DCS Causing SteamVR Fail | Description, evidence and how to replicate

[Heiduki]

Same problem for me. While playing on MP the Reverb g2 goes often black after f10 map, but dcs is still running with low fps on Monitor and the headset is tracking. Yes it is like roulette...

Many evenings stops this problem a gaming session but my wife like it, cause i spend not more so much money on dcs

I see so much help from the community here, thanks to Stal2k. Maybe someday this problem will be fixed!

 

bye

 

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by Heiduki

[memolipd]

Yep suffering from this too.

In VR after playing for a while when zooming in too far on the F10 map (usually to place AV8B pre-planned targets), DCS becomes unresponsive/crashes.

 

Used to get: 
 

SteamVR Fail
Oh no! SteamVR has encountered an
unexpected problem.
Restart SteamVR      (-203)

followed by screens turning off in my vive HMD, DCS resuming on my monitor at 1 FPS.

Reinstalling Steam VR helped, now when I zoom in on the F10 map after a long mission, instead of the steam VR fail, I get DCS just hanging and becomes "unresponsive" - a common issue with the people I fly with too. I'll try and get a log dump to add some more weight to the issue.

[BIGNEWY]

I am using a G2 now and steamVR / windows mixed reality for steam and dont have any issues. 

I also reinstalled my windows 10 at the weekend after a windows update error, and no issues still. 

 

 

[memolipd]

Just crashed again, its a 100% repeatable problem for me.

after playing for an hour or so, zooming in on the f10 map causes the game to slow down to the point where it stops being responsive.

In this case I clicked on another unit on the f10 map and the game slowed to the point where it became unresponsive. I've tried the TdrDelay fix and that managed to let the game recover after 15/20 seconds of being unresponsive (before the fix SteamVR would die before DCS came back) and then just to test, I zoomed in on the F10 map and then DCS became unresponsive again.

I check my DCS logs (attached), but there's no DCS crash so no logs of use.

The issue is performance is currently borked - zooming in on a busy server causes DCS to "slow down" to the point where windows reports its unresponsive, at which point steamVR will sometimes die.

dcs.log

[memolipd]

Got so fed up of this, I made a video: 

The issue is recreated in 5 mins of joining a server and jumping about.

Again, I've included the log file, but there's no DCS crash.

Also you can see how long it takes (with game even becoming unresponsive) from connecting to the server and loading in. It seems to max out the 32GB of memory I have in my computer...
 

dcs.log

[divinee]

I also had same kind of memory issues and i found that in task manager details tab, one of the steamvr processes had ”high” priority. I changed that to normal and after few days of testing i haven’t manage to get ram usage over 28gb anymore in any situations. I play _very_ big PvE campaigns with syria map.

[memolipd]

@BIGNEWY do you have what you need to at least look into this? 

Is there anything else I can provide to help? Happens every night without fail.

Figured out its made worse by putting the texture quality up, so is definitely memory related.

[divinee]

Try these steps

[memolipd]

I use a Vive headset with a 1080gtx, so don't use WMR or a 3000 series card.

The issue is DCS related, its triggered and made worse by performing specific actions in DCS. It's not hardware related.

[Foxmike]

I had the very same problems. Using my standard mission (Tomcat ready for taxi on Supercarrier with static objects,  starting S-3 and E-2, 3 escort ships) was enough to crash my Reverb1, GPU (2080ti) at 70% and VRAM at 10.7 of 11 immediately. When it didn´t crash in the first few seconds, I only had to jump on the RIO seat and the Reverb stopped. My Hornet was nearly stable with better CPU times and VRAM 10.5 of 11. Even my AV-8B crashed the Reverb immediately.

I was searching for hours and deleted many things out of the mission until the naked carrier group with static objects were left.

The Reverb went out maybe one minute later in the F-14 pit.

 

What was the difference, as this mission worked all the time the last months?

I played around in VR with the new Flight Sim (the name shall not be spoken) launched by a famous OS company and I learned a lot about bottlenecks and configration of my Reverb, RTX and whole rig. At least I can say, together with DCS we have two competitors for world championship of worst CPU and GPU optimization. My Reverb1 runs best with crystal clear screens at SteamVR SS 150% and DCS PD 1.0. Going higher than 150% doesn´t improve the picture but going down to 140 is recognizable . The other sim I have to bring to 100% WMR OpenXR and 100% in game. I can only achieve that by switching my Reverb to 60Hz with motion smoothing always enabled. And that works fine. No 60Hz flicker as reported by many users, maybe my 50 years old eyes can´t see such flickering anymore. I even put Windows gaming mode and HAGS on. My RTX ist overclocked to stable maximum in RAM speed and clock itself .

