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Need help for improving VR performance using gaming laptop


Dr.Cure

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Greetings fellow pilots 🙏,

as you may have seen the title, I need your help with improving my VR performance issues. I've just started playing DCS few weeks ago with my Oculus Quest 2 and unfortunately, there are quite amount stutters and lag spikes while I'm playing, especially when it loads new terrain or at carriers with NPCs. Despite having some few tweaks or settings to tone it down, I'm still facing few lag spikes at dogfight too. 

The lag spikes and stutters occurred commonly when I'm using the F-14 in dogfight.  I have seen countless times of youtube videos about improving VR performance, however their settings did not raise significant improvements for me.

Note = using SteamVR drops my performance drastically, thus I decided to use the OculusVR mode.

My specs and hardware:

VR = Oculus Quest 2

Gaming Laptop = Dell G5 15

CPU = Intel i5-9300 @ 2.40 GHz

GPU = Geforce GTX 1650

RAM = 32 GB 2666 Hz

 

Things to favor:

- Other than my current settings (screenshots below), any tweaks I should do to improve the performance, especially the lag spikes? 

- Assuming my CPU is bottleneck and it's unchangeable (gaming laptop), is there any specific gameplay I should stick or avoid? (such as avoiding playing in populated server, or etc.)

 

The screenshots are the current settings/tweaks I am using now. Please, if any of you pilots have any advice on improving the VR performance, do let me know. Thanks for visiting my post 🙏

P.S = I've heard from some players, that the Tomcat aren't really optimized for VR, I'm not really sure if this is true unfortunately.

Nvidia control panel1.jpeg

Nvidia control panel2.jpg

Nvidia control panel3.jpg

DCS nividia panel1.jpg

DCS nvidia panel2.jpg

DCS nvidia panel3.jpg

GPU scheduling.jpg

Game mode.jpg

Oculus Tray1.jpg

Oculus Tray2.jpg

Game setting 2.jpg

Game setting1.jpg

Monitor specs.jpg

Phantom Phorever

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Hi, I'm not by any means an expert on the Oculus side of the house, so someone else will have to help you there:

-  your CPU and GPU are well below minimum specifications for DCS in VR:

Quote

Recommended VR systems requirements (VR graphics settings): OS 64-bit Windows 10; DirectX11; CPU: Core i5+ at 3+ GHz or AMD FX / Ryzen; RAM: 16 GB (32 GB for heavy missions); Free hard disk space: 350 GB on Solid State Drive (SSD); Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 / AMD Radeon RX VEGA 64 or better; Joystick; requires internet activation.

 so both will be impacting your performance.

- Turn of HAGS ... it works poorly with VR in my experience.

- you are on W11 , make sure VBS is off: How to Disable VBS in Windows 11 to Boost PC Gaming Performance (partitionwizard.com, it will gimp your performance

- I would check to make sure that your 1650 is being used by DCS, in nvidia and windows settings,

- i would suggest that multiplayer which is more resource intensive is not realistic.

- VR is a resource hog, if you have chosen the tomcat, it has alot of dials that will be difficult to read on your settings, you might try F-14 VR Ultimate Xperience (F14VUX) (digitalcombatsimulator.com) as a mod, which may reduce some of the texture load

- increasing your shader cache max to 10gb in nvidia settings might help, as might setting your pagefile to 32gb, you don't say you are on a HDD or SSD, but if SSD is available as an option i would install dcs and your OS on separate SSD's.

- I suspect that dropping the SS setting in OTT will be unacceptable visually, but suggest you drop it to 1.0, in both the default and recommended ss places, and then modify just one of them 0.1 at a time and readjust, similarly i would suggest a PD of 1.0 in game., just because its easier to understand what is going on with each change if you set everything to 1.0 and adjust your OTT settings in small increments. but broadly the rule of thumb is change game resolution in 1 place, currently i think you are playing with it in at least 2 and likely 3.

in summary i suspect you are going to have a compromised experience in VR on your current hardware, its below spec for DCS in VR.  Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

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SYSTEM SPECS: Hardware Intel Corei7-12700KF @ 5.1/5.3p & 3.8e GHz, 64Gb RAM, 4090 FE, Dell S2716DG, Virpil T50CM3 Throttle, WinWIng Orion 2 & F-16EX + MFG Crosswinds V2, Varjo Aero
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47 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Hi, I'm not by any means an expert on the Oculus side of the house, so someone else will have to help you there:

-  your CPU and GPU are well below minimum specifications for DCS in VR:

 so both will be impacting your performance.

