VR Performance in DCS World

[_Acoustic_]

Thanks for all the info guys, I was just curious on why my settings seemed to not change things. Glad to know I'm not the only one.

 

I tried the same at McCarran and it was basically the same, seemed locked at 45. I flew around for about 20 mins again before having to take a break. Not sure if it is just normal VR induced tiredness or if the FPS is getting to me, I don't really notice jitters but can't really fly for more than 20 mins.

 

It is beyond awesome. The resolution is lower than I had hopped but I quickly forget about it with the scale, immersion and just overall wow factor. You actually feel like you are in the valley around Las Vegas in the rift, it is insane.

 

Once the resolution bumps and the FOV gets bigger it is going to be as real as it can get.

[Fab]

Everyone is having problems with VR, even on low settings yet we have Mr. Wagner who commented a while ago saying VR gameplay in DCS is great and flawless using both headsets. What a misleading information!

I'm now cancelling my Vive preorder and the only thing I regret about is that a couple of months ago I've spent so much on the high end PC just mainly for VR in DCS and it turns out that not only I have to set everything on LOW in graphics settings but even then I can't have a smooth flight. I don't care how immersive you feel while wearing this useless (in DCS) headset through which you can't even see and appreciate high details of the sim even with 980ti.

I bet DCS is at least 2 years away from a good VR experience and about 5 years from calling an excellent experience.

 

So much hype with this BS VR on DCS forum!!!:hmm:

 

I am fuzzed by all of you, not getting good FPS in Oculus Rift.... I still run DK2, as I am waiting for CVS. I have a FPs at 65 stable with this set up...

I think all you, that gets bad fps, dont tweak your Pc enough... Its NOT a plug and play thing...

[Milopapa]

I am fuzzed by all of you, not getting good FPS in Oculus Rift.... I still run DK2, as I am waiting for CVS. I have a FPs at 65 stable with this set up...

I think all you, that gets bad fps, dont tweak your Pc enough... Its NOT a plug and play thing...

 

I think that is a pretty arrogant statement.

 

I spent many hours trying out different tweaks to get closer to the constant 90fps the Vive needs to run smoothly and I'm fairly confident it cannot be done with the current engine.

Everything low/off, no shadows, object/visibility tweaks for graphics.lua (through autoexec) and no joy.

I cannot get it to go below ~15ms frametime, let alone meet the target 11ms. And if you miss by just 1ms, you've missed a frame.

And while the reprojected 45fps works okay while looking ahead, anything on the sides is jittery as sh*t and breaks immersion. There's only so much 45fps can get you after all.

 

The sad thing is, this is with top tier hardware: i5@4.2GHz, 980Ti@1500, 16GB RAM, SSD.

 

I don!t think 45fps max should count as official VR support.

[Fab]

I think that is a pretty arrogant statement.

 

I spent many hours trying out different tweaks to get closer to the constant 90fps the Vive needs to run smoothly and I'm fairly confident it cannot be done with the current engine.

Everything low/off, no shadows, object/visibility tweaks for graphics.lua (through autoexec) and no joy.

I cannot get it to go below ~15ms frametime, let alone meet the target 11ms. And if you miss by just 1ms, you've missed a frame.

And while the reprojected 45fps works okay while looking ahead, anything on the sides is jittery as sh*t and breaks immersion. There's only so much 45fps can get you after all.

 

The sad thing is, this is with top tier hardware: i5@4.2GHz, 980Ti@1500, 16GB RAM, SSD.

 

I don!t think 45fps max should count as official VR support.

 

The big diffrence between Rift and Vive is the software... Rift got a software, that counteracts the missing frames, and therfor the jitter... "dont aske how its done, but it works.

 

I dident mean to sound arrogrant, I am just wondring why, so many got these problems, and my set up dosent. What I do know is, when Runtime 1.3 from Oculus was released, with its new software, I got rid of the jitter and my frame rate went up.

[Milopapa]

That's (ATW) Anyschronous TimeWarp, it's "inventing" frames to fill in the missed ones.

That doesn't change the fact that the DCS engine is not capable of running this at full 90fps even with the lowest possible setting.

Your true FPS is probably nowehere near 90, you just don't notice it. That's why ATW is brilliant.

[hansangb]

I think that is a pretty arrogant statement.

 

I spent many hours trying out different tweaks to get closer to the constant 90fps the Vive needs to run smoothly and I'm fairly confident it cannot be done with the current engine.

Everything low/off, no shadows, object/visibility tweaks for graphics.lua (through autoexec) and no joy.

I cannot get it to go below ~15ms frametime, let alone meet the target 11ms. And if you miss by just 1ms, you've missed a frame.

And while the reprojected 45fps works okay while looking ahead, anything on the sides is jittery as sh*t and breaks immersion. There's only so much 45fps can get you after all.

