Jump to content

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


Stal2k

Recommended Posts

Reverb G2 user here, same issue. Easiest way for me to reproduce is just accidentally hit the steam menu button on the controller... menu comes up, some more epilepsy inducing flashing and then steam vr fails, -203, and DCS still looks ok in the reflector. Switch aircraft, same deal. Sneeze, cough, hiccup or blink too fast seems to cause it as well. Free flight, simple mission, reload, F10, bounce around the system like a boss, CTRL-SHIFT-TAB, new aircraft, whatever, no issue, so certainly related to being under load, but the menu button seems to kill it every time.

 

I9-9900K, 32GB, 2080 Super, 52% Steam Resolution, 45-90 FPS usual.


Edited by Vanguard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Anyone made any progress with this. I just got my headset 2 weeks ago, and I've yet to have an uneventful flight in DCS. Any other VR game / experience works fine. DCS though, I just launch Through the Inferno mission, select a plane, no issue. As soon as I try to switch aircraft or even respawn in the one I was in... Oooops, SteamVR error -203. I basically have to restart DCS for each respawn. What a major PITA. There's also a really noticeable lag, when in the weapon loadout screen and right clicking a weapon slot to choose a weapon. 

 

Edit: Also interesting, based on a comment on Reddit, if I have poor frames, which sometimes happens at the start of a mission sitting on the ground, I just alt-tab out and back in (just alt-tab twice quickly, from a VR perspective all I notice is the message at the top telling me my input is directed outside the app) and poof, my frames more than double. Works every time... 


Edited by Vanguard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice hint regarding alt+tab. I see that framerate drop every now and then. 

 

Regarding the SteamVR -203 issue I found an interesting video of a fellow DCS pilot on YouTube a few days ago. He proposes to set the pixel density in DCS to 0.5 and increase supersampling in SteamVR to whatever suits your FPS requirements. I've set mine to 250% for constant 45 FPS with my other settings. The visual quality feels just about the same as before at an equal frame rate (PD 1.0 in DCS, 50% in SteamVR)

 

Since I made the change I wasen't able to reproduce the -203 error. It's a workaround. But if it does the trick, who cares 😄. Good luck tryin' it out.

 

 

i7-12700KF - 64GB DDR4@3600MHz - RTX 4090 - HP Reverb G2 - Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS - Thrustmaster Cougar MFDs - LG Rudder Pedals

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, I gave it a go... the conclusion would be, I'm hanging up the towel for a year, again... Unfortunately this product brings more frustration than enjoyment, I gave it up for 6 months and didn't regret it, I guess I'm going to do it again. I'm a little tired of the applause at the size of the changelogs when 90% of it is bug fixes, and I've never seen so many bugs in any game every 30 days. Anyways... for those who are interested and want to continue the pain, my findings:

 

Specs, I9 9900K, 2080 Super, 32 GB Ram, Reverb G2, all done with F18 Free Flight Caucasus.

PD 1.0, 100% SS: ~60 FPS

PD .5, 500% SS: ~60 FPS

 

Things I noted:

I've been using reprojection from day 1. After playing around with it some more, it really is pro/con. With it turned off, I noticed far less shimmering from medium altitude, but the labels/text of controls, etc in cockpit are a bit hazy when moving your head. With re-projection on, the cockpit is crisp, but I get a lot of ghosting and jaggiest out the window. Especially if looking sideways and down at the terrain in a turn.

 

The shimmering in this title is out of this world. 0.5 PD and 500% SS certainly reduced the shimmering quite a bit as long as I could maintain 60+ FPS. When I launched Through The Inferno, A10C-II, I was down to 45 FPS on the tarmac, and the shimmering was like being on a dance floor in a techno club, but after taking off things were ok.

 

The fact that shadows/LoD are per eye was extremely noticeable during the testing. I came to realize the majority of shimmering and feeling like I was cross-eyed was coming from the fact that shadows were being rendering differently in each eye. Disabling terrain shadows altogether made a huge difference in shimmering. This isn't really just a VR issue either. The most immersion breaking thing in this sim IMHO is the shadows popping up like toast and the drastic LoD changes of trees, etc. They should both be unnoticeable if done right, one LoD should blend into the other.

