Objects from distance flashing/moving/shimmering

[Elril]

Hello everyone,

 

This is my first message so I would take this opportunity to thank all the members of this community for their work, which immensely helped me to have a starting point to tune my VR settings.

 

I now have a decent frametime I'm happy with, but I'm really annoyed with a kind of weird effect for objects at the horizon, for instance fences of an airfield which are far away or clouds at the horizon.

Objects close to me are OK, and this effect only appears when objects are very far away.

 

I don't know if this effect is called shimmering or jittering (as english is not my primary language), but those clouds or fences are kind of flashing, vibrating and jumping up/down/left/right even when I'm not really moving my head, which is really annoying.

 

I would be happy with lower settings, or something a little bit blurry as long as the image is not shaking around. But no matter the settings I try, this effect remains.

 

My config is the following one:

- Geforce RTX3080 OC

- AMD 5800X

- 32 GB of DDR4 3600MHz C18 RAM

- HP Reverb G2 as my headset

 

In terms of mods, I use Open FSR 1.1, and the @Taz1004 version of Kegetys shaders. I've tried uninstalling those to test, but it doesn't seem to solve the issue. I don't use Reshade at the moment.

 

I followed the @speed-of-heat guide to have a starting point for my VR Configuration. You'll find enclosed a screenshot of my setting

 

I've taken two recorded videos in order to be able to share with you the issue. It is difficult to really perceive it on the recorded and I had to zoom in to highlight the effect. It is actually way worse and way more present through the lenses than we can realize on the video, but it gives an idea of the issue is...

 

 

 

 

My question is quite simple. The DCS VR video I can see (which I know are not recorded through the lenses) does not seem to display the same issue as I have.

Is it only because of the recording? Do you all have this issue when playing?

Is there anything I could try to solve it and have a more "stable image" of the horizon?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Elril

[zildac]

Hi Elril,

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the beast with the current rendering engine. It is a pet peeve of mine tbh and does somewhat detract from the immersiveness of VR. The issue with the clouds was only introduced with the "new clouds", the issues with fences and so forth has been around for sometime. Due to the deferred render engine, no amount of tweaking in the Nvidia or AMD control panel will get rid of this (contrary to a number of posts). I also see the issue on objects that are close to me and within the cockpit to a lesser degree. I did not notice the issue with my Rift S no doubt due to the generally lower resolution. The G2 unfortunately highlights the existing issues in this area. I think many of us VR users are hoping that Vulkan and multicore will have a positive impactive on graphical fidelity and this issue specifically, of course along with an increase in performance and better use of modern multicore processors.

 

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

I still get the shimmering on my settings.  I think its just the way it is. sometimes it bugs me out more than others. pretty much as @zildacsays

[edmuss]

Using openfsr does introduce some additional shimmering, particularly with the horizon clouds, however the performance uptick is more important to me, typically in the A10 I'm not looking at the horizon specifically so it just sort of blends into the background.  By using fsr I can run just about everything else at high settings with good frametimes (note: sp only) and it looks awesome.

Flying low over the city rooftops on syria is particularly bad for shimmering but I find that if I keep my focal point moving then it's not near so noticeable.

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

I guess this is the way, for now...

[Svsmokey]

My number one beef with DCS VR...

[Elril]

Thanks a lot for your answers guys. At least I will be able to stop spending so much time tweaking settings, knowing that it won't solve it and you all live with it.

I'll go play the game for now.

[Bader242]

I turn off Terrain Object Shadows because a great deal of the shimmering is the shadows on fences/trees and not the fences/trees themselves.  Looking at your settings, it looks like you’re doing that?  The only other thing I saw an improvement with was turning on MFAA in Nvidia Control Panel.

[speed-of-heat]

@Bader242 you say turn MSAA on in the nvidia CP, where and what exactly, i have *never* seen any actual impact from that, but maybe I'm doing it wrong?

[TZeer]

Apparently it "should" increase performance on msaa. MFAAx4 should give close to MSAAx4 quality, but with MSAAx2 performance. It`s what I gather from this.

 

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/geforce-graphics-cards/5/203071/is-mfaa-only-supposed-to-be-used-when-msaa-is-bein/

[speed-of-heat]

curse my dyslexia! MFAA not MSAA .. ok i will give that a go

but again MFAA is either on or OFF there is no x4 MFAA ... are you saying force MFAA on and MSAA to x 4 (in NCP or DCS) or are you saying MFAA and MSAAx2 ? 