 

The sad thing is, this is with top tier hardware: i5@4.2GHz, 980Ti@1500, 16GB RAM, SSD.

 

I don!t think 45fps max should count as official VR support.

 

Out of the box with zero tweaking (other than setting it to LOW and *with* FLAT shadows - twice) I get well over 45FPS. This is with Huey instant play in NTTR. I haven't had time to try A10's etc just yet.

[DerekSpeare]

You turn on the built in frame counter in DCS by pressing RCTRL+PAUSE - press it a second time for a much more detailed summary of the objects being processed. ATW makes a big difference with the Oculus. My PC cannot run 90 FPS (actual) when flying over dense city areas with everything turned on low. It's not for want of hardware.

Edited May 18, 2016 by DerekSpeare
Corrected error in frame counter keypress combo

[Milopapa]

For the record, the default performance stats keycombo is RCTRL+Pause, but you're right. That's where I'm getting the frametime information. (BTW - does anyone know how to read the individual numbers? I can only guess what air, surf, shadows, update, parse...etc can be.)

The trouble is, with the Vive it's either 90fps or 45. No such thing as 89fps, it immediately drops down to 45fps. Kind of like vsync. There is no magic rounding up like with the Rift.

 

Btw, I'm mostly testing with the Huey, P51 and BF109. Tried downtown Vegas and Groom Lake in NTTR, and also 1.5 stable and Open beta.

 

I get an occasional 90fps when not much is going on and then something kicks in and I go down to 45fps, probably 90% of the time.

Funny thing is, once you start missing 11ms frametime, you might as well start adding more and more visual elements. I can go to 4xMSAA and high textures, I'll still be below the next big limit of 22ms and able to maintain 45fps.

The counter is wrong, btw, the total is always 0.

[Milopapa]

Forget that 24fps bullshit. That's a lie.

Especially for content that doesn't have motion blur = 99% of computer generated imagery.

Even on a 2D screen you need fps > 60 and in VR you need 90, otherwise you'll get stuttering which will quickly get you sick. (Your brain expects the world to move when you move your head.)

 

To answer your most important question: it's totally playable with the 45fps (90fps is a dream), it's one of the most immersive things currently in VR and a total gamechanger for flight sims.

 

On Rift vs Vive:

If you're interested in sims only, get a Rift. ATW is pretty nice to help with performance issues.

If any of the roomscale videos about the Vive looked cool to you, get the Vive. It's going to change your world.

[SharpeXB]

Forget that 24fps bullshit. That's a lie.

Especially for content that doesn't have motion blur = 99% of computer generated imagery.

Even on a 2D screen you need fps > 60 and in VR you need 90

Right. 24fps is a standard for film motion pictures, not games. Films don't have fast first-person head motion. A smooth rate in gaming is one that matches your monitor i.e. 60fps. 30fps is perhaps considered the bare minimum but once you get used to 60 you won't like anything else. And the goal for VR is 90.

[DerekSpeare]

24fps is nonsense. The closer your frame rates are to your VR HMD's refresh rate the better the use experience. Ideally you want it to exceed it in all instances.

[SkateZilla]

Guys dont start with the name calling.

 

Anyone having performance issues, please check your GPU clock speeds when running oculus.

 

ALOT of people are having issues (especially AMD), with Rift Home locking GPUs at 501MHz.

[average_pilot]

Has anyone tried 1.5.2? Performance was remarkably better by then. Although only the DK2 was supported AFAIK. I'm really curious to know if anyone see a difference in VR performance, too.

[SkateZilla]

there is Runtime .6+ to 1.3 wrappers out on the interwebz now, so you "could" use cv1 with older runtimes.

[Milopapa]

Guys dont start with the name calling.

 

Anyone having performance issues, please check your GPU clock speeds when running oculus.

 

ALOT of people are having issues (especially AMD), with Rift Home locking GPUs at 501MHz.

 

What are you implying here?

 

I'm having performance issues and I have 980Ti running full speed.

 

Seems like a few people on these forums want to downplay the importance of the fact that even with top tier hardware you cannot run this game at VR framerates, no matter how much dumbed down the graphics. No need to get all defensive, it's a fact.

 

Disclaimer: I simply love that in VR DCS I finally approximate the feeling of IRL flight. I just want it to run at VR firendly framerates.

[Milopapa]

Right, silky smooth.

Can I please get a framerate/frametime measurement? Not the fake one with ATW but what the engine outputs (rctrl+pause).

Thanks!

[average_pilot]

Something wrong with your computer bro, I fly DCS multiplayer with silky smooth frames at medium settings on a GTX 980.

If people keep saying these things the performance issue won't be fixed ever.

 

There is something wrong with DCS. It doesn't emerge in all computers, making it a "debatable" subject, but after so many years with the same problem (very low frame rates when rendering map objects no matter how powerful is the user's computer, no matter how low the detail settings) they should admit it by now.

VR is only making this more evident.

