NEW: Universal VR shader

[Nahemoth]

Hi,

 

 This mod can be used together with the  Kegetys mod? Or they must be used separately?

 

Thanks!

[Sr.]

6 minutes ago, Nahemoth said:

Hi,

 

 This mod can be used together with the  Kegetys mod? Or they must be used separately?

 

Thanks!

With

[Woona]

On 3/28/2021 at 10:36 PM, speed-of-heat said:

no idea, maybe Lukas will make it work .

I've got a video coming on it but it's on hold due to my work schedule.
I don't have time to sift through the thread so TLDR is that the performance hit on first run is -3fps  (68.930fps avg -> 65.080 fps avg) while minimums see a similar decrease (51fps avg -> 49fps avg). Maximums are more affected (85 fps avg -> 79 fps avg). More notably, I can see on my FrameView tables that there are numerous stutters and drops with the sharpening enabled, and I can feel them too. With performance mode enabled my FrameView tables are basically 1:1 with my DCS otherwise. Can't tell any visual difference between non-performance and performance. Really impressed with CAS.

Also the updated version on Nexus has less overhead as measured from my normal DCS bench run. Measurably better.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Woona

[speed-of-heat]

yep time has moved on we have got it working now  the visibility improvement is more than worth any perf hit IMO

[diamond26]

36 minutes ago, AlpineGTA said:

How do you get it to work with Quest 2 and the link cable? Do you just have SteamVR also running in the background? I was using this mod with my G2 but since that is currently broken and I'm back to using the Quest 2 I'm missing the clarity this mod gave when I was using it with the G2.

I use Skatezilla’s DCS update utility and launch DCS using SteamVR API. 

[Woona]

10 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

yep time has moved on we have got it working now  the visibility improvement is more than worth any perf hit IMO

 

Just to be clear, with Performance mode, I see 0 performance hit with no added load beyond a 1-2% margin of error load measurement on my FrameView runs in my usual Batumi benchmark. It's only when Perf mode is off that I see anything. Really impressive stuff.

ED does not like me so my inputs are null, understandably so, but for any others here it might be worth suggesting to ED directly that CAS be integrated into the game natively. It does not fall under the GPU-specific technology category despite being an AMD technology, as CAS is completely open source. Would be a huge benefactor to the average DCS VR Joe and the technology is right there and evidently very effective.

Back to work I go.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Woona

[freehand]

11 minutes ago, DigitalEngine said:

Quick question, will this mod eliminate the "shimmering" with MSAA turned OFF?

The shimmering is really annoying and nauseating to me, so even on my dated system I run with MSAA on at 2X.

If this mod will eliminate the DCS inherent shimmering with MSAA OFF, I'll maybe give it a try on my next DCS weekend.

No

[freehand]

1 hour ago, DigitalEngine said:

Thanks for the reply @freehand , anyway, that's disappointing... 

With the mod you can  run MSAA * 2 with less demand on your system than before because you can lower ss the mod will not disappoint dcs looks beautiful.

Edited April 9, 2021 by freehand

[Harlikwin]

1 hour ago, freehand said:

With the mod you can  run MSAA * 2 with less demand on your system than before because you can lower ss the mod will not disappoint dcs looks beautiful.

 

 

As others have mentioned using a sharpening filter will make aliasing worse. That being said aliasing is no worse with the shader. But clarity is bette, colors are better. In general DCS is way better. And of you are running msaa 2x, maybe you can now. 

[AlpineGTA]

6 hours ago, diamond26 said:

I use Skatezilla’s DCS update utility and launch DCS using SteamVR API. 

 

I wasn't using Skatezilla's DCS Update Utility and wasn't even aware you could do that. I installed it, gave it a try and it works great! Thank you!

[ShaunX]

8 hours ago, Woona said:

 

Just to be clear, with Performance mode, I see 0 performance hit with no added load beyond a 1-2% margin of error load measurement on my FrameView runs in my usual Batumi benchmark. It's only when Perf mode is off that I see anything. Really impressive stuff.

