G2, supersampling, MSAA performance face-off

[Tony86]

9 hours ago, nikoel said:

It hurts me to say this, but all of our testing might have just been undone

I have just tried the OpenXR hack... mod... thing... It has given me a ridiculous visual and performance uplift. FSR sadly doesnt work. It does not matter. Reshade doesnt work either. To me it still looks better. I don't know how many FPS I am getting. Frame time improvements - no idea (FPSVR doesn't work). But the perceived difference is significant. Texture quality improvement alone is mind blowing. All I did was set a PD of 1.1 in the DCS settings to bring performance back and visual quality up and went straight to OpenXR settings and unticked motion smoothening as is the way. I didn't want to mess with the opencomposite.ini and left it as default. All AA settings to off

And there is no more epilepsy inducing BRRRRT loading screens

https://gitlab.com/Jabbah/open-composite-acc

Make sure to install the d3dcompiler

Make sure to open Mixed Reality Portal and quit/don't open SteamVR and keep the DCS window on top during the boot of the game

Before I installed the mod, I ran a full clean and repair

F-14 is Crisp. Feels like I have upgraded to a newer generation headset

I will leave it at that

 

hey sounds really interesting as i have a G2.

if i understand.... i am going to try OCXR on a clean config of dcs

1-then just need to replace openvr_api.dll and opencomposite.ini in the bin folder?

2-where/how do you "install" d3dcompiler_47.dll?

3-do i need to install the 2 win-ocd3d.dll and .pdb? if so, where do you put them?

4-then put reshade on top of that?

thanks a lot for your help.

i really need to try that.

Edited March 13, 2022 by Tony86

[nikoel]

5 hours ago, Tony86 said:

hey sounds really interesting as i have a G2.

if i understand.... i am going to try OCXR on a clean config of dcs

1-then just need to replace openvr_api.dll and opencomposite.ini in the bin folder?

2-where/how do you "install" d3dcompiler_47.dll?

3-do i need to install the 2 win-ocd3d.dll and .pdb? if so, where do you put them?

4-then put reshade on top of that?

thanks a lot for your help.

i really need to try that.

 

1) Yes

2) I believe I installed it in the Bin folder

3) I don't know. I did not install them 

4) From what I understand if you try to install ReShade you will be unable to boot DCS

 

[Tony86]

5 hours ago, nikoel said:

1) Yes

2) I believe I installed it in the Bin folder

3) I don't know. I did not install them 

4) From what I understand if you try to install ReShade you will be unable to boot DCS

 

ok thanks a lot

i will have a try.

[Tony86]

it works.

but i dont know why, when i recenter the view with my vr headset all the axis of the headset are upside down. when i turn head right view goes forward etc.... anyo,e has an idea please before i threw up?

thanks for help

[Glide]

Thanks for that excellent video link.  By his logic, the deferred rendering engine of DCS benefits from as much AA and AF as possible.  Give this a spin: SteamVR 100, Adv SS Filtering On, Motion Smoothing On, Textures Medium, Terrain Textures Low, Vis Range Low, MSAA X4, SSAA X2, SSLR On, and AF x8 and Pixel Density 0.5.  The only way to get that much AA working is to bring down the pixel count, so low textures and low PD with high AA and AF.  I find the G2 can handle this during rolls without that juddering that occurs at the edge of vision.  Try some barrel rolls over the Marianas at sunset.  I can get it to judder in a couple of spots, but for the most part it can support a WWII dogfight, IMHO.

[DeltaMike]

9 hours ago, Glide said:

Thanks for that excellent video link.  By his logic, the deferred rendering engine of DCS benefits from as much AA and AF as possible.  Give this a spin: SteamVR 100, Adv SS Filtering On, Motion Smoothing On, Textures Medium, Terrain Textures Low, Vis Range Low, MSAA X4, SSAA X2, SSLR On, and AF x8 and Pixel Density 0.5.  The only way to get that much AA working is to bring down the pixel count, so low textures and low PD with high AA and AF.  I find the G2 can handle this during rolls without that juddering that occurs at the edge of vision.  Try some barrel rolls over the Marianas at sunset.  I can get it to judder in a couple of spots, but for the most part it can support a WWII dogfight, IMHO.

Ye gods

My suggestion would be at least try FXAA.  