 

ED has already proven they are really good at their stuff and that they know what they are doing. What they should do now to fix this last bit is to setup a replica of those powerful computers that are struggling to run DCS at decent frame rates, use whatever performance/debugging tools they had, catch the flaw and fix it forever more.

 

Anticipating typical replies, I already know how DCS is CPU bound, that a flight simulator engine is more complex that a typical game engine, that Direct3D calls have a high extra load...

What I'm seeing is that people with a GTX980 or the like are running everything smoothly in their computers including DCS while others with a GTX 980 or the like are running everything smoothly in their computers *except* DCS.

Edited May 19, 2016 by average_pilot

[Milopapa]

@14th_JAR: What you're seeing is probably the effect of Oculus's Asyncronous TimeWarp (ATW), which basically takes the last valid frame and distorts it, in case it doesn't get a new frame from the engine in time to refresh the display at 90fps.

It's a last resort mechanism for frame drops and shouldn't be used to make up for engine issues.

 

For the HTC Vive, a similar mechanism duplicates the last frame to avoid frame drops - it essentially lowers the fps to 45 to fight frame drops, a more drastic solution.

 

My point is, in both cases the game engine fails to supply 90fps so the VR API needs to insert fake frames to create the illusion of constant head movement - otherwise you get stuttering which results in nausea.

 

As an illustration, look at this chart (from Niko's benchmark thread).

I've added the 90fps line with color coding myself to illustrate the engine performance - look at the ratio of green vs red...

 

 

These only show medium and high settings but you have the same effect with Low.

 

 

The performance hit is not as obvious as on the "3 Monitor" High FOV display setup but still big enough to conclude the DCS engine is starving the cards.

(...)

I strongly believe there is something with the DCS 1.5 engine not being able to feed the GPU in time when running 3 screens in high FOV ("3 Monitors" profile) WALL mode.

[adrianstealth]

Performance ok, bit it needs a sharpen slider, would benefit from sweet fx type of plugin to make image clearer

[Milopapa]

Dude I appreciate you taking the time to try and ruin it for me but unfortunately I'm not understanding any of what you are writing.

 

Never mind then.

 

My point was to highlight the engine needs some work with VR and unfortunately if all the Rifters are going to keep saying "hey, this is smooth as butter for me", ED is not going to do anything about it's bottlenecked engine.

[Milopapa]

First, let me quote myself from an earlier post:

I simply love that in VR DCS I finally approximate the feeling of IRL flight. I just want it to run at VR firendly framerates.

I spent 2 hours flying around Vegas last night in a Huey chasing civilian traffic like a police chopper and had a blast.

 

But, to date, I've spent ~$240 on DCS licences, most of it after they claimed VR support.

I think it's fair to expect proper support of a feature they promised for that amount of money. That's 5-6 full AAA titles worth of money.

 

I have a Vive and it's not smooth.

I'm trying to be constructive and did a lot of research already on performance tweaks. I've yet to see someone with a Vive claim they can run it fullspeed in VR.

 

I'd shut up the instant someone could tell me how to run this at 90fps.

[DerekSpeare]

I don't see anyone running 90fps (system frame rate) flying around Las Vegas. I have my settings all on low/minimum (cockpit shadows to low) and can't stay at 75fps without drops using the DK2. If you're flying over open desert or water (other map) then sure, frame rates go to the moon, but the areas with densely populated objects will bog down the frame rates.

[Vivoune]

Everyone gets it 14th_JAR, your experience in DCS with your Rift is butter smooth and you don't see any problems thus don't care others might.

 

That doesn't mean everything is perfect, that things can't get perfected nor that everyone is having the same butter smooth experience than you are. Try to show a bit of empathy and tolerance towards others which experience might differ from yours just like you, rightfully so, show support and faith in ED.

 

Like Derek explained it perfectly, hardly anyone can achieve the targeted 90fps in the most demanding parts of the maps in DCS currently, Rift or Vive, and VR headsets are only going to go up in resolution, drastically, so looking at possible engine optimisation techniques for VR seems rather sensible, which is probably already being worked on. I didn't see Milopapa whining about DCS and VR, nor anyone trying to "ruin" the fun you are having.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Vivoune

[DerekSpeare]

Here are my graphical settings for both v2 and V1.5.

[Nascar]

Hi Guys

 

Reading all these forums messages on the Vive and Rift its getting depressing, as I haven't made up my mind on which one to buy yet. :cry:

 

is it smooth or does it get herky jerky

 

Thanks

 

Is it smooth or does it get herky jerky? I have a Vive with a 980ti, it gets stutters and jerky at times but it does that on a monitor or projector as well. I never have seen DCS run butter smooth period. The VR resolution also makes it look as though you have myopia. Does VR have problems? Absolutely. Will I ever play DCS on a monitor/projector again? Hell no, it is freaking amazing in VR.