low FPS in VR (multiplayer only)

[101st Lonestar AUT]

Hi!

I have quite a big problem flying DCS VR on multiplayer servers since I have enormously low FPS (around 6-10 fps at departure) on my Quest 2 VR-Headset. Sometimes for short period at startup the frames can reach 40 FPS but then, when startup is finished while taxiing to runway it drops down to 10-14 FPS.

The strange thing is, that in singleplayer I can even go to higher settings and will have up to 60fps STABLE!! Without major drops.

Seems to be an "only MP problem".
I've already read a lot of threads in forums, guides ect. but sadly did not find a solution yet...

 

Can anyone help, please?

Specs:

Quest 2 + Link Cable (80Hz ASW off, 45FPS)
AMD Ryzen 1700 @ 3200Mhz
32GB Corsair RAM @2900MHz
RTX 3060 TI

[speed-of-heat]

You don't get this problem SP? It may be a function of the server ?

[BIGNEWY]

MP especially busy servers are way more demanding, lots going on. 

Can you post your dcs settings page, maybe we can give you some tweaking advice. 

thanks

[dutchili]

You are not alone. 
The CPU/GPU load is too high in the multiplayer scenario (and can be too in high in single player)

Reducing the load can help. Lower game settings, but also a lower rendering resolution in the Oculus settings. Note that can go all the way down to 0.7x, which gives you a huge difference in performance (a minor to moderate resolution effect based on the setting).

With quite a similar system, i have in-game PD at 1.5 and Oculus resolution at 1.0 for 'oke looks and. oke performance'. I do get the occasional FPS choke which can be solved by putting the headset down, alt-tab, wait af few seconds, continue. If i set oculus resolultion to .7 i don't have that issue. Still need to find something in between.

[101st Lonestar AUT]

21 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

You don't get this problem SP? It may be a function of the server ?

Yes, its depending on the Servers as well, can see differences between them.

I've read a lot of articles about this - DCS is sadly very CPU-hungry on multiplayer servers compared to playing singleplayer.

This might be a bottleneck for my VR-system as well...

[101st Lonestar AUT]

20 hours ago, dutchili said:

You are not alone. 
The CPU/GPU load is too high in the multiplayer scenario (and can be too in high in single player)

Reducing the load can help. Lower game settings, but also a lower rendering resolution in the Oculus settings. Note that can go all the way down to 0.7x, which gives you a huge difference in performance (a minor to moderate resolution effect based on the setting).

With quite a similar system, i have in-game PD at 1.5 and Oculus resolution at 1.0 for 'oke looks and. oke performance'. I do get the occasional FPS choke which can be solved by putting the headset down, alt-tab, wait af few seconds, continue. If i set oculus resolultion to .7 i don't have that issue. Still need to find something in between.

Tried to go to lowest possible settings yesterday - sadly nearly no success - FPS still down at 14-17 at taxiing...

Settings:
Resolution 0.6 @80Hz
Pixel dens: 1.0
Details: LOW, any AA off, AF off, TF off ect.
OTT: ASW off 

[speed-of-heat]

in VR you will certainly feel CPU impacts much more as  there is no compensation for not enough CPU...

 

[101st Lonestar AUT]

21 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

MP especially busy servers are way more demanding, lots going on. 

Can you post your dcs settings page, maybe we can give you some tweaking advice. 

thanks

With the attached Settings I can reach STABLE 38-40fps in Singleplayer.
(Multiplayer still around 12FPS)

thanks in advance for your help Newy!

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, 101st Lonestar AUT said:

With the attached Settings I can reach STABLE 38-40fps in Singleplayer.
(Multiplayer still around 12FPS)

thanks in advance for your help Newy!

not seeing the attachment yet

[101st Lonestar AUT]

Ups, sorry...

[BIGNEWY]

My only suggestion for you with multiplayer. 

turn off terrain shadows and use lower terrain textures for multiplayer. 

you may find it helps in very busy servers. 

[101st Lonestar AUT]

already did... yesterday... 14-17 FPS still...

[speed-of-heat]

try dropping clouds down to standard from ultra, should also improve FPS and reduce GPU strain if thats a factor

[BIGNEWY]

1 minute ago, 101st Lonestar AUT said:

already did... yesterday... 14-17 FPS still...

So is your system bottlenecking? 

maybe CPU?

 

[101st Lonestar AUT]

Today I will try to get DCS assigned to specific CPU-Cores and boost up frequency/priorize the DCS process.
I've read an article that older AMD Ryzen processors can benefit from that - maybe it will help.

Will keep you updated...