[Baldrick33]

I have never had much success performance wise with OpenXR. I get a much smoother experience with DCS and SteamVR using motion reprojection with my G1 than I do with MSFS for example. Not sure if it is my system - 8600K @ 4.8, 2080Ti, 32Gb RAM or settings somewhere. I just tried DCS with it and it worked but it wasn't as smooth as SteamVR. I tried it motion reprojection on and off in OpenXR settings. As mentioned MSFS is just the same.

[nikoel]

I'm going to forego what I actually want to write and say the following: MSFS and DCS are completely different games. Written in completely different ways. There is no way to compare the two as they are chalk and cheese

You may as well have said red cars are faster than blue cars because I own a red car and it went faster than my friend with the blue one

Anyway, I have made FSR work and performance/visual improvements are out of this world. It's like I have upgraded to new generation headset

[Baldrick33]

3 hours ago, nikoel said:

I'm going to forego what I actually want to write and say the following: MSFS and DCS are completely different games. Written in completely different ways. There is no way to compare the two as they are chalk and cheese

You may as well have said red cars are faster than blue cars because I own a red car and it went faster than my friend with the blue one

They maybe but it is inevitable they will be compared and there seems to be a belief amongst some that MSFS support of OpenXR is giving it a significant advantage for WMR devices. My experience of MSFS doesn't support that belief, however, given the numbers lauding MSFS VR performance I am somewhat intrigued why my experience is different.

In DCS my experience thus far is that OpenXR performance in DCS using the mod is inferior to using SteamVR and reprojection. Given that I also find MSFS to be equally inferior I question whether it might something my end settings wise. Hence the comparison.

[Glide]

7 hours ago, DeltaMike said:

Ye gods

My suggestion would be at least try FXAA.  

Yes, FXAA is fine for full resolution, but as you drop PD the jaggies start to get more noticeable.  For awhile I was running full native resolution with no AA or AF, just to keep the GPU processing time down to a minimum.  You can get used to some jaggies after awhile as long as the performance is rock solid. The sim can pump the frames.

I think lower PD with more AA and AF gets you a smoother result.  If you are just cruising in your favourite ride then you can have high PD with a little AA, but it fails the stress test.  It's a trade-off: more pixels, less AA and AF required.  With lower PD you need to sharpen it up.

[Glide]

2 hours ago, Baldrick33 said:

Hence the comparison.

The comparison is valid for NIS and Sharpening, which is what the OpenXR Toolkit brings to the table for VR.  These features are applied after the frame is released by the game to the card so their benefits are not game engine specific. 

[DeltaMike]

G2 definitely gives you a hard image, and it's expensive to soften it up.  Both in terms of GPU time and playability.

FXAA looks pretty good to me but I like it sharp and can ignore a lot of shimmering. 

For my next test I'm gonna take a closer look at DLAA, comparing that to VR Toolkit. I'm generally skeptical of TAA in VR, our frames are too slow and the camera is wiggling around too much, I think.  But, it's intriguing. If you like a soft image, it's like downy soft.  

[Al-Azraq]

16 hours ago, Baldrick33 said:

They maybe but it is inevitable they will be compared and there seems to be a belief amongst some that MSFS support of OpenXR is giving it a significant advantage for WMR devices. My experience of MSFS doesn't support that belief, however, given the numbers lauding MSFS VR performance I am somewhat intrigued why my experience is different.

In DCS my experience thus far is that OpenXR performance in DCS using the mod is inferior to using SteamVR and reprojection. Given that I also find MSFS to be equally inferior I question whether it might something my end settings wise. Hence the comparison.

Most likely your CPU is holding you back a lot, it will even in 2D so in VR it is much worse. MSFS is a modern game with modern rendering techniques including TAA and DLSS coming which is a much better AA solution than MSAA especially under deferred rendering. This alone will give MSFS a solid advantage over DCS in both image quality and performance.

[Baldrick33]

1 hour ago, Al-Azraq said:

Most likely your CPU is holding you back a lot, it will even in 2D so in VR it is much worse. MSFS is a modern game with modern rendering techniques including TAA and DLSS coming which is a much better AA solution than MSAA especially under deferred rendering. This alone will give MSFS a solid advantage over DCS in both image quality and performance.