[TZeer]

Yes. 

I have yet to try it myself. 

But how I understand it. MSAA in game decides the scale. MFAA on/off decides if it should be MFAAx2 or MSAAx2.

[zildac]

I have tried MFAA on in nvcpl but I can't say I noticed any perceivable improvement. Will have another go

[speed-of-heat]

nope, tried it forced, tried it application controlled tried enhanced  and it makes zero difference to shimmer

[Hoirtel]

I since the Q2's link Sharpening option was introduced I now use NVCP MFAA on in addition to MSAAx2 in-game. MFAA seems to slightly reduce the impact of some shimmers introduced as part of the sharpening. Never used to do much for me before that.

[TZeer]

How is it performancewise with MSAA at x4?

[zildac]

The shimmering is without any doubt worse when the sun is low, so I think the lighting engine also plays some part tbh. I can't reduce it no matter what I try. And I've tried tirelessly since upgrading to the G2 a year ago. I'm just hoping the Vulkan rewrite will kill it off or at least reduce it significantly.

[edmuss]

Following from the earlier conversation about MFAA in NVCPL I've been playing about with it in my normal completely non-scientific way

MFAA appears to essentially enhance any existing MSAA, here are my findings: -

Using a rooftop pass over Beirut as a rough guide - lots of square edges that alias and cause shimmer, particularly in the middle distance.

MSAA x2 + MFAA turned on in NVCPL quite noticeably reduces the shimmering compared to MFAA off, for next to no impact on frametimes.  There is still some shimmer but on the whole it is less noticeable.

If you can manage to run MSAA then to my eyes it's certainly worth turning on MFAA.

My settings as below, running openfsr@0.7 renderscale and @speed-of-heat clearwater shader mod.  Reberb G2 @100%, frametimes over Beirut is 18-24ms.

Have a play, it might work ok for you, it might not

[Bader242]

On 1/7/2022 at 6:09 PM, zildac said:

The shimmering is without any doubt worse when the sun is low, so I think the lighting engine also plays some part tbh. I can't reduce it no matter what I try. And I've tried tirelessly since upgrading to the G2 a year ago. I'm just hoping the Vulkan rewrite will kill it off or at least reduce it significantly.

Do you have Terrain Object Shadows on? I’ve found the shadows form a big part of the shimmer so I’ve turned them off. You don’t notice they’re gone but certainly notice less shimmer.

[Ready]

Same here, about similar hardware configuration and I also get these shimmers everywhere I look. I am starting to ignore them, because of task saturation while focusing on flying maneuvers and operations. Turning down scenery details helped me a bit.

When I look at your settings I see some other settings that I turned down without much/any visual difference, but with quite a performance improvement. (terrain textures, Clutter/grass)

Edited January 10, 2022 by Ready

[Al-Azraq]

On 1/5/2022 at 2:41 PM, zildac said:

Hi Elril,

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the beast with the current rendering engine. It is a pet peeve of mine tbh and does somewhat detract from the immersiveness of VR. The issue with the clouds was only introduced with the "new clouds", the issues with fences and so forth has been around for sometime. Due to the deferred render engine, no amount of tweaking in the Nvidia or AMD control panel will get rid of this (contrary to a number of posts). I also see the issue on objects that are close to me and within the cockpit to a lesser degree. I did not notice the issue with my Rift S no doubt due to the generally lower resolution. The G2 unfortunately highlights the existing issues in this area. I think many of us VR users are hoping that Vulkan and multicore will have a positive impactive on graphical fidelity and this issue specifically, of course along with an increase in performance and better use of modern multicore processors.

 

 

 

This is the right answer. With the current renderer and the AA techniques used, antialiasing is not applied to every object in the scene such as fences and clouds. What we need is TAA, which applies to the whole image while performing much better.

Personally I’m new to VR and all this shimmering has been a total turndown for me as I have it even for other planes on the ramp.

EDIT: I talked too soon. 

I decided to give it a fewer dirty tries before work and I must say that I had very good results. First, I pushed the pause button on the Mixed Reality Portal. I don't know if that improved the frames in the game but at least I've got rid of that annoying screen. Then, I put 100% resolution on SteamVR and the shaperning on FSR at 0.2 (scaling is 0.8)

Shimmering is much much improved and performance is good. Actually I didn't notice much impact when using 100% resolution (I guess it is due being locked at 45 FPS and having overhead). It is good even in the Tomcat on Nevada Cold Start which is a busy ramp. GPU sits at 70% usage, so I'll try to increase some graphical options or maybe the resolution for extra clarity. I find the graphical fidelity enough with my current settings and I would appreciate more clarity rather than better shadows.

