DCS 2.7 VR performance

[dburne]

14 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

twaddle.  WMR and motion smoothing works just fine

 

Indeed.

For my Reverb G2 I run Motion Smoothing enabled and forced at 45 fps.

Allows me to really crank the graphics up and still get smooth performance and very good image quality.

 

[Convexrook]

On 5/4/2021 at 3:54 PM, speed-of-heat said:

twaddle.  WMR and motion smoothing works just fine

Never said it didn't work, but then, I guess you never tried a Vive or Index to see what I mean. Motion smoothing sucks on WMR compared to that on the Steam VR headsets, it is not as smooth. 

[ShaunX]

1 hour ago, Convexrook said:

Never said it didn't work, but then, I guess you never tried a Vive or Index to see what I mean. Motion smoothing sucks on WMR compared to that on the Steam VR headsets, it is not as smooth. 

 

I don't understand this comment. G2 users install WMR for SteamVR and then specifically use the SteamVR motion Smoothing, not the WMR motion Smoothing (which we disable). My G2 experience in DCS is perfectly smooth with head movement, with Steam SS enabled so locked at 90 or 45FPS.

[dburne]

23 minutes ago, ShaunX said:

 

I don't understand this comment. G2 users install WMR for SteamVR and then specifically use the SteamVR motion Smoothing, not the WMR motion Smoothing (which we disable). My G2 experience in DCS is perfectly smooth with head movement, with Steam SS enabled so locked at 90 or 45FPS.

 

Kind of strange but I recently added an Index to my inventory in addition to the Reverb G2. I actually found the G2 to handle motion smoothing a little better in DCS than the Index.

[Luke21]

On 5/5/2021 at 6:53 AM, dburne said:

 

Indeed.

For my Reverb G2 I run Motion Smoothing enabled and forced at 45 fps.

Allows me to really crank the graphics up and still get smooth performance and very good image quality.

 

How is the ghosting with Motion Smoothing on the G2? 

[speed-of-heat]

completely proportional to your frame times ...

[dburne]

3 hours ago, Luke21 said:

How is the ghosting with Motion Smoothing on the G2? 

 

Hardly see it at all, sometimes only occasionally. Not enough to bother me.

[Convexrook]

6 hours ago, Luke21 said:

How is the ghosting with Motion Smoothing on the G2? 

Coming from a Vive pro it is very noticeable to me. It is similar to turning on legacy reprojection on the Vive ( choppy )

[fearlessfrog]

10 hours ago, ShaunX said:

G2 users install WMR for SteamVR and then specifically use the SteamVR motion Smoothing, not the WMR motion Smoothing (which we disable).

 

FWIW, the Motion Smoothing is within the WMR compositor, so SteamVR is just being used as a front-end to enable the WMR motion smoothing setting. The settings used to be in a text file within the WMR for SteamVR config (which like you said, we disable or comment out), but now it uses the setting on the SteamVR side or per-app SteamVR setting to set the mode for the WMR compositor underneath. More info on that change here:

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/enthusiast-guide/using-steamvr-with-windows-mixed-reality#enabling-motion-reprojection-for-steamvr-apps

 

So only the Vive and Index uses the SteamVR motion smoothing, and the WMR devices uses theirs within their driver.

 

WMR's algorithm has got better the last year or so. On the OpenXR side (which DCS doesn't support as yet) the Motion Smoothing can now actually kick in at 1/4 refresh rate, allowing something like MSFS to run at 22 FPS but you still get 90 Hz in the headset. Having used both the OpenVR with an Index and WMR for SteamVR with a Reverb I'd say the Index is a little smoother at a lower kick-in rate. WMR for SteamVR needs about 55 FPS to work comfortably, while the OpenVR side is still smooth closer to 45 FPS, so Valve did a good job on the overhead side (or WMR is a little too cautious). Once working ok, both seem pretty smooth to me, with the Index having an advantage of more choices around usable refresh rates (I never found 60Hz comfortable on the Reverb).

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by fearlessfrog

[speed-of-heat]

No, you still disable it in the text file  ,*and* allow steam vr to manage it in the gui

[peachmonkey]

10 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

No, you still disable it in the text file  ,*and* allow steam vr to manage it in the gui

 

On my G2 with SteamVR motion smoothing enabled I found that I have to comment out the whole line "motionReprojectionMode" in WMR instead of it saying "none". With it commented out there are no stutters over the ground even on the Channel map. 

