Varjo Aero: General guide for new owners

[dburne]

11 hours ago, Supmua said:

Glad to hear it’s working well for you.  There’re currently several ways to run DCS VR and it doesn’t hurt to explore them all.  I’m sticking with Steam’s OpenXR for now though because Steam Overlay is huge for me for quick access to Web or Chat box while gaming without taking off my headset.

 

I will have to give that a try, though I probably would not use it all that much in practice. Do you just use one of the controllers to toggle it on/off?

[motoadve]

12 hours ago, dburne said:

vysnc on

Vysnc does not do anything in VR.

I tried locked at 45 fps, its ok for ground attack, but for dogfight I missed the smoothness.

[Supmua]

1 hour ago, dburne said:

 

I will have to give that a try, though I probably would not use it all that much in practice. Do you just use one of the controllers to toggle it on/off?

Yes via controller. Unfortunately the Aero doesn’t have SteamVR system button functionality on the headset (can be added though). I did ask for this functionality in the Discord feedback but it’s prob very low on their priority list or they’re just trying to become independent from SteamVR. 

[Willdass]

Just got my 2nd replacement unit, looks like this one is working properly (knock on wood), at least it does not have any of the other defects.

But I have a issue with my monitor when I power on the HMD (this also happened with the other units):

Sometimes, when powering on the HMD, half my monitor gets a few shades darker, see pic. This does not happen every time and is fixed with a quick monitor off/on.

null

Monitor: Samsung Odyssey G7, 4k 144hz, HDR off.
GPU: RTX 4090
HDMI 2.1 (new cable and have tried with multiple cables, same issue).

Anyone had similar issues? Or know a fix?
 

In advanced, thanks!

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Willdass

[Supmua]

23 minutes ago, Willdass said:

Just got my 2nd replacement unit, looks like this one is working properly (knock on wood), at least it does not have any of the other defects.

But I have a issue with my monitor when I power on the HMD (this also happened with the other units):

Sometimes, when powering on the HMD, half my monitor gets a few shades darker, see pic. This does not happen every time and is fixed with a quick monitor off/on.

null

Monitor: Samsung Odyssey G7, 4k 144hz, HDR off.
GPU: RTX 4090
HDMI 2.1 (new cable and have tried with multiple cables, same issue).

Anyone had similar issues? Or know a fix?
 

In advanced, thanks!

 

 

That's a strange issue and I have no idea but don't think it's related to the HMD.  Have you tried powering on the HMD before the monitor itself?  I would check with Samsung monitor forum, Reddit, etc. to see if there are other owners with similar issues.

[Willdass]

8 minutes ago, Supmua said:

That's a strange issue and I have no idea but don't think it's related to the HMD.  Have you tried powering on the HMD before the monitor itself?  I would check with Samsung monitor forum, Reddit, etc. to see if there are other owners with similar issues.

Very strange indeed. Yeah, I don't think it's the HMD itself, but It may be related to the Varjo Base Software, or as you say, the monitor.

It seems to happen more frequently if I forget to open VB before turning on the HMD.

1. Turning on HMD

2. Opening VB.

3. Monitor flickers and then it's 50/50 light/dark

Will try some more and reach out on reddit. Thx.

[Supmua]

A bit of observations with OpenXR Toolkit 1.2.4--with both native Varjo OpenXR and Steam OpenXR.

Fixed foveated rendering wide/quality seems to reduce GPU frametime by 0.5ms.  This might be great in situations where you need to hit the target fps (90 or 45, etc.) but can't quite get there due to GPU bottleneck.  No obvious visual degradation seen, most likely in the very outer edge of FOV.  So this might be the reason why you would want to use OXRTK since it will increase GPU performance by a bit.  One good example for this use case is F-16 Freeflight Marianas at high preset, this map will crush every GPU out there at High settings in VR.  Using FFR allows me to maintain GPU frametime below 22ms hence smooth 45 fps (Vsync locked) when flying over densely populated areas.

I'm not sure if sharpening works (NIS/FSR/CAS), don't see obvious changes in ground detail even at max 100%.  In comparison with OpenVR/Reshade 5 lumasharpen, the ground detail popped right away when I toggled that on.

