Looking for Insight on my VR FPS Numbers

[TheThumper]

I have been doing a fair bit of testing and tweaking over the last month for my GPU. My computer specs are in my signature and my graphics card is my weak link so I have been mostly focusing on it.

 

How I have been testing my tweaking:

• Replay the same track (Harrier free flight over the Caucasus approximately 1 minute in length)
  
• Use FRAPS to capture the avg. FPS for 1 minute. Also use NVidia Experience to display FPS in the corner real-time.
  
• Use Window's Resource Monitor to watch all CPU cores.
  
• Use Window's Task Manager to watch GPU performance.
  

 

With the following settings I am seeing about 46 FPS on average. Important note here, both GPU usage and GPU memory were pegged (~100%/6GB).

 

I then applied the VR Shader Mod, found here

 

Now I am seeing about 47.7 FPS on average. Important note here, GPU usage is now down to ~75% utilization and GPU memory is still pegged at 6GB.

 

All CPU cores show less than 50% utilization

GPU usage is now off the peg (down to ~75%) usage.

My FPS still remains 45-50 FPS.

 

My question is:

What is my limiting factor now?

I would like to find a balance that gives me max FPS while pushing the GPU up to it's limit. I am obviously missing something and would appreciate any insights folks are willing to share!

[Ala12Rv-Tundra]

I have been doing a fair bit of testing and tweaking over the last month for my GPU. My computer specs are in my signature and my graphics card is my weak link so I have been mostly focusing on it.

 

How I have been testing my tweaking:

• Replay the same track (Harrier free flight over the Caucasus approximately 1 minute in length)
  
• Use FRAPS to capture the avg. FPS for 1 minute. Also use NVidia Experience to display FPS in the corner real-time.
  
• Use Window's Resource Monitor to watch all CPU cores.
  
• Use Window's Task Manager to watch GPU performance.
  

 

With the following settings I am seeing about 46 FPS on average. Important note here, both GPU usage and GPU memory were pegged (~100%/6GB).

[ATTACH]192282[/ATTACH]

 

I then applied the VR Shader Mod, found here

 

Now I am seeing about 47.7 FPS on average. Important note here, GPU usage is now down to ~75% utilization and GPU memory is still pegged at 6GB.

 

All CPU cores show less than 50% utilization

GPU usage is now off the peg (down to ~75%) usage.

My FPS still remains 45-50 FPS.

 

My question is:

What is my limiting factor now?

I would like to find a balance that gives me max FPS while pushing the GPU up to it's limit. I am obviously missing something and would appreciate any insights folks are willing to share!

I would decrease the two options regarding shadows

[TheThumper]

Thanks for that advise. I have had them off and it does increase FPS, but I guess I am under the impression that if the GPU usage isn't pegged at 100% it has the bandwidth to handle the minimum shadows.

[Ala12Rv-Tundra]

what´s your pixel density setting?

And anything weird regarding Nvidia Control Panel options?

[some1]

Do you use ASW or ASW off?

 

With asw (or whatever it's called on other headsets) you get either 45 or 90 fps. Without it you can get variable fps, but the way the algorithm works, it will still be biased toward 45 if your pc can't generate much more. It's just how the smoothing algorithms work.

[Quadg]

the biggest performance hitters are pixel density, MSAA and view distance.

so reducing those to the smallest you can live with will give you the best bang for your buck.

 

don't worry about average. I worry about minimum. its all about staying at or above 45.

for the best experience.

[TheThumper]

Thanks for the questions and insights!

 

• My current Pixel Density is set at 1.2. At 1.5, FPS really took a nose-dive and at 1.0 I could really notice a decrease in picture quality.
  
• As for Nvidia Control Panel, I have everything at default. Just did a 'reset' of the settings in the control panel recently to ensure of this. Not sure these are the correct settings, but I figured there were enough variables so went stock with those.
  
• On the comment concerning ASW or not. I am using a Samsung Odyssey WMD headset. I have seen much discussion around the Oculus Rift settings for ASW, but I am not sure how that is handled with the WMD headsets, can anyone point me info on this? I will say that the FPS mostly hanging at 45 points to some magic attempting to keep it there.
  
• As for your suggestions around PD, MSAA, and View Distance.... I agree and have lowered as much as I "want to", but and here is where I am really struggling:
  

My expectations are that with unlimited 'computing horsepower' the FPS should approach infinite, but in real world scenarios, you would reach some FPS number and see the limiting computing hardware (GPU I believe in my case). My confusion comes from seeing that FPS cap, but not seeing the GPU, nor CPU, 'pegged'. What else is the bottleneck? I have free system memory left and although my GPU memory is pegged, when I lowered textures enough not for it to be fully utilized it also didn't raise FPS (at least much).

Again, appreciate all the input!

[Johnny Dioxin]

Some of us have seen an increase in framerates in VR after doing the nVidia firmware update.

[Darkman]

[fitness88]

I would check that Nvidia Control Panel>manage 3d settings>program settings specific for DCS make sure Power management mode is set to 'Prefer maximum performance'.

 

 

Without having both shadows set to at least Flat which I have, you will not have any terrain shadows which will be a big visual loss, at both Flat you don't eat up too much FPS.