My 8600K has served me pretty well in VR in DCS and other games which are predominantly reliant on single core speed. It runs stable at 4.9GHz. Of course a time will come when its age will hold back modern developments, maybe that is the issue with OpenXR.

It is just that OpenXR is often presented simplistically as a panacea for WMR devices through bypassing SteamVR which is a bottleneck.

In my experience DCS runs nicely at 45 fps with SteamVR and motion reprojection on. It is very playable and enjoyable with my CPU in VR as long as I don't get greedy with object numbers in missions. MSFS has never run particularly well for me in VR with OpenXR. DCS doesn't run well with OpenXR. Now that may be down to the motion reprojection, If I turn it off with SteamVR and fail to achieve 90fps it just isn't smooth. Motion reprojection with OPenXR seems ineffective. Maybe I should try turning it on in WMR using the old text file editing method?

I don't want to get into using FSR for tweaking as I want to understand why OpenXR appears to be of lower performance to SteamVR without a bunch more variables.

Maybe OpenXR is more effective with more modern CPUs but simply bypassing SteamVR doesn't seem to have the gains suggested.

[edmuss]

From my brief forays into the openxr mod last night, it's not specifically that it's significantly more performant across the board but the image clarity is certainly better.

For reference my normal setup is 150% steamvr with 0.75 FSR needing to run 60Hz to keep the smoothing engaged.

With openxr the image clarity is better at 100% with no FSR (yet, will be testing it tonight) and I'm able to run with no smoothing and at the same nominal frametimes. Add in the uplift from FSR and potentially it could be significant gains.

[Sr.]

On 3/10/2022 at 12:36 PM, DeltaMike said:

Observations:

1.  MSAA gives the best result in terms of reducing shimmering in the cockpit, on shorelines, and on runway edges, and also does the best job of defining structures such as cranes, bridges and powerlines, at the approximate expense of running 150% resolution

2.  Supersampling using steam settings has an intermediate effect on performance and cosmetics.  Significantly reduced shimmering in cockpit textures, somewhat reduced shimmering along shorelines and runway edges, and a modest improvement is the resolution of ground structures such as bridges and power lines.  Not as good as MSAA, but not as expensive performance-wise, and considerably more granular.  

3.  It does not appear that the DCS setting "SSAA" has any effect on performance, or visuals.  Not clear that it is doing anything in VR.

4.  Likewise, whether or not Steam Advanced Supersampling is applied does not appear to affect performance, and does not appear to affect shimmering in cockpit textures, shorelines or runways.  However I got the feeling it may result in better definition of ground structures such as bridges and powerlines.  It doesn't cost anything, so I suppose it's worth trying.  

 

DISCUSSION

Testing was done with a 6900XT which can presently run the G2 at native resolution (100/100/1.0) with little difficulty, however it results in a very "hard" image with considerable shimmering evident along edges.  I'm assuming this is due to pixilation; the individual pixels are hard to resolve visually but when the head is moving (as it always is in VR) we can see the action along edges.   Easiest to see looking at coastlines or on runway edges although it also shows up in cockpit textures.  Certain structures -- cranes, towers, certain buildings, chimneys, posts -- are severely affected.  The NTTR map can be very distracting because of this.  Distant aircraft go through a transition as you approach.  Larger aircraft may be visible as a well defined dot up to 20 miles away.  Then the aircraft disappears, and upon further approach, re-appears as a squirming, pixelated blob that slowly resolves into a recognizable aircraft.  It is not clear to me that this degrades game play, but it can certainly be distracting.  

The solution would be to apply some sort of anti-aliasing.  Traditionally, VR has relied on supersampling, in other words, rendering an image significantly larger that what is displayed in the headset.  Crunching that image down to fit has an anti-aliasing effect in flat screen mode, and adds an extra dimension in VR.  In older, low resolution headsets, it gave the impression of looking at a high resolution world through a screen door, albeit at the expense of losing some definition in text legibility due to "squirminess."  Essentially we were trading resolution of detail for a nicer "big picture."  

MSAA is an anti-aliasing technique that focuses primarily on edges, and as a result is at least theoretically more efficient than supersampling.  Back in the day, the theory was, you could use supersampling to get the "screen door effect," then use MSAA to sharpen up and stabilize your edges, and that would give you the best image in VR. 

