Varjo Aero: General guide for new owners

[dburne]

54 minutes ago, Maksim Savelev said:

I was away from the sims for a while? now Im getting back. If you please can give me a quick update on Aero. Does it support reprojection now? I was flying  in my HP G2 in DCS even I had  an Aero. Because of lack of reprojection it was unusable for me. 

No it does not. It is on the map but they do not have a timeline for it yet.

[Maksim Savelev]

Thank you! So this is bad. That means it's still not usable for me((. Why is everyone  doing a lot of things to make it run under the OpenXR if it will not use its main feature - reprojections under the 45 fps.  Anyway thank you very much for the update, let's hope that Varjo will make it usable for the sims one day. It is strange though they called it Aero ))

Edited July 6, 2022 by Maksim Savelev

[dburne]

24 minutes ago, Maksim Savelev said:

Thank you! So this is bad. That means it's still not usable for me((. Why is everyone  doing a lot of things to make it run under the OpenXR if it will not use its main feature - reprojections under the 45 fps.  Anyway thank you very much for the update, let's hope that Varjo will make it usable for the sims one day. It is strange though they called it Aero ))

 

I am happy running Varjo Base with vsync on and locked at 45 fps. I have my settings dialed to where I typically can maintain that 45 fps and get a decent experience. Been flying most everyday like that and have no real issue with it. But ya I will be happy when they get a good working reprojection as well. But that one may be a while. And I do not use Open XR, running mine natively through Steam VR.

Edited July 6, 2022 by dburne

[Supmua]

Yeah lock it at 45 fps, and it's fairly smooth.  Not silky 90 fps smooth but it is unrealistic to expect that kind of fps with a high-res headset.  Some DCS maps or missions are also CPU limited so even if I have a GPU that is twice as fast as the current one it still won't achieve 90 fps.

Motion smoothing isn't a perfect answer either because you will still see double artifacts with very fast moving objects as image interpolation is never perfect.  So, blurry fast moving objects or double images...take your pick.  I'd say blurry is more realistic to me, because that's what you see in real life when looking to the side in a fast moving vehicle.  

I've completed a few campaign DLCs with the Aero and frankly would play everything on the Aero over other headsets with motion smoothing, everytime.  The clarity and image quality alone is quite worth it.  Not everything is rosy with the Aero, though.  It's got quite a few shortcomings.

[dartagnan]

Decided to try the OpenXR Tool Kit. How do I get myself off the top of the canopy and into to the cockpit? Didn't have this issue with just SteamVR. Also I keep seeing people mentioning locking the fps in how is this done?

Is it right to say I don't need to use that mix reality developers tool with this OpenXR Tool Kit? Or is both needed?

Edited July 7, 2022 by dartagnan

[Yuma]

On 6/24/2022 at 8:25 PM, dburne said:

Out of curiosity then why did you choose to go back to monitor play after experiencing the Aero? I myself chose to go back to Steam VR instead of the Mod as I just found myself getting further into the rabbit hole with adjustments than I cared to do.  I do like the simplicity of Steam VR, and never have been one much for Mods. I am loving the Aero with DCS.
 

So after some more playing, it seems like it’s a tracking issue with Varjo aero and my two steamVR basestations, every now and then I get the tracking issue and I fix it by hitting the Varjo aero menu bottom and hitting Dcs.exe to get back to the game and the tracking issue is fixed I read some people are having tracking issues, going to get more info about it.

Note: Forgot to add, no issues with HOTAS.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Yuma

[Supmua]

7 hours ago, dartagnan said:

Decided to try the OpenXR Tool Kit. How do I get myself off the top of the canopy and into to the cockpit? Didn't have this issue with just SteamVR. Also I keep seeing people mentioning locking the fps in how is this done?

Is it right to say I don't need to use that mix reality developers tool with this OpenXR Tool Kit? Or is both needed?

 

Use VR recenter command/button to recenter.

Locking fps is done via Performance analysis window in VB, click on the bottom left icon to bring up the toolbar then click on the corresponding icon and choose 45 fps from drop down menu.  Now doing this for general VR use may not be a good thing because you will get motion blur when moving your head around quickly due to 45 fps lock on a 90Hz screen.