- Turn of HAGS ... it works poorly with VR in my experience.

- you are on W11 , make sure VBS is off: How to Disable VBS in Windows 11 to Boost PC Gaming Performance (partitionwizard.com, it will gimp your performance

- I would check to make sure that your 1650 is being used by DCS, in nvidia and windows settings,

- i would suggest that multiplayer which is more resource intensive is not realistic.

- VR is a resource hog, if you have chosen the tomcat, it has alot of dials that will be difficult to read on your settings, you might try F-14 VR Ultimate Xperience (F14VUX) (digitalcombatsimulator.com) as a mod, which may reduce some of the texture load

- increasing your shader cache max to 10gb in nvidia settings might help, as might setting your pagefile to 32gb, you don't say you are on a HDD or SSD, but if SSD is available as an option i would install dcs and your OS on separate SSD's.

- I suspect that dropping the SS setting in OTT will be unacceptable visually, but suggest you drop it to 1.0, in both the default and recommended ss places, and then modify just one of them 0.1 at a time and readjust, similarly i would suggest a PD of 1.0 in game., just because its easier to understand what is going on with each change if you set everything to 1.0 and adjust your OTT settings in small increments. but broadly the rule of thumb is change game resolution in 1 place, currently i think you are playing with it in at least 2 and likely 3.

in summary i suspect you are going to have a compromised experience in VR on your current hardware, its below spec for DCS in VR.  Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Thanks for all the useful info, mate 🙏. I have 352 GB free on SSD [might reinstall DCS in here (steam ver.)], I was going to install the F-14 VR mod (but last time I saw the page, it didn't really pass IC pass), and I guess the bottleneck is only the CPU? (since the recommended GPU is GTX 1080, while mine is GTX 1650) 


Edited by Dr.Cure

Phantom Phorever

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Your 1650 is about half the perf of a 1080, it's functionally an upgraded 1050 sorta... In a real card, the mobile cards are frequently down clocked to save power... Both your cpu and gpu are below spec.

 

Check https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1650-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1080/4039vs3603 by no means perfect but it gives you an order of magnitude.

Re the vr experience mod, it should pass ic, but I haven't tried the14 in mp so you should test it


Edited by speed-of-heat
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SYSTEM SPECS: Hardware Intel Corei7-12700KF @ 5.1/5.3p & 3.8e GHz, 64Gb RAM, 4090 FE, Dell S2716DG, Virpil T50CM3 Throttle, WinWIng Orion 2 & F-16EX + MFG Crosswinds V2, Varjo Aero
SOFTWARE: Microsoft Windows 11, VoiceAttack & VAICOM PRO

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4 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Your 1650 is about half the perf of a 1080, it's functionally an upgraded 1050 sorta... In a real card, the mobile cards are frequently down clocked to save power... Both your cpu and gpu are below spec.

Re the vr experience mod, it should pass ic, but I haven't tried the14 in mp so you should test it

Thanks so much, mate. Will be checking out the mod soon 😀🙏

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Phantom Phorever

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As a user of a gaming laptop (i7 9750 and RTX 2060, 32Gb and DCS on SSD, though) and Quest 2, I agree with SoH statements and suggest also to use initially DCS PD 1.0 and default suggestion of Oculus app for resolution at 72hz. Try also with preset DCS VR settings. And stay away from SteamVR, it uses too much memory for no apparent benefit compared to Oculus connection. After all Oculus directly supports DCS.


