Upgraded From Rift S to Valve Index: Part II

[flameoutme]

So I've had a week of frequent use of my new Valve Index. Here's an update from my previous post of what upgrading has done for me in DCS VR flying.

 

Note: There is only two criteria in my book for a VR experience - Immersion and comfort. That's it.

 

Let's start with visual immersion and what DCS pilots do a lot of - interact with the cockpit which means reading gauges and switches.

 

The Rift S allowed me to easily read larger gauges and make out some medium ones. With the valve index, I can read the medium ones and read a surprising number of small ones and smaller writing. And I could read even more but I dialed things back settings wise because I don't have a top end graphics card - I have a 1080 not 1080ti.

 

Not too many real pilots I have talked to fly and say "standby, let me zoom in on this gauge I can't read it". Yes, in DCS VR, you can zoom. But it's knock to immersion. And quite often, after awhile, you just simply don't do it. Another hit on immersion. This is huge in my opinion.

 

The additional clarity also helps with immersion when it comes to dog fights and experiencing air-to-air from a distance. It's not quite as startling, but it's there and it helps with immersion.

 

The second improvement - and this one totally surprised me - is what the whole "over the ears" speakers do in DCS. I loved my Rift S but the sound system must have been developed after a board meeting in which the CEO said "And for sound, how can we keep that feature for the new Rift S under 50 cents a unit?"

 

Anyone that has used the Rift S knows this.

 

The very acceptable work around for me was to use over the ear headphones for the Rift S.

 

However, what surprised the heck out of me with the Valve Index was this: In DCS preferences audio, I set sounds to come out the computer speaker and headphone dialog to come out the Valve Index speakers.

 

The result? Because the Valve Index speakers are above ear, they don't block out ambient sounds. The engine sounds are experienced - both from front and from reflection in the room - while the communication dialog that a pilot would hear in their helmet is.... heard "in helmet" (VR helmet).

 

Not to mention the whole "comfort" thing because of the *over the ear* speakers.

 

It's a definite immersion enhancing audio improvement.

 

These are the two biggest reasons I am very happy with the upgrade and feel it was money well spent. Could I have gotten by with the Rift S? - absolutely. Would I be happy with going back to the 'S. Nope. Never.

 

That's my report - to me, these two immersion benefits are significant and justify the additional cost.

Edited July 26, 2020 by flameoutme

[dburne]

Nice report, thanks for sharing.

[VirusAM]

Upgraded From Rift S to Valve Index: Part II

 

So I've had a week of frequent use of my new Valve Index. Here's an update from my previous post of what upgrading has done for me in DCS VR flying.

 

Note: There is only two criteria in my book for a VR experience - Immersion and comfort. That's it.

 

Let's start with visual immersion and what DCS pilots do a lot of - interact with the cockpit which means reading gauges and switches.

 

The Rift S allowed me to easily read larger gauges and make out some medium ones. With the valve index, I can read the medium ones and read a surprising number of small ones and smaller writing. And I could read even more but I dialed things back settings wise because I don't have a top end graphics card - I have a 1080 not 1080ti.

 

Not too many real pilots I have talked to fly and say "standby, let me zoom in on this gauge I can't read it". Yes, in DCS VR, you can zoom. But it's knock to immersion. And quite often, after awhile, you just simply don't do it. Another hit on immersion. This is huge in my opinion.

 

The additional clarity also helps with immersion when it comes to dog fights and experiencing air-to-air from a distance. It's not quite as startling, but it's there and it helps with immersion.

 

The second improvement - and this one totally surprised me - is what the whole "over the ears" speakers do in DCS. I loved my Rift S but the sound system must have been developed after a board meeting in which the CEO said "And for sound, how can we keep that feature for the new Rift S under 50 cents a unit?"

 

Anyone that has used the Rift S knows this.

 

The very acceptable work around for me was to use over the ear headphones for the Rift S.

 

However, what surprised the heck out of me with the Valve Index was this: In DCS preferences audio, I set sounds to come out the computer speaker and headphone dialog to come out the Valve Index speakers.

 

The result? Because the Valve Index speakers are above ear, they don't block out ambient sounds. The engine sounds are experienced - both from front and from reflection in the room - while the communication dialog that a pilot would hear in their helmet is.... heard "in helmet" (VR helmet).

 

Not to mention the whole "comfort" thing because of the *over the ear* speakers.

 

It's a definite immersion enhancing audio improvement.

 

These are the two biggest reasons I am very happy with the upgrade and feel it was money well spent. Could I have gotten by with the Rift S? - absolutely. Would I be happy with going back to the 'S. Nope. Never.

 

That's my report - to me, these two immersion benefits are significant and justify the additional cost.

 

 

 

Would you share your settings?

I have both the rift s and the index (arrived 3 days ago).

I love the Index (wide fov, nice screen, wonderful audio) but with a 1080ti I am struggling to achieve good performances also with 80hz display settings.

