Thoughts on ASW- Rift

[dburne]

I have had my Rift since mid January, and now have many hours with it in DCS under my belt.

And of course having read about this ASW thing for the Rift, I now certainly have a better understanding of it also.

 

So when I first setup my Rift and went into DCS to make adjustments, I was trying to get it closer to that 90 fps mark where ASW would not be needed.

After a lot of time and a lot of tweaking, I found that at least for me and what I want to see, I was not going to be able to do this. I was not willing to give up as much of my graphics quality that I would need to in order for this to happen.

 

So I thought to heck with it, when ASW is running on my Rift, I still get a very smooth and stutter free environment. And it looks pretty good to me even with it running.

 

So now I have cranked some settings back up. Run 4x MSAA, 4x AS. Set my cockpit shadows on High. I really like my cockpit shadows. I run terrain on med, but terrain textures on high. Have clutter and trees about medium, preload radius pretty high. I do not currently run terrain object shadows, though I may experiment with running them on Flat soon.

 

So while with my settings I don't much see 90+ fps anymore if at all, it is still very smooth and enjoyable to me. I have decided to just let ASW do it's thing, and enjoy what graphics I can get out of it.

 

Curious about others thoughts on ASW with the Rift and their experiences as well.

[Bearfoot]

Same.

 

I used to obsess about FPS. But now I realize that regardless of FPS, what is more important is that the experience is smooth. And that's where ASW comes in. Locked at 45 FPS most of the time, but so what if ASW smooth things out and I see no judders/stutters? If a tree falls in a forest it doesn't make a difference if it makes a sound or not if I am not there to hear it.

 

The problem comes, of course, on some missions in which I cannot maintain smoothness even under ASW, and things become ugly at 22-23FPS. Not all, by far, or even most. But a few specific ones (e.g., Gazelle Dixmunde campaign mission 2; F5E BFM campaign FAM mission). Here, no matter what I do with my settings, even knocking back everything to minimum, it seems I cannot improve matters. So, as based on another thread, I am probably going to upgrade my GPU.

 

[Note:

My rig is currently 4790K@4.5Mhz, 980Ti, 16GB RAM, SSD. DCS system settings of high-res textures and terrain, cockpit at 1024, 8x MSAA, 4X Anisotropic filtering, 1.6 PD. Clutter and trees at 0, very high pre-load radius. Cannot remember what my shadow settings are.]

[Johnny Dioxin]

Didn't like ASW to start with - it messed up my DCS World environment a lot - especially in external views (used for screenshots and videos).

 

I had been managing fine with ATW, so was doubly frustrated that ASW seemed to be being forced unnecessarily onto me. I downloaded the SDK just so that I could switch it off.

 

However, I recently upgraded my rig's vital bits (cpu,graphics and motherboard) and reinstalled Windows and lo and behold, ASW is suddenly not the thorn it used to be.

 

There have been a couple of updates to the Oculus runtime in the meantime, but I think it's down to moving up to the Pascal chipped graphics card. It's only a 1060 6GB, but even so, I noticed a huge difference in VR, especially in the VCs (in all my flight sims).

[Cruachan]

Is there any way to know that ASW is engaged or enabled? I'm aware of the ctrl-numpad combinations, buy I'm just not sure it's working correctly aside from a smoothness I may not realize.

 

If it is enabled, I should see my fps lock to 45 where it would otherwise be ~90?

 

Thanks,

-Cru

[Bearfoot]

Is there any way to know that ASW is engaged or enabled? I'm aware of the ctrl-numpad combinations, buy I'm just not sure it's working correctly aside from a smoothness I may not realize.

 

If it is enabled, I should see my fps lock to 45 where it would otherwise be ~90?

 

Thanks,

-Cru

 

Yes re: locked FPS. But the best way would be to use either the Oculus Debug Tool or the Oculus Tray Tool. Tells you everything you need to know, plus full control over lots of settings.

[Boris]

My experience with ASW ist that it causes graphics glitches (warps the gunsight in the spitfire for instance) and causes ghosting, most noticeable when aircraft are flying by at speed.

 

I've always turned it off for these reasons.

