OpenXR Toolkit Tuning Guide (updated 21/02/23)

[speed-of-heat]

I had this problem for a while; uninstalling everything to do with OpenXR and re-installing it seemed to work for me, it seemed that i was using an older version of the Open XR runtime;  you can check the version on the system status page of the OXDT;

is what mine currently shows

[fargo007]

Thanks, same version here.

 

I'm reinstalling all the openxr components.  I have a newer version than you do now.

I'll keep hackin on it.

Edited April 10, 2022 by fargo007

[Skopro_PL]

I've been scrolling through endless topics and Google trying to get an answer to getting reshade to work in openxr (mentioned it doesn't) , but how can I get a similarly effect in openxr? Is there a guide? I came across a screenshot of settings in composite3d with color saturation, etc. I'd there a ready made preset available somewhere?

[Sr.]

1 hour ago, Skopro_PL said:

I've been scrolling through endless topics and Google trying to get an answer to getting reshade to work in openxr (mentioned it doesn't) , but how can I get a similarly effect in openxr? Is there a guide? I came across a screenshot of settings in composite3d with color saturation, etc. I'd there a ready made preset available somewhere?

Try this.(his open XR version)
 

 

[exil]

5 hours ago, fargo007 said:

I've done that several times, and updated it also to the 0.6.3 version.

Also done a skatezilla repair and clean and regenerated fxo and metashaders in between.

It works, but the performance is bad compared to pre-DCS update. 

Frames are in the 20's and it's very stuttery. This is with much lower settings than I used to run with.

Running out of things to try. 

What worked for me was to deinstalle WMR and everything correspondigly (OXRDT, OXRTK, dcs clean repair) and reinstall everything. 

[edmuss]

Nope running 60Hz with 30fps lock isn't comfortable at all.

Back to 90Hz with 45fps lock.

With further testing though, I have confirmed that if your framerates are above the lock value, it sets your CPU apptime to 22ms. Whether this is the actual figure or the performance metrics getting crossed wires, I don't know?

 

edit: it appears that the high CPU times are due to the renderer causing the CPU to wait for the 45fps and is a designed function of OpenXR. It might be worth someone trying it out in MP to see if it negatively impacts on performance.

Edited April 10, 2022 by edmuss

[fargo007]

1 hour ago, exil said:

What worked for me was to deinstalle WMR and everything correspondigly (OXRDT, OXRTK, dcs clean repair) and reinstall everything. 

Thanks man, I'm going that route.

[exil]

4 minutes ago, fargo007 said:

Thanks man, I'm going that route.

Jeez, I have just read my post again. Sorry for the bad typo. But you got the point... 

[fargo007]

1 minute ago, exil said:

Jeez, I have just read my post again. Sorry for the bad typo. But you got the point... 

Last thing I would do is go all grammar nazzy on someone trying to help me.  

[exil]

3 minutes ago, fargo007 said:

Last thing I would do is go all grammar nazzy on someone trying to help me.  

So, simply uninstall everything, run a repair (long version) and restart your pc. Then install wmr again and follow the instructions given on the first page of this topic word by word. Maybe restart your pc once you've installed wmr again (can't remember if I did that).

[TZeer]

10 hours ago, DeltaMike said:

 

Set your minimum GPU clock 100-200 below your maximum.  

I found this helpful

 

Already done that.

Did some more testing.

Disbable the OXR Toolkit did not help.
Put graphic options to preset LOW in DCS, no difference
Tried Nevada map and Caucasus, no difference
Switched off Radeon Chill while at LOW graphic option. Had 90 FPS in freecam mode. NO stutter while moving the camera over the area.

Atleast I KNOW the computer is able to push smooth frames. It just need to find out what is causing the stutter every 8 second while Radeon Chill is activated.

When you guys are talking about clearing the shader, where you do it? From the Radeon software? Or within the DCS folders?
I'm also gonna try letting the game populate a new savegame folder. Read somewhere it helped others who had weird stutters.
 

[fargo007]

1 minute ago, TZeer said:

Already done that.

Did some more testing.