Frametime numbers obtained are slightly different from fpsVR especially CPU.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Supmua

[prancibald]

I tried forcing openxr and using the openxr wrapper that stops the varjo from rendering quad screens.  However, I still keep coming back to forcing steamVR and using that instead.  Feels a lot smoother overall, despite the weird flickering in the load screens (which doesn't matter much to me).  No objective measurements just feels better at ground level, especially in multiplayer missions. 

 

Edit:should say I'm leaving steam using openVR

Edited February 1, 2023 by prancibald

[prancibald]

Does anybody else get loss of tracking when looking down at side consoles?  I have 2 base stations, positioned at my 10 and 3 o'clock right now.  thinking of adding a third for this reason alone. 

[zildac]

Does anybody else get loss of tracking when looking down at side consoles?  I have 2 base stations, positioned at my 10 and 3 o'clock right now.  thinking of adding a third for this reason alone. 

No, I have the same setup albeit 10 and 2 o'clock, V2 base stations on tripods and they track perfectly.

[prancibald]

20 minutes ago, zildac said:

No, I have the same setup albeit 10 and 2 o'clock, V2 base stations on tripods and they track perfectly.

About what height and distance?  Mine are about 6 feet up about 6 feet away, angled down toward my chair.

 

Other thing is that I'm wearing some over-the ear headphones, and maybe they're obstructing something on the headset?

Edited February 1, 2023 by prancibald
Forgot to add distance

[zildac]

55 minutes ago, prancibald said:

About what height and distance?  Mine are about 6 feet up about 6 feet away, angled down toward my chair.

 

Other thing is that I'm wearing some over-the ear headphones, and maybe they're obstructing something on the headset?

 

I use over ears too, the stations are elevated about 4ft and around 4ft and 6ft from me...have you tried changing the channels using the pin switch in the back of the base station? I solely did mine to sort out the high-pitched whine (2.5 inch laptop hard drive style), well at least make it more bearable. Not sure if that would have any impact frankly on the tracking performance. And obviously, you want them on separate channels.

Edited February 1, 2023 by zildac

[Gunnars Driver]

I have a problem that is extremely anoying. Earlier I thought it might be the Varjo base that was not 100% stable.

 

In game, the headset shuts down (grey out to completely grey color) and restarts and the movement of the leanses can be heard. Then it works again, but this takes a few seconds and is not complatible with racing games at all --> guaranteed to crash. Its not that good in DCS either.

I had a USB cable issue, and contacted the support. Got a new cable and my hope was that this was the same issue but it was not. With a new USB cable and a new "box" where you put the USB cable this issue is still there. I had two of these blackouts today, about 1.5hours of DCS. 

Is this a common issue, anyone else having it? 

 

[Supmua]

31 minutes ago, Gunnars Driver said:

I have a problem that is extremely anoying. Earlier I thought it might be the Varjo base that was not 100% stable.

 

In game, the headset shuts down (grey out to completely grey color) and restarts and the movement of the leanses can be heard. Then it works again, but this takes a few seconds and is not complatible with racing games at all --> guaranteed to crash. Its not that good in DCS either.

I had a USB cable issue, and contacted the support. Got a new cable and my hope was that this was the same issue but it was not. With a new USB cable and a new "box" where you put the USB cable this issue is still there. I had two of these blackouts today, about 1.5hours of DCS. 

Is this a common issue, anyone else having it? 

 

I've gone through 2 Aeros and both of them have loose USB connection at the headset socket (left compartment) but fixable after cable twist.  Have you tried twisting the USB cable 180 degree before plugging it back into the headset to create extra tension?  Was there any disconnected message in VB when the problem occurred?

[Gunnars Driver]

59 minutes ago, Supmua said:

I've gone through 2 Aeros and both of them have loose USB connection at the headset socket (left compartment) but fixable after cable twist.  Have you tried twisting the USB cable 180 degree before plugging it back into the headset to create extra tension?  Was there any disconnected message in VB when the problem occurred?

No, no message. 
 

At one of the outs I know I was sitting still without head movement.

I have these during a racing game also. Not much head movement at all then.