 

Thanks to Stal2k I tested switching HAGS (and gaming mode) off again. I tested for one hour now, taxiing wild around Supercarrier flightdeck, jumping cockpits and throwing my head in all directions, Map, external cam...... and even if I can get maximum stutter with fps down to the twenties (which is really hard to get running the Reverb at 60Hz with reprojection on because it runs as butter now with all settings to high as possible and even MSAAx4) no more problems. So (for me) the top solution was turning of HAGS in Windows Game settings.

 

At least one thing. It would be really nice, if (as announced by Wags himself) the "natural WMR support" would be integrated to DCS and we could get loose of one more bottleneck.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Foxmike
dictionary

[divinee]

5 hours ago, memolipd said:

I use a Vive headset with a 1080gtx, so don't use WMR or a 3000 series card.

The issue is DCS related, its triggered and made worse by performing specific actions in DCS. It's not hardware related.

That’s not only for 30-series and there are also steps which affect steamvr native sets. For example deleting steamvr settings file which is what i’d recommend for you to try. With wmr glasses that problem is just pronounced because steamvr-wmr eats more vram than steamvr native sets..

[memolipd]

On 2/21/2021 at 8:02 PM, divinee said:

That’s not only for 30-series and there are also steps which affect steamvr native sets. For example deleting steamvr settings file which is what i’d recommend for you to try. With wmr glasses that problem is just pronounced because steamvr-wmr eats more vram than steamvr native sets..

I've removed SteamVR settings file and reinstalled SteamVR but obviously it's had no effect.

The issue lies in a memory leak in DCS. That's the only thing which explains how the issue manifests over time, by doing a specific set of actions inside DCS.

If you don't switch around aircraft and/or zoom in on the F10 map, there is no slow down.

 

If you sit in 1 aircraft and fly around loading the entire map, there is no slow down.

 

playing any other game there is no slow down.

I'm assuming is video memory related as the video shows my cards memory is slammed as opposed to my system memory.

Edited February 24, 2021 by memolipd

[memolipd]

On 2/21/2021 at 6:15 PM, Foxmike said:

I had the very same problems. Using my standard mission (Tomcat ready for taxi on Supercarrier with static objects,  starting S-3 and E-2, 3 escort ships) was enough to crash my Reverb1, GPU (2080ti) at 70% and VRAM at 10.7 of 11 immediately. When it didn´t crash in the first few seconds, I only had to jump on the RIO seat and the Reverb stopped. My Hornet was nearly stable with better CPU times and VRAM 10.5 of 11. Even my AV-8B crashed the Reverb immediately.

I was searching for hours and deleted many things out of the mission until the naked carrier group with static objects were left.

The Reverb went out maybe one minute later in the F-14 pit.

 

What was the difference, as this mission worked all the time the last months?

I played around in VR with the new Flight Sim (the name shall not be spoken) launched by a famous OS company and I learned a lot about bottlenecks and configration of my Reverb, RTX and whole rig. At least I can say, together with DCS we have two competitors for world championship of worst CPU and GPU optimization. My Reverb1 runs best with crystal clear screens at SteamVR SS 150% and DCS PD 1.0. Going higher than 150% doesn´t improve the picture but going down to 140 is recognizable . The other sim I have to bring to 100% WMR OpenXR and 100% in game. I can only achieve that by switching my Reverb to 60Hz with motion smoothing always enabled. And that works fine. No 60Hz flicker as reported by many users, maybe my 50 years old eyes can´t see such flickering anymore. I even put Windows gaming mode and HAGS on. My RTX ist overclocked to stable maximum in RAM speed and clock itself .

 

Thanks to Stal2k I tested switching HAGS (and gaming mode) off again. I tested for one hour now, taxiing wild around Supercarrier flightdeck, jumping cockpits and throwing my head in all directions, Map, external cam...... and even if I can get maximum stutter with fps down to the twenties (which is really hard to get running the Reverb at 60Hz with reprojection on because it runs as butter now with all settings to high as possible and even MSAAx4) no more problems. So (for me) the top solution was turning of HAGS in Windows Game settings.

