OpenXR Guide - Deprecated - This time for real (▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿)

[nikoel]

By request of a few members I have put this guide back up. But please note OpenXR now runs natively on DCS

TURBO and Reprojection work with the latest version of OpenXR Toolkit!
 

You may be better off with the official implementation than with OpenComposite (aka this guide) If you are unsure, I would suggest to start with the official implementation first

What is this?

An early quickstart guide on OpenXR for DCS specifically for Windows Mixed Reality Headsets – OpenComposite. It is designed to bypass WMR4SteamVR and interact with OpenXR via this new method

NOTE: Windows Mixed Reality Headsets are specific VR Devices such as Reverb G1, G2, Samsung's Super-Mario Odyssey etc. Some examples of headsets that are NOT WMR are Oculus Rift, Pimax, Varjo. There are ways to make some of those non-WMR headsets work with OpenXR but this guide is not designed for them

This post is constantly updated so you don't have to read through 2 billion comments. The community has donated it's time, effort, expertise and countless hours of frustrations to get this to where it is today. If you have an issue, make sure to read this post fully before posting

 

Why do I want this?

Improved visuals and performance. The connection between Windows Mixed Reality portal and SteamVR is a performance bottleneck. It also consumes more VRAM. The strobe lightshow that are the DCS loading screens are a lot more Valium and a lot less Ecstasy

 

How much performance and visual improvement is there?

Depends a lot on your hardware and settings. Textures felt like a generational upgrade. For those who don't run reprojection, because of a different way OpenXR Handles frame delivery, gameplay has fewer stutters and is smoother. For those who run reprojection, OpenXR can reproject 45, 30 and 22FPS, instead of SteamVR's sole 45FPS 

 

What works and what doesn’t?

Mods

Reshade does not work but reshading can be done via OpenXR Toolkit (more on this shortly)
OpenVR_FSR does not work.
FSR/NIS Works via the latest version OpenXR Toolkit 
OpenKneeboard now works! Thank you
VrNecksaver now works

 

Reprojection

It's currently not great. (Especially on AMD cards it’s garbage) - generally a bit wonky where there are distortions & strobing (eg rotor blades, WWII aircraft) but works. You are injecting artificial frames which guess. Clarity will suffer. If it was this easy to bump up FPS, every game would be doing this. It has made large strides since the first Alpha iteration where it just crashed. It’s 2022. I don’t want to kink shame. So if you’re into it, have a go. A version with better performance is in the works which according to devs at Microsoft might take weeks or months

 

Shaders

I don't run any! OpenXR, The Toolkit with Open Composite is a far superior combination that is designed to run together in unison. Especially with the latest release which can adjust a lot of parameters and even gives you fancy sunglasses. Shaders can be buggy, often break with updates and can have unintended consequences with OpenXR

However! If you're into reprojection then there is a shader mod that gets rid of rotor shadows which solves the artefact issues in the apache

 

It's easy! You need 3 things 

1)    OpenComposite Release

2)    OpenXR Tools

3)    OpenXR Toolkit* [OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED], Sharpening Saturation and Contrast controls, Reprojection etc etc...

Let's go!

 

Instructions 
By popular demand: For the fast method you may be able to get away with only Steps 2, 3, 4 
(CAUTION: The fast method is also known as the very slow method if you account for the inevitability of having to come back to do all the steps properly)

1) Clean/Repair DCS

Start with a clean baseline and resolution settings

You *must* start with a clean installation of DCS. This doesn’t mean a reinstall. Just thorough clean/repair and check.  For standalone installation do this via the Skatezilla utility (link below). Do a clean and a repair, make sure that the checkbox to check all the files is selected and additionally search for extra files too. Don't skip this step unless you know you have a fresh and clean install

• Pixel Density inside the far right tab in the DCS settings must be set to 1.0 
• Please use the skatezilla utility. (This thread would be a fraction as big if everyone did the above ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ )

 

 

 

 

2) Download and install latest release of OpenXR Tools for windows

Its here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/openxr-tools-for-windows-mixed-reality/9n5cvvl23qbt