PC is on my signature.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Al-Azraq

[TED]

2 hours ago, Al-Azraq said:

This is the right answer. With the current renderer and the AA techniques used, antialiasing is not applied to every object in the scene such as fences and clouds. What we need is TAA, which applies to the whole image while performing much better.

Personally I’m new to VR and all this shimmering has been a total turndown for me as I have it even for other planes on the ramp.

EDIT: I talked too soon. 

I decided to give it a fewer dirty tries before work and I must say that I had very good results. First, I pushed the pause button on the Mixed Reality Portal. I don't know if that improved the frames in the game but at least I've got rid of that annoying screen. Then, I put 100% resolution on SteamVR and the shaperning on FSR at 0.2 (scaling is 0.8)

Shimmering is much much improved and performance is good. Actually I didn't notice much impact when using 100% resolution (I guess it is due being locked at 45 FPS and having overhead). It is good even in the Tomcat on Nevada Cold Start which is a busy ramp. GPU sits at 70% usage, so I'll try to increase some graphical options or maybe the resolution for extra clarity. I find the graphical fidelity enough with my current settings and I would appreciate more clarity rather than better shadows.

PC is on my signature.

 

Now that is an interesting idea I hadn’t thought of. I will have to try that later. Pausing the wmr screen makes sense. If nothing else it will help unload the gpu and cpu a bit, helping frametimes. 

[Al-Azraq]

1 minute ago, TED said:

Now that is an interesting idea I hadn’t thought of. I will have to try that later. Pausing the wmr screen makes sense. If nothing else it will help unload the gpu and cpu a bit, helping frametimes. 

Please post your results, I'm interested.

Understanding how VR works and the different options there are is a bit complicated at first but once you get it, it is relatively easy to tune it and get your visuals where you want it. Of course your hardware will be a limitation but still doable. For all the horror histories I've heard about DCS VR, it is not that bad. This doesn't mean that DCS VR doesn't need MASSIVE work from ED but it is doable right now.

I will test more this afternoon.

[edmuss]

You can also use an empty room instead of the cliffhouse for the WMR portal, saves a small amount of VRAM in the background.

DCS VR works really nicely but it's far from plug and play to get the most out of it; there is a lot of tweaking to get it right and with so many variables it's very easy to upset the balance.  Once you know the mechanics of motion smoothing and the frametime targets that you need to achieve it's relatively simple to get performance in the right ball park, the trick then is tweak the settings to give the best compromise of keeping the frametime in the optimum envelope and improve clarity.

The upscaling tools can work really well, I find that anything much less than 0.75 renderscale starts to degrade image quality but with any of the upscaling techniques the aliasing/shimmers are increased dramatically, MSAA counters that but at a frame hit (if you have nvidia then enabling MFAA to bolster then ingame MSAA gives a great improvement in clarity).  Sharpening can help but introduces more shimmer still, I use it sparingly and takes a while to get the sweetspot.

My ideal would be using no upscaling but with a 3070 it's not possible to run high settings and keep the frametimes useable.

[Ready]

44 minutes ago, edmuss said:

You can also use an empty room instead of the cliffhouse for the WMR portal, saves a small amount of VRAM in the background.

DCS VR works really nicely but it's far from plug and play to get the most out of it; there is a lot of tweaking to get it right and with so many variables it's very easy to upset the balance.  Once you know the mechanics of motion smoothing and the frametime targets that you need to achieve it's relatively simple to get performance in the right ball park, the trick then is tweak the settings to give the best compromise of keeping the frametime in the optimum envelope and improve clarity.

The upscaling tools can work really well, I find that anything much less than 0.75 renderscale starts to degrade image quality but with any of the upscaling techniques the aliasing/shimmers are increased dramatically, MSAA counters that but at a frame hit (if you have nvidia then enabling MFAA to bolster then ingame MSAA gives a great improvement in clarity).  Sharpening can help but introduces more shimmer still, I use it sparingly and takes a while to get the sweetspot.

My ideal would be using no upscaling but with a 3070 it's not possible to run high settings and keep the frametimes useable.

Yeah you are right. Am also using an empty room instead of cliff house, but does not make a big noticeable difference to me. It saves some GPU RAM.