Unfortunately, MSAA is not particularly efficient in DCS, because of the way DCS handles rendering. Many still like the effect, and are willing to live with the performance hit.  But with modern, high resolution headsets, we seldom have the power to run both supersampling and MSAA at the same time.  For most of us, if we have the power to try anti-aliasing at all, we will have to choose one or the other. 

MSAA does a fine job of softening the image, although at great expense performance wise.  Supersampling to an extent somewhere between 100 and 150% of native resolution is not quite as good as MSAA at softening up the image, but it can take the edge off while saving a few milliseconds in GPU time.  I got the definite feeling Steam's Advanced Supersampling is doing something, at no measurable cost.

I agree with other observers, that the DCS  SSAA setting doesn't seem to be doing much in VR.  Oddly my GPU time went up a little, frames stayed the same.  Thus, possibly doing something, I'm just not sure what. 

Note, this doesn't leave a whole ton of good options for people with GPUs that can't quite drive the G2 at native resolution.  Supersampling is out, by definition.  The alternative is to dial down resolution to a point where MSAA can be applied, either by using Steam settings, or by using a scaling mod like FSR (or some combination of the two, which is an active area of research).  No guarantee this will work, as scaling introduces its own artifacts.  FSR, according to many reports, is superior to whatever protocol WMR is using, and many players are satisfied with the resulting cosmetics.  However, in my testing at least, gameplay may suffer due to significantly reduced spotting distance.  

(Note: shadows off for this test.  It's not the actual numbers that matter, it's the relative cost and benefit)

 

Have you experimented with any of the advanced visual settings in the Radeon software with your 6900XT?

 

I also read yesterday, AMD is FINALLY releasing their driver level RSR/FSR. (due tomorrow 17th)

 

 

[DeltaMike]

Yeah.  See TEDs 3080 vs 6900xt thread. Most of em don't do anything.  In VR at least.  Interested to see what the future holds for hardware based scaling. 

[DeltaMike]

Anti-aliasing smackdown -- continued.

Today I took her for a spin to compare a couple of anti-aliasing techniques in flight, both over the city and over the desert.  I also set out some Russian trucks in Alamo Bravo to see how these things affect spotting.

Again, DLAA is a really interesting option, it results in a very soft image and really crushes the shimmering.  Unfortunately, it crushes my framerates too so once again I abandoned that one.  Also, I don't like it.  You might; it has the same look as the TAA, but it actually works in DCS.  

SMAA is growing on me.  Just gotta set it up right.     First use the "Display Depth" widget to see if ReShade has proper access to depth information.  Note you have to be in a mission, in a 3D environment for this to work, it won't work on the opening screen.  Then, turn that off and go into the SMAA widget and "Enable Predicated Thresholding" (see pic).  That's the secret sauce; SMAA looks pretty darn good, at a very modest cost if you do that.  NOTE: access to the depth buffer is disabled in multiplayer.  

I tested SMAA alone, using stock settings and predicated thresholding, against my "Big Three" faves (SMAA, Curves, Lumasharpen) and running native resolution, 100/100/1.0 with no anti-aliasing at all.    I have the "Big Three" looking a little garish right now, but it works.  Lumasharpen might work a little too well for some people.  Makes your MFD's and HUD's look awesome, but some of your shimmering comes back.  If you really hate shimmering, you might want to leave that one off.

Also I took VR Perf kit out for a ride.  Since we last spoke, I adjusted my anti-aliasing settings.  Currently using Mode 1 (FXAA), subpix 0.75, edge detec 0.16, darkness thresh 0.8.  Works pretty well.  But note, of the three main options (SMAA, FXAA, and native resolution without AA) only FXAA had a noticeable effect on spotting distance.  With SMAA, the images are a little blurry and squirmy but you can see em.  Plain vanilla native is still the best option for spotting.  

Thoughts: 

Honestly I don't know that I plan to use any of these in routine missions.  Maybe Lumasharpen for MFD clarity.  As for the others, once you get outside the city, it really doesn't matter much.  If you're out sightseeing, yeah pile em on.  In a misssion?  Eeeeehhhhhh....