Using the Rift S i have very high settings and Pixel density of 1.2 and I have no issue in keeping 40 fps minimum.

With the Index the 100% resolution reported by steam vr is much higher then the real one of the headset, but if i lower it (real one is around 52%) also to 90% i have a very bad visual quality worse then with the Rift.

If I lower dcs settings its better but the visual quality again degrades. Expecially I really can’t live with msaa off and shadows off or flat as the jaggies are to much, and without shadows the image seems really fake.

I can live with the water and visibility to medium (both high using rift S) but using the index is not enough to have always 40fps.

So how with a lower card you manage to have good results?

Is my 1080ti a fake one?

If I cannot improve this situation i will return the Index as the Rift S visual quality is not so bad compared to it and lowering the settings for the Index is a no-go as I would have inferior visual quality.

I tried half life alyx (came free with the Index) and it is wonderful and also with the Index no fps issues at all....

Edited July 26, 2020 by VirusAM

[flameoutme]

Would you share your settings?

I have both the rift s and the index (arrived 3 days ago).

I love the Index (wide fov, nice screen, wonderful audio) but with a 1080ti I am struggling to achieve good performances also with 80hz display settings.....

 

Hello @VirusAM,

 

I'm happy to share my settings but first let me mention that I have a 1080 8 gig card, but I have it in a computer with a i-9700k processor, which is pretty high end. I have 32 gig memory. Don't know how much difference that makes, just mentioning.

 

I know one would not think this next item would make a difference, but I observed it. I recently moved my dcs installation from my F drive to my c drive. Both are identical SSD's. But the C drive has Samsung magician with the "rapid" feature turned on. Essentially, it's a 4 gig ram drive. What I noticed was less "micro stutters" with terrain - runs smoother. It's not night and day, but I find any terrain stuttering immersion killing.

 

I don't profess to be an expert on settings, but below are mine. The 1st two are from dcs (The "VR" box isn't checked because I took teh screenshots on the flat screen). The 3rd image is form SteamVR settings.

 

Something that is not showing - I always set my flat screen to a lo res setting before I play VR DCS. I can't say it makes a difference, but it should.... because it's less taxing on the vid card.

 

Secondly, and you can see in the 3rd screen shot, I run my Valve Index at 80Mhz. When I first got it I was running 120, then 90 and finally 80. What I noticed is less stutter in the terrian, and actually a SMOOTHER image when I rotate the a/c. I know, seems counter intuitive. But I observed and tested it by switching back and forth. There are drawbacks to the 80mhz, and in a game like Beat Saber it would really show, but I think the 80mhz is not over taxing my relatively slow graphics card as much as 90,120 etc.

 

 

Want to mention one other thing - if and when I do get a new video card (hoping nvidia comes out with 3000 series next year. Also hoping there is a next year...), I would hope to increase the pixel density. IT would make gauges even easier to read. I am currently running it at 1.4 to reduce terrain stutter.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by flameoutme

[Mr. Big.Biggs]

I’ve been quite happy with the last patch on OB and my index with one caveat. Almost every mission after I land or more often than not get shot down, I have to restart the whole game and go back to the multi player server or I have massive stuttering. First run is always 40-50 fps and mostly smooth. Must be a memory deal of some kind dunno. Great headset tho!

[Taz1004]

I have even worse system. 1080 and i7-4790k. And I get smooth 45fps with no stutter at all. I actually run at higher in game setting than flameoutme except MSAA to 2x. I have Vive Pro instead of Index but resolution is same between the two.

 

Below are what I believe are essential settings.

 

1. Leave in game PD to 1 and play with SteamVR resolution setting.
   
2. SteamVR resolution setting is at two places. Global and Per-Application. And they both take effect. And in Global, it auto adjusts to your computer hardware so 100% is not same for every computer. So go by resolution number and make sure final number in Per-Application is 2x your native resolution. And for Per-Application, you can only adjust while DCS is running. And restart.
   
3. Leave Motion Smoothing off and Legacy Reprojection off.
   
4. If you must have AA, leave in-game MSAA to 2x and in nVidia control panel, turn on MFAA (Multi-Frame AA) and Antialiasing Mode to "Enhance the application setting"
   
5. Also important is to set Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames to 2 or 4. I believe this works in conjunction with MFAA since it also has to pre-render multi-frame. Setting of 4 should be better for fps but has higher latency so your input might lag.
   
6. I have shadow to low but I use Mustang's Shadow mod so even low has high resolution shadow in the cockpit.
   
7. Also if you have multiple monitor... like I have dual monitor and then Vive Pro. I moved my secondary monitor to onboard graphic card port. I saw improvement from this too but this depends on whether your motherboard allows this.
   

Edited July 26, 2020 by Taz1004

[VirusAM]

Hello @VirusAM,

 

I'm happy to share my settings but first let me mention that I have a 1080 8 gig card, but I have it in a computer with a i-9700k processor, which is pretty high end. I have 32 gig memory. Don't know how much difference that makes, just mentioning.