• Tick Use latest preview and customise the render (the % is the same as SteamVR aka 100% for Reverb is 3100px).
• Set the runtime as OpenXR in the far right 'home tab' (if you don't see the option then it's good to go)
• Optional in the far right tab there is a [very purple] OpenXR demo scene you can quickly run to see if everything is good to go 

I recommend to Leave Motion Reprojection off/auto - but if you're into it then turn it on (P.S. Ignore auto. It is currently for MSFS only and behaves as 'off' in DCS)

NOTE: You can leave the render resolution unticked, in which case OpenXR will decide for you what the resolution you will get, but it's unlikely to be 100%

 

 

3) Download OpenComposite

It's here: https://gitlab.com/znixian/OpenOVR/-/tree/openxr#system-wide-installation - scroll down to 'System Wide Installation' and click download link titled 'OpenComposite Launcher'

• Extract the folder and put it somewhere safe (Desktop or Documents folder - but not inside sensitive folder eg. windows or program files) 
• Run OpenComposite.exe (A small number people reported that they needed to right click 'run as Admin')
• Windows Defender has caused installation issues for some. If there are issues of starting in VR, Make sure it's not blocking OpenComposite

 

 

4) Set runtime to OpenComposite

(Which connects DCS to OpenXR) - On first startup it needs to download DLL's. Wait for that to complete before going to the next step.
NOTE: The app configuration screenshot below is post DCS launch. Initially, you will likely see a blank page. This is normal

• The application allows you to select which individual games you would like to connect via SteamVR and OpenComposite and comes with a built in update utility! Just run it every now and then to check for updates - Neato! 
   

 

 

5) Make sure that WMRP -> Settings -> Startup & Desktop -> Automatic Start Up -> SteamVR automatic launch is unticked

(Optional) My settings for WMRP are as follows, but you do you boo

 

6) Re-calibrate your headset by clearing the environment

Then realigning via Mixed Reality Portal, SEATED, and with the headset in the exact same position and with the exact same posture and direction you intend to fly in. This really helps tracking 

 

If you already had an earlier version of OpenComposite installed, from now on you will only need to create an opencomposite.ini if you have a specific purpose for it. It goes into the bin folder. I have attached a working example. But I no longer use it - in the past it has helped me with VR controllers and mouse (to see all available options go to https://gitlab.com/znixian/OpenOVR/-/tree/openxr 

First DCS launch you will likely not see the loading screen in VR as the shaders are compiled. This will only be the case for the first launch. Be patient, or take the headset off and watch your mirror screen instead

Enjoy DCS

 

 

OpenXR Toolkit - (Do it!)

1) Do this only once you have completed the steps above and everything works. Failure to do this can cost you a lot of time. A lot easier to troubleshoot without OpenXR Toolkit

2) Download this:  https://mbucchia.github.io/OpenXR-Toolkit/

3) Install and launch

4) Launch DCS then CTRL+F2 (or whatever keystroke you've setup inside the toolkit - mine are CTRL+ALT Up/Down/Left/Right) the menu will only appear inside VR

5) If the game fails to launch after the installation of OpenXR Toolkit or it doesn’t work then please see here: https://mbucchia.github.io/OpenXR-Toolkit/troubleshooting.html#missing-visual-c-system-component

6) Optional: Try out TURBO mode inside the OpenXR toolkit. It may give you extra performance but this may screw with FPS/Frame Time statistics. So use your eyeballs to gauge the difference.

Finally, I *Highly* Recommend staying away from ASW/Reprojection and instead using the OpenXR Toolkit to lock yourself to 55FPS for a 90HZ headset such as Reverb G2. Going above that rate will likely give you stutters unless you can reach the magical 90FPS mark. Doing so consistently is a fools errand. Even 4090 owners will get CPU limited in DCS

 

Post Install

Everything works; but if you are interested in getting every bit out of your new setup please see @edmuss tuning guide. The first post just like this one is also always updated

 

Please read these additional requirements and steps that might apply to you

• Mbucchia's Tips can be found here and are excellent. I highly recommend reading them as it will give you understanding of what is happening and often encountered issues, which I have written about below https://mbucchia.github.io/OpenXR-Toolkit/opencomposite.html
   
