reported earlier Cloud jitter & movement

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

I do not have to change any of the setting about shadows and refresh rate and I have the same observation -- little stuttering near to the horizon, and the rest seems fine.

[havok2]

21 hours ago, Highwayman-Ed said:

I finally managed to fly DCS this morning without significant cloud jitter, but the method of doing so is undesirable.

 

1. started Oculus Desktop Client and set the refresh rate to 72Hz (lowest)

2. Start Oculus Debug tool and force ASW on thereby forcing 36Hz

3. Start DCS and select the Low preset.

4. Disable shadows entirely (both regular and terrain)

5. When DCS restarts after the settings have changed, start a quick start mission with clouds.

 

The clouds on the horizon still move a little, but nothing remotely close to how much they did before.

 

This is the only way with my i9-9900KF and 2080Ti that I could achieve a constant stable frame rate that matched the refresh rate of my headset.

 

I then tweaked settings gradually up (and not that much unfortunately) until I reached the point where DCS couldn’t maintain a stable FPS and the jitter became apparent as the FPS dropped below the 36fps threshold.

 

Not trying to provide any workaround or suggest that FPS is the underlying issue, but thought others may find it interesting.

 

Sounds like the simulation that is rendered seperately over the „game“ uses

 

A: a fixed Framerate that is off to the frames per second in the game (may 60Hz so its closer with 72Hz then) or

 

B: DCS uses kind of motion interpolation in vr that creates interpolated frames but the simulated and seperately rendered clouds still interpolate the frames - so we have an offset between a frame from the game that is nterpolated between frame 1 AND 2 (call it frame 1.5) and you still see the clouds from frame 1 OR 2. So you have 0.5 Frames difference in between. So ED had to manage to code an Interpolation for the cloud sim too. Sounds not very trivial and would explane why is not already fixed during the last updates. So I dont think its kind of „oh we just forgot to round the values here“

[Vanguard]

4 hours ago, havok2 said:

Sounds like the simulation that is rendered seperately over the „game“ uses

 

A: a fixed Framerate that is off to the frames per second in the game (may 60Hz so its closer with 72Hz then) or

 

B: DCS uses kind of motion interpolation in vr that creates interpolated frames but the simulated and seperately rendered clouds still interpolate the frames - so we have an offset between a frame from the game that is nterpolated between frame 1 AND 2 (call it frame 1.5) and you still see the clouds from frame 1 OR 2. So you have 0.5 Frames difference in between. So ED had to manage to code an Interpolation for the cloud sim too. Sounds not very trivial and would explane why is not already fixed during the last updates. So I dont think its kind of „oh we just forgot to round the values here“

 

I don't think it's either, otherwise it would eventually "catch up". You can slowly move your head up and down, the clouds move offset to everything else and never align, so I don't believe its a render rate issue IMHO.

[RosyPlays]

+1
The clouds are shaking and stuff, Doesn't happen in 2D only happens in VR, I use Oculus Quest 2.

Also I found while recording my gameplay with Xbox recorder the clouds weren't shaking like in the VR headset. 

Edited May 23, 2021 by RosyPlays

[Flappie]

Clouds jittering does happen in 2D. Just shake yoru head all over the place and you'll see the exact same thing. The issue is simply much more noticeable (thus more unpleasant) in VR.

[Tobur]

Just wanted to report same jitter issues with clouds. 2D, Trackir, clouds @ultra. Crossing fingers for a fix, kills the mood a bit with the new clouds

[havok2]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:05 AM, Vanguard said:

 

I don't think it's either, otherwise it would eventually "catch up". You can slowly move your head up and down, the clouds move offset to everything else and never align, so I don't believe its a render rate issue IMHO.

I did a little more research today. The functions of the new clouds are in the files atmosphere.hlsl as well as their includes. In the line float skyLerpFactor = smoothstep(atmNearDistance, atmFarDistance, d); a kind of temporal smoothing is applied depending on the distance and camera position! I noticed today that clouds farther away wobble significantly, while clouds close to the plane do not. I then tried the VR zoom and noticed that clouds that were wobbling before were no longer wobbling. This indicates that the cloud positions are time smoothed. However, this also means that the position of the clouds permanently changes between the camera position of the left and right eye and accordingly a "camera" is used that jumps back and forth between the eyes. When the head is rotated more quickly, the wobble becomes virtually invisible. Only when you hold still. ED should form the clouds simply on the basis of one eye and not on the basis of both eyes. You can also see very nicely how the clouds become more detailed if you zoom the camera very far away in the outside view and rotate very fast and then stop. It actually makes total sense for 2D and also VR. Objects farther away change their position in space almost invisibly within a few frames. The closer clouds, however, do. Partly the clouds are enormously pixelated, then quickly soft again.
Currently I'm trying to turn off smoothing completely to confirm this behavior or to make the system think all clouds are near clouds.