Disbable the OXR Toolkit did not help.
Put graphic options to preset LOW in DCS, no difference
Tried Nevada map and Caucasus, no difference
Switched off Radeon Chill while at LOW graphic option. Had 90 FPS in freecam mode. NO stutter while moving the camera over the area.

Atleast I KNOW the computer is able to push smooth frames. It just need to find out what is causing the stutter every 8 second while Radeon Chill is activated.

When you guys are talking about clearing the shader, where you do it? From the Radeon software? Or within the DCS folders?
I'm also gonna try letting the game populate a new savegame folder. Read somewhere it helped others who had weird stutters.
 

Clearing shader cache means deleting the contents of saved games\fxo and metashaders2. DCS will take a loooong time to load as it rebuilds them with your new settings.

Edited April 10, 2022 by fargo007

[TZeer]

Seems I'm out of ideas now.

Repair and clean with Skatezillas app.
Complete new save games folder.
All graphic options turned to it`s lowest.
Disabled OXR Toolkit.

Radeon Chill Activated: Stutter Every 8-10 second or so.
Radeon Chill Deactivated: Smooth 90 FPS.

Activated motion reprojection: FPS was locked to 30 FPS, even though the toolkit was deactivated.... Is the last setting there still active even if the toolkit is deactivated?

Reactivated the toolkit, switched to unlocked. FPS steady @ 45 FPS. Only time I touched 90, was looking straight down or up in the sky. Seems I was unable to go higher. GPU was only @ 35% usage. All graphics at it`s lowest.

My GPU is an XFX 6900XT Limited Black Edition, OC @ 2650 MHz (Min Freq 2550 MHz).
RAM is 3600MHz XMP profiled 32GB

If I look away from the stutter I get from Radeon Chill every 8 sec, I have a smoother experience with OpenXR without MR coupled with Radeon Chill, then OpenXR & motion reprojection.

It's so so so good. It's frustrating not getting to the bottom of the bloody stutter.

If any of you are running with Radeon Chill locked @ 45 FPS. Are you sure you dont have ANY stutter that comes frequently? I'm VERY sensitive to this, so many of you may have not noticed it. Looking straight ahead it's very hard to see. But looking to you 9 or 3 o'clock view, it's very easy to spot. But need to look for 10 seconds. As it's the amount of time on average to get it 2 times.

Reason I ask is to see if maybe it's a Radeon driver issue, and maybe not a DCS issue for this specific issue.

[nikoel]

3 hours ago, TZeer said:

Seems I'm out of ideas now.

Repair and clean with Skatezillas app.
Complete new save games folder.
All graphic options turned to it`s lowest.
Disabled OXR Toolkit.

Radeon Chill Activated: Stutter Every 8-10 second or so.
Radeon Chill Deactivated: Smooth 90 FPS.

Activated motion reprojection: FPS was locked to 30 FPS, even though the toolkit was deactivated.... Is the last setting there still active even if the toolkit is deactivated?

Reactivated the toolkit, switched to unlocked. FPS steady @ 45 FPS. Only time I touched 90, was looking straight down or up in the sky. Seems I was unable to go higher. GPU was only @ 35% usage. All graphics at it`s lowest.

My GPU is an XFX 6900XT Limited Black Edition, OC @ 2650 MHz (Min Freq 2550 MHz).
RAM is 3600MHz XMP profiled 32GB

If I look away from the stutter I get from Radeon Chill every 8 sec, I have a smoother experience with OpenXR without MR coupled with Radeon Chill, then OpenXR & motion reprojection.

It's so so so good. It's frustrating not getting to the bottom of the bloody stutter.

If any of you are running with Radeon Chill locked @ 45 FPS. Are you sure you dont have ANY stutter that comes frequently? I'm VERY sensitive to this, so many of you may have not noticed it. Looking straight ahead it's very hard to see. But looking to you 9 or 3 o'clock view, it's very easy to spot. But need to look for 10 seconds. As it's the amount of time on average to get it 2 times.

Reason I ask is to see if maybe it's a Radeon driver issue, and maybe not a DCS issue for this specific issue.