• Don't use the in-game settings to increase Pixel Density, use the OpenXR dev tool. It must be left at 1.0

 

• Because OpenXR is very new, you must have a fully updated version of Windows 

 

• If you are able to render above 45FPS (or 50% of your refresh rate). Are really not into this reprojection business (unfortunately AMD Cards suck balls when it comes to reprojection/ASW) but are getting judding/rippling/stuttering. Use the toolkit to lock FPS to ~46. Dont be afraid to experiment with different FPS figures. The balance lies somewhere around 45-60FPS but YMMV - also you need to be able to actually render the frames you're locking yourself to

 

• But what if I am the kind of man who wants smooth game-play and also enjoys nausea inducing epileptic strobe lightshow whilst I fly in DCS. I got you fam! Just turn on the 60hz setting inside Mixed Reality -> Headset Display -> Frame Rate. Glow in the dark MDMA pacifiers optional, but are highly encouraged

 

• Are you seeing DCS through a fishbowl but you're not a fish? Try this: 

 

• Some people have an old version of OpenXR installed. This is especially the case if you in the past have run MSFS and/or beta/early releases of VR applications and windows. For some people it refuses to update. If performance is bad, do the following: Remove all three apps (screenshot below) and install OpenXR Developer tools. Then navigate to the right most tab which gives you a link to install the OpenXR Runtime via the Windows Store (something that I could not find by searching the store alone) - Install that, don't bother with the toolkit and launch DCS. Once performance is confirmed to be better, you may install the Toolkit

 

• Nvidea graphic card holders disable hardware-assisted GPU scheduling (HAGS). This is especially the case if you run OpenKneeboard or any of the additional non-standard addons. Failure to do this can in some instances give you a penalty of around ~20FPS. The issue stems around multiple processes using Direct3D/2D concurrently 

 

• AMD Card holders Navi and above. Work out your maximum stable clock speed and set the minimum speed 100-200mhz below that using Adrenaline Software

 

 

A note about performance in OpenXR and why performance figures do not make sense and my attempt getting in front of 'tHe FpS FiGuReS aRe WoRsE!'

Please see this: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/vr-reverb-g2-wmr-performance-motion-reprojection-cpu-issues-overclocking/497696/4?u=mbucchia

TL/DR - Put down those FPS metrics and touch some grass. The only thing that matters is if you feel the performance is better. The only thing that matters if you see the visual difference

 

P.S Jesus! Forget crypto miners, it's all you guys who have been buying up the 3090's 

 

A massive; yuuuuge Thank you to Jabbah, Znix, Microsoft's Matthieu B and his team for this work and donating their own time (not to mention their sanity answering our dumb questions). These guys are the hero's who are responsible for OpenComposite, OpenXR Toolkit and OpenXR it self

Edited January 31, 2023 by nikoel

[edmuss]

Not a lot to add to the above apart from: -

Performance on a 3070 isn't massively improved based on like for like settings, admittedly this isn't necessarily comparing apples for apples.  I am currently GPU bound with my steamvr settings (150% FSR 0.75 and high settings), but the improvement in clarity will allow reduction of settings.

Clarity is improved and shimmer is reduced, hard to quantify but essentially I would rougly equate it to having MSAA image quality but whilst retaining the performance of having it off.  Things just look nicer.

Motion smoothing so far doesn't work as well as steam/wmr with much more artifacting, inversely running without motion smoothing has less stutter for a given framerate.  With steamvr and no smoothing anything much less than 55fps is jumpy, in openxr I can get down to 45fps or so before witnessing the same sort of effect.  Obviously the image quality without smoothing is far superior due to no smearing or ghosted edges.  I have yet to test an updated .dll to see if it helps the smoothing situation.

I'll add more as I test and refine

[winghunter]

Thanks, will try this out.

I have a 3070 with 2x MSAA enabled, 100% render,  but almost all settings to low except: clouds, water, textures medium

Edited March 17, 2022 by winghunter

[evanswillo]

Excellent Quick Guide Thankyou.

