HP Reverb G2 - occasional blue flashes

[cptmrcalm]

Hi all. I have seen a very nice thread which I am going to take a look at as soon as I can.

My 3090 Settings for my G2 - Virtual Reality - ED Forums (eagle.ru)

 

This guy - wow. Thank you.

 

I am hoping to go through it step by step. I have seen some recommendations from others, but sadly, none of them can seem to fix my issue.

 

The issue I am having is with DCS only. MSFS2020 is fine, as is half life alyx. Now I will check that again to make sure.  I only get to hop onto the PC every so often, so it takes me ages to really nail something down.

 

But it happened again in DCS last night so I went right ahead and fired up MSFS2020 right afterwards to quickly see if it happened and it didn't.

 

Every so often, I will get these blue flashes. It happened in a quick mission I made in an F18 and happened last night in an F16 in a heavy multiplayer session.

 

I was ok for the first 10 minutes, then I looked around the cockpit and FLASH!! its quite jarring.

 

Now, as I type, I have suddenly remembered something.

 

On my Index I would have the occasional same thing - only the screen would go black for a moment. talking like 10th of second - a very quick flash.

 

Now I reckon its setting I need to look for. Something that needs to be off or cranked up. 

 

Has anyone had this?

 

I've got HP on stand by. They want me to install a piece of software so they can collect as much data from me to look into it. 

 

At first, it sounded like a hardware issue - but because other titles seem to be ok, it sounds like a software issue. 

 

I really am hoping it's one of those "smack forehead" moments and I simply need to change an nvidia setting or something within DCS.

 

I have a 3090, a i9900k, 32GB ram and I am running off M.2's. Latest windows as of Monday -same for Nvidia.

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

not had that problem; this is a complete guess is it loosing tracking ? and flashing you the sky and snapping back??? if so it might be worthwhile checking out reflective surfaces and led's in view (maybe)... but if that were the case it might also happen in other games, unless DCS, somehow has a lower tolerance to the tracking conditions you have (again no idea if that is possible).

 

19 minutes ago, cptmrcalm said:

This guy - wow. Thank you.

 

 

and thank you !

[dburne]

You might also try plugging the headset USB into a different USB 3 port, or even a powered USB 3 Hub.

[cptmrcalm]

Hi there. Super quick as I pass by...

 

Tracking could be... room has to be bright doesn't it so i might try that. Usually somewhat dim.

 

 

i have tried the USB thing. Saw that knocking about elsewhere. But can confirm a change of USB port does nothing. (although only tried USB 3.0 so far)

 

And again, remember... all is well in other titles. 

 

Weird one this.

 

 

 

 

[dburne]

1 hour ago, cptmrcalm said:

Hi there. Super quick as I pass by...

 

Tracking could be... room has to be bright doesn't it so i might try that. Usually somewhat dim.

 

 

i have tried the USB thing. Saw that knocking about elsewhere. But can confirm a change of USB port does nothing. (although only tried USB 3.0 so far)

 

And again, remember... all is well in other titles. 

 

Weird one this.

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe try a repair of DCS.

I use SkateZilla's DCS utility for this.

[cptmrcalm]

Thanks for that dburne . My version is Steam though and also the beta version too.

 

I do recall changing something a while ago, back when I had the index. Tatting about as I do with no fear of consequences. 

 

Whatever it was I changed I suddenly became aware of the issue.

 

I think what i need to do is check out speed-of-heat's guide and see if it happens after doing that.

 

Performance is fair to good and I have no doubt I can improve things. 

 

I will of course report back if I end up fixing it -but I have a feeling that by doing the guide above -and it does disappear -  I wont know what it was that caused it.

 

Just one of those I wish someone would just say.. "yeah..its X - you just need to do Y to remove it"

 

If I do a "verify installation" with steam - will it save my plane controller settings?

 

If I end up doing a compete re-install:

If I am in "F16 Sim settings" and "export profile" - does it save only the" f16 sim controller settings"? or all controller settings for all aircraft?

 

Always wondered this.

(Yes I know I know - RTFM.)

 

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by cptmrcalm

[dburne]

26 minutes ago, cptmrcalm said:

Thanks for that dburne . My version is Steam though and also the beta version too.

 

I do recall changing something a while ago, back when I had the index. Tatting about as I do with no fear of consequences. 