[101st Lonestar AUT]

My guess: CPU is definately the reason why this happens - but as you can see it is only used by 21% while running DCS. 
Means that DCS doesn't get the full performance out of these AMD Processors.

And on MP-Servers, where the CPU-workload seems to be significantly higher - this fact is making a huge impact to my fps-performance...

[BIGNEWY]

try turning all shadow options off, and see if you notice a difference 

[Mr_sukebe]

101>

Go back to task manager and on the CPU element, double click and try to open it such that it shows the usage by individual core.

By default, task manager shows the total CPU usage for all cores.  If you have say an 8 core CPU, it's possible that 6 are taking a siesta, whilst one if fairly loaded and the one running core of DCS is maxed out.

[101st Lonestar AUT]

I have also tried to assign specific cores to DCS only - no sucess...

btw:
boosted up my CPU by 28%  - did not change a thing

My FPS are still ulow on these specific servers - on others they run between 27-40fps.
But what happens on good running servers is that from times to times suddenly huge framedrops appear. In that case I have to tab out of the VR-window or put the headset away. Anytime I return back into the VR the FPS are normal again...

Can anyone explain whats happening there? Seems like VRAM getting stuck.

 

 

[BIGNEWY]

6 minutes ago, 101st Lonestar AUT said:

@BIGNEWY Do you know whats happening there from ED's perspective? Seems the shader-cache cleans up by putting the VR-headset off or reloads itself again?
Is there any solution from ED? Implementing an automatized routine maybe? Cause a lot of VR-players with different types of headsets have exactly the same issue..

From our point of view we can see no reason for drops people are seeing, we would need track replay examples showing a problem to test it. 

If you have updated windows 11 try this, it seems to help some 

Windows 11 22h2 function update:

"Go to Computer Management → System Tools → Performance → Data Collector Sets → Event Trace Sessions. In this list, find HolographicShell, right click, and choose ‘Stop’."

[101st Lonestar AUT]

After a complete Hardware-Upgrade of my PC (now: 64GB RAM, 3700X and all the Overclocking done) I still have the same Issue and even more Framedrops after the new DCS Update...

Enclosed you find a screenshot of Oculus debug tool - so thats my Problem...

Dunno what to do now... Spend over 50h to get this working and still no solution,yet...

 

Please HELP!

[Quip]

You guys that have this problem: Try turning back just _one_ setting in DCS and see if it helps you. I think I know what it is you're seeing. Let's try confirming it. Do this...

Set "Textures" to Medium.

Let me know if this helps.

[101st Lonestar AUT]

Wow @Quip, that was the missing preference -  at least for for my setup. A very big "THANK YOU" for the hint, I was nearly giving up DCS & VR!

I've tested the whole weekend and it now runs smooth and stable like neverelse before...

I recognized that the load of my garphicscard (3060ti) is now somewhere between 86 and 98% (instead of perma 100%) and that seems to give extra headroom for the stream via link to render without any framedrops. (have some when I open the F-10 map still, but thats ok so far)

 

For all those, who have the same struggles with these annoying framedrops:
Watch the load of your graphics card and try to get your ingame detail settings bit down to gain some headroom.
Rendering of streaming also uses your graphics card and cannot be changed to CPU, nor it can do any reservation for its process. Therefore it needs some extra power in case of framedrops. If you do not use 100% of your card permanently you should get rid of those jitters on the Q2 and maybe other HMDs, too.

 

I will also bring a complete guide for setting up the Quest 2 in terms of performance and quality, will keep you informed.

TNX to you all, fly safe & BR
 

[Caldero]

On 11/8/2022 at 12:42 PM, 101st Lonestar AUT said:

Wow @Quip, that was the missing preference -  at least for for my setup. A very big "THANK YOU" for the hint, I was nearly giving up DCS & VR!

I've tested the whole weekend and it now runs smooth and stable like neverelse before...

I recognized that the load of my garphicscard (3060ti) is now somewhere between 86 and 98% (instead of perma 100%) and that seems to give extra headroom for the stream via link to render without any framedrops. (have some when I open the F-10 map still, but thats ok so far)

 

For all those, who have the same struggles with these annoying framedrops:
Watch the load of your graphics card and try to get your ingame detail settings bit down to gain some headroom.
Rendering of streaming also uses your graphics card and cannot be changed to CPU, nor it can do any reservation for its process. Therefore it needs some extra power in case of framedrops. If you do not use 100% of your card permanently you should get rid of those jitters on the Q2 and maybe other HMDs, too.

