edmuss

Just as a sanity check, have you disabled openvr in varjo base? There's a bug associated with varjo base and steamvr that slaughters performance for no reason, turning off openvr support seems to help

Good stuff, always the simple things! I don't know if the issue lies with valve or varjo, I think it's the former though with a steamvr update (possibly a beta?). I've not had the problem and can run openvr and openxr via varjo base without issue; I'm on an older GPU though, perhaps it affects the 40xx?

Check to see if openvr is enabled or disabled in varjo base. I think some hardware/steamvr configurations causes varjo performance to tank if openvr support is enabled. Just untick the openvr box, leaving openxr enabled and see if it improves it

Are you sure that you're reading appGPU and not appCPU? 3.4ms is 295 fps which no GPU is going to achieve in DCS VR When checking frametimes for performance, it's worthwhile disabling turbo mode in openxr toolkit as this will give spurious CPU values. Glad it's running a little better now though!

The problem isn't so much the hardware but a limitiation of the DX11 DCS engine when it comes to very high resolution; it's just not as efficient as modern engines - the upcoming vulkan engine upgrade should hopefully alleviate the issue. If you consider the resolution that the 8KX is running at, a brief google seems to indidicate that 5024x3160 per eye is the render target. You may be running less than this but to put it into perspective, this gives a render pixel count of almost 32mp which is equivalent to 3.8 * 4k monitors. You're simply asking too much of the GPU to be able to run DCS >75fps constantly at that resolution. For reference, the reverb G2 at 100% needs 19.5mp and the varjo aero at 35ppd (default high resolution setting in varjo base) needs 7mp due to the way that the eye tracking DFR (Dynamic Foveated Rendering) works. Have a look at using QVFR by mbucchia to give you some of the performance gains of DFR despite you not having an eye tracking headset, it will simply revert to a fixed foveated rendering but you may be able to see the lower resolution peripheral area depending on the lenses and how you set it up. You don't need open composite, that is a very old and now deprecated method of running DCS via openxr, you should be using openxr natively via the MT preview beta. The DCS performance overlay is right ctrl + pause, however the openxr toolkit overlay will give you more information, particularly with the advanced level of detail. Keep an eye on appGPU frametime value, your ultimate aim is to keep it below the refresh rate, if you can do this then it should all be smooth. Frametime = 1000/fps so for 75Hz refresh rate your frametime target is 13.3ms, if your appGPU frametime is above 13.3ms then you have missed the refresh rate and you will experience stuttering and/or trigger reprojection. All of the information you need about openxr toolkit is fully documented on the website https://mbucchia.github.io/OpenXR-Toolkit/

Only hypothethesizing here as I'm not familiar with the pimax software.... Smart smoothing is reprojection, therefore if you fail to hit your refresh rate of 75Hz it will hack the FPS down to half (37/38) and then once your GPU has the frametimes below refresh rate of 13.3ms it will disable the reprojection and FPS will rise back up to 75 again. The cause of the framerate drop could be CPU or GPU, have the DCS performance overlay enabled and look to see what spikes occur in the lower charts. I suspect that you're only just beating refresh rate + the overhead for running the reprojection so when the scene gets more complicated (low level or in the merge) it's dipping the framerate (74fps will be enough) and triggering reprojection. Try turning smoothing off and see if it still happens, if you drop below refresh you may start to see ghosting/double image of fast moving objects, particularly when looking sideways.

It's annoying that they aren't willing to offer a lower refresh rate, however I've found the varjo runtime to be pretty smooth even below refresh rate; certainly much better than WMR. With a 4090 and decent CPU you should be hitting 90fps in most modules. Some scenarios it's just not possible of course. With my system I'm at about 75-85fps in the hind on Caucasus and about 5fps less on Syria (apart from Damascus which is about 65-70fps). A10C and AV8B are pegged to 90fps nearly all the time.

I don't supersample at all, set the resolution in varjo base. Generally it's one of the following configurations: - 35ppd and downsample the peripheral to 0.85 Or 39ppd and downsample the peripheral to 0.75 Some people supersample the focus area as well but it's rather have the frames as I'm GPU limited. Edit: for reference, at 39ppd foveated, the aero pixel count is about 14mp. The G2 @100% render resolution is 19.5mp.

Inversely, I see no noticable ghosting with DLSS in the aero, DLAA alone is slightly crisper but then it's 20fps slower; on my hardware it's a no brainer, especially as I see no negatives to it. No AA is not an option for me though, even at 39ppd in the aero DCS is still a shimmerfest, MSAAx2 almost gets rid of it but DLAA completely eliminates it

To be fair, the xr4 isn't marketed for gamers; to buy it for only gaming is just a bit silly

I have a sheepskin pad on my chair, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, always comfortable

@BIGNEWY can you report to the team that the leap dll file that is being packaged with DCS is causing failure to start in DCS again. Need to rename or delete it out of the mt-bin folder in order to start up VR.

Also ensure that touch is enabled, it's possible to have it disabled in which case you can't flick any switches.

If it were the leap 1 I could have given you an stl for either top or bottom mount Have you checked the ultraleap website, they had a mount you could download for the original leap, would be suprised if there isn't something similar available. Failing that, 3M VHB works nicely.

Aye, the blur has never bothered me, it's not like I'm trying to achieve high speed photography with my eyes. Whenever I turn to look at something things are blurred and then pop back into focus, how much that has to do with highsiding a supermoto onto my face about 18 years ago I don't know I do sometimes struggle to focus my right eye in the dark if my left eye is closed.