Alright,

I have 3900X and 6900XT. Both are maxed out and locked. 4.5ghz for the CPU and 3.8-3.9Ghz for GPU. This helps because neither are boosting and idling. Make sure you’re locking both

I do not lock my FPS at any value

Go to remove programs windows app. Type in OpenXR - 3 installed programs should show up. Toolkit, Tools and OpenXR itself. Uninstall all three

Next install OpenXR Tools and Toolkit

Open Tools and navigate to the right most menu to install OpenXR Runtime and make OpenXR the runtime 

Tell me how you get on. Note this is different from what you’ve been doing because it also uninstalls OpenXR Runtime that was installed on your computer before you installed tools and toolkit for the first time

Also are you cranking MSAA or any settings? Your issue is that you’re CPU limited 30% GPU utilisation is a classic case of the GPU waiting for frames to render by the CPU

OpenXR Toolkit has a feature to reset itself to default. When you open the app (windows app - *NOT* Virtual one inside VR) it will tell you which buttons to press when you launch DCS and bring up the virtual menu something like ALT+F1 F2 F3 (can’t quite recall)

Edited April 11, 2022 by nikoel

[TZeer]

Thank you for suggestions.

Will do them later today when I have the time.

The 35% GPU utilisation is with everything at preset LOW in the graphic settings. On Caucasus with no units of any sort populating the map.
If I turn off MR, the FPS goes right to 90 FPS and stays there. Activate MR, with unlocked setting in Toolkit, and I'm only able to get 90 FPS looking straight down or up.

With my usual settings, that are quite high. Forrest details at max, All texture at high, etc, but MSAA Off, It fluctuates between 60-75 FPS

Makes me belive my install of the Open XR might be borked someway.

[TED]

I have a similar setup as nikoel but with a 3800xt cpu and less overclocking. My 6900xt is for is set on chill and I lock fps in openXR toolkit to 45fps and I get no stuttering. I have almost all dcs settings on high except textures. Something is maxing your cpu somewhere. I don’t think it’s a Radeon driver issue, but it is possible. 
I do run process lasso and have 2 cores dedicated to dcs and keep wmr away from them. Also I always make sure the wmr portal is not previewing so hit pause on that one and minimize the wmr window and all other windows. 
i would take a good look at all the background processes either using process lasso or activity monitor to try work out what’s going on in the cpu. 
I have the openXR resolution at 100% and openXR toolkit fsr enabled then in sp it’s at 100% and in mp 75-80%. 
I dont use any mr as it’s already totally smooth. 
a couple other things to check - do u have any Bluetooth devises running? If so try turning off Bluetooth and see how it runs. Try different usb sockets for the headset. Check the internet speed and/or reset the modem. Check bios that xamp is activated. Check cpu and ram timings in something like cpu-z.
im able to get a good 45fps smooth over Beirut. 
im sure you will get this sorted and it’s probably something fairly simple, it’s just a real pia finding that “simple thing”. I think a lot of us have been there in our tuning adventures.

[edmuss]

25 minutes ago, TZeer said:

Thank you for suggestions.

Will do them later today when I have the time.

The 35% GPU utilisation is with everything at preset LOW in the graphic settings. On Caucasus with no units of any sort populating the map.
If I turn off MR, the FPS goes right to 90 FPS and stays there. Activate MR, with unlocked setting in Toolkit, and I'm only able to get 90 FPS looking straight down or up.

With my usual settings, that are quite high. Forrest details at max, All texture at high, etc, but MSAA Off, It fluctuates between 60-75 FPS

Makes me belive my install of the Open XR might be borked someway.

If you have MR enabled then 35% and low settings would probably be about right, the GPU is only working half the time with MR active.

By enabling MR you introduce the postGPU processing overhead of 4-8ms or so which is going to be enough to take you above the 11ms threshold so you will drop to the 45Hz refresh rate bracket.  Using the OXRDT performance overlay keep an eye on appGPU (what the GPU is rendering at) and postGPU (the GPU overheads), add the two together to get overall GPU time and that should give you an indication of where you are in relation to the refresh rate brackets.

If you can hack 60Hz refresh flicker then leave MR off, as long as you can keep it above 60fps it will be perfectly smooth and artifact free image.

