Upgrade the VR HMD instead of the GPU?

[Pyker]

Hi,

I used to play DCS using a GTX 1060 and an Oculus Rift CV1.  I would really like a wider FOV.  A Valve Index would be my preference, but it would require a GPU upgrade and that is currently too expensive for me.  I wouldn’t mind less SDE as well.

I’d like to ask whether upgrading to a reverb G2 or to a Vive pro2, and playing in half resolution until GPU prices become reasonable, would make sense.  Like buying a big future-proof 4K display and playing on it  in 1080p until the day...

Or is that just silly? Better wait and keep using the CV1?

I don’t mind playing on low graphical settings as long as the FPS are good.  I play only DCS and Elite Dabgerous.  Only single player missions.  CPU is ryzen 3600 and I have 16 GB RAM.

Thanks in advance and have a nice day.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Pyker
Retyped in smaller font

[speed-of-heat]

I think in honesty save your money, given your hardware spec i would save to upgrade the GPU, CPU and Memory,  which will give you better performance and experience on the HMD you have today ... 

the G2 is like running 2.25 4k monitors at 100% in steam... and you have to drive that at at least 45FPS in order for it to make sense. even if you run it at 50% you are still going to get a poor experience on a 1060...  the minimum spec for the G2 is a 1070 (and that will be running on minimum settings) so ... yes it would be a poor choice in my opinion 

[Pyker]

Okay. Thanks.  New question then (if you don’t mind).  Currently the cheapest upgrade would be adding RAM.  What kind of increase in performance could I expect with just that (from 16 to 32 or 48 GB) ?

[speed-of-heat]

depends a lot on the map, plane and mission and also your stick configuration, speed and motherboard, I would say if 32Gb of 3200 memory was in 2 sticks you would see a reduction in "stutters" , likely not much pure perf increase, and 32Gb + is pretty much the norm for online play. If you have enough RAM then its enough (to little and you will get occasional stutters as stuff gets loaded into and out of memory.

[okopanja]

Its not rational to spend the money for something that you can not use fully.

If it works for you ok, I would wait for:

• Dcs providing multicore support
• Newer CPU/DDR5/GPU
• Further VR products releases

To save your money, you use what you have, as long as you can.

[Pyker]

Ok thanks.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Pyker

[edmuss]

I was in the same boat, using a Lenovo explorer with a 1070. Upgraded to a G2 and whilst I got it working reasonably well in DCS it needed a hefty overclock of the card and running at lower resolution, settings and at 60hz to allow motion smoothing to work.

Picked up a 3070 and I can now run at full resolution with high settings at 45-85 fps, still use 60hz because it gives a much bigger headroom for motion smoothing and I can handle the lower refresh rate without issue.

If you're looking for a clearer image on the cheap then consider a Lenovo explorer, obviously nothing on a G2 but the resolution is much better than the cv1 and screen door is actually pretty good for first gen VR.

[DerekSpeare]

You need better hardware.  Get at minimum a 1080ti and a 11700k CPU for decent VR performance in VR.  You need a 3080ti, really, but that's another story...

[Pyker]

I think I need a cheaper hobby

now, where’s that guitar that I bought a year ago...

[johnnychemo]

Just to throw this out there - I was having middling performance with a Rift S - lots of stuttering, occasional lag/freezing, etc. I was constantly tweaking settings etc. to no avail.

I caught the G2 on a Black Friday sale and went for it. After setting it up, I have found it to be a much better experience - much smoother, little/no freezes/lag, and of course it looks gorgeous! 

My personal theory is that the Rift S (like the CV1) is no longer supported by Oculus/Meta and as they update their software, Rift performance is being negatively affected. That or SteamVR is a better implementation for OVR

[DeltaMike]

The CV1 is very taxing on your hardware, because there's a temptation to push the supersampling in a (vain) attempt to sharpen things up. I was able to squeeze some life out of my old Vega 56 by upgrading to rift S and turning my supersampling way down. Iirc I lowered my PD from 1.4 to 1.2.  

Dunno if that'll work with quest 2 or not. You can only drive so many pixels with your rig. 

Just sold my old cv1 on eBay for $150... With a little luck you could lateral move to a used rift s and roll with that till you win the Newegg Shuffle! 

Note most of your "graphics settings" have an equal effect on CPU and GPU. That said you have a really decent CPU. I have 5 cents says a 3060ti would drive a quest 2 satisfactorily. 

Dunno that I would be eager to try G2 with anything other than a top tier GPU. It's hard to get away from supersampling, among other things they have to use it in the process of distorting the image so it works with the headsets lenses.  There's a certain amount of works needs done regardless of the final output. 