Edited by diamond26
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MAIN SYSTEM SPECS: MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4, Intel Corei7-12700K @ 5.0, 64Gb RAM Kingston KF3600C18D4/16GX, EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 12GB, Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB, Virpil T50CM3 Throttle, VKB Gladiator NXT Evo, VKB T-Rudder MKIV, Quest 2, Quest Pro

BACKUP SYSTEM SPECS: Lenovo Legion Y540-15IRH, i7 9750, RTX2060mobile 6GB, 32GB RAM Crucial DDR4-2666, 1TB Intel SSD NVMe


SOFTWARE: Microsoft Windows 11

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26 minutes ago, diamond26 said:

As a user of a gaming laptop (i7 9750 and RTX 2060, 32Gb and DCS on SSD, though) and Quest 2, I agree with SoH statements and suggest also to use initially DCS PD 1.0 and default suggestion of Oculus app for resolution at 72hz. Try also with preset DCS VR settings. And stay away from SteamVR, it uses too much memory for no apparent benefit compared to Oculus connection. After all Oculus directly supports DCS.

 

Alright, appreciate the opinion, lad. Really helps at improving the performance 🙏

P.S = my current steam DCS is on HDD now, so reinstall everything I guess?

Phantom Phorever

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Leaving aside for the moment that you just don't have enough horsepower to do this, I see you have PD at 0.7 and supersampling at 1.75.  Thus, pulling yourself in two opposite directions.  Net of everything you're running at 86% of native resolution.  I'd keep PD at 1.0 and adjust your resolution using OTT but you need to undersample, not supersample.  So you need set your "super" sampling to 0.5 or something, and even then I'm not sure it will be enough.  I imagine it's already a blurry mess anyway but, it'll be a blurry mess.

So, speaking of your next rig 😉 ....

When I went to build a rig around the G2, I didn't want a tower computer, got no place to put it.  Was very tempted to get an alienware laptop but was advised against it; the laptop GPU's never perform at the level of desktop GPU's and are prone to thermal throttling anyway.  I put together an itx build which works like a charm.  ITX boxes aren't great for overclocking unless you're willing to build a custom loop (and even then the architecture of the box can work against you, the NR200 for example is very hard to do liquid cooling right).  I went with an AMD CPU which doesn't need overclocking and runs right chill with a tower cooler.  I pretty much had to go with a 6900XT, it was the only thing on the market at the time.   3080 would be about perfect though, their cooling solution works great in those teeny cases (believe it or not).  If you don't prefer to build your own, Thermaltake has a great little ITX rig they call the "Reactor."  Personally I think they should have called it the "coffeepot" but still.  I couldn't have built the thing for what they go for on Amazon and it has decent stuff in it.  And it's a decent way to get your hand on a 3080 without paying scalper prices.  

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Ryzen 5600X (stock), GBX570, 32Gb RAM, AMD 6900XT (reference), G2, WInwing Orion HOTAS, T-flight rudder

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10 minutes ago, DeltaMike said:

Leaving aside for the moment that you just don't have enough horsepower to do this, I see you have PD at 0.7 and supersampling at 1.75.  Thus, pulling yourself in two opposite directions.  Net of everything you're running at 86% of native resolution.  I'd keep PD at 1.0 and adjust your resolution using OTT but you need to undersample, not supersample.  So you need set your "super" sampling to 0.5 or something, and even then I'm not sure it will be enough.  I imagine it's already a blurry mess anyway but, it'll be a blurry mess.

So, speaking of your next rig 😉 ....

When I went to build a rig around the G2, I didn't want a tower computer, got no place to put it.  Was very tempted to get an alienware laptop but was advised against it; the laptop GPU's never perform at the level of desktop GPU's and are prone to thermal throttling anyway.  I put together an itx build which works like a charm.  ITX boxes aren't great for overclocking unless you're willing to build a custom loop (and even then the architecture of the box can work against you, the NR200 for example is very hard to do liquid cooling right).  I went with an AMD CPU which doesn't need overclocking and runs right chill with a tower cooler.  I pretty much had to go with a 6900XT, it was the only thing on the market at the time.   3080 would be about perfect though, their cooling solution works great in those teeny cases (believe it or not).  If you don't prefer to build your own, Thermaltake has a great little ITX rig they call the "Reactor."  Personally I think they should have called it the "coffeepot" but still.  I couldn't have built the thing for what they go for on Amazon and it has decent stuff in it.  And it's a decent way to get your hand on a 3080 without paying scalper prices.  