ED does not like me so my inputs are null, understandably so, but for any others here it might be worth suggesting to ED directly that CAS be integrated into the game natively. It does not fall under the GPU-specific technology category despite being an AMD technology, as CAS is completely open source. Would be a huge benefactor to the average DCS VR Joe and the technology is right there and evidently very effective.

Back to work I go.

 

 

For "Performance mode" is that the option on its settings page ?

 

So I assign a key to it and use it in game like the home and end keys ?

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

Yes, not played with perf mode myself but I will later today.  Not sure if you need to assign a key to perf mode, and home and end are already set as “the keys” for control. 
 

it defaults to the last settings you had it on, so if it works for you you only need the end key, in order to show yourself how it was before...that said it costs you nothing to try, installing is about a 5min job and turning it on or off takes less time than that, you will have to revert to the 2d mirror to see the config screen though.

[ShaunX]

Ah, I now see there's a performance mode check box in the bottom right corner.

 

I was looking on the settings page where you can assign a hot key to it. I've actually assigned end to a voice attack command as with my eyesight I'm essentially blind when I lift my headset

 

I'll try performance mode later too.

 

 

 

[zildac]

Yup you can enable it using that checkbox and it effectively writes a "1" to the Perfomance parameter in ReShade.ini so it will persist. Bear in mind if you are using a modmanager you need to make this change in the source ini file or disable/enable mod may overwrite.

 

[GENERAL]
EffectSearchPaths=.\reshade-shaders\Shaders
GatherGPUStatistics=0
IntermediateCachePath=G:\DCS World\bin\reshade-shaders\Temp
NoDebugInfo=0
NoEffectCache=0
NoReloadOnInit=0
PerformanceMode=1
PreprocessorDefinitions=RESHADE_DEPTH_LINEARIZATION_FAR_PLANE=1000.0,RESHADE_DEPTH_INPUT_IS_UPSIDE_DOWN=0,RESHADE_DEPTH_INPUT_IS_REVERSED=0,RESHADE_DEPTH_INPUT_IS_LOGARITHMIC=0
PresetPath=.\ReShadePreset.ini
PresetTransitionDelay=1000
SkipLoadingDisabledEffects=0
TextureSearchPaths=.\reshade-shaders\Textures

Edited April 9, 2021 by zildac

[imacken]

Can someone explain what the ‘performance’ mode actually does?

[zildac]

1 hour ago, imacken said:

Can someone explain what the ‘performance’ mode actually does?

From a ReShade FAQ:

 

After you configure all of the effects, it will take some time to compile all of the shaders and apply them to the game – it will go through this every time you launch the game, or alt-tab back and forth in and out of the game. To make this process faster, you can either delete the shaders you don’t use (by moving them into subfolders), or enable Performance Mode in the Settings tab. By enabling Performance Mode, it renders all of the variables static (meaning they can’t be edited until Performance Mode is disabled), but it will speed up compilation a lot, and also increase the framerate overall (as ReShade won’t be scanning the shaders in the background to see which ones it needs to apply).

 

Given that most of us are probably only using the VR_CAS_Colour shader it probably makes little difference. For other games that have a ton of shaders enabled then the FPS saving is probably more noticeable. I need to do some more testing with it enabled versus disabled, but I haven't noticed any real difference in GPU frametimes, but that could be due to my GPU. There is also an FXAA shader that I'm going to play with to see if there is any way of reducing the "shimmers".

 

Update:

 

The FXAA shader does not compile. I suspect that many of these shaders will need refactoring in order to function in VR. Some, like the ASCII one do work though (although not particularly useful).

Edited April 9, 2021 by zildac
FXAA Update

[ShaunX]

1 minute ago, zildac said:

From a ReShade FAQ:

 

After you configure all of the effects, it will take some time to compile all of the shaders and apply them to the game – it will go through this every time you launch the game, or alt-tab back and forth in and out of the game. To make this process faster, you can either delete the shaders you don’t use (by moving them into subfolders), or enable Performance Mode in the Settings tab. By enabling Performance Mode, it renders all of the variables static (meaning they can’t be edited until Performance Mode is disabled), but it will speed up compilation a lot, and also increase the framerate overall (as ReShade won’t be scanning the shaders in the background to see which ones it needs to apply).

