Uninstalled OpenFSR and Shader mods. Surprised by the results. 511.23 3070 RTX

[winghunter]

I recently updated to Nvidia 511.23, RTX 3070, latest DCS version

Since some of the shader mods are really outdated, have artifacts etc I wanted to see what kind of native performance I'd get with stock shaders and no scaling.

After uninstalling everything, repairing files and deleting the /metashaders and /fxo folders, the game recompiled shaders on first load of a map. Yet when the map started performance was still bad since some shaders still needed to be compiled.

When I started the map for the second time however, I got the same FPS as I did with the shader mods and scaling, while having an overall better image quality, even though both tests used the same Nvidia driver. This was quite suprising. Maybe shaders have been improved with the latest DCS version or the Nvidia driver is more effiecient with those shaders.

Setting textures to medium was the biggest performance improvement which seems to fix the leaky VRAM issue. Also restarting DCS after 2 missions, otherwise it gets slower and slower the more you hit "Fly Again"

MSAA set to 2X and Nvidia control panel "Enhance AA" on and  "multi frame sample" on

Edited February 14, 2022 by winghunter

[speed-of-heat]

did you test with motion smoothing on or off... 

[winghunter]

Motion Off.

But this is not a scientific comparison as I had performance issues and glitches with the shader mods (simplex, kegetys). So it may have been my fault and deleting them may have helped.

But now I feel happy without any mods and performance and visuals are good. Dont want to risk breaking things again, especially at night the VR shaders looked weird.

And I couldnt stand the aliasing that openFSR would produce. Even with sharpening to 0.

Edited February 8, 2022 by winghunter

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

2 hours ago, winghunter said:

Nvidia control panel "Enhance AA" on and  "multi frame sample" on

 

I have MFAA on also but I do not seem to get the Enhance AA setting.

[winghunter]

4 minutes ago, VFGiPJP said:

I have MFAA on also but I do not seem to get the Enhance AA setting.

see here

 

[speed-of-heat]

neither MFAA nor nvidia CP AA have any effect on VR.

[winghunter]

14 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

neither MFAA nor nvidia CP AA have any effect on VR.

Ok, i cant verify as the effect is very subtle if any. So myAA improvement may have come from ditching openFSR, rendering at full scale with MSAA 2x enabled in DCS.

[edmuss]

1 hour ago, speed-of-heat said:

neither MFAA nor nvidia CP AA have any effect on VR.

MFAA does work in vr but you have to have MSAA enabled for it to do anything

Never managed to get any other nvcpl AA settings to do anything though.

[speed-of-heat]

i have tried it with MSAA enabled in game and via the CP... it make no difference that i can see in VR 

[edmuss]

Makes no difference frametime wise but the quality of the MSAA is near doubled.

Basically MSAA x4 for the cost of MSAA x2.

[speed-of-heat]

I have not observed it

[winghunter]

So unfortunately I dont know how to make highres screenshots in VR.

But I tried disabling/enabling the setting in NVIDIA CP while running the game, and saw no difference. Assuming that CP setting changes dont require a restart of the game/mission.

Edited February 8, 2022 by winghunter

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

Depending on which HMD one is using, for Quest2 user, one can either use  Oculus/Meta Mirror tool, or in headset recording from the Home environment which is my preferred method. Stick the camera onto the headset lens can be used regardless of the target model.

[DroptheHammer]

1 hour ago, speed-of-heat said:

I have not observed it

I concur with speed of heat.  when I make changes I do 700% zoom in on HMDs, instruments, ground targets and aircraft.  In the cases mentioned above, I see no difference in the Reverb G2 HMD,.

[Al-Azraq]

Personally I tried OpenFSR and decided to remove it.

For instance, with SteamVR SS at 100% and OpenFSR at 80%, you get the same performance results as SteamVR SS on 80% but you add another layer of upsampling and artifacts. For the SteamVR SS at 80% gets me better image and it is easier to control, debug, and tune.

[aceviper]

Went through all settings again today and am amazed at the results...a lot more fps.  Nvidia Driver 511.65.

Dcs repair

Shader clearout including maps

New intel 630 driver supposed to fix memory leak in dwm.exe...only see it with VR hmd powered on.

Mods in jsgme:

Soh shaders mod ic pass 2.7.7.14727

Taz Better trees v5 med low

Reshade 4.91 with depthtoolfx and vr cas fx and fxaa enabled

Steamvr:  54% motion smoothing and advanced supersample on

Wmr for steam: motion for reprojection mode from per app to auto

Nvidia control panel: mfaa on...texture filtering negative lod clamp...VR pre-rendered to 3

 

Somewhere in all that without changing in-game settings I am seeing my best DCS VR experience with the same hardware for a long time.

Possibly the best since I switched to the G2.  

Edited February 11, 2022 by aceviper
*

[winghunter]

2 hours ago, aceviper said:

Mods in jsgme:

Soh shaders mod ic pass 2.7.7.14727

 

Do these look good at night ? In the Tomcat?

[zildac]

16 minutes ago, winghunter said:

Do these look good at night ? In the Tomcat?

I'm assuming you're already using these?

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3313661/

If not, worth a look.

[winghunter]

yeah but the shader mods messed up the night shaders, the textures appeared almost white. Thats why im careful to re-install them after cleanup

Edited February 10, 2022 by winghunter

[cellinsky]

I got rid off all mods (FSR) and tweaks today, did a repair and deleted shaders and fxo files. I have a much better picture now with very low flickering. However, constant low frametimes are still a problem without sacrificing too much clarity. No problem with Il2 at full settings, not with DCS. I wish we could get rid of some objects like fences, cranes, minor poles etc. as the amount of objects is what is taxing my system (GPU not CPU). RTX 3090, Ryzen 8500X, 64 GB Ram, Pimax 8KX. I will stick with default for now and hope for Vulcan or DX12 sometime down the road. Thanks to for the input.

[zildac]

21 hours ago, winghunter said:

yeah but the shader mods messed up the night shaders, the textures appeared almost white. Thats why im careful to re-install them after cleanup

 

Install it via a modmanager, try it and if it causes you issues, disable it. I’ve had no issues with it tbh.

[winghunter]

On 2/8/2022 at 7:33 PM, speed-of-heat said:

did you test with motion smoothing on or off... 

So, now I have another confirmation. Installed @Taz1004  2.79 shaders in my clean install, cleared metashaders/fxo and got 1.1 less average fps.

DCS is latest 2.7.9, havent upgraded to 2.7.10 yet

 

 

Edited February 11, 2022 by winghunter

[winghunter]

And uninstalled the shader mod again, recompiled. Now +2.1 avg fps compared to shader mod. Noticably smoother and more stable framerate. GPU limited, CPU is at less than 30% in this empty mission.

Thats even an 1.1 fps increased compared to the fresh install. Which may be due to forced shader recompile, which i had not done after the fres install even though i changed graphics settings.

Edited February 12, 2022 by winghunter

[aceviper]

On 2/10/2022 at 7:40 PM, winghunter said:

yeah but the shader mods messed up the night shaders, the textures appeared almost white. Thats why im careful to re-install them after cleanup

 

A quick reinstall of F14 module fixes this

[winghunter]

2 hours ago, aceviper said:

A quick reinstall of F14 module fixes this

I didnt have the issue with TAz's shaders. But I did get a performance loss on my 3070. The only way i could explain is that I play in lowest settings except MSAA and textures medium. While people with 3080 or 3090 play medium settings and hence may see an actual performance benefit from the shader mods. But for me its a net loss.