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Quest 2: Anyone tried AirLink yet


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8 hours ago, Nealius said:

 

My logs do show dropped frames due to encoder backup, but my VRAM is not maxed or exceeded when I look at my resource usage. VRAM is only 97% at most, and nothing else is getting maxed out either. It's also inconsistent. I fly the same missions most of the time and I can do 6 flights with no issues, then the next 6 will all have the white bar. Then I'll have two flights that are fine. Then the white bar will come back on the third flight. On the same missions.

 

I've tried the terrain textures low and textures medium tricks, but terrain textures low doesn't do anything except make it impossible fly proper bombing patterns with visual references, and textures medium makes cockpit labels unreadable. 

 


Don't use HWinfo or whatever, use task manager > performance > GPU. Windows shows usage rather than allocation and what those other monitors don't show you is the shared video memory being used, which windows does show. Some VRAM is hardware reserved (about 149mb) so when I start dipping into RAM I'm seeing my VRAM at 7.8/8.0GB, but when I look at shared video memory I see it go up to 8.5/40GB. This tells me that windows has apportioned 32GB of my system RAM (I have 64GB) as shareable video ram, the 8.5GB tells me that windows is now using 600-700mb of that RAM. Your sig says you have a 2070; I have a 3070 and I can't run high terrain textures, high cockpit textures, MSAA and a decent resolution without way overdrawing VRAM and tanking my performance.

Unless you're running your quest at a low resolution (and no MSAA which costs more VRAM based on resolution) then you're dipping into shared memory, which has garbage performance. 

Terrain textures to low is a no-brainer, the differences in terrain textures are minimal except in Syria and even then it's mostly just sharpness. Terrain textures cost >700mb of VRAM for a tiny amount of gain in visuals (I've found the VR shader adds more sharpness anyway). 

 

The main textures at medium are a mixed bag, and you can get away with high textures if you run lower res or disable MSAA. Personally I run my res at about 4864x2448 with 2x MSAA. You can swap out MSAA for high textures here, but you won't be able to run high terrain textures with high cockpit textures on an 8GB card. At Medium textures, modern modules like in the F-18, A-10Cii and F-16, remain very readable for me especially with the sharpening mod, but some of the older modules can be blurrier. Low textures look terrible IMO and are a different story. The problem with textures is that they don't just apply to your cockpit, but to other jets and external models, etc, so you can get really bad hits in crowded conditions. 

 

8 hours ago, Nealius said:

 

 I fly the same missions most of the time and I can do 6 flights with no issues, then the next 6 will all have the white bar. 

 

This is typical of the VRAM issue. It doesn't always happen because sometimes a particular set of circumstances will let you skirt the issue or recover. But if you have the Syria map and the A-10Cii module, then try this:

Load into free flight, orbit around the city you start over and then open the F-10 map and quickly zoom out to full zoom. You'll see the map stutter and hitch and then when you close the map you'll see the ground textures have to load back in from low LOD. Check your shared video memory usage in task manager and you should be well over 8GB. Quiet often this will result in a framerate in the single digits very quickly.

Once it happens in a mission, it will stay, it's like the oculus encoder never fully recovers, you need to exit the game and restart. If you look at task manager you'll see that DCS often doesn't release VRAM in these circumstances, I've seen VRAM remain at 7.8GB in the main menu after having an overrun.

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2 hours ago, ShaunOfTheFuzz said:


Your sig says you have a 2070; I have a 3070 and I can't run high terrain textures, high cockpit textures, MSAA and a decent resolution without way overdrawing VRAM and tanking my performance.

 I'm not running MSAA, with the only three things "high" being terrain textures, textures, and water. Literally everything else is off except for flare effect (eliminates canopy glare), visible distance medium, and low shadows. The latter being CPU bound from testing on my rig. DCS PD 1.0 Oculus resolution 1x. Even with textures high some cockpit gauges or labels are illegible in some modules. There's not much lower I can go except the water. Shadows flat or off screws with some of the MFD/gauge visibility in some modules (not enough contrast to read them). 

 

Quote

the differences in terrain textures are minimal except in Syria and even then it's mostly just sharpness.