Buying any electronic device to save for future use is probably not a great strategy. In spite of the current state of the market, the long term trend in technology is that prices come down over time.  Keep your powder dry. 

[Pyker]

OK.  I’ll wait one more year and see then what the GPU / VR market has become.  Maybe in the meantime I’ll roll back to DCS 2.5.5. Or play something else.  I gave up long ago waiting for vulkan or multicore support but that’s another topic.

Thanks.

8 hours ago, johnnychemo said:

Just to throw this out there - I was having middling performance with a Rift S - lots of stuttering, occasional lag/freezing, etc. I was constantly tweaking settings etc. to no avail.

I caught the G2 on a Black Friday sale and went for it. After setting it up, I have found it to be a much better experience - much smoother, little/no freezes/lag, and of course it looks gorgeous! 

My personal theory is that the Rift S (like the CV1) is no longer supported by Oculus/Meta and as they update their software, Rift performance is being negatively affected. That or SteamVR is a better implementation for OVR

May I ask which hardware you use?

[johnnychemo]

Sure - I have an i7-8700, a 2070 Super, and 32gb of DDR4 RAM @2666mhz.

[DeltaMike]

I'm starting over with a new build. About the only thing available, to me at least is 6900xt so I'm doing a build around that. The market is kinda nuts right now, ain't it? I'm flipping over to reverb but kinda miss oculus, quest 2 strikes me as a great deal and the software is a pleasure to use. So many gpu's (2070s for example) would be great with that rig but even the used market is nuts. Sold that Vega for $500. Crazy. 

[wormeaten]

Tough question for these turbulent times.
The point is multiple factors now affecting your upgrade cost in general so I will give you some tips in general so you can see right now is not the right moment for an upgrade.

VR HMD. right now only budget-friendly and worth upgrading is G2 and Q2. There are some better models but the question is value for money. They are not that much better but they are way more expensive. So focus for now on those two models and in this year we could expect some new even better models like for example Arpara AiO.

CPU: for VR using or DCS in 2K/4K in general CPU is not a priority. i5 12400 on B660 MB and DDR4 RAM is the newest budget king and is more than capable of handling your need even paired with 3090Ti or 6900XT or any future GPU model. Also, older gen like 11400 on B560 MB or 5600X on older B450 MB is capable as well for this new GPU's. Soon AMD is releasing 6600X what could be the new budget king on B550 MB. This is what we got now or it is around the corner. By the end of the year, next-gen CPUs are coming but will need a new chipset and socket and it is questioned how much will be a better value.

GPU: Right now prices are crazy and the minimum you want to go is 6700XT or 3070. They are GPU in performances around 2080Ti. In March Intel released his ARC GPU models with similar performances. Also in June coming changes in Etherium mining, so could expect a significant drop in mining profitability. Even now mining is no anymore a significant problem because mining profitability stagnates despite the increasing value of the Crypto market but it is still profitable to keep mining and not selling used GPUs. Investing in new GPS's with that prices is high risk and right now only 6% of the new GPU sales and up in crypto mining. I'm expecting a significant drop in GPU prices even after March, a minimum of 25% and even more until June and they will not go up definitely.

Pandemic: Till Summer 2022 Pandemic will be finally coming to its end. The point is Omicron variant is so highly contagious but not that severe as Delta so with vaccination so far and numbers of those who got COVID we will reach herd immunity and any new wave will be in the future as Flue so will not anymore affect much on health care and the economy as much as it was in last two years so the market will be stabilized and get in normal state. So this will not be the reason for unstable prices anymore in the future.

So whatever you see it is not the right time for an upgrade right now. If you wait so long you can wait at least the next 6 months to save in GPU. Maybe go step by step and upgrade your VR or CPU first and wait until June for a GPU upgrade. Even if you buy Q2 or G2 with 11400 and 6700XT will be a gamechanger for your current set up and that should be a minimum you should go.

[Pyker]

Yeah yeah sure I don’t plan to buy a new CPU or mobo or GPU soon.  My questions were more: would my old GPU be able to drive a G2 or a VP2 in half resolution, and if yes, whether the improvement in image quality and FOV, compared to the CV1, could justify such a purchase.  But the answer is clearly no to both.

Thanks, and best wishes!

[edmuss]

An overclocked 1070 will drive the G2 at half res but for DCS it's really on the limit unless you're willing to wind down the visuals which kind of defeats the point of the headset. 1060 might be useable especially if you use the 60hz mode but it's going to be borderline. Going to have to rely on shader mods and openvrfsr to prop up the framerates.