 

[Supmua]

7 minutes ago, Gunnars Driver said:

No, no message. 
 

At one of the outs I know I was sitting still without head movement.

I have these during a racing game also. Not much head movement at all then.

 

If you don't see disconnected message then I'm afraid it might not be the issue.

One of the things you could also try is download USBlogview and run that with DCS or just leave it on.  This can help diagnose USB peripheral issues.

USBLogView - Records the details of any USB device that is plugged or unplugged into your system (nirsoft.net)

 

Also.  Observations on Varjo's motion smoothing.  It works perfectly only if you look outside the cockpit, even at 30 fps.  With this on the ground objects remain sharp and smooth with flyby, however the cockpit suffers from image retention artifacts with headset's movements.  If Varjo can fix this we'll be all set.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Supmua

[RedX]

On 1/27/2023 at 7:00 PM, Supmua said:

May be some of you guys who have free time can test the different OpenXR modes and see if there's any performance difference.

Route 1:  --force_steam_VR > Opencomposite OpenXR (dll installation) > Varjo OpenXR (toggle OpenXR switch ON in VB)

Route 2: --force_OpenXR > Steam OpenXR (Toggle OpenXR switch OFF in VB)

Route 3: --force_OpenXR > Varjo OpenXR (OpenXR switch ON in VB).  Quad rendering with this one so expect bad performance.

 

Quick test result. Settings: Varjo Aero, 3090, R7 5800X3D, X570, 32GB DDR4 3200MHz, Win10 etc.; VR standard preset settings in DCS, Varjo resolution High(default). No reprojections, vsync off. Pre-rendered frames =1 in Nvidia settings. OpenXR Toolkit disabled.

Instant action Syria AH-64D hot start at ramp, in cockpit, looking slightly left towards the tanker truck. FPS reported by DCS (ctrl-pause) and Varjo Base analytics window performance tool.

Route 1: around 48..51 FPS (DCS counter), 46..49 FPS 18..19ms CPU 20..22ms GPU (Varjo Base counter).

Route 2: around 47..50 FPS (DCS counter), 45..49 FPS (Varjo Base counter), flickering when loading missions/menus, sometimes erroneous rendering/tracking, tracking is lost much more easily if poorly visible to base stations???

Route 3: around 34..35 FPS (DCS counter),  34 FPS 28..29ms CPU 24..25ms GPU (Varjo Base counter), no visible quad rendering but poor performance and artifacts in the smoke on the right side.

Route 3 plus the extensions wrapper (https://forum.dcs.world/topic/318268-varjo-aero-dcs-native-oxr-oxrtk-and-offset-cockpit-cursor-issues-fixed/#comment-5143050) : 48..50 FPS (DCS counter), 49 FPS 18ms CPU 19ms GPU (Varjo Base counter), EDIT: twitching gone after reboot. a lot of "twitching" when rotating or translating head, very annoying (discussed in another thread IIRC?).

 

Conclusion: Route 1 & 3 (if quad view is disabled) are much preferred in this case. Did not test pure SteamVR/OpenVR at all, since OpenXR allows the use of OpenXR Toolkit and fixed foveated rendering which gives me >10% performance boost at my preferred FFR settings.

I did not play around with any of the reprojection/motion smoothing settings at this time.

Edited February 2, 2023 by RedX

[fastf1nger]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb prancibald:

Does anybody else get loss of tracking when looking down at side consoles?  I have 2 base stations, positioned at my 10 and 3 o'clock right now.  thinking of adding a third for this reason alone. 

Back to the base stations shortly:

There are some misconceptions about height and distance, had a chat with Varjo about a year ago.
My right station 2.0 is placed about 3m away on a TV lowboard, 40cm high and ca. 1 o´clock position.
The left one is placed about 4m away on a shelf , 70cm high and ca. 10 o´clock position.