 

At least one thing. It would be really nice, if (as announced by Wags himself) the "natural WMR support" would be integrated to DCS and we could get loose of one more bottleneck.

 

I've tried turning off HAGS, but the problem persists. I'll keep testing.

Yeah we can dream! 

Unfortunately EDs terrible optimisation is much deeper than just VR, everyone, even 2D screen users are suffering from under-utilisation of resources. Its a big messy problem which they are in waaay to deep to do anything meaningful about it now. But we'll see!

 

[santa8086]

Just wanted to add my +1 for this thread. This has been happening every night to me now for at least the past few weeks. At first thought it was Steam related, but no other games are causing this, only DCS. Its really putting a damper on my DCS time lately.

 

HTC Vive

RTX2080 Super

Edited March 4, 2021 by santa8086

[[̲̅D][̲̅A][̲̅T][̲̅A]]

I'd also like to add my two cents. 

Oculus Quest running Oculus Link on a EVGA RTX 2070 XC Ultra (happens in OC and default settings) 
I will be playing in SP and MP, the screen goes black while DCS continues running in the background. Only happens in DCS, all my other VR games behave with oculus link. 
The F14B causes the crash to happen as soon as I load into the plane, 14A has some stability. Other planes like the F86 happen eventually. 
The oculus app will say that it was unable to see find my headset when the crash happens. I have gone as far as uninstalling DCS from steam and re downloaded the stand alone version to negate steam from the equation. I have no unofficial mods installed. It started with the VR stuttering and I had to tap the headset to put it into the passthrough camera mode to get it to stop doing that. Now it just crashes to the oculus home screen and i have to reconnect oculus link to hopefully get back into DCS. 

 

Process D:\Oculus\Support\oculus-runtime\OVRServer_x64.exe (process ID:9064) reset policy scheme from {8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c} to {8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c}

This is the event that comes up every time that DCS crashes oculus back to the home screen.

Edited March 5, 2021 by [̲̅D][̲̅A][̲̅T][̲̅A]

[Loki 1-1]

I have been fighting with this bug / issue for weeks now. It has gotten so bad that I am holding off buying the Viper that I would like to buy. I also made a bug post about it you can find it below. In the post I detail how I can reproduce it 100%. Very prominent in multiplayer servers with a lot of Units. Almost never in singel player. I have read this whole thread and it seems like @BIGNEWYhave not been able to reporduce it. I ask you to please read my post. Run quite abit of supersampling (in oculus link I use the max supersampling allowed to get the crispest picture), Use a Reverb G2 Or Quest 2 Headset. Make sure you do not have more then 11-12 gb of vram and a nvidia grahics card.

 

 

This is a major issue for me and i would love for it to be resolved.

 

Best Regards

Loki

Edited March 8, 2021 by Loki 1-1

[Pikey]

If I can summarise my last four months since trying to get a better understanding of it, the SteamVR crash still occurs, it's not often, it is annoying, its 100% a Steam VR crash and often needs a reboot to clear up, I dont use VR for anything else other than DCS but we know DCS is demanding, so we could say that DCS's hardware demand might be the cause without being too inaccurate (I dont subscribe to saying its DCS fault entirely, if it's a timeout, the middleware could still be tweaked to have more tolerance in its values).

I found the issue was often with the F-14, often involving the F10 map, but neither was required and all SteamVR crashes are preceeded by a state of being laggy, low FPS and then a pause and then the headset goes black, SteamVR shows it crashed, DCS continues in a choppy unplayable (but alive) state. Steam cannot then find the headset (not everyone has specificied that).The errors are in SteamVR and iirc relate to a timeout.

The issue never happens immediately, always after 15 minutes (for me) and requires a mission with CPU load. Multiplayer could help exacerbate this, although I suspect MP is just a CPU load and its more about the CPU than actually MP. You can defintiely get there sooner swapping planes, and defintiely zooming on the F10 map will bring it sooner.

It also cannot be purely CPU based because you can stretch CPU usage (loading screens) and the tracking can stop completely but the applicaiton and VR is perfectly fine once it recovers... its something other than pure CPU.

I did consider power draw and USB. I moved my Headsets USB to a powered hub from the onboard and this reduced the issues occurence anecdotally - who knows probably placebo?