 

Given that most of us are probably only using the VR_CAS_Colour shader it probably makes little difference. For other games that have a ton of shaders enabled then the FPS saving is probably more noticeable. I need to do some more testing with it enabled versus disabled, but I haven't noticed any real difference in GPU frametimes, but that could be due to my GPU. There is also an FXAA shader that I'm going toi play with to see if there is any way of reducing the "shimmers".

 

 

I just tried it with a hot key to toggle it on and off. Don't notice any difference at all on FPSVR frametimes.

[imacken]

16 minutes ago, zildac said:

From a ReShade FAQ:

 

After you configure all of the effects, it will take some time to compile all of the shaders and apply them to the game – it will go through this every time you launch the game, or alt-tab back and forth in and out of the game. To make this process faster, you can either delete the shaders you don’t use (by moving them into subfolders), or enable Performance Mode in the Settings tab. By enabling Performance Mode, it renders all of the variables static (meaning they can’t be edited until Performance Mode is disabled), but it will speed up compilation a lot, and also increase the framerate overall (as ReShade won’t be scanning the shaders in the background to see which ones it needs to apply).

 

Given that most of us are probably only using the VR_CAS_Colour shader it probably makes little difference. For other games that have a ton of shaders enabled then the FPS saving is probably more noticeable. I need to do some more testing with it enabled versus disabled, but I haven't noticed any real difference in GPU frametimes, but that could be due to my GPU. There is also an FXAA shader that I'm going to play with to see if there is any way of reducing the "shimmers".

 

Ah OK, so it maybe doesn't affect us then.  That quote talks about time to compile, but I don't see any extra time at all.  I guess because we are only using a restricted set of shaders.

[zildac]

33 minutes ago, ShaunX said:

 

I just tried it with a hot key to toggle it on and off. Don't notice any difference at all on FPSVR frametimes.

Same here. I don't think it really applies to our use case tbh.

23 minutes ago, imacken said:

Ah OK, so it maybe doesn't affect us then.  That quote talks about time to compile, but I don't see any extra time at all.  I guess because we are only using a restricted set of shaders.

Absolutely, I don't see any additional "compile" time here either. I think the number of shaders in the shaders directory AND the number that are enabled are the determining factors. For example my shaders directory contains only these:

 

 

The "standard" reshade distribution contains this lot: (DCS in ASCII mode is interesting)

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by zildac

[Woona]

You can see my summary table from FV on my Caucasus standardized benchmark with Performance mode disabled and then enabled here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ojDB6q4DHzFXC9plOsesBCqHYYnIGxJkKkw3CIwbVHc/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

This can be caused by a ton of variables. Component overhead across our systems and usecases not the least of them. This has been replicable 3 separate times for me. To make sure I wasn't going crazy, I recorded these numbers one more time just now and uploaded the csv to Sheets so I could share them. That's the doc up there. Clean run-through to clear any unusual microstutters on first run, reload, benchmark, enable performance mode, reload, benchmark. In this run, I have several areas mostly sky-filled where I turn upside-down and immediately fill the viewport with lots of buildings. In these scenarios, the CAS consistently causes a quick stutter (see 15.04 Min FPS above).

If the consensus is that it either brings no difference or a performance benefit, would it not be preferable that Performance mode is recommended generally? It seems odd that we shouldn't recommend it as a rule of thumb until we know more. I say this because I fear lurkers on this thread make the assumption that it makes no difference, inevitably leaving some passer-by worse off.

 

Oh, and a side-note: I see some screenshots with folks running the entire suite of .fx, albeit disabled. The new build on Nexus from fholger contains an optimized CAS+color/contrast .fx and no other jazz, specifically made to be lightweight. It should show only CAS.fx in the reshade menu. Sorry if this has already been mentioned or whatever else, it's just notably more performant so, hey, worth mentioning. 