Added files openvr_api, opencomposite, D3DCompiler_47 downloaded from the OCXR_WMR_ACC_v0.4.zip file on the v.04  

OpenCompositeACC release page.

All working on G2 with AMD 6900XT plus OpenXR Toolkit.

[Lt_Jaeger]

Thank you for the guide, I started some tests as well but don't think it's there yet....at least for me.

 

But it is for sure a promising path...

[A.F.]

The guide is fantastic! It's very important for people like me who don't know anything about programming.

What would be really great: a YouTube video describing the process.
Maybe there is someone who has the time to make a video.

[PLUTON]

Yes a video because 70% of our impressions are
visual so we understand better with a video
breaking down each step to be carried out.
Thank you in advance

[edmuss]

Further updates on this, following the latest OB update I cleaned DCS thoroughly and tested this back to back with vanilla.

In addition to the improved clarity and smoothness I witnessed a solid 5-10 fps uplift.

The VR shader mod from Kegety (updated to 2.7.11 by Taz1004) also works in openxr, only minor performance gains from it but it improved gpu frametime stability with less spiking.

[Tony86]

26 minutes ago, edmuss said:

Further updates on this, following the latest OB update I cleaned DCS thoroughly and tested this back to back with vanilla.

In addition to the improved clarity and smoothness I witnessed a solid 5-10 fps uplift.

The VR shader mod from Kegety (updated to 2.7.11 by Taz1004) also works in openxr, only minor performance gains from it but it improved gpu frametime stability with less spiking.

thanks for the kegetys mod. i did not know it was compatible. need to try that tomorrow. just one question: with the kegetys mod, is the clarity of the image is still good. because what i like with openxr is the clarity of the image versus steamvr

[edmuss]

It looked identical to me, I disable the simple canopy glass though as it (certainly used to) produce some nasty baked in reflections on the instruments.

Clarity of the rest of it still seemed awesome

[Tony86]

Just now, edmuss said:

It looked identical to me, I disable the simple canopy glass though as it (certainly used to) produce some nasty baked in reflections on the instruments.

Clarity of the rest of it still seemed awesome

ok thanks for that will implement kegetys tomorrow.

i also tried to limit my fps in the graphics.lua at 45 because with openxr i only have little ghosting. i guess i must improve my graphical part as i have 9900k OC with 2070super with a G2 

[edmuss]

For anyone who uses OVGME, attached is a mod package to load up which will drop everything in the right place, as long as you set up OVGME correctly then you can very quickly enable/disable this mod without breaking everything!
 

edit: the following bits are not needed now and the current release of OXR toolkit has the fix in it

If you can't get the openxr toolkit menu to appear in the headset then use the attached updated XR_APILAYER_NOVENDOR_toolkit.dll. Backup the original and copy this into: -

C:\Program Files\OpenXR-Toolkit

You should then be able to access the settings menu using the on screen menu hotkeys as defined by the openxr toolkit companion app.

OCXR_WMR_ACC_v0.4.zip

Edited March 26, 2022 by edmuss

[winghunter]

1 hour ago, edmuss said:

For anyone who uses OVGME, attached is a mod package to load up which will drop everything in the right place, as long as you set up OVGME correctly then you can very quickly enable/disable this mod without breaking everything!
 

If you can't get the openxr toolkit menu to appear in the headset then use the attached updated XR_APILAYER_NOVENDOR_toolkit.dll. Backup the original and copy this into: -

C:\Program Files\OpenXR-Toolkit

You should then be able to access the settings menu using the on screen menu hotkeys as defined by the openxr toolkit companion app.

OCXR_WMR_ACC_v0.4.zip 2.58 MB · 6 downloads XR_APILAYER_NOVENDOR_toolkit.dll 807.5 kB · 3 downloads

thanks !

[winghunter]

Its amazing.

