Quest 2 Users, I improved my FPS 75% with one OTT setting I never knew about

[Fuggzy]

I want to share a huge performance boost that I bumbled into and can reproduce reliably.  I have a pretty low end system for running VR, and after about 9 months of tweaking every possible thing, it's finally playable with this one trick.  Dang. 

System summary:

• Core i9-10980XE @ 3.0 -4.1Ghz
• 32GB NVMe RAM
• RTX 2060 Super, 8GB of VRAM

Pretty low-end card for VR yes?  8GB just isn't much, neither is the 20 series.  But as long as I keep all in-game textures Low, Shadows off, trees low, anything that requires loading more VRAM, I can make it workable. That brings up my premise here --  I'm trying to get maximum FPS/fluidity and stutter-free as possible while in VR.  Don't care about eye-candy yet.

Here was the situation, the Oculus setting and DCS result before I began:

• FRESH install of DCS, because I moved all my licenses for many reasons from Steam over to ED.   Note that I still had crap performance even after I reinstalled native DCS, that wasn't what helped framerates.  I bring it up because I am making the change and getting these stellar results with a completely vanilla, mod-free installation of the latest DCS 2.8 - there is nothing else to complicate my test.
• DCS in-game settings