WMR dev tool is for WMR headsets only and not for the Aero which is a SteamVR headset. 

[Supmua]

7 hours ago, Yuma said:

So after some more playing, it seems like it’s a tracking issue with Varjo aero and my two steamVR basestations, every now and then I get the tracking issue and I fix it by hitting the Varjo aero menu bottom and hitting Dcs.exe to get back to the game and the tracking issue is fixed I read some people are having tracking issues, going to get more info about it.

Is it the real SteamVR tracking issue or PC switching back to an opened window on desktop from DCS app.  If you also lose HOTAS control then it’s the latter, and DCS is known to do this.

If it’s the latter this can be prevented by ALT-ENT in the main menu after you run DCS, or disable full screen mode in the setting.  Closing all the windows on your desktop prior to running DCS may also help prevent this. 

Edited July 7, 2022 by Supmua

[dartagnan]

Thanks Supmua

How do I get myself off the top of the canopy and into the cockpit?

[Yuma]

3 hours ago, Supmua said:

Is it the real SteamVR tracking issue or PC switching back to an opened window on desktop from DCS app.  If you also lose HOTAS control then it’s the latter, and DCS is known to do this.

If it’s the latter this can be prevented by ALT-ENT in the main menu after you run DCS, or disable full screen mode in the setting.  Closing all the windows on your desktop prior to running DCS may also help prevent this. 

 

I'm going to try this but since I'm in the headset I do not see any windows poping in my desktop nor DCS getting out of focus.

[Gordy]

@dartagnan - hit the "recenter VR headset" control in DCS.   You'll find it under the "UI Layer", not a particular aircraft.  I have it mapped to my HOTAS, and use it constantly.

[dburne]

7 minutes ago, Gordy said:

@dartagnan - hit the "recenter VR headset" control in DCS.   You'll find it under the "UI Layer", not a particular aircraft.  I have it mapped to my HOTAS, and use it constantly.

DCS at least in some modules have added the VR Recenter and VR zoom into the aircraft inputs now. I know the Hornet and the Apache now have them available there in the aircraft control settings.

[Yuma]

Tried a couple suggestions when it comes to tracking (Putting a blanket over the monitors/ Track IR and cameras) but still nothing. I can reproduce the issue by going into the tactical map and fix it by opening and closing the aero menu. Next I'm going to unistall a couple of mods I'm runing and see.

16 hours ago, Yuma said:

I'm going to try this but since I'm in the headset I do not see any windows poping in my desktop nor DCS getting out of focus.

The above wasn't it. All windows closed and running it with full desktop disable and stil get that random sttuter/tracking issue every now and then.

[Supmua]

4 hours ago, Yuma said:

Tried a couple suggestions when it comes to tracking (Putting a blanket over the monitors/ Track IR and cameras) but still nothing. I can reproduce the issue by going into the tactical map and fix it by opening and closing the aero menu. Next I'm going to unistall a couple of mods I'm runing and see.

The above wasn't it. All windows closed and running it with full desktop disable and stil get that random sttuter/tracking issue every now and then.

If you're running SteamVR, either bring up the headset's GPU frametime visualization from Steam's developer menu, or use fpsVR to bring up CPU and GPU frametime window.  This way you can see what happens to your system when you lose tracking.  If there are no spikes from CPU and GPU graphs then SteamVR tracking may be the culprit.  If there are spikes on the graph then it might be your PC itself, either background processes stealing power or throttling issue.

With OpenXR it might be tougher to assess because I don't believe there's graphing option, but you can look at real-time changes in frametime numbers from OpenXR Toolkit/Performance/Advanced setting.

What kind of CPU and GPU do you have, and what is your rendering resolution?

Edited July 8, 2022 by Supmua

[Yuma]

If you're running SteamVR, either bring up the headset's GPU frametime visualization from Steam's developer menu, or use fpsVR to bring up CPU and GPU frametime window.  This way you can see what happens to your system when you lose tracking.  If there are no spikes from CPU and GPU graphs then SteamVR tracking may be the culprit.  If there are spikes on the graph then it might be your PC itself, either background processes stealing power or throttling issue.
With OpenXR it might be tougher to assess because I don't believe there's graphing option, but you can look at real-time changes in frametime numbers from OpenXR Toolkit/Performance/Advanced setting.
What kind of CPU and GPU do you have, and what is your rendering resolution?