Compared to the cv1 it will be much clearer, even at half resolution. I still reckon you would be better to grab a first gen wmr, dirt cheap and much reduced screen door, my Lenovo explorer was great for what it cost

[Pyker]

The MRTV review is indeed quite positive about the explorer but it says that the explorer’s FOV is about the same as the CV1’s.

Better FOV would be my main reason for buying a new HMD, so I’ll wait and save money...

But thanks for the suggestion.

[edmuss]

Now I've never measured the fov of a headset before but the G2 feels exactly like the explorer, just much more clarity. I've always considered the face mask as being one of those things in VR, the same as turning my head to look and focus on things rather than just looking with my eyes. My opinion could well just be skewed because I've never used anything better though?

I believe that the kings of fov are the index and more so pimax, neither are necessarily the right option or accessible I don't think.

[dburne]

33 minutes ago, edmuss said:

Now I've never measured the fov of a headset before but the G2 feels exactly like the explorer, just much more clarity. I've always considered the face mask as being one of those things in VR, the same as turning my head to look and focus on things rather than just looking with my eyes. My opinion could well just be skewed because I've never used anything better though?

I believe that the kings of fov are the index and more so pimax, neither are necessarily the right option or accessible I don't think.

Vive Pro 2 horizontal fov is pretty decent also.

[wormeaten]

17 hours ago, Pyker said:

Yeah yeah sure I don’t plan to buy a new CPU or mobo or GPU soon.  My questions were more: would my old GPU be able to drive a G2 or a VP2 in half resolution, and if yes, whether the improvement in image quality and FOV, compared to the CV1, could justify such a purchase.  But the answer is clearly no to both.

Thanks, and best wishes!

In that case Quest 2 is your choice right now. Even G2 is better hardware Quest got better software what will make it a better experience with your current GPU. It is a huge improvement over CV1.

[Pyker]

Hmm I read some reviews of the quest 2 and it looked interesting indeed, but I haven’t read anywhere that the quest 2 had a wider FOV than the CV1 either...  Does it? (That’s why I didn’t mention the Q2 in my original post.)

Waiting still seems a more sensible option.  But again thanks for the suggestion, I’ll think about it.

Other question: 

Deltamike mentioned above that, with and old HMD like the CV1, people tend to raise the pixel density to compensate for the low resolution.  And indeed, I don’t like playing in the CV1 with a PD lower than 1.4.  So my questions are:

- what would DCS look like (in terms of clarity and FPS), with a PD set to 1.0, in a Vive Pro 2 at half resolution, or in a Valve Index, at minimal graphics settings, no supersampling etc.?  Worse than in the CV1 ?  I should add that in the CV1 I use the OTT to set it at 30 fps, to reduce the stuttering compared to 45 fps, and I don’t find 30 fps horrible at all (as long as it’s a « constant » 30 fps).  I mean: do owners of Index or Vive Pro 2 still need a PD higher than 1.0, (and/or supersampling, and/or antialiasing, whatever) or is it playable without that?

- does a CPU upgrade allow to increase PD, or is it only a GPU thing?

By the way, happy new year everybody!

Edited January 1, 2022 by Pyker

[speed-of-heat]

I would not recommend adjusting PD as it is a very BLUNT tool, because of the way it works, in Steam>WMR I would always recommend setting the Steam default value to 100% and then adjusting the CRM for each game you play as this offers a finer degree of control. I imagine (though dont know) that their would be something similar in the Oculus Software.

In terms of impact PD and SS/CRM mainly hits the GPU, with some small impact on the CPU, as it increases the total number of pixels, which is what is important , that the gfx card has to process.  MSAA will increase the total number of pixels processed further still.

[Pyker]

You mean DCS won’t look good at all with PD=1.0 in an Index (or VP2 at half res) ?

[edmuss]

PD gives the same result as steamvr but the number are linked to different values. Steamvr 200% is about equal to PD 1.4 I think. They are both cumulative though so steamvr@100 with PD 1.4 is the same as steamvr@200 with PD 1.0, steamvr@200 with PD 1.4 is the same as steamvr@400.

Reverb at 50% steamvr and PD1 in DCS looks better than the Lenovo did but it's obviously a blurrier display compared to 100%.

That said I've invested a lot of time tweaking DCS to get the best image quality for me and applying the same changes would probably make the Lenovo more useable. My main complaint with the Lenovo in DCS was that the HUD was difficult to read with fuzzy text, that was a couple of years ago though and never really bothered with VR past a cursory try out.

You can always run the reverb right down to very low resolution, the display is still a 4k panel equivalent but obviously the rendered image suffers as a result because you're downsampling.