 

In regards to -203 error... Launch Through the Inferno, select A-10C II, Fly Now... hit ESC, change role, F/A-18C... blue screen in HMD. Try again, fly plane, crash plane, -203. Basically I cannot respawn, even if I reduce my settings enough that I'm at 90FPS and fluidly playing. Blue screen and -203 only happens in DCS. I have to run local dedicated server and launch a separate client if I want to be able to respawn. Luckily, I never respawn, if I die, I die, and I'll restart from the beginning but it's a major PITA for MP.

 

Cheers and GL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/8/2021 at 6:32 AM, Pikey said:

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.

 

 

@Pikey - Does your experience with the upcoming DCS 2.7 help with any of this? I realize you might not be able to say in detail, but I could do with some hope on this 🙂

 

EDIT:

 

Just to follow up on this I have some success fixing it (or at least I believe, after playing for an hour it now seems ok after days of crashes).

 

I had to uninstall, clean out and install Steam again. As in, no files left behind at all and a fresh Steam client installation (for me on another drive).

 

I've left the SteamVR settings all as defaults (which has defaulted back to the resolution I was using at 'Custom' before) and am using the non-beta versions of SteamVR and WMR for SteamVR. Speculation on what was causing vrserver.exe to crash with DCS like that:

 

- Some previous SteamVR dashboard plugin from an earlier version causing an issue. I've had fpsVR, Virtual Desktop, Advanced Settings overlays installed before so perhaps that caused an issue that showed itself with DCS? I'm going to leave them uninstalled for now, but perhaps some historical issue that won't come back on a fresh install of those?

 

- I will eventually re-enable motion reprojection (via WMR), but for now it's off. I don't think it is the reason but basically don't want to now touch it while it's working.

 

- Some sort of file corruption, perhaps from a bad disk sector? I had certainly re-installed SteamVR before enough times so whatever it was it needed Steam completely uninstalled and re-installed.

 

Hope that helps others who had this issue.

 


Edited by fearlessfrog
Follow-up - potentially solved
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,  the easiest way to answer this within the remit of what I am able is to say that I haven't changed any opinions, or settings during my testing and I haven't felt the need to change settings outside of what a tester might do for curiosity/testing. Remain both optimistic and excited 🙂

Going back to 2.5.6 and this thread,  the thing that reduces the symptom described form last year (Black screen/HMD fail due to SteamVR crashing (but not DCS)) is that you should be very careful not to reproduce the cockpit swapping as per the videos. Anecdotally, I find the F-14 the hardest to swap into or from and it's my opinion therefore, that some of the cockpits are worse than others in terms of behaviour. But this also could be attributed to changing location! That lead me to the thread discussing 32bit normal maps. But its still Steam VR crashing anyway.

 

  • Like 1

___________________________________________________________________________

SIMPLE SCENERY SAVING * SIMPLE GROUP SAVING * SIMPLE STATIC SAVING *

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Pikey said:

Remain both optimistic and excited 🙂

That sounds great - thanks! Not long now..

 

So with my edit above, I am happy to report a full Steam uninstall and clean out files (not just SteamVR, the whole of Steam) solved this issue for me. I tried a lot of other things, so surprised that worked, but my best guess is that some sort of older VR overlay sort of utilities I must have used over the years 'broke' vrserver.exe in a way that DCS would tend to trigger - but hard to tell now it's working. I think it's still possible to get SteamVR to freeze out (like you said, jumping cockpits a lot etc, in WMR bringing up the menu if started out of order etc) but this 'It will crash after 10 mins in MP' is issue is now gone - so I'm happy. 🙂

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm glad yours is OK right now, I'm also surprised at your findings and will likely try them once I can work out how to not lose GB's of downloads! With those things I am less optimistic than I am with DCS, I think the software side of VR, especially WMR is pretty terrible actually.

  • Like 1

___________________________________________________________________________

SIMPLE SCENERY SAVING * SIMPLE GROUP SAVING * SIMPLE STATIC SAVING *

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I can recreate it without reinstalling Steam. Reinstalling Steam didn't fix it, it was more the settings going back to default. It seems like for me and my system, I can reliably recreate the issue by turning VR reprojection on. I've put the full steps to recreate here (I did try to post this here but had issues with images/text mixing and couldn't figure it out quickly):

 

https://forums.mudspike.com/t/dcs-vr-steamvr-has-encountered-a-critical-error-solved/12314/67?u=fearlessfrog

 


Edited by fearlessfrog
Forum doesn't seem to like mixed images and text - I'll link
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, fearlessfrog said:

I think I can recreate it without reinstalling Steam. Reinstalling Steam didn't fix it, it was more the settings going back to default. It seems like for me and my system, I can reliably recreate the issue by turning VR reprojection on. I've put the full steps to recreate here (I did try to post this here but had issues with images/text mixing and couldn't figure it out quickly):

 

https://forums.mudspike.com/t/dcs-vr-steamvr-has-encountered-a-critical-error-solved/12314/67?u=fearlessfrog

 

 

I'm not saying you are wrong, but if someone asked me where to put my chips then at the moment you change that setting its causing a timeout, which is the same symptom but a different root cause. I'd concentrate on provoking the issue during DCS play myself, it seems module swapping in heavy sessions is the easiest method imo. I'm predicting that any hiccup on Steam will sever it from DCS.