That ITX rig might be a big help someday and I appreciate the thoughts so much. I do agree that those who played DCS usually uses gaming PC rather than laptop (quite shocked to see 64 gb RAM exist). As a player with not much money to buy the minimal setup for DCS, I'll consider the reactor too. Thanks for the advice and story sharing 🙏

Though, the reason for my PD at around 0.7 is that I've watched tutorials where PD actually affect performance so I decided to crank up the supersample instead. I mean, it did look nice however, I still think that maybe I need tweak a bit more on those OTT just like what you all fellow pilots said to me

Phantom Phorever

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1 hour ago, Dr.Cure said:

Alright, appreciate the opinion, lad. Really helps at improving the performance 🙏

P.S = my current steam DCS is on HDD now, so reinstall everything I guess?

As far as I know DCS can be moved from disk to disk without need for reinstall 

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MAIN SYSTEM SPECS: MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4, Intel Corei7-12700K @ 5.0, 64Gb RAM Kingston KF3600C18D4/16GX, EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 12GB, Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB, Virpil T50CM3 Throttle, VKB Gladiator NXT Evo, VKB T-Rudder MKIV, Quest 2, Quest Pro

BACKUP SYSTEM SPECS: Lenovo Legion Y540-15IRH, i7 9750, RTX2060mobile 6GB, 32GB RAM Crucial DDR4-2666, 1TB Intel SSD NVMe


SOFTWARE: Microsoft Windows 11

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The way it works is, the Oculus runtime knows how many physical pixels are in your headset.  Acting on that knowledge, it sends a request to DCS to send over some multiple (or fraction) of that.  The exact size of the request, you can regulate with OTT supersampling.   

DCS can either comply with that request, or not, depending on the PD setting. 

Those two settings combine to result in a certain size image being rendered by DCS.  That image is warped and scaled by Oculus to fit inside your HMD.  If you rendered more pixels than can be displayed in your headset, the image is scaled down and it looks awesome.  If you rendered fewer pixels than your headset can display, it's scaled up and looks not so awesome.   

As you figured out, how many pixels you render has a big effect on performance.  How you arrive at that number doesn't matter, it's the total number that counts. 

I'll hand it to you-- you're a tough negotiator.  "I demand 150%!"  "Screw that, I'm only giving you half that much!"  I get it; I have that discussion with my supervisor all the time.  In your case, though, best to remember you're negotiating against yourself.  


Edited by DeltaMike
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Ryzen 5600X (stock), GBX570, 32Gb RAM, AMD 6900XT (reference), G2, WInwing Orion HOTAS, T-flight rudder

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5 hours ago, diamond26 said:

As far as I know DCS can be moved from disk to disk without need for reinstall 

Really? Alright, I'll find a way, thanks much mate 🙏

3 hours ago, DeltaMike said:

The way it works is, the Oculus runtime knows how many physical pixels are in your headset.  Acting on that knowledge, it sends a request to DCS to send over some multiple (or fraction) of that.  The exact size of the request, you can regulate with OTT supersampling.   

DCS can either comply with that request, or not, depending on the PD setting. 

Those two settings combine to result in a certain size image being rendered by DCS.  That image is warped and scaled by Oculus to fit inside your HMD.  If you rendered more pixels than can be displayed in your headset, the image is scaled down and it looks awesome.  If you rendered fewer pixels than your headset can display, it's scaled up and looks not so awesome.   

As you figured out, how many pixels you render has a big effect on performance.  How you arrive at that number doesn't matter, it's the total number that counts. 

I'll hand it to you-- you're a tough negotiator.  "I demand 150%!"  "Screw that, I'm only giving you half that much!"  I get it; I have that discussion with my supervisor all the time.  In your case, though, best to remember you're negotiating against yourself.  

 

Awesome opinion, lad 😃 I'll try to re-configure the PD and super sampling for the best experience as well as performance. Thanks for the opinion🙏

Phantom Phorever

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