By the same token, I've kind of lost interest in supersampling.  Not for a high resolution headset like the G2.  To the extent MSAA works at all in DCS, it is, essentially, supersampling.  And it does a pretty darn good job if you ask me.  So in other words, if you're inclined to supersample to begin with, just use MSAA.  If you don't have the headroom to run MSAA, and you want some anti-aliasing anyway, I can recommend VRTK if you want all the effects at minimum cost, and can live with the rather crude antialiasing FXAA gives ya.  Otherwise you owe it to yourself to give SMAA a try.  It's pretty good stuff.  

Edited March 19, 2022 by DeltaMike

[Chaos_Out]

I tend to agree with the above post that MSAA is a form of super sampling, and possibly a more workload efficient one.  I found that going from just 150% SS to 120% SS with MSAA x2 to have practically the same visual quality/clarity but was significantly less stressful on the system and allowed me to have a smoother experience without having to sacrifice clarity.  Yes, I keep forgetting to update my sig but maybe after writing this I will (I won't).

[DeltaMike]

I remember watching this video before making up my mind which HMD to buy.  Kind of gives us an idea of what we are up against.  Note how the Quest2 in general has a softer image.  Lots of shimmering in the G2 and the Index; those are hard images.  The challenge with the G2 is softening it up, which is neither easy nor inexpensive.  

I finally got to take MSFS out for a spin.  Their implementation of TAA is pretty good.  Might be worth taking another look at this in ReShade.  That'll be next.  

Greater men than me have tried.  It appears Lordbean was never able to get rid of the ghosting, hence his HQAA effect.  Not holding out a lot of hope.  

 

Edited March 20, 2022 by DeltaMike

[Al-Azraq]

18 minutes ago, DeltaMike said:

I remember watching this video before making up my mind which HMD to buy.  Kind of gives us an idea of what we are up against.  Note how the Quest2 in general has a softer image.  Lots of shimmering in the G2 and the Index; those are hard images.  The challenge with the G2 is softening it up, which is neither easy nor inexpensive.  

I finally got to take MSFS out for a spin.  Their implementation of TAA is pretty good.  Might be worth taking another look at this in ReShade.  That'll be next.  

Greater men than me have tried.  It appears Lordbean was never able to get rid of the ghosting, hence his HQAA effect.  Not holding out a lot of hope.  

 

 

The problem with the G2 is that it has a much greater resolution so it is more expensive to run and soften the image with the current techniques DCS uses.

MSFS is a much more modern piece of software and you can really notice it is much better on VR precisely because of TAA. This AA technique is much less expensive than MSAA and works much better especially with deferred rendering where MSAA is especially intensive and doesn't work well (actually DCS kinda hacked it in).

Unfortunately I don't reshade will be able to apply TAA as this technique needs motion vectors and that should be added by ED. 

Hopefully it will come with Vulkan.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Al-Azraq

[DeltaMike]

Ah.  That explains a lot.

Based on your explanation, ReShade's "TAA" isn't really TAA then.  I will say, it's kind of a nifty hack.  It is depth-aware, so for example you can set it to where your cockpit isn't blurry but stuff "out there" is.  Clearly not made for VR, I imagine it works best with a static camera.  But in the end, all it really does it make the image blurry, with ghosting besides.  

I hear what you're saying about MSAA.  I feel much the same way about generic supersampling.  As I went from Rift, to Rift S, to G2, seems the cost of supersampling has increased exponentially but the benefit hasn't kept up.  To the point where I'm starting to think it's pointless.  

MSFS's TAA implementation does work, but overall the scene is kind of a blurry mess.  It's pretty, so let's call it a hot mess.  It's not always that hazy out there, especially out over the desert.  When I say "traffic in sight" what I mean is, I see a blob flashing red and green.  Is it a Cessna?  A 747?  Flying saucer?  No way to be sure.  Which is fine.  Apparently the only thing that crashes in MSFS is MSFS

Far as DCS is concerned, my feeling is, pretty is as pretty does.  The game plays great in a high-resolution headset.  

I guess to summarize my feelings on anti-aliasing:

• Supersampling is the bomb if you have a low-res headset; kind of disappointing given the cost, if you have a high-res HMD. To me, anyway. 
• MSAA is fine, if you have the GPU to drive it.
• VR Toolkit or SMAA if fine, if you don't
• None are necessary to play the game, which plays best at native resolution imo

Aaaaand I'm spent

Edited March 21, 2022 by DeltaMike

[Al-Azraq]

39 minutes ago, DeltaMike said:

Ah.  That explains a lot.