[some1]

warps the gunsight in the spitfire for instance

 

It's more a problem with bad propeller effect in spitfire that was already reported, other WWII aircraft don't have such issue.

[Boris]

It's more a problem with bad propeller effect in spitfire that was already reported, other WWII aircraft don't have such issue.

 

There are also other instances where this is an issue though. Ghosting is the most prominent.

[funkyfranky]

My experience with ASW ist that it causes graphics glitches

Same here. It's not only the prop of the Spit but all kinds of lines independent of the aircraft that show a distortion when you move your head. I also tend to turn ASW off very often.

[Einherjer]

I love my ASW, smooth gameplay even when it drops to 30fps , the Artefakts are not a Problem for me, but stuttering is

[fitness88]

I have had my Rift since mid January, and now have many hours with it in DCS under my belt.

And of course having read about this ASW thing for the Rift, I now certainly have a better understanding of it also.

 

So when I first setup my Rift and went into DCS to make adjustments, I was trying to get it closer to that 90 fps mark where ASW would not be needed.

After a lot of time and a lot of tweaking, I found that at least for me and what I want to see, I was not going to be able to do this. I was not willing to give up as much of my graphics quality that I would need to in order for this to happen.

 

So I thought to heck with it, when ASW is running on my Rift, I still get a very smooth and stutter free environment. And it looks pretty good to me even with it running.

 

So now I have cranked some settings back up. Run 4x MSAA, 4x AS. Set my cockpit shadows on High. I really like my cockpit shadows. I run terrain on med, but terrain textures on high. Have clutter and trees about medium, preload radius pretty high. I do not currently run terrain object shadows, though I may experiment with running them on Flat soon.

 

So while with my settings I don't much see 90+ fps anymore if at all, it is still very smooth and enjoyable to me. I have decided to just let ASW do it's thing, and enjoy what graphics I can get out of it.

 

Curious about others thoughts on ASW with the Rift and their experiences as well.

 

 

 

+1 https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=184504&highlight=ASW

[dburne]

I have now moved terrain to High, AS to 8X, and turned terrain object shadows on to Flat.

 

Still getting very smooth performance so far, and definitely looking better.

[funkyfranky]

I have now moved terrain to High, AS to 8X, and turned terrain object shadows on to Flat.

It's very interesting that you can afford shadows :) I have not tried to turn them on in a long time because they were always such an FPS killer.

 

Did the performance in game improve meanwhile or is it due to your better hardware, i.e. the GTX 1080?

[dburne]

It's very interesting that you can afford shadows :) I have not tried to turn them on in a long time because they were always such an FPS killer.

 

Did the performance in game improve meanwhile or is it due to your better hardware, i.e. the GTX 1080?

 

Hard for me to say, as I did not get the Rift until after I had the 1080 card.

 

I had not really tried higher quality settings until now, after deciding that heck even with ASW running my experience was still very good, thought I would give it a try and see. I have only had the Rift since mid Jan, don't know that ED has done anything in that time regarding VR performance.

 

Edit: BTW this is all in 2.0, have not tried the same in 1.5 as of yet.

Edited April 5, 2017 by dburne

[Wolf8312]

Yeah you can still get a good performance cranking things up. But if you crank things up and play for a while and then drop down to no AA, shadows or MSSA (especially) it really is alot more fluid fps wise...

[Aries]

ASW rulez...

Try to bob your head left right when ASW on or off with the ctrl + numpad combination and you'll actually notice all the benefits...

 

ASW off - blurring and stuttering on details

ASW on - much sharper details (like forests and ground textures) but a little glitching

 

With ASW it's smooth or nausea-free even on 10-15 FPS

 

So in my case (GTX970, i7 4790K @4.6GHz) ASW definitely FTW!!!

[Bearfoot]

I agree: occasional ghosting is sooooooooooooooooo much less annoying than frequent/constant stuttering.

 

The most prominent ghosting I actually notice is when tracking bandits flying past me at high speeds: typically, at that point, I'm just glad enough to spot them and too involved in the moment to care!

 

Whereas the stuttering is annoying and total immersion-breaker ...

[dburne]

The most prominent ghosting I actually notice is when tracking bandits flying past me at high speeds:

 

That is pretty much my experience as well, and about the only time I really notice any ghosting.