’ve not seen good enough results to chance burning up a $1,300 video card lol. Others have had good results though.

So I have spent lots of time tuning and have found I can consistently keep frame times in the 16-19MS with NO RED flying f18 low over Dubai with the following settings -

 

Process Lasso set affinity with DCS using 12 threads (6 CPU, and 6HT), VRCompositor using 2 threads, and the rest on 2 threads

 

I shut off the Windows 10 game DVR - https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=257972&highlight=registry+game

 

I set steam for:

auto resolution in video tab - 150% SS

per app resolution setting - 150% SS

motion smoothing ALWAYS ON

80Mz

 

The rest of the settings can be found in this post -

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4138265&postcount=5

 

This has performed very well in most situations - especially with MP A2A Refueling where my other settings left me with a slide show with MSAA on. I still get *some* aliasing and shimmer, but it is very light and the detail is amazing.

 

As always, I am looking for smoothness first and quality second, and this for me seems to be checking both boxes. YMMV

I'm going to give this a try since I haven't taken this exact route before. It is however similar to setting 148% custom resolution and DCS Application at 138%. Your settings are actually higher.

As to Process Lasso I haven't had good experiences with setting affinity probably because I didn't set as many cores/threads to DCS. Then again my Hyperthreading is off so I only report the 8 physical cores and 16 threads. Also I didn't go as far as setting the threads, only the cores. When I did this I would get static in the audio whenever I zoomed in and overall choppy performance. I know DCS uses 1 of the 2 threads it's recognizes for sound only and I assume my results had something to do with that.

What I do use Process Lasso for is forcing Priority. I force DCS, SteamVR Server and SteamVR compositor to REAL TIME priority when they are running and it seems to smooth things out. It could also be placebo though lol.

*EDIT*

Just tried your settings and they were too much for me. I jumped on my wings server which is running Clearfield, I start in the hangar and am usually right at 45 FPS with very slight dips until I move out. After applying your settings I was locked at 30 FPS. Oh well, new settings are always worth trying!

Had a crash free evening in the Just dogfight server. Using your initial settings but creeping them up until I got funky junk happening then backed off. Mostly smooth, cockpit very readable and even shot down a few planes but unless Im still jacked, There is just no way I can even tell which way a plane is headed unless my nose is just about to ram it. I did vaguely identify a mirage and a half smear by my window in the opposite direction. Maybe VR is for BVR??

WVR in VR means about 5 miles or closer to really make out the aircraft and aspect angle. I use a healthy dose of Spyglass zoom as well but we’ll be behind the curve in comparison to monitors for a while yet. SA in VR is time acquired. I don’t know what you’re allowed in the dogfight servers, but I call for bogey dopes constantly, my cockpit scans include the HSD in the Viper, SA page in the Hornet, working the radar to know what’s around whether I can lock it or not and the all important RWR. Of all sensors available the RWR is what I rely on most. Also knowing the opposing aircrafts capabilities and WEZ is paramount when using the RWR especially in the Viper which sorts threats by their engagement ranges.

I fly almost exclusively online and have done so for 2 years solid in VR starting with the CV1. I had no issues dogfighting with it because I did it all the time. After a while of doing it in the same jet you’ll get a sixth sense so to speak of what’s going on around you. SA. Just keep doing it while you get your settings dialed in. You should have no issue seeing the bandit once in gun WEZ which is about 2000 feet for a good solution.

Did you set Anisotropic Filtering to 16x? That makes the biggest difference in seeing objects farther away.

Thanks, yep 16x. I just find it interesting that I look down and feel like I could read a billboard but when I fly past a plane I see several outlines smeared together. Im assuming it is because the plane is moving faster than it can be completely rendered. I did some “tuning” of the base computer and my benchmark score was highest on the list when compared to “similar systems” As described by the benchmark program. (Superposition) so my graphics card is up to snuff. I have nod deactivated hyprthreading in the bios. Will it make that big of a dif? If so, how is it done? Thanks!

Crazy how people can have the exact setup yet they respond so differently.

If your only super sampling is 150%, even with MSAA at 2x your frame rates should be fantastic. Even with a 1080Ti. I don’t know what to tell you, especially if your other games are good to go. Maybe do a wipe and and reinstall of DCS clean, which means wiping your saved games folder as well.

Obviously it’s not the the Index or your hardware.

I've already wiped/reinstalled, actually I've done that twice over the last 6 monts. I've been fighting this since I got VR and several VR headsets, O+, Rift S and now the index. All of them had FPS issues and only with DCS.

I just ran a simple mission from a smaller runway in the Caucasus, runway just E of Kutasi...can't remember the name. Had 45 FPS until I started moving down the taxiway, then it bounced between 25ish and 45 with tons of stutters....and looking down the runway I only got 15fps.

While sitting in the hangar on startup, 2 f16s taxied in front of me, both were stuttering past. Getting in the air it does better on very simple missions, but multiplayer...forget about it.

I have nothing other than DCS running, no streaming, no nothing.

I've already wiped/reinstalled, actually I've done that twice over the last 6 monts. I've been fighting this since I got VR and several VR headsets, O+, Rift S and now the index. All of them had FPS issues and only with DCS.

 

I just ran a simple mission from a smaller runway in the Caucasus, runway just E of Kutasi...can't remember the name. Had 45 FPS until I started moving down the taxiway, then it bounced between 25ish and 45 with tons of stutters....and looking down the runway I only got 15fps.

 

While sitting in the hangar on startup, 2 f16s taxied in front of me, both were stuttering past. Getting in the air it does better on very simple missions, but multiplayer...forget about it.

 

I have nothing other than DCS running, no streaming, no nothing.

To you and @Mr. Big "Bigg's"

Go into BIOS and turn off Hyperthreading. Not knowing what MB you're using I can only tell you where to look. I have an Asus Rog Strix Z370 E Gamer but most BIOS menus are similar.

Reboot into BIOS by holding down or repeatedly pressing DELETE or F2 as it's powering up.

Once in you should be able to choose an Advanced Tab at the top, then scroll down till you see CPU Configuration and open it. Look for Hyperthreading and disable it. That's it.

Reboot, start DCS and see how it flies.....

Turning off Hyperthreading will not effect most games. Unless you're using some type of number crunching program or video processing the only performance hit you'll see is when using synthetic benchmarks which are as the name implies "synthetic". The only benchmark I use is DCS.....

I have the same MB as you, already turned it off....one of the things I did even before I got VR. Already did BIOS and driver updates on the MB/Vid Card. I've done it all, read countless posts, reinstall of the OS, turned off all the gaming stuff in Win 10....power management, tried every nvidia driver, steam vr or dcs open beta update as soon as they come out to see if it changes anything. Even tried a USB 3x card vs using the onboard one which is known to cause issues (more on the Rift S than others) I've done all kinds of benchmarks on it and burn in tests, it scores above or matches similar hardware.

Every time I see others posting up their settings I give it a shot to see what if anything changes. In your case the motion smoothing which I don't think I ever tried as most others I've read say leave it off. I've been building computer systems since the XT days and this is one of the few things I've never been able to figure out.