 

I will also bring a complete guide for setting up the Quest 2 in terms of performance and quality, will keep you informed.

TNX to you all, fly safe & BR
 

Hello

Do you have your Quest 2 performance guide ready? I desperately need to fine tune my 2.8, right now it is a sttutering slide show

Regards

[101st Lonestar AUT]

*** V1.1 modified  on 01.02.2023 ***

Ok, will just summarize for you  - as a kind of X-MAS present  - this is for my WIN10 setup at least:
(It took me about 6 weeks to get DCS running smooth and stable, so I do know the pain...)

First of all:
DCS-Settings have the biggest impact to your performance, so start on low settings and after all get higher step by step.
(Texture Settings cannot be set to high, if you dont have a graphics card with 12GB or more!!)
Before starting DCS restart your PC and be sure no other applications than needed are running in the background!
(also check your autostart and disable any unnecessary apps in Windows-Taskmanager, than restart again and doublecheck).
Be sure to use a VR-Ready USB-Port for your Link-cable, or at least the fastest one you can find on your PC. I am using an external powered USB3.1-Hub to really get safe in terms of voltage supply... 
Delete the two shader folders of DCS itself before first time starting in DCS-VR (wherever your game files are located e.g. C:\Games\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Config" --> "fxo" and "metashaders2" folders)!

My Rig:
- AMD Ryzen 3700X
- Nvidia 3060ti
- 64GB Ram
- WIN10Pro

Installed software:
- MSI Gaming App (in my case: for VR-Ready USB support)
- latest Nvidia Drivers
- latest Oculus-HMD Update installed (WLAN needed)
- latest WIN10-Updates
- Oculus Tray Tool (or Debug Tool)
- ProcessLasso (for managing your processes permanently)

Configuration:
1. DCS ingame graphics settings (see screenshot below)
2. edit graphics.lua (can be found in C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\) - search for following lines:
   maxfps = 40;

Precaching =
	{
	around_camera = 42500;
	around_objects = 7500; }

(40 maxfps comes from Oculus Home App --> e.g. 80Hz == 40fps for each eye, around_camera is my TGP max render distance and should be same as ingame. Due to 2.8 you can either write an autoexec.bat or change these settings manually after each update, tutorials can be found in DCS forums)

3. Nvidia settings --> I am using Anisotropic Filtering by Nvidia and turned it off ingame, skip FXAA and Antialiasing for the beginning (see screenshots below)
4. Oculus settings --> start with 1.0 resolution, you can get up to max resolution at 80Hz and even higher with small impacts to your performance (see                   screenshot)
5. Oculus Tray Tool OTT settings (see screenshot)
6. ProcessLasso settings (DCS needs 2-3 permanent cores, OVRServer needs at least 2 - try to get DCS and any other 3rd party app on different cores with this      tool permanently or via taskmanager each time you start DCS) + set priority HIGH for DCS.exe and OVRServer_x64.exe or to real time
7. Windows Energy settings --> use optimum performance profile & check if USB-powersafe is deactivated (see screenshot)
8. Windows Graphics settings --> deactivate hardware based GPU scheduling
9. Windows System Properties, Performance --> use processor time scheduling FOR background apps (this is priority for OVR Server Link-App) 
10. HINT: if you own a NVIDIA card you can AUTOTUNE your card via the Alt+Z (enable in game overlay first) menu and use this profile in afterburner to get some        extra power

Startup routine:
0. Be sure ProcessLasso is running in the background
1. Check if your USB is ready for using VR (in my case: in MSI Gaming APP it has to be activated)
2. Start Oculus Home
3. Start Oculus Tray Tool (minimize and do not close it)
4. Start your Quest2 (and define your Guaridian area - for me: desktop, fixed)
4.1 At the very first start: test USB-voltage & bandwith within the Oculus Home App (should be around 2.8 GBit/s on USB 3)
5. In the Q2 go to your Link-App (usually in the quick settings bar left) and connect with your PC
6. As soon as the Link is established and the App is running start DCS directly from your PC Desktop (first time seems to be important)

For more Details I will post the Screenshots in saperate as following:

^^ Clouds can be left on "standard" after the new updates to AA.

^^ take ALL the values out of the () for your config and finally use "pre-rendered VR Frames Value: 1-2"

 

^^you can try lower Encode Bitrate and Resolution here as well - depends on your cable and USB-Device

 

Screenshot out of Windows Energy-Management (edit your Power-Plan):

 

 

 

 

Hope this helps a lot of you guys and safes your X-mas holidays!

BR LSR

Edited April 18, 2023 by 101st Lonestar AUT