 

I know one would not think this next item would make a difference, but I observed it. I recently moved my dcs installation from my F drive to my c drive. Both are identical SSD's. But the C drive has Samsung magician with the "rapid" feature turned on. Essentially, it's a 4 gig ram drive. What I noticed was less "micro stutters" with terrain - runs smoother. It's not night and day, but I find any terrain stuttering immersion killing.

 

I don't profess to be an expert on settings, but below are mine. The 1st two are from dcs (The "VR" box isn't checked because I took teh screenshots on the flat screen). The 3rd image is form SteamVR settings.

 

Something that is not showing - I always set my flat screen to a lo res setting before I play VR DCS. I can't say it makes a difference, but it should.... because it's less taxing on the vid card.

 

Secondly, and you can see in the 3rd screen shot, I run my Valve Index at 80Mhz. When I first got it I was running 120, then 90 and finally 80. What I noticed is less stutter in the terrian, and actually a SMOOTHER image when I rotate the a/c. I know, seems counter intuitive. But I observed and tested it by switching back and forth. There are drawbacks to the 80mhz, and in a game like Beat Saber it would really show, but I think the 80mhz is not over taxing my relatively slow graphics card as much as 90,120 etc.

 

 

Want to mention one other thing - if and when I do get a new video card (hoping nvidia comes out with 3000 series next year. Also hoping there is a next year...), I would hope to increase the pixel density. IT would make gauges even easier to read. I am currently running it at 1.4 to reduce terrain stutter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing....well i see your settings and are insane for me...i run PD at 1.0 and steamvr at 100% both in general and per-application...the suggestion for my video card is 150%

I use msaa x2...with the rift S i can have pretty much everything on high, I keep the shadows to low. With the index i need to set water and visibility to medium, but still your settings seems impressive to my and there is no way my pc could handle it.

I have a pretty beefy computer as well (i9900k, 32gb, multiple ssd)

Could you share the resolution steamvr puts for your card at 100%?

Mine is set at 2016x2240 per eye.

 

[Supmua]

Day one Index purchase here, really no significant problem except the face cushion is now a mess from overused (mostly by my kids). I think MSSA 4x is too much. I either run with PD 1.4 without MSSA or PD 1.0 with MSSA. Steam res 100%. You can have some anisotropic filtering since it is not that taxing to the system. Whenever you change MSSA, the new setting doesn’t take full effect until after restarting DCS, this can give false impression of good or bad framerate.

 

I only run flat shadows in VR as the ground shadows from trees and building tend to flicker, which really is unrealistic and bothers me.

 

Make sure to also delete all the cache files (NVIDIA cache in AppData, DCS FXO and Metashaders folders).

 

You can run 3DMark VR benchmark and see if your score makes sense when compared to other people with the same PC specs.

Edited July 27, 2020 by Supmua

[flameoutme]

Thanks for sharing....well i see your settings and are insane for me...i run PD at 1.0 and steamvr at 100% both in general and per-application...the suggestion for my video card is 150%

I use msaa x2...with the rift S i can have pretty much everything on high, I keep the shadows to low. With the index i need to set water and visibility to medium, but still your settings seems impressive to my and there is no way my pc could handle it.

I have a pretty beefy computer as well (i9900k, 32gb, multiple ssd)

Could you share the resolution steamvr puts for your card at 100%?

Mine is set at 2016x2240 per eye.

 

 

Mine runs on the "auto" setting. I may or may not have changed the custom setting along the way, so I don't know if SteamVR set the previous "custom" setting or not. I just checked what it was and:

 

2260x2512 126%.

[VirusAM]

Mine runs on the "auto" setting. I may or may not have changed the custom setting along the way, so I don't know if SteamVR set the previous "custom" setting or not. I just checked what it was and:

 

 

 

2260x2512 126%.

 

 

 

That’s insane....i have a better card then you but my system is not able to handle much lower settings then yours without going under 40fps.

But I did a lot of benchmarks and the numbers are in line with what my system should have (passmark).

[flameoutme]

That’s insane....i have a better card then you but my system is not able to handle much lower settings then yours without going under 40fps.

But I did a lot of benchmarks and the numbers are in line with what my system should have (passmark).

 

Ah... I don't trust the numbers under "custom", I may have changed that when I first got the Valve Index, I mentioned this in my post. I have no clue what it sets when play at "auto settings", which will have no relation with "custom"

 

But really, all the numbers and stats can drive one nuts. I can only tell ya that the airplanes I fly the most (F-86, F/A-18 and F-14) operate smoothly, the gauges are readable except for the smallest, and there is tolerable (read minimal) ground micro stutters.

 

Now, I am a single player, no multiplayer.

 

It's important when talking about smoothness to define what maps one is on - low altitude in busy maps definitely degrade smoothness and immersion, but they are all at a tolerable level.

 

I hope you are able to figure out what is going on!