I dont have HAGS enabled, by default its off, so I dont think we can say its a cause, unless the work that MS did to put it into Windows changed something. Not sure I want to turn it on.

My gut feeling based on the evidence but not being able to tie the evidence to the root cause, is that the timeout is caused by the graphics handling, especially the texture loading and unloading of DCS, under stress, which is caused by extremely large textures in DCS and limits on Graphics cards, which is noted in this link for which we are still in an endless loop of not being able to explain that there is actually an issue that needs to be addressed:

 

But I dont think I should have offered a partially substantiated conclusion based on thin evidence. I desperately would love to hear the views of Steam VR developers on DCS, its really time for us users to begone from pseudo science and have developers work this out.

Edited March 8, 2021 by Pikey
tpyos

[Smokehouse]

I certainly hope this gets fixed. I have started seeing the Steam VR crash as described just recently. I have had a Reverb G1 and in the last month switched to the Reverb G2. I never saw this issue while I had the G1 and about 2 weeks into the G2 I started seeing the crash. I get the crash after about 10 minutes in the game, Maps make no difference, load in the game makes no difference, I can be the only one in a map and I get the same crash. Its getting ridiculous really, and it seems like I will have to go back to Track IR/Monitor. 

 

I7-9700, 64G Ram, 2080Ti, no overclock, 

[dburne]

3 hours ago, Smokehouse said:

I certainly hope this gets fixed. I have started seeing the Steam VR crash as described just recently. I have had a Reverb G1 and in the last month switched to the Reverb G2. I never saw this issue while I had the G1 and about 2 weeks into the G2 I started seeing the crash. I get the crash after about 10 minutes in the game, Maps make no difference, load in the game makes no difference, I can be the only one in a map and I get the same crash. Its getting ridiculous really, and it seems like I will have to go back to Track IR/Monitor. 

 

I7-9700, 64G Ram, 2080Ti, no overclock, 

 

Are you guys that are getting these crashes running the Beta of both Steam VR and WMR for Steam VR?

[divinee]

10 hours ago, dburne said:

 

Are you guys that are getting these crashes running the Beta of both Steam VR and WMR for Steam VR?

No matter which version. I've had those steamvr crashes since ~august/september and i've had almost all possible versions during that time.

[Pikey]

12 hours ago, dburne said:

 

Are you guys that are getting these crashes running the Beta of both Steam VR and WMR for Steam VR?

Since October there's been multiple versions and I tried beta last year to find horrendous performance issues and realised beta for steamvr is not a good place to be so never went back. You need to try it on a per case basis. Last I heard was quite mixed. Also nvidia dirver versions over new year were quite bad - all told should be good right now. Not had a black screen for two weeks but Im not playing actively right now so its not valid feedback.

[dburne]

1 hour ago, Pikey said:

Since October there's been multiple versions and I tried beta last year to find horrendous performance issues and realised beta for steamvr is not a good place to be so never went back. You need to try it on a per case basis. Last I heard was quite mixed. Also nvidia dirver versions over new year were quite bad - all told should be good right now. Not had a black screen for two weeks but Im not playing actively right now so its not valid feedback.

 

Ok - I have been running the Beta of both Steam VR and WMR for Steam VR and not having any issues.

Also latest Nvidia drivers.

[divinee]

8 hours ago, dburne said:

 

Ok - I have been running the Beta of both Steam VR and WMR for Steam VR and not having any issues.

Also latest Nvidia drivers.

And you have 24gb of vram? That kind of solves/fixes most of this problem

Edited March 12, 2021 by divinee

[Rocky49]

On 3/12/2021 at 11:59 AM, divinee said:

And you have 24gb of vram? That kind of solves/fixes most of this problem

 

I would concur with divine. Having 24GB vrs 11 GB with my 2080TI would explain the difference

[Bowman-011]

Looks like I'm in good company. This happens every once in a while on my system and I can reproduce it quite easily. Pretty annoying . As mentioned before, DCS is not crashing and there's no crash log to investigate on. DCS freezes, becomes unresponsive and after a minute or so I get the -203 in Steam VR.

 

I made a couple of dump files of the hanging DCS.exe process using the Windows Task Manager. If some of the developers think this could help to pinpoint the issue I'd gladly share the files (~4 GB)