As long as they are looking at you and Varjo base shows them both, the height and distance is not
too much of a problem, you´ll never need a 3rd one in 99% of the cases. No need to change channels
as it is done automatically. Mine work perfectly in all VR applications and games, never hat 1 single issue.
SteamVR position setup must be done correctly but thats self-explaining. Hope this helps 

[Supmua]

11 hours ago, RedX said:

Quick test result. Settings: Varjo Aero, 3090, R7 5800X3D, X570, 32GB DDR4 3200MHz, Win10 etc.; VR standard preset settings in DCS, Varjo resolution High(default). No reprojections, vsync off. Pre-rendered frames =1 in Nvidia settings. OpenXR Toolkit disabled.

Instant action Syria AH-64D hot start at ramp, in cockpit, looking slightly left towards the tanker truck. FPS reported by DCS (ctrl-pause) and Varjo Base analytics window performance tool.

Route 1: around 48..51 FPS (DCS counter), 46..49 FPS 18..19ms CPU 20..22ms GPU (Varjo Base counter).

Route 2: around 47..50 FPS (DCS counter), 45..49 FPS (Varjo Base counter), flickering when loading missions/menus, sometimes erroneous rendering/tracking, tracking is lost much more easily if poorly visible to base stations???

Route 3: around 34..35 FPS (DCS counter),  34 FPS 28..29ms CPU 24..25ms GPU (Varjo Base counter), no visible quad rendering but poor performance and artifacts in the smoke on the right side.

Route 3 plus the extensions wrapper (https://forum.dcs.world/topic/318268-varjo-aero-dcs-native-oxr-oxrtk-and-offset-cockpit-cursor-issues-fixed/#comment-5143050) : 48..50 FPS (DCS counter), 49 FPS 18ms CPU 19ms GPU (Varjo Base counter), EDIT: twitching gone after reboot. a lot of "twitching" when rotating or translating head, very annoying (discussed in another thread IIRC?).

 

Conclusion: Route 1 & 3 (if quad view is disabled) are much preferred in this case. Did not test pure SteamVR/OpenVR at all, since OpenXR allows the use of OpenXR Toolkit and fixed foveated rendering which gives me >10% performance boost at my preferred FFR settings.

I did not play around with any of the reprojection/motion smoothing settings at this time.

 

Nice. I don’t have any twitching or tracking issues with any of the OpenXR routes. I do notice Steam OpenVR stuttering when approaching multiple black smokes at High preset though (F-16 Caucasus free flight).

Next test is NVIDIA ReBar to see if there’s tangible performance gain (supposed to speed up texture/shaders/geometry transfers CPU-GPU especially if you have high VRAM). May need to enable it in BIOS (Advanced/PCI Subs/4G on, ReBar on, Boot/CSM off) as well as NV Inspector (choose Battlefield V profile in 0x000FF00BA, 0x000FF00BB, 0x000FF00FF Unknown sections). 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Supmua

[prancibald]

10 hours ago, fastf1nger said:

Back to the base stations shortly:

There are some misconceptions about height and distance, had a chat with Varjo about a year ago.
My right station 2.0 is placed about 3m away on a TV lowboard, 40cm high and ca. 1 o´clock position.
The left one is placed about 4m away on a shelf , 70cm high and ca. 10 o´clock position.

As long as they are looking at you and Varjo base shows them both, the height and distance is not
too much of a problem, you´ll never need a 3rd one in 99% of the cases. No need to change channels
as it is done automatically. Mine work perfectly in all VR applications and games, never hat 1 single issue.
SteamVR position setup must be done correctly but thats self-explaining. Hope this helps 

Yes, that helps.  I wonder now if I was getting some reflection.  I covered up a metallic trashcan and removed some other metallic debris (maybe it's acting like chaff!) And it seems much better now.  

[Darpa]

This is in regards to the discussion between dburne and supmua in the last few pages of this thread that was talking about Steam's openVR and openXR. I am currently have quad screens and am using --force_steam_VR on the command line. Not being very knowledgeable about this stuff my take away from that back and forth was that I could:

1) Make a change in the Steam app (developers section?) from OpenVR to OpenXR

2) Change --force_steam_VR to --force_OpenXR on the DCS command line

My question is this. If I make that change to OpenXR in Steam can I do that for a specific application (for DCS only) or is that a global change that may have consequences for other Steam VR applications I use (that may need OpenVR)? Thanks for any comments.