[Gunfreak]

OpenXR tool kit crashes DCS, I've tried to go into safe mod, and reset my setting ctrl+ F1+F2+F3, and still it crashes on start up, if I run in safe mode or disable tool kit it works ok, but not when running it(except the very first time)

[TZeer]

@edmuss @TED

Checked the overlay. Seems to be running in the area of 9000 on the appGPU when zooming around on freecam with everything at the lowest and MR off. So if that is the same as around 9ms, I easily tip over 11ms if overhead is added.

appCPU is only at 3000-5000. I have no overclock on that one right now. And checking Ryzen Master I'm not even close to max frequenzy on stock settings.

Found something interesting though. Everytime time I get the stutter, my appGPU falls with about 500 points. 
Zoom aorund, appGPU in the area of 9500. Same time as stutter, appGPU dips down to 8900-9000, then recover. Every time at 8-10 second interval.
appCPU is the same. No dipps.

[DeltaMike]

Locking Chill at 45fps is not smooth.  It's OK in the cockpit as long as you keep your head still; in other words you can rotate your head, but can't pan or strafe the camera.  You should get a stroboscopic effect along the 3-9 line.  That's why I don't do that.  Don't recall if I get dropped frames every 8-10 seconds, I'll look next time I'm up.  

So, every 8-10 seconds your GPU is just standing there with nothing to do?   So the CPU missed a deadline in there.  Wonder if it's just a VR optimization issue.  

Sounds like your system is running beautifully.  Take it from somebody who fiddles with this stuff for entertainment.  Sometimes you just gotta learn to ignore stuff. 

[TZeer]

I do get a "blurry" effect if looking to the 3-9 line. Hard to focus on anything. But the "smoothness" in flight is in my opinion better then OpenXR with MR off. As the inconsistent frames generated by fluctuating FPS is worse on the immersion then a "blurry" view to the 3-9 line when flying.

It also gives me the benefit of no MR artifacts.

I did some more testing on the appGPU drop. I get the same drop when zoomed in to the ground, keeping my view still. Also the same drop within the menus in DCS. 
One can not see the stutter on the FPS counter in either DCS or the toolkit. Only numbers I have found to actually tell me "something" is happening is the appGPU drop as it happens.

[edmuss]

It's not something stupid like AV or RGB lighting software?

[Gunfreak]

I get worse preformance with openxr at 60% resolultion vs 60% resolution with steam VR, and since openxr toolkit just crashes the PC, I have no reason to use open XR over steam vr. 

I get worse preformance, and strage visual bugs when flying fast and low or seeing enemies through the propp of warbirs.

[TZeer]

22 minutes ago, edmuss said:

It's not something stupid like AV or RGB lighting software?

Only AV I have is the default Microsoft one. And I don't run RGB lighting. Hate it 


I think it's more with the AMD software then DCS.

Did the same test with Radeon Chill Off. No drop in appGPU. As soon as I actiavte the Radeon Chill I get appGPU drops every 8 second or so.

So here is a different question then.

What am I supposed to get (see) with Open XR?
With Radeon Chill deactivated and 70-80 FPS in cockpit (Lowest settings) I have a very noticable  microstutter when looking at the ground texture. I guess it's due to out of sync with the refreshrate of the G2. Looking furter away it's no big deal. But down low in the apache it's an absolute no go for me.
The sweet thing with the Radeon Chill was that I had the smoothness over the ground I got with MR on, without the MR artifacts. But I got the "blurryness" on my 3-9 line when moving. Wich for me was no big deal.

With Radeon Chill off and 70-80 FPS I feel I have like 60-70% amount of stutter, but it's constant. If it's due to the refreshrate, I guess it's only MR on or 60 HZ left to try....

[edmuss]

I've seen similar, at 90Hz with MR off: -

Framerate unlocked with 50fps I get a stutter when looking around the cockpit with both rotations and translation, adjusting settings to keep above 60fps makes things much smoother for me.

Framerate locked to 45fps head rotations in the cockpit are smooth, a very slight ghosting if I translate (looking at the fire extinguisher handles on the A10) sideways, close up scenery at 3-9 does ghost but forward arc of vision is good.

60Hz and adjust settings accordingly to stays above refresh and it is perfect image clarity and stability