The difference is huge in NTTR. With terrain textures low I can't use the concentric circles as targets in 62B because they aren't visible from the roll-in point (8,100AGL 2.2nm base).


Edited by Nealius
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I run at PD 0.7 and it makes light and day across all map, I can still manage to get high settings in Texture, Land, and Water, cause I am using a wimpy RTX-2060

VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants -- this is how I fly. We do not fly at treetop height, we fly between trees(TM)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9BDi-STaqgWsjNiHbW0fA

My simple missions: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/284071-vr-flight-guy-in-pj-pants-simple-missions/

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I run at PD 0.7 and it makes light and day across all map, I can still manage to get high settings in Texture, Land, and Water, cause I am using a wimpy RTX-2060
How do you see cockpit and mfd?

Inviato dal mio motorola one macro utilizzando Tapatalk

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I'm still messing around with mine.  Had to connect my PC to my router mesh to get a stable signal.  I'm still not too happy about the image fidelity even at 1.2x supersampling, it is soft of ok but using it back to back against my wired Valve Index there is a noticeable difference in picture quality with the Index being more sharp, vibrant and contrasty.  I understand it's compressed vs noncompressed video signals so it's fine for general gaming and wireless can be a plus (although the battery life is somewhat poor).


Edited by Supmua
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PC: 5800X3D/4090, 11700K/3090, 9900K/2080Ti.

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5 hours ago, Nealius said:

 I'm not running MSAA, with the only three things "high" being terrain textures, textures, and water. Literally everything else is off except for flare effect (eliminates canopy glare), visible distance medium, and low shadows. The latter being CPU bound from testing on my rig. DCS PD 1.0 Oculus resolution 1x. Even with textures high some cockpit gauges or labels are illegible in some modules. There's not much lower I can go except the water. Shadows flat or off screws with some of the MFD/gauge visibility in some modules (not enough contrast to read them). 

 

The difference is huge in NTTR. With terrain textures low I can't use the concentric circles as targets in 62B because they aren't visible from the roll-in point (8,100AGL 2.2nm base).

 

 

If you bump terrain textures to low, you can either rule it out or not. As for the cockpit having low readability, that's due to resolution *not* textures. I don't know how much raw performance your 2070 has, but every little bit you can push resolution up by, will improve clarity *far* more than textures so long as they're not at low. 

If I run my quest at 1x (I assume you're talking about 72Hz) then text can be pretty blurry with high textures, but if I run at 1.2x then text is clear at medium textures. I've added a picture below of medium textures so you can see for yourself

 

*Make sure to click on the picture below to open the original and not the compressed preview!*

 

Capture.PNG


Edited by ShaunOfTheFuzz
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2 minutes ago, ShaunOfTheFuzz said:

 

If you bump terrain textures to low, you can either rule it out or not. As for the cockpit having low readability, that's due to resolution *not* textures. I don't know how much raw performance your 2070 has, but every little bit you can push resolution up by, will improve clarity *far* more than textures so long as they're not at low. 

If I run my quest at 1x (I assume you're talking about 72Hz) then text can be pretty blurry with high textures, but if I run at 1.2x then text is clear at medium textures. I've added a picture below of medium textures so you can see for yourself

 

 

 

So a slightly higher resolution actually takes less VRAM than increased textures? I'm not very knowledgable on what eats VRAM vs. what eats GPU. 

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Just now, Nealius said:

 

So a slightly higher resolution actually takes less VRAM than increased textures? I'm not very knowledgable on what eats VRAM vs. what eats GPU. 

 

It can, so for instance, the textures have a fixed value of VRAM right? High textures are a given size and low textures are a given size, the difference can be 800MB of VRAM or so. But resolution can be increased in increments of 5%. You're going to hit a maximum performance cap one way or another, because even with VRAM to spare your card can only push so many pixels, but resolution is king here. In terms of raw performance, textures cost very little on fps *so long as you have the VRAM to spare*, once you exceed your vram they'll destroy your performance.

On the flip side, resolution will decrease your performance every single time you increase it, so the goal is to increase it until you reach a point where your framerate is stable in all situations. For quest you're aiming for 36 fps reprojected with a little bit of headroom  for dips. When you get to this point, if you see that you have VRAM going unused, then by all means increase your textures. Your card won't be able to push the same resolution as mine, so you might hit the resolution performance limit with enough VRAM to spare for higher textures, but there's no way you can afford high cockpit and ground textures with a decent resolution on 8GB

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3 hours ago, Lorenzo.D said:

How do you see cockpit and mfd?