 

Whatever it was I changed I suddenly became aware of the issue.

 

I think what i need to do is check out speed-of-heat's guide and see if it happens after doing that.

 

Performance is fair to good and I have no doubt I can improve things. 

 

I will of course report back if I end up fixing it -but I have a feeling that by doing the guide above -and it does disappear -  I wont know what it was that caused it.

 

Just one of those I wish someone would just say.. "yeah..its X - you just need to do Y to remove it"

 

If I do a "verify installation" with steam - will it save my plane controller settings?

 

If I end up doing a compete re-install:

If I am in "F16 Sim settings" and "export profile" - does it save only the" f16 sim controller settings"? or all controller settings for all aircraft?

 

Always wondered this.

(Yes I know I know - RTFM.)

 

 

 

 

Well I know a DCS Repair saves all settings, a Steam Verify I can not say.

[cptmrcalm]

Hi all.

An update.

It is definitely DCS and not the headset. 

 

I looked at your settings Speed-Of-Heat. (once again, nice job) 

The Nvidia settings didn't seem to make any difference.  I changed what I had to match your settings. There were a few things I hadn't got the same as you ie. no setting for "monitor technology" and no setting for "preferred refresh rate dell". But those aren't important.

 

I also made the same settings in WMR (which I had never seen before- took me a while to find that page within steam vr). In addition, I also saw that we had the same Steam VR settings too.

 

But bang - the jarring blue flashes.

 

My process of illumination got a little lost when I started turning things down to medium from high and playing around with MSAA etc - in a step by step fashion..

 

(It started to get a little funky - and I started to get some weird effects with the water. I could at certain angles see what looked like a tropical ocean (cyan blues and what looked like corral reefs all this within the Persian gulf map btw.)

 

Then a crash.

 

(to be honest - I did that many jump in and outs that I am not surprised)

 

I then decided to set the VR profile to default. The one that DCS provides which knocks everything down and turns things off.

 

But guess what - it worked!

 

No blue flashes at all. 

 

So then I decided to knock things up bit by bit. Things I wanted. 

 

The one that definitely caused the blue flashes to return again was the visibility distance. Ultra is a no no as was high setting. But the high setting might have been paired up with MSAA at the time.

 

I am still playing around and will confirm it when I have more time. I've just spent about 3 hours straight on it.

 

But once I have done some more testing (longer flights) and are happy I will post what settings I have. 

 

There's definitely something not right here because you expect to fall in frame rates when you crank stuff up- sure. But not get flashes. For example, if you fly at x12 or so ( using Control Z ) you can see the VR struggling. You get the black spaces around you where the VR cant keep up. But here, you don't get the blue flashes.

 

Bear in mind. MSF2020 which (no offence to DCS here) makes DCS look so out dated and basic by comparison. The detail that sim presents is breathe taking and yet - no flashes.

 

Sigh.

Almost there.

(need to sleep now)

 

I really hope this ends up helping someone.

 

 

 

 

[cptmrcalm]

Here are the settings I have found that I can push to without blue screen flickering.

 

Now it could be I could push things further but have decided that its good enough.

 

 

I am enjoying the extra performance with MSAA off. I learned too that SSLR is bad frame hit too. (which i really wanted to keep because its subtle - but looks gorgeous)

 

I know this isn't about performance -its about stopping the blue flickering. But I think the too go hand in hand.

 

I  may never know what causes it - hopefully drivers and DCS software improvements might fix it in future. Again, slow fps is one thing -flickering is something that I felt was too much to live with.

 

i think the lesson here is - if you are experiencing the flickering, then default to the VR profile and change each feature step by step until the flickering comes back,- then simply go back one stage.

 

At least I know its not the headset itself.

 

Thank for the reply guys and I hope this helps someone.

 

 

 

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

they only other thing i can think off is if you are running any OC on your GPU ... because you should be able to do better than that ... whats the card OOI ?

[cptmrcalm]

Its a palit 3090 and I think it's OC from stock.

 

I haven't OC the card myself in any way.

 

I can crank some of the settings up within game and it still be an acceptable framerate. so those settings I can move around still. 

 

I may still turn things up here and there as I progress.

 

I didnt get as much time this weekend as I might have liked.

 

Trouble is, its hard to pin it down because it could be a combination of settings that cause it.

 

But for now at least - its a relief to be free from it.

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

well at least thats something!