• More stable VR tracking with G2
• Faster startup time, less system hog
• Much better visual clarity
• And i can finally turn on high textures on my 3070

Edited March 19, 2022 by winghunter

[coldViPer]

8 hours ago, edmuss said:

 

If you can't get the openxr toolkit menu to appear in the headset then use the attached updated XR_APILAYER_NOVENDOR_toolkit.dll. Backup the original and copy this into: -

C:\Program Files\OpenXR-Toolkit

You should then be able to access the settings menu using the on screen menu hotkeys as defined by the openxr toolkit companion app.

OCXR_WMR_ACC_v0.4.zip 2.58 MB · 14 downloads XR_APILAYER_NOVENDOR_toolkit.dll 807.5 kB · 9 downloads

Tried that .dll, in the DCS menu this works great (Ctrl+F2 opens ok) but when loading any mission I get this error attached.

 

[edmuss]

You're better off asking in the discord, I'm not a dev and not come across that error before. The devs are very active though and you'll probably get an answer

[coldViPer]

Yeah thanks now it works, found different .dll from Discord and that works for some reason. Attached .dll from mbucchia.

edit: have to say, this OpenXR seems to be very promising! No more SteamVR I say.

XR_APILAYER_NOVENDOR_toolkit.dll

Edited March 19, 2022 by coldViPer

[A.F.]

vor einer Stunde schrieb edmuss:

You're better off asking in the discord, I'm not a dev and not come across that error before. The devs are very active though and you'll probably get an answer

Hi,
If I want to use OVGME, what do I have to do from the steps described in the guide?

1)
2)
3)
and so on...?

[Tony86]

hey boys.

as i am experimenting oxr. fpsvr is not working anymore. how do you check your cpu/gpu frametimes in game with oxr. i want to get rid of small stutters (or Kind of ghosting with G2) but i want to check frametimes before.

thanks for help

 

[nikoel]

50 minutes ago, A.F. said:

Hi,
If I want to use OVGME, what do I have to do from the steps described in the guide?

1)
2)
3)
and so on...?

All OVGME does is place the files in the correct places. It’s still up to you to do the rest of the steps

There has been a lot of progress in the last two days. I will update the guide to better reflect it and fix a couple of my mistakes 

[edmuss]

The openxr dev toolkit has a performance overlay that will give you the frametimes and resulting fps.

If you don't have smoothing enabled which I'd recommend then you can use the built in DCS fps counter to give you performance data.

There is an upscaling option within the mod but it's currently a bit broken, hopefully will be sorted in the next release.

[Tony86]

Just now, edmuss said:

The openxr dev toolkit has a performance overlay that will give you the frametimes and resulting fps.

If you don't have smoothing enabled which I'd recommend then you can use the built in DCS fps counter to give you performance data.

There is an upscaling option within the mod but it's currently a bit broken, hopefully will be sorted in the next release.

ok i must check oxr dev toolkit

i only have oxr at the moment.

i am going to check that.

thanks 

[winghunter]

19 minutes ago, nikoel said:

All OVGME does is place the files in the correct places. It’s still up to you to do the rest of the steps

There has been a lot of progress in the last two days. I will update the guide to better reflect it and fix a couple of my mistakes 

Actually I only installed this file below with JSGME and it worked. No fresh install of DCS. I dont have open composite installed either.

I had openXR developer tools and openXR toolkit installed due to MSFS.

 

 

[Lt_Jaeger]

Damn guys.... that is even making the Apache buttery smooth for me. Looks like the way to go ... if it gets a little more stable.

 

One thing I noticed, the fiddling with the overlay killed the monocle overlay for me. It's there one session, gone the other, could not figure out what's the reason behind it.

 

Guess I will keep on testing.

 

 

Edit: I believe the "Monocle issue" has something to do with the HMD centering. Sometimes I see the outlines of the Helmet, sometimes I do. With recenter I can change that

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Lt_Jaeger

[nikoel]

32 minutes ago, winghunter said:

Actually I only installed this file below with JSGME and it worked. No fresh install of DCS. I dont have open composite installed either.

I had openXR developer tools and openXR toolkit installed due to MSFS.

 

 

Let's just say you've drunk stumbled your way across a busy motorway and made to the other side

You literally installed Open Composite

Edited March 19, 2022 by nikoel