[CypherBlue]

3 minutes ago, peachmonkey said:

 

On my G2 with SteamVR motion smoothing enabled I found that I have to comment out the whole line "motionReprojectionMode" in WMR instead of it saying "none". With it commented out there are no stutters over the ground even on the Channel map. 

What is this text file that is being edited? And how can I learn more about what to edit on it? 

[peachmonkey]

10 minutes ago, CypherBlue said:

What is this text file that is being edited? And how can I learn more about what to edit on it? 

 

YourSteaminstallationforlder\Steam\steamapps\common\MixedRealityVRDriver\resources\settings\default.vrsettings

 

edit the file and find the line:

 

"motionReprojectionMode": "auto"            <---(instead of auto it could be set to: none, auto, forced. This line controls motion smoothing using WMR driver)

 

Comment the whole line out, i.e. put either # symbol or // in front of it. 

 

Then make sure the "WMR forSteamVR" app in Steam has Motion Smoothing set to Enabled for DCS in "per application settings".

[speed-of-heat]

4 hours ago, peachmonkey said:

 

On my G2 with SteamVR motion smoothing enabled I found that I have to comment out the whole line "motionReprojectionMode" in WMR instead of it saying "none". With it commented out there are no stutters over the ground even on the Channel map. 

Agreed , this is what I do as well.  That said I get plenty of stutters over the ground on the channel if MSAA is on

[peachmonkey]

15 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Agreed , this is what I do as well.  That said I get plenty of stutters over the ground on the channel if MSAA is on

 

yes, there are some occasional stutters, which I think are tied to the textures being loaded, but once they are in memory those are gone too. Yes, MSAA is pretty heavy so I don't use it.

 

But if you leave that line in the stutters are non-stop even though it says "none" and that's it pretty counter-intuitive, i.e. it's technically off but WMR is tripping over itself.

[Krag6]

There is some fundamental problem with VR on my G2.
On ~9ms frametime i get around 45 fps, asw off (or on, its all the same)
On ~12ms frametime i get around 45 fps (or on, its all the same)

 

11.1ms and below should be 90fps.

 

Frankly whatever i change my settings to, i get 45 fps ingame unpaused.

When I press escape, my fps goes up to whetever it needs to be, even though frametime doesnt change.

 

Unpaused 43-50fps ~ 10.5ms / Paused 75-82fps ~10.5ms

This is with one core working at ~30% and gpu at almsot exactly 50%.
10900k @ 5.1ghz, 3090 with big OC.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Krag6

[speed-of-heat]

5 minutes ago, Krag6 said:

There is some fundamental problem with VR on my G2.
On ~9ms frametime i get 45 fps asw
On ~12ms frametime i get 45 fps asw

11.1ms and below should be 90fps.

Frankly whatever i change my settings to, i get 45 fps.
This is with one core working at ~30% and gpu at almsot exactly 50%.
10900k @ 5.1ghz, 3090 with big OC.

no there is a fundamental problem with how you have configured your g2 one of three things is happening here:

• SteamVR Motion Smoothing is set to Forced always on
• The Graphics setting for Windows Mixed Reality is set to Motion Vector in Steam 
• or your default.vrsettings file has motionreprojectiomode set to motionvector 

maybe all three.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by speed-of-heat

[Krag6]

8 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

no there is a fundamental problem with how you have configured your g2 one of three things is happening here:

• SteamVR Motion Smoothing is set to Forced always on
• The Graphics setting for Windows Mixed Reality is set to Motion Vector in Steam 
• or your default.vrsettings file has motionreprojectiomode set to motionvector 

maybe all three.

 

 

 

And you're wrong, motionvector is off. Otherwise paused fps would never show 75-82. It's not my first day in vr buddy guy.

[speed-of-heat]

well that wasn't what you said intially  ... in which case its likely your CPU is returning a higher frametime... good luck have fun

Edited May 8, 2021 by speed-of-heat
typed GPU meant CPU

[Krag6]

5 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

well that wasn't what you said intially  ... in which case its likely your GPU is returning a higher frametime... good luck have fun

 

My bad. Wanted to make everything clear. I'm sure plenty of people here have ASW on and it might be skewing results.

I mean even at 20% resolution at 5ms frame time its the same 43-50ms, unchanged. Not to mention very ugly 5ms.