Intel core i9 12900k and a Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti Eagle. Currently override resolution in OpenXR toolkit at 3100 x 2657

[Supmua]

3 minutes ago, Yuma said:

Intel core i9 12900k and a Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti Eagle. Currently override resolution in OpenXR toolkit at 3100 x 2657

Your PC specs are high-end and should be able to get pretty smooth gameplay in DCS at that rendering resolution. 

[dburne]

3 hours ago, Yuma said:

Intel core i9 12900k and a Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti Eagle. Currently override resolution in OpenXR toolkit at 3100 x 2657

That is about the resolution I run, as I like higher graphics settings. I am mostly able to maintain 45 fps with vsync on and locked to that. Gives me a nice experience.

Edited July 8, 2022 by dburne

[Yuma]

So I just tested it after I deleted a couple of mods that allowed me to get coordinates from the tactical map. Found some reshading folders possibly from when I had the G2 and deleted those too. Disabled OpenVR in Varjo base and disabled virtual desktop and I had no issues. I monitored closely the CPU and GPU resources and nothing, no issues neither I could replicate them so it seems fixed, now I will turn things back on one by one to find the culprit.

[Maksim Savelev]

19 часов назад, dburne сказал:

That is about the resolution I run, as I like higher graphics settings. I am mostly able to maintain 45 fps with vsync on and locked to that. Gives me a nice experience.

 

I've got a question. As I can see from my Varjo Base soft, I can be locked to 45, 30 , or Vsync on or off.45 and 30 do not allow to switch Vsync. But anyway everything is acceptable when you are flying up in the skies, but it absolutely terrible if you are low to the ground and turning your head around.

Oh by the way, another question. it is very strange but even shooter games like HL Alyx or Onward or Boneworks with very stable 90 fps and low timing according to fpsVR do show shimmering or doubling image like its not 90 fps each eye. Its very pronounce when you're moving your head from left to right and slightly less from up to down. Switching to HP G2 shows absolutely silky smooth picture with the same resolution of 2800*2600 manually set in SteamVR settings. So even for shooters Varjo shows unpleasant experience to me. Can someone please check if he has the same issue with speed of rendering I guess comparing to any other headset?   

Edited July 9, 2022 by Maksim Savelev

[Yuma]

I've got a question. As I can see from my Varjo Base soft, I can be locked to 45, 30 , or Vsync on or off.45 and 30 do not allow to switch Vsync. But anyway everything is acceptable when you are flying up in the skies, but it absolutely terrible if you are low to the ground and turning your head around.
Oh by the way, another question. it is very strange but even shooter games like HL Alyx or Onward or Boneworks with very stable 90 fps and low timing according to fpsVR do show shimmering or doubling image like its not 90 fps each eye. Its very pronounce when you're moving your head from left to right and slightly less from up to down. Switching to HP G2 shows absolutely silky smooth picture with the same resolution of 2800*2600 manually set in SteamVR settings. So even for shooters Varjo shows unpleasant experience to me. Can someone please check if he has the same issue with speed of rendering I guess comparing to any other headset?   

I read somewhere that there is a workaround to the issue as the brew update seems to have broken the vsync feature so it won’t turn on. I think Supmua put it in the first post:

“How to: Use old distortion correction profile if you have reduced sharpness with the new firmware

This is from Varjo's discord. Take Varjobase version 3.5.1.7 and set "Foveated Rendering" to "Never Calibrate" and disable "Experimental Distortion Correction" (this is important). Then save the files (VarjoCompositor.exe, VarjoRuntime.dll, VarjoRuntime32.dll) from the folder "c:\Program Files\Varjo\varjo-compositor". Now update to the current Varjobase version (3.6.1.18) including firmware update. Then close Varjobase and replace the 3 previously saved files with the new version (it is best to save the 3 files before, so that you can go back to the original). That was it. The old distortion profile is now active and also the brightness slider can be used. Foveated Rendering must also remain in the new version then on "Never calibrate" (possibly also the setting "best adjustment without calibration" goes, I have not tested).”