___________________________________________________________________________

SIMPLE SCENERY SAVING * SIMPLE GROUP SAVING * SIMPLE STATIC SAVING *

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So just to be clearer, it doesn't cause the issue at the moment of changing the setting. Once it has been changed though, then within DCS doing what you're describing (module swapping etc) or playing for 10 mins+ will then trigger it 100% for me. With no reprojection on it works fine (or at the very least a lot less often, as I've only found this out a day or so ago).

 

Yep, I agree it's probably a general timeout bug and probably not this setting specifically, but for me and my system the use of VR reprojection being on and then playing DCS allows me to recreate it every time. It's like some long pause between DCS -> SteamVR on updating a frame causes SteamVR to crash out. Perhaps VR reprojection being on just exacerbates the situation as it uses frame history to reproject? I'm just happy that I can get it to run stably now, even if I can't use reprojection.

 

Do you not run VR reprojection with DCS? If you do (as described in my steps link to try it) then does the SteamVR crash happen quicker or more often for you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hesitate to add anything to the food fight that this thread seems to have become, but I guess I'll just bite the bullet. No doubt flames will follow me, but oh well.

 

I have had similar issues with Alyx. It usually happened after trying to load a save while in game. Hit load, and bang, the headset (G2 Reverb) goes black, SteamVR keeps running, the game mirror on the monitor keeps going. Now, this is not the same game, and I don't promise that this work around will help. In fact, it may have been suggested already, but I just don't have the heart to read through this whole ridiculous argument.

 

Folks that have had this problem with Alyx, myself included greatly reduced, not eliminated, this behavior by disabling Steam Home in settings, and reducing the SteamVR menu resolution to medium or low. This is a crap workaround for a problem that probably exists inside SteamVR, or more likely WMR or SteamVR. At some point a buffer probably fills up and the HMD crashes.

 

I sincerely hope this helps someone. As for the rest, a little chill before arguing down parallel lines about things that have nothing to do with the original problem might solve the seven page bitch-festing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/12/2021 at 8:10 PM, fearlessfrog said:

I think I can recreate it without reinstalling Steam. Reinstalling Steam didn't fix it, it was more the settings going back to default. It seems like for me and my system, I can reliably recreate the issue by turning VR reprojection on. I've put the full steps to recreate here (I did try to post this here but had issues with images/text mixing and couldn't figure it out quickly):

 

https://forums.mudspike.com/t/dcs-vr-steamvr-has-encountered-a-critical-error-solved/12314/67?u=fearlessfrog

 

 

 

Gotcha! I can trigger this issue reliably by slotting into about any heavy mission, including heavier single player missions. Disabling reprojection fixes this. Switching between legacy and normal reprojection mode has no effect.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, andyn said:

 

Gotcha! I can trigger this issue reliably by slotting into about any heavy mission, including heavier single player missions. Disabling reprojection fixes this. Switching between legacy and normal reprojection mode has no effect.

 

😰

 

So, please help me out. Should I

 

2021_04_15_21_00_16_Window.jpg

 

and then

 

2021_04_15_21_02_00_SteamVR_Status.jpg

 

(really having a hard time with all these terminologies)


Edited by sirrah
  • Thanks 1

System specs:

 

i7-8700K @stock speed - GTX 1080TI @ stock speed - AsRock Extreme4 Z370 - 32GB DDR4 @3GHz- 500GB SSD - 2TB nvme - 650W PSU

HP Reverb G1 v2 - Saitek Pro pedals - TM Warthog HOTAS - TM F/A-18 Grip - TM Cougar HOTAS (NN-Dan mod) & (throttle standalone mod) - VIRPIL VPC Rotor TCS Plus with ALPHA-L grip - Pointctrl & aux banks <-- must have for VR users!! - Andre's SimShaker Jetpad - Fully adjustable DIY playseat - VA+VAICOM

 

~ That nuke might not have been the best of ideas, Sir... the enemy is furious ~ GUMMBAH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, sirrah said:

(really having a hard time with all these terminologies)

 

I'm not entirely sure about the configuration file. Change "Motion Smoothing" to "Disabled" in the SteamVR GUI (like in the lower screenshot). Then grab your VR controller. go to the cyan and black WMR Settings menu (via the goggles icon in the lower left corner in the SteamVR overlay) and make sure that reprojection has been changed to either "disabled" or "per-app".