This doesn't happen in any other application. Frankly in MSFS VR at 30-45 fps it feels nice and smooth compared to dcs right now.

[speed-of-heat]

OK, if you are just using Steam to measure the frame rate, you get I think its just the GPU time or a synthetic of both GPU and CPU frame time, if you are using FPSvr it breaks out the CPU and GPU frame rates differently, as i am sure you know it only needs either the GPU or the CPU to be out of whack to force you down to 45 ... also whilst the tolerance is technically 11.1ms  for 90FPS my experience seems to be that if its not below 10.8-9 it for a period of a few seconds seems to go into reprojection... not sure if thats an artefact of the resolution of the reporting or some buffer to keep it jumping in and out of the motion smoothing... but either way  if either your CPU or GPU is out of whack you will have problem getting above 45...

 

From your symptoms and its tough to diagnose this at range i'd say that something is hogging your CPU in Windows... typical stuff that used to do it for me was LED lighting controller drivers  or some forms AV i have seen it screw with people as well but ... id start with getting FPS VR and seeing if you are getting a regular spikeon the CPU times

 

 

[Krag6]

Not a terrible idea. I'll report later.

@speed-of-heat It indeed was the CPU frame time killing it. Thankfully no running applications take away from it (20 thread cpu doin it's job i guess). Read the thread back and people got much worse performance than me so I guess i shouldn't really bitch. Ended up upping the res much higher since i got plenty of GPU overhead, make that G2 look nice.

There is still somethign that bothers me. Both Task Manager and FPSvr report cpu core to not be maxing out, but the graph looks really ugly, like it wants to be at 60% but there's plenty red lines maxing out.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Krag6

[speed-of-heat]

1 hour ago, Krag6 said:

Not a terrible idea. I'll report later.

@speed-of-heat It indeed was the CPU frame time killing it. Thankfully no running applications take away from it (20 thread cpu doin it's job i guess). Read the thread back and people got much worse performance than me so I guess i shouldn't really bitch. Ended up upping the res much higher since i got plenty of GPU overhead, make that G2 look nice.

There is still somethign that bothers me. Both Task Manager and FPSvr report cpu core to not be maxing out, but the graph looks really ugly, like it wants to be at 60% but there's plenty red lines maxing out.

 

The CPU percentage is very misleading, and is a representation of the total performance available across all cores, as you know DCS only uses three or four cores at a time, so 30% is pretty good against a 20 thread cpu and i would even say is HIGH i wouldnt expect more than 20% or so...

 

Whilst nothing is taking away directly task swapping does interfere, so its worth minimising the amount of background apps if you can, i think my CPU idle time is like 1-2% after windows has finished its stuff after login... you might also want to experiment with turning of hyperthreading in BIOS/UEFI as that for some people has a negative performance impact.

 

I didnt think to ask if you use TARGET or not? if you do make sure its minimised or it does "something" that forces reprojection, odd...

 

well glad you are happy  all the best  

 

 

[Krag6]

6 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

The CPU percentage is very misleading, and is a representation of the total performance available across all cores, as you know DCS only uses three or four cores at a time, so 30% is pretty good against a 20 thread cpu and i would even say is HIGH i wouldnt expect more than 20% or so...

 

Whilst nothing is taking away directly task swapping does interfere, so its worth minimising the amount of background apps if you can, i think my CPU idle time is like 1-2% after windows has finished its stuff after login... you might also want to experiment with turning of hyperthreading in BIOS/UEFI as that for some people has a negative performance impact.

 

I didnt think to ask if you use TARGET or not? if you do make sure its minimised or it does "something" that forces reprojection, odd...

 

well glad you are happy  all the best  

 

 

Well total cpu performance was like 7% indicated  However i did fix my CPU frametimes. I renamed "scripts" folder from my saved games, lo and behold 7ms frametimes. 
Started with complete rename of dcs.openbeta and then i started returning folders and checking if performance got bad again. Scripts folder was the culprit. Im back to 60-70 fps and my 3090 being once again the slow one ;). Hope it helps.

 

I dont use target, switched to WinWing recently. none of my software (WW Simappro, X1, OpenHardwareManager, steam) seem to interfere.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Krag6

[speed-of-heat]

you might want to check the old exports.lua file that is often a culprit if that is the cause typically if you use something like DCS BIOS or anything that exports cockpit state it is a massive drain on CPU cycles 

p.s. thats great news!