Based on your explanation, ReShade's "TAA" isn't really TAA then.  I will say, it's kind of a nifty hack.  It is depth-aware, so for example you can set it to where your cockpit isn't blurry but stuff "out there" is.  Clearly not made for VR, I imagine it works best with a static camera.  But in the end, all it really does it make the image blurry, with ghosting besides.  

I hear what you're saying about MSAA.  I feel much the same way about generic supersampling.  As I went from Rift, to Rift S, to G2, seems the cost of supersampling has increased exponentially but the benefit hasn't kept up.  To the point where I'm starting to think it's pointless.  

MSFS's TAA implementation does work, but overall the scene is kind of a blurry mess.  It's pretty, so let's call it a hot mess.  It's not always that hazy out there, especially out over the desert.  When I say "traffic in sight" what I mean is, I see a blob flashing red and green.  Is it a Cessna?  A 747?  Flying saucer?  No way to be sure.  Which is fine.  Apparently the only thing that crashes in MSFS is MSFS

Far as DCS is concerned, my feeling is, pretty is as pretty does.  The game plays great in a high-resolution headset.  

I guess to summarize my feelings on anti-aliasing:

• Supersampling is the bomb if you have a low-res headset; kind of disappointing given the cost, if you have a high-res HMD. To me, anyway. 
• MSAA is fine, if you have the GPU to drive it.
• VR Toolkit or SMAA if fine, if you don't
• None are necessary to play the game, which plays best at native resolution imo

Aaaaand I'm spent

 

Yeah I agree, haven't tried MSFS on VR though as I'm too lazy to set it up but I prefer blurry rather than shimmering. Also I think that reducing shimmering via Supersampling in a high resolution headset like the G2 is maybe one GPU generation away and for now we will just have to live with the shimmering.

That's why I have been advocating for TAA so much. Sure it tends to blurry the image but if it is well implemented it is not really an issue and it is a very light AA technique. I'll take the blurriness. Also with TAA the door is open for DLSS or FSR 2.0.

Regarding contact ID, I also have difficulties IDing even in the other sim where I run at 100% SteamVR resolution with the G2. The lack of AA makes the bandits become a mess of pixels until I'm quite close and I can't afford to turn on MSAA at 100% resolution.

[DeltaMike]

Good point. 

It's tempting to say, we are up against a hard limit in terms of information available, based on the number of physical pixels-per-degree.  But, that's the probletunity of supersampling in VR; if you keep your head moving, there's more information at hand than the display can render.  You just have to rely on your brain to stitch it all together.  

In other words, your CPU makes a map, and your brain makes a map.  All the GPU has to do is, act as an intermediary between the two.

With that in mind, maybe we should set the matter of shimmering aside and see if supersampling (one way or the other) enhances object identification at intermediate distances.   

 

[Al-Azraq]

10 minutes ago, DeltaMike said:

Good point. 

It's tempting to say, we are up against a hard limit in terms of information available, based on the number of physical pixels-per-degree.  But, that's the probletunity of supersampling in VR; if you keep your head moving, there's more information at hand than the display can render.  You just have to rely on your brain to stitch it all together.  

In other words, your CPU makes a map, and your brain makes a map.  All the GPU has to do is, act as an intermediary between the two.

With that in mind, maybe we should set the matter of shimmering aside and see if supersampling (one way or the other) enhances object identification at intermediate distances.   

 

I think we can be very sure that supersampling indeed improves object identification as what you achieve with supersampling, it is the same you achieve with antialiasing which is providing more information to the renderer so it can output a more defined and rich image. I even tried to increase SteamVR resolution to 150% to try how the image was improved and it did reduced shimmering quite a bit, but it was still there.

I really think that the only solution to it is having TAA, because let's not forget that MSAA with deferred rendering will never ever clean all the image. Even with forward rendering MSAA doesn't apply to some 2D objects like fences.

Finally, I think that shimmering and contact ID go together because if you can clean map objects, then you can clean aircraft however, take also into consideration that identification of enemy planes is not easy in real life either and we may have been spoiled by the zoom function in 2D.