 

Playing without motion smoothing will be a pain if you're used to reprojection being on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, sirrah said:

So, please help me out. Should I

 

For my testing in narrowing down what caused DCS to crash with reprojection, I left the WMR settings file alone and just did the changes in the steps to my forum post here, e.g. just within the UI in VR for WMR using my hand controller.

 

If you've changed your default.vrsettings file then you could rename it and get Steam to verify files, and it will write out a new default one. My default.vrsettings is here, just ensure we're talking about the same thing 🙂

 

X:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MixedRealityVRDriver\resources\settings\default.vrsettings

 

I can recreate this issue in DCS 2.7 as well, so for me and my system it seems like I can't run with WMR reprojection set to 'Auto' or 'Steam app enabled' and then DCS set to 'Enabled'.

 

1 hour ago, andyn said:

 

Playing without motion smoothing will be a pain if you're used to reprojection being on.

 

It is, especially for a map like Caucasus where I can run reprojection well it's a real pain having to turn it off just to stop the crash.

 

One extra thing I will try tonight is just doing it the 'default.vrsettings' file old way, and putting 'motionReprojectionMode' : 'Auto' in there and then not configuring anything within the WMR for SteamVR or SteamVR dashboard. I don't think it will be any better, but maybe. The downside is that everytime WMR for SteamVR updates it will now rewrite a fresh text file with default settings, as they want us to use where it is store in the SteamVR side now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

EDIT: In a lot more testing with 2.7 I'm starting to think this is a hardware issue on my side. 😬 My 2080 voltage is dropping under load and it could be causing this. I'm trying out a longer soak test with a GPU stress app to make sure. Hopefully it's the case where it's not a DCS -> SteamVR issue but just something local for me, and that putting reprojection on triggered it.


Edited by fearlessfrog
Further investigation on 2.7 plus GPU potential issue
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel bad for the effort you're putting in here. It's a shame, because it's not you and it's not your hardware, it's the software. Perhaps you only/mostly play DCS, so you don't have a comparison to realize most other titles run flawlessly, then you'd know where to point the finger. I just loaded 2.7 to give it a try, and I get 90FPS at menu screen, load any mission, quit back to menu, it's fluctuating between 75,82 and 90. What title can't achieve 90FPS on the menu screen? Using same settings I was getting 90FPS in game, now I get 37-47 in game and 75 in the main menu, sad rofl. Just take a break or go back to flatscreen until they figure it out, no sense in frustrating yourself further.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I found a fix for my G2 and SteamVR crashes, I hope it can help someone else.

 

Since the last OB patch or SteamVR update, I have to leave the MotionReprojectionMode to none, in the default.vrsettings file.

In WMR for SteamVR GUI > options, Motion Smoothing is enabled. Legacy Reprojection is disabled.

 

No more crash since then.

 

2021_04_15_21_00_16_Window.jpg


Edited by krostar

AMD Ryzen 5800x3D, MB Asus Dark Hero, 64GB DDR4 PC3200, Nvidia RTX 4090 Asus, SSD NVMe 2TB WD SN850, Varjo Aero, Winwing Orion 2, Windows 10

LOMAC survivor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Been away from DCS a few days, Steam VR is now crashing on me with DCS every time - tried both beta and non beta of Steam VR.

This is with my Reverb G2.

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Vanguard said:

Did you try beta of "Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR"? It updated on May 7th and I seem to have a bit more stability with it.

 

Yes I am on the beta of WMR for Steam VR.

Don B

EVGA Z390 Dark MB | i9 9900k CPU @ 5.1 GHz | Gigabyte 4090 OC | 64 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16 | Corsair H150i Pro Cooler |Virpil CM3 Stick w/ Alpha Prime Grip 200mm ext| Virpil CM3 Throttle | VPC Rotor TCS Base w/ Alpha-L Grip| Point Control V2|Varjo Aero|

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...