[dburne]

9 minutes ago, Maksim Savelev said:

I've got a question. As I can see from my Varjo Base soft, I can be locked to 45, 30 , or Vsync on or off.45 and 30 do not allow to switch Vsync. But anyway everything is acceptable when you are flying up in the skies, but it absolutely terrible if you are low to the ground and turning your head around.

Oh by the way, another question. it is very strange but even shooter games like HL Alyx or Onward or Boneworks with very stable 90 fps and low timing according to fpsVR do show shimmering or doubling image like its not 90 fps each eye. Its very pronounce when you're moving your head from left to right and slightly less from up to down. Switching to HP G2 shows absolutely silky smooth picture with the same resolution of 2800*2600 manually set in SteamVR settings. So even for shooters Varjo shows unpleasant experience to me. Can someone please check if he has the same issue with speed of rendering I guess comparing to any other headset?   

 

 I don't know for whatever reason I am not seeing those issues. Currently also have another play through of Alyx as well with auto res disabled and pretty high resolution, very smooth for me.

[Maksim Savelev]

3 часа назад, Yuma сказал:

I read somewhere that there is a workaround to the issue as the brew update seems to have broken the vsync feature so it won’t turn on. I think Supmua put it in the first post:

“How to: Use old distortion correction profile if you have reduced sharpness with the new firmware

This is from Varjo's discord. Take Varjobase version 3.5.1.7 and set "Foveated Rendering" to "Never Calibrate" and disable "Experimental Distortion Correction" (this is important). Then save the files (VarjoCompositor.exe, VarjoRuntime.dll, VarjoRuntime32.dll) from the folder "c:\Program Files\Varjo\varjo-compositor". Now update to the current Varjobase version (3.6.1.18) including firmware update. Then close Varjobase and replace the 3 previously saved files with the new version (it is best to save the 3 files before, so that you can go back to the original). That was it. The old distortion profile is now active and also the brightness slider can be used. Foveated Rendering must also remain in the new version then on "Never calibrate" (possibly also the setting "best adjustment without calibration" goes, I have not tested).”

Thank you!

 This instruction helped to get Vsync  back and to be honest, I haven't expected that, but  it really improved overall experience. Even a DCS with locked 45fps and sync ON (I'm still not sure if it could be set together) shows a somewhat playable experience. I still will prefer HP G2 with reprojections, but DCS in Aero is not that terrible anymore). Even inside of the Varjo Cabin visualization is smoother. 

[Supmua]

I think some of us are more sensitive when it comes to having no reprojection.  I was also like that when I first moved from Index/Vive Pro2 to Aero, but now I'm so used to not having it and it really doesn't bother me anymore.  It's the stuttering that I can't tolerate, and there's none of that once you can lock frame to 45 fps.  For me clarity pretty much supercedes everything.

[dburne]

2 hours ago, Supmua said:

I think some of us are more sensitive when it comes to having no reprojection.  I was also like that when I first moved from Index/Vive Pro2 to Aero, but now I'm so used to not having it and it really doesn't bother me anymore.  It's the stuttering that I can't tolerate, and there's none of that once you can lock frame to 45 fps.  For me clarity pretty much supercedes everything.

Yep my same experience as well.

 

[Supmua]

I recently tested Varjo’s OpenXR vs Steam’s OpenXR with the other flightsim game due to the new DLSS support (not possible to use Steam’s OpenXR with DCS currently), and to my surprise there is no significant difference in performance.  I actually expected to see better fps with Varjo’s OpenXR but that isn’t the case here, this is with DX11.  This also goes along with the performance of Steam’s OpenVR that I’ve been getting in DCS, which is pretty on par with OpenXR, at least on my setup.

And interestingly, NVIDIA DLSS when used in combination with AMD FidelityFX sharpening can produce really good visuals while yielding great performance.  These options are provided natively within the software itself without external mods, and this is the right way to do it because it is immediately accessible to everybody.  New users can just choose these options and boom done, no need to fiddle around with anything else to make it work.

Update:  Things changed when using the latest VB software.  With VB 3.6.1, using VarjoOpenXR with DX12/DLSS yields significant performance uplift with MSFS (15-20 fps!) over Steam OpenXR.  So, with correct settings things can improve dramatically.  Hoping to see similar performance increase with Vulkan/AMD FSR2.0 with DCS in the future.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Supmua