You do only have 14 days to send it back though! I think the difference is that with DCS the motion blur doesn't get noticed as much because you're not so often moving your head to look around at things that are close, cockpit panels are normally just quickly glanced at with the eyes. If you are making large head movements then you're typically looking way outside of the cockpit and therefore not focussing on it up close and the blur becomes invisible. Consider how it might be if you're racing in a car though, you turn your head to look into the apex of the corner and at the car along side you and the whole of the car cockpit around you blurs, I think the difference is the distance of the object on which you're focusing. Certainly no one seems to mention it in any of the review videos for the aero...

Same as any of the VR oddities, reprojection artifacts, chromatic aberration, lens distortion, lens blur, sub refresh rate stutter, display panel flicker etc. etc. The human mind is very good at adapting, some people are more susceptible than others to certain things and VR is a very personal experience

The motion blur is an odd one, it's been suggested that it's to do with frame prediction with head movements as it doesn't affect objects moving quickly (it's not an issues with the display persistence). It doesn't bother me at all although it is noticeable; eyes have just filtered it out. I guess it's worse for room scale play if you're moving your head a lot? The redshift makes a big difference, @speed-of-heat check the varjo discord, there's a thread on the red fix in there. The password should still be live though. https://discord.com/channels/839478779256897546/953295284841115709/1123979827163181157 Bernhard Bergers very handy GUI tool lets you quickly dial in and tweak the reshift offset value. You currently need to apply the redshift fix every time you start up varjo base. https://github.com/bernhardberger/OpticalAdjustmentGUI

The only issue that I know of is to do with core scheduling, this may not be a problem now though. From what I understand, only half of the CPU has access to the 3D cache so you may want to force DCS onto those cores.

Helos are system intensive unfortunately, always pull less FPS in rotary wing. Not helped by the fact that you naturally want to turn up all of the eye candy down low! Generally I found that reducing the resolution have a better result then upscaling for me. The upscaling has a computational GPU cost (alleviated somewhat with DLSS as it's run on the RTX tensor cores) and the benefit was outweighed. It may be different with the native 2.9 upscalers, with openxr toolkit I found NIS to give a better image than FSR.

The trick with the aero is that whilst it's very high resolution, it's only a tiny area that you're rendering. Pixel count on a G2 at 100% resolution is 19.5mp Pixel count on an aero at maximum resolution is 14mp Run the aero as a stereo render (as per the G2) and it will be worse performance than the G2. @Comante Unfortunately I think you may just be trying to push too much through with the G2/1080 combo, but you have to make best of what you can! You're limited on VRAM capacity so 100% check out Taz's optimised textures, it will help. BS3 has the blurred rotor mast tech inherited from the ah64, it eats 8-10fps with my 3080ti when it gets up to full speed. I believe that BS2 isn't afflicted so you will get better performance. If you're running the G2 @60Hz then it's great if you can keep the frames high enough, however if you dip below then it gets very rough. It wasn't until I upgraded to the 3080ti could I keep the frames >65fps constantly. 2.9 gave some performance improvements but you can't leverage the big one of DLSS because you're on a GTX

Thanks for the update, as far as I was aware, all 3rd party devs had access to the API, obviously this isn't the case. Truth be told, it's been stable and for the large part perfectly usable for 12-18 months now. @BIGNEWY Can this be looked into? If people don't have the tools then they can't develop the implementation!

OXRTK isn't compatible with varjo-foveated so you will need to disable the DCS profile (you can still use it for other games of course), essentially all you will need is varjo-foveated. Make sure you read the wiki but as long as you don't do anything silly then it's a very simple setup If you're desperate to use openxr toolkit or OBSmirror then you will need to use QVFR, however it doesn't play as nicely with the aero as with other headsets and needs a little more configuration - there's a slightly higher CPU usage and an unfixed bug whereby the eye tracking data doesn't get passed forwards and it reverts to fixed foveated. General consensus of opinion is that varjo-foveated just works better for the aero.

I do, it's enabled by default in varjo-foveated. Like with WMR it's an edge case scenario as to whether it helps or not, very situation dependant. I seem to recall that once it was proved out on WMR it was tested with varjo and found to be beneficial - I've seen no negatives from leaving it enabled

I went G2 to Aero back in May this year, to me vertical FOV is essentially the same, horizontal FOV is wider though - the viewport is more of a letterbox shape. Think of the view out of a motorcycle helmet. The crystal has more vertical FOV, particularly downwards so checking panels might be easier, this has never been an issue for me though, in the aero I can read both HUD and MFDs in the A10C just by moving my eyes. Performance wise the aero is faster than the G2 when using varjo foveated due to the lower pixel count required. A sort of bad point to note about the aero, there is a slight motion blur that is apparent when moving your head, this does not bother me in the slightest however some it does. It's nothing to do with the panel latency as fast moving objects whilst holding your head still are perfectly clear. Varjo have said that there is nothing that can be done to fix the issue. If you find it bothers you then you have a 14 day window to return it to varjo - just be eyes open. I use 2 htc vive V1 base stations that I got from CEX for 50 quid each, both up front, slightly above the headset, canted inwards and downwards. Tracking is perfect and I don't lose it even when checking 6. I love my aero, it's super comfy, the active cooling is superb when it gets warm and the clarity and performance just works for me. Is it perfect? Possibly not but it's a great bit of kit.