Inviato dal mio motorola one macro utilizzando Tapatalk
 

I run at 90Hz, and set the resolution of the headset to the higher 1.3x (funny how Oculus name their resolution settings) through the Oculus app to compensate. I even turn off the MSAA since it eats the frame rate so badly.  HUD on F/A-18C, A-4E-C and AJS-37, except T-45C, are very readable. As for the MFD, the right MFD of F/A-18C is great, I can read the left one by leaning a bit forward, and I have the zoom into to read the middle one. To benchmark, I get at least 36 and most of the time 40+ with the first training mission of the F/A-18C.


Edited by VFGiPJP
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VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants -- this is how I fly. We do not fly at treetop height, we fly between trees(TM)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9BDi-STaqgWsjNiHbW0fA

My simple missions: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/284071-vr-flight-guy-in-pj-pants-simple-missions/

NSRI - National Strategy Research Institution, a fictional organisation based on wordplay of Strategic Naval Research Institution (SNRI), a fictional institution appears in Mobile Suit Gundam UC timeline.

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52 minutes ago, VFGiPJP said:

I run at 90Hz, and set the resolution of the headset to the higher 1.3x (funny how Oculus name their resolution settings) through the Oculus app to compensate. I even turn off the MSAA since it eats the frame rate so badly.  HUD on F/A-18C, A-4E-C and AJS-37, except T-45C, are very readable. As for the MFD, the right MFD of F/A-18C is great, I can read the left one by leaning a bit forward, and I have the zoom into to read the middle one. To benchmark, I get at least 36 and most of the time 40+ with the first training mission of the F/A-18C.

 


Just in case you've missed the discussion about this in the past, there's no benefit to using PD < 1.0 and compensating with oculus or steamvr and Bignewy also mentioned before 2.7 dropped that PD < 1 affects the rendering of the new clouds (though I can't be certain that he didn't mean an equivalent PD of 1.0). You can see the details in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1gcgAXhgtA

Basically, you can set either your PD or your oculus res to 1x and tweak the other. This makes it easier and more consistent to tweak as well because you're always talking like for like with other people when you discuss oculus res or PD if you hold the other one constant. When you have one of them at 80%, then you have two different scaling factors at work and people need to get out calculators to compare.

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PD is in the DCS VR setting.

 

I watched the video regarding PD= 0.5 and the rebuff video too. I tested the former and it does not work!

 

I like to be proven wrong so I am going to test using PD = 1.0 again. Back in my Steam version days, PD = 1.0 really hurt the frame rate no matter what resolution setting in SteamVR.

 

Update: I set the headset to 1.0x and PD = 1.0 and the visual is more or less the same -- still cannot read clearly the gun round count on the left MFD and my HIGH clouds look more or less the same, while the frame rate is up a bit. I kick up to PD = 1.1 and the frame rate drops by 4 - 9 fps. No good.

 

Side note: Virtual Desktop has updated to support 120Hz. I tried it with my old setting, the frame rate still subpar when compared to Air Link, and the notorious stuttering of the load screen remains.


Edited by VFGiPJP

VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants -- this is how I fly. We do not fly at treetop height, we fly between trees(TM)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9BDi-STaqgWsjNiHbW0fA

My simple missions: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/284071-vr-flight-guy-in-pj-pants-simple-missions/

NSRI - National Strategy Research Institution, a fictional organisation based on wordplay of Strategic Naval Research Institution (SNRI), a fictional institution appears in Mobile Suit Gundam UC timeline.

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13 hours ago, ShaunOfTheFuzz said:



On the flip side, resolution will decrease your performance every single time you increase it, so the goal is to increase it until you reach a point where your framerate is stable in all situations. For quest you're aiming for 36 fps reprojected with a little bit of headroom  

 

I might not have enough headroom, then. Even with my low settings and standard/low resolution, I only get 30fps with ASW off at 72Hz when on the ramp at an airfield. Even at altitude amongst the clouds I don't think I reach a solid 36.

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7 hours ago, Nealius said:

 

I might not have enough headroom, then. Even with my low settings and standard/low resolution, I only get 30fps with ASW off at 72Hz when on the ramp at an airfield. Even at altitude amongst the clouds I don't think I reach a solid 36.

 Back in 2.5.6 I was playing on my vive comsos with a 5700XT, I used to be able to get 45 fps solid without motion smoothing (ASW equivalent but much worse artefacting). I can't remember my exact settings but a 5700XT is somewhere between a 2070 and a 2070 super in terms of performance. I'm playing on higher res at the moment and ASW needs a bit more headroom so I lock at 36 rather than bounce around at higher frames. 

Maybe your cpu is the issue, but I'm not sure. Have you ever tried using FPSVR to see your real time performance and where it's going wrong? I'd love to know what your cpu and gpu frametimes are. 

Hopefully we can fix your issues!

 

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The best stress test (or framerate thrasher) for me is the Rising Squall first campaign mission on the supercarrier.
 

There is so much going on in the mission with all the active aircrafts and weapons flying about, as well as music and voiceovers, that would tank my framerate like no others. 

PC: 5800X3D/4090, 11700K/3090, 9900K/2080Ti.

Joystick bases: TMW, VPC WarBRD, MT50CM2, VKB GFII, FSSB R3L

Joystick grips: TM (Warthog, F/A-18C), Realsimulator (F-16SGRH, F-18CGRH), VKB (Kosmosima LH, MCG, MCG Pro), VPC MongoosT50-CM2

Throttles: TMW, Winwing Super Taurus, Logitech Throttle Quadrant, Realsimulator Throttle (soon)

VR: HTC Vive/Pro, Oculus Rift/Quest 2, Valve Index, Varjo Aero, https://forum.dcs.world/topic/300065-varjo-aero-general-guide-for-new-owners/

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2 hours ago, ShaunOfTheFuzz said:

 Back in 2.5.6 I was playing on my vive comsos with a 5700XT, I used to be able to get 45 fps solid without motion smoothing (ASW equivalent but much worse artefacting). I can't remember my exact settings but a 5700XT is somewhere between a 2070 and a 2070 super in terms of performance. I'm playing on higher res at the moment and ASW needs a bit more headroom so I lock at 36 rather than bounce around at higher frames. 

Maybe your cpu is the issue, but I'm not sure. Have you ever tried using FPSVR to see your real time performance and where it's going wrong? I'd love to know what your cpu and gpu frametimes are. 

Hopefully we can fix your issues!

 

 

I tried some of the tweaks you mentioned plus some additional stuff. Oculus res 1.2, DCS PD 1.0, terrain textures low, textures medium, water medium, removed some parked aircraft in my missions, uninstalled MSI Afterburner, disabled Windows Defender, upgraded from my 700W PSU to 850W (probably doesn't matter). Now I have smooth performance often locked at 36 with no artifacting, no Link stutters, and no audio stutters. Yet......


Edited by Nealius
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Quest 2 at 1.2x

PD = 1.0

Terrain: Low

Texture: Medium

Water: Medium

Visual Range: Medium

 

Looks good, but still I cannot read the gun ammo count clearly (especially the digit 8 ) on the left MFD Stores page. FPS reports getting at least 36 during the F/A-18C first training.

 

If you have Super Carrier only, try the Super Carrier Cold Start mission, I get as low as 22 and high at 30 in this one.

 

Addition: downtown Beirut drops to 29 - 36, no good. Return to Quest2 to 1.0x. Until Air Link finally goes 120Hz, I am sticking with this setting.


Edited by VFGiPJP

VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants -- this is how I fly. We do not fly at treetop height, we fly between trees(TM)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9BDi-STaqgWsjNiHbW0fA

My simple missions: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/284071-vr-flight-guy-in-pj-pants-simple-missions/

NSRI - National Strategy Research Institution, a fictional organisation based on wordplay of Strategic Naval Research Institution (SNRI), a fictional institution appears in Mobile Suit Gundam UC timeline.

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1 hour ago, Supmua said:

The best stress test (or framerate thrasher) for me is the Rising Squall first campaign mission on the supercarrier.
 