 

Ok it is something that is simulated in an exe directly. Maybe directly in the dcs.exe. Its definitly timesmoothing or progressive rendering the clouds. There is no way to edit something from the code here. The only thing that can be edited are the cloud-templates itself (clouds.lua). I think its implemented as an overlay that is simulated dedicated and composed with the rest, but its not reachable for us

 

I‘ll hope ED is able to fix that soon. I did‘t played since 2.7 Beta - because I want these Clouds but in VR I get sick from this wobble …

Edited May 26, 2021 by havok2

[falcon_120]

Any improvement on today's patch? Its not in the change logs but you never know...

[sirrah]

8 hours ago, falcon_120 said:

Any improvement on today's patch? Its not in the change logs but you never know...

Nope, it was just a hotfix for several game crashing bugs

 

Little more patience 

[Picchio]

On the theme of VR and clouds, is there any solid information regarding planned clouds' quality in VR? I mean, has it been officially stated that the current 2D quality options will also be available and functional in VR?

[Jafergon]

3 hours ago, Picchio said:

On the theme of VR and clouds, is there any solid information regarding planned clouds' quality in VR? I mean, has it been officially stated that the current 2D quality options will also be available and functional in VR?

 

I created a thread about that particular question

At some point BN said that the issue has been reported to the team, but so far no word about if it's been worked or not. I'm 100% possitive the cloud jitter issue is going to be fixed soon as stated many times by the team, but the issue of scalable quality settings to get the same detail in VR as in 2D (even at the price of lower fps), remains a bit of a mystery... maybe it's roots are in the jitter issue and both will be fixed together...

[FZG_Immel]

Still Jittering in 2D.. very disappointed

[fagulha]

No more jittering here (Valve Index user) at least for now. Just fps problem in first hours but now after trial and error everything is back to normal. Finally can enjoy the clouds in VR.

Thanks.

[30mikemike]

1 hour ago, FZG_Immel said:

Still Jittering in 2D.. very disappointed

2D here also...I don’t get how it can be fixed for VR but not for 2D, they’re the same clouds so I’m confused. And, like you, disappointed...

[Lange_666]

12 hours ago, fagulha said:

Just fps problem in first hours but now after trial and error everything is back to normal.

 

Can you describe this FPS problem a bit more and what you did during trial and error to bring it back to normal?

[fagulha]

4 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

 

Can you describe this FPS problem a bit more and what you did during trial and error to bring it back to normal?

Well, my setting in graphics.lua and Nvidia Control Panel were limited to 145 fps by me but DCS keeps on 50/60 fps. So, i did a fresh install of nvidia drivers (erased options a did a refresh of my settings in NVCP) and things back to normal to me. But before that i checked my Throttle to Fixed (default is Auto) at 120 fps in SteamVR Video options (Per Application Settings and choose DCS).  

[30mikemike]

Can anyone confirm the cloud movement issue is now fixed for 2D? Too busy with work to get on DCS at the minute....thanks.

[cro_mig_21]

Unfortunately, still not fixed...

[Flappie]

When the initial 2.7 came out, I used to see jitering clouds with my own eyes. But now in 2.7.1.7139, I cannot reproduce this issue.

 

Can you guys please post a track and a video showing the issue?

(I only fly DCS in 2D by the way)

[Ithronwise]

Hi Flappie,

in the video I posted in the thread "new clouds corruption" you can see the jittering from 1:35 min (clouds right of the HUD) and from 1:56 min (clouds within the HUD):

 

When you jiggle on the stick, the clouds move up and down in the same rhythm. Best seen when the clouds are in front of hills or mountains.

 

Trackfile:
F-18C Test Graphic glitch Cloud jittering NTTR.trk

 

Best regards,
Rene

Edited June 8, 2021 by Ithronwise
Additions

[Flappie]

Many thanks. I had a hard time seeing the issue in your video, but I eventually saw this thanks to your track. Here's a very short clip with an arrow, to help seeing the issue.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Flappie

[FZG_Immel]

Still not fixed after 3 patches? really ?

[KillEmAll88]

I have the cloud jitter as well in 2D ,Track IR 5. 

 

If I look around in the cockpit there is a lot of jitter. It's nothing extreme they just shake/vibrate while looking around. 

[trigen]

A video really cant do it justice but here you go. Its just a really really bad experience in VR at even 4x AA and 2700 SS and Ultra clouds.  Its not all the cloud layers but these are just awful. Combined with a jittery Pimax will have these flicker like crazy all the time.  
 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by trigen

[Slice313]

I can still see jitter in 2D, it is very distracting... I will try to make a short video today.

 

I play with everything at High/Ultra (Clouds Ultra), capped FPS withing the engine at 60 FPS and also use G-sync.