 

[dburne]

2 minutes ago, Darpa said:

This is in regards to the discussion between dburne and supmua in the last few pages of this thread that was talking about Steam's openVR and openXR. I am currently have quad screens and am using --force_steam_VR on the command line. Not being very knowledgeable about this stuff my take away from that back and forth was that I could:

1) Make a change in the Steam app (developers section?) from OpenVR to OpenXR

2) Change --force_steam_VR to --force_OpenXR on the DCS command line

My question is this. If I make that change to OpenXR in Steam can I do that for a specific application (for DCS only) or is that a global change that may have consequences for other Steam VR applications I use (that may need OpenVR)? Thanks for any comments.

 

 

Yes I believe so. Obviously you put the nomenclature --force_OpenXR in the DCS.exe shortcut properties. I wanted to have two shortcuts for DCS, one for native Steam VR and one for Steam VR's Open XR runtime, so I created another shortcut to DCS.exe and renamed it to DCS.exe.SteamOpenXR. In the shortcut properties for it I have the --force_OpenXR.

[Darpa]

Thanks dburne,   

15 minutes ago, dburne said:

 

Yes I believe so. Obviously you put the nomenclature --force_OpenXR in the DCS.exe shortcut properties. I wanted to have two shortcuts for DCS, one for native Steam VR and one for Steam VR's Open XR runtime, so I created another shortcut to DCS.exe and renamed it to DCS.exe.SteamOpenXR. In the shortcut properties for it I have the --force_OpenXR.

Just to be clear then.. The place I go in the Steam app to make the change to OpenXR only applies to DCS and no other apps - correct?  thanks again.

 

[Gunnars Driver]

21 hours ago, Supmua said:

If you don't see disconnected message then I'm afraid it might not be the issue.

One of the things you could also try is download USBlogview and run that with DCS or just leave it on.  This can help diagnose USB peripheral issues.

USBLogView - Records the details of any USB device that is plugged or unplugged into your system (nirsoft.net)

 

Also.  Observations on Varjo's motion smoothing.  It works perfectly only if you look outside the cockpit, even at 30 fps.  With this on the ground objects remain sharp and smooth with flyby, however the cockpit suffers from image retention artifacts with headset's movements.  If Varjo can fix this we'll be all set.

 

Well, the picture get all grey and the ipd adjustment moves like wehn the headset in started up/connected. If the fovea controlled rendering is set to always calibrate, that ipd/eye tracking calibration also runs. I did find though that if it was set to remember my calibration that part is skipped and the time from getting thrown out of the game is much shorter. In any case, as it takes 5-10seconds, in a car race its always a crash and in DCS it ia catastrofic 50% of the times it happens. For what I can understand it is a complete restart of the varjos.

I did have this issue from quite early after delivery but I thought it would be a varjo base glitch, as my varjos was almost not used(had a very busy year last year). 

I noticed the sound get trown away also, so discord is out after a restart and the DCS sound reverts to the computer speakers. 

I did build a completely new computer just before christmas so the hardware is all new. It shouldnt be something like that I guess.

Only one week left until the one year day when the warranty goes out so I need to sort it out asap.

I have made a support request, but I think I need to know a little more, thats why I ask.

 

 

 

The motion smoothing seems hopefull. As most other headsets have it it would be strange if varjo could hang on to that train. I'm actually a bit surprised about it taking so long. My computer upgrade was partly because there was no reprojection and I am sensitive to non smooth gaming. 

After the upgrade is mostly works very fine. I dont always have 90fps but quite often and when below it mostly is not very low numbers and noth very much stutter.

I attached a fpsVR report, showing the numbers. 

 

[fastf1nger]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb prancibald:

Yes, that helps.  I wonder now if I was getting some reflection.  I covered up a metallic trashcan and removed some other metallic debris (maybe it's acting like chaff!) And it seems much better now.  

 My motion sim-rig looks "away" from my monitor, so this should be a reflective surface, but doesn´t make a problem for me. I have a window behind me, so this is also no problem and doesnt act as a "reflection". So i´m pretty sure that NO....doesn´t really matter. But who knows what different surfaces reflect the signals of the base-stations. Thats something for physic-professors or developers maybe