There is so much going on in the mission with all the active aircrafts and weapons flying about, as well as music and voiceovers, that would tank my framerate like no others. 

 

Agreed that would be a good mission to use for that.

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

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Before this thread goes down into another "What is the best setting for Quest2" thread, I think currently the Air Link  bug which forces the user to have variable bit rate really hurts the experience, some time, what you see in the front blurs so much I cannot distinguish individual trees from hill slope.

VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants -- this is how I fly. We do not fly at treetop height, we fly between trees(TM)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9BDi-STaqgWsjNiHbW0fA

My simple missions: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/284071-vr-flight-guy-in-pj-pants-simple-missions/

NSRI - National Strategy Research Institution, a fictional organisation based on wordplay of Strategic Naval Research Institution (SNRI), a fictional institution appears in Mobile Suit Gundam UC timeline.

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On 5/3/2021 at 4:32 PM, VFGiPJP said:

Before this thread goes down into another "What is the best setting for Quest2" thread, I think currently the Air Link  bug which forces the user to have variable bit rate really hurts the experience, some time, what you see in the front blurs so much I cannot distinguish individual trees from hill slope.

This has been my experience with air link as well. Smooth for a few minutes, then a hard stutter, then a few seconds of what Netflix looks like when you have a bad connection. Then fine again for a few minutes... Wash rinse repeat. 

 

For now I have gone back to the link cable. Although I did try the latest VD with 120 Hz support, and was tickled to see three digits in the DCS  framerate counter for the first time while in VR! It still micro stutters though...

"...I just wanna fly; put your arms around me baby, put your arms around me baby" - Sugar Ray

RTX 3090, Ryzen 7 5800X3D, MSI MPG B550 Gaming mobo, 64 GB DDR4 RAM, 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB game install drive, Oculus Quest Pro via link cable, Standalone DCS beta.

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News: this week, the Oculus PC app has been updated twice to V29 (not a typo, it is really 29), but Oculus does not include any note on what has been changed. After the second update, it seems now you can finally fix the bitrate setting of Air Link, which means once you choose a setting, it stays there until you change it. Before that, it always go back to variable bitrate at 100 Mbs. From what I see, there is no more sudden changes in sharpness. 


Edited by VFGiPJP

VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants -- this is how I fly. We do not fly at treetop height, we fly between trees(TM)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9BDi-STaqgWsjNiHbW0fA

My simple missions: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/284071-vr-flight-guy-in-pj-pants-simple-missions/

NSRI - National Strategy Research Institution, a fictional organisation based on wordplay of Strategic Naval Research Institution (SNRI), a fictional institution appears in Mobile Suit Gundam UC timeline.

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Do you have to have SteamVR for WMR running to us FPSVR? I don't have it so I'm not familiar with it.

 

It would be interesting to see a CPU and GPU comparison between AirLink and the cable Link, to see which taxes the system the most, but I don't really also want to have SteamVR also running in the background. Surely that would impact the results. Is there an alternative to FPSVR that can be used with the Quest without needing SteamVR, (that's assuming it does need SteamVR)?

i5-11600K CPU, 64GB DDR4 RAM, XFX Speedster MERC319 AMD Radeon 6900 XT, Oculus Quest 2, HP Reverb G2

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37 minutes ago, AlpineGTA said:

Do you have to have SteamVR for WMR running to us FPSVR? I don't have it so I'm not familiar with it.

 

It would be interesting to see a CPU and GPU comparison between AirLink and the cable Link, to see which taxes the system the most, but I don't really also want to have SteamVR also running in the background. Surely that would impact the results. Is there an alternative to FPSVR that can be used with the Quest without needing SteamVR, (that's assuming it does need SteamVR)?

 

Yes.

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

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Thanks for the reply. Is that a Yes, you do need SteamVR running?

 

Is there an alternative then that doesn't need it?

i5-11600K CPU, 64GB DDR4 RAM, XFX Speedster MERC319 AMD Radeon 6900 XT, Oculus Quest 2, HP Reverb G2

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2 minutes ago, AlpineGTA said:

Thanks for the reply. Is that a Yes, you do need SteamVR running?

 

 

 

Yes.

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

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