 

As for FXAA, it compiles fine for me but the image is blurry as all hell. Cockpit gauges in the F-16 become literally unreadable. That and SMAA combined made for an interestingly sharp and less aliased image, however upon testing I found the combination to have the same or worse performance than 2x MSAA. The latter produces a far better image anyway. You can see a quick through-the-lens example of a clean picture versus FXAA in my ReShade from my shitty stream here (33:19 vs. 35:00):

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Woona

[pixie]

On 4/6/2021 at 1:24 AM, Harlikwin said:

 

Just the standard shader I guess, I mainly played with saturation/contrast/brightness, terrain now looks great. Cockpit looks way worse/darker though. 

 

The cockpit is indeed darker, because there is more contrast applied,  but you can turn the gamma up in DCS system setting so you can get some details back in the cockpit without removing the clarity

[Coolhand77]

I have tried it today, it’s like magic.

The landscape gets superclear in reverb G2.

Best mode I have tried in DCS!

[javelina1]

Thanks Woona, did not know about the new, lighter version that fholger created.  I'm downloading it via Nexus, and will try it out later today.  thanks!

[zildac]

3 hours ago, Woona said:

You can see my summary table from FV on my Caucasus standardized benchmark with Performance mode disabled and then enabled here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ojDB6q4DHzFXC9plOsesBCqHYYnIGxJkKkw3CIwbVHc/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

This can be caused by a ton of variables. Component overhead across our systems and usecases not the least of them. This has been replicable 3 separate times for me. To make sure I wasn't going crazy, I recorded these numbers one more time just now and uploaded the csv to Sheets so I could share them. That's the doc up there. Clean run-through to clear any unusual microstutters on first run, reload, benchmark, enable performance mode, reload, benchmark. In this run, I have several areas mostly sky-filled where I turn upside-down and immediately fill the viewport with lots of buildings. In these scenarios, the CAS consistently causes a quick stutter (see 15.04 Min FPS above).

If the consensus is that it either brings no difference or a performance benefit, would it not be preferable that Performance mode is recommended generally? It seems odd that we shouldn't recommend it as a rule of thumb until we know more. I say this because I fear lurkers on this thread make the assumption that it makes no difference, inevitably leaving some passer-by worse off.

 

Oh, and a side-note: I see some screenshots with folks running the entire suite of .fx, albeit disabled. The new build on Nexus from fholger contains an optimized CAS+color/contrast .fx and no other jazz, specifically made to be lightweight. It should show only CAS.fx in the reshade menu. Sorry if this has already been mentioned or whatever else, it's just notably more performant so, hey, worth mentioning. 

 

As for FXAA, it compiles fine for me but the image is blurry as all hell. Cockpit gauges in the F-16 become literally unreadable. That and SMAA combined made for an interestingly sharp and less aliased image, however upon testing I found the combination to have the same or worse performance than 2x MSAA. The latter produces a far better image anyway. You can see a quick through-the-lens example of a clean picture versus FXAA in my ReShade from my shitty stream here (33:19 vs. 35:00):

 

 

 

Thanks Woona this is useful info. Regarding the enabling of performance mode I have it on as any button that says "make it faster" I'll usually click, provided there is no noticeable detriment, which in this case there doesn't seem to be. I actually downloaded the standard reshade build and copied those shaders into the DCS ReShade path in order to play with the different effects. As you rightly say having all of them in there whether enabled or disabled will have a negative impact on performance. I had no joy with FXAA. Did you just drop the FXAA.fx file into the shaders directory and enable it, as for me this produced the compilation error. It sounds like it offers no benefit anyways. Guess we're still stuck with the "shimmers" albeit sharper and far better looking

Edited April 9, 2021 by zildac

[ShaunX]

Github version..

 

 

Nexus Version..

 

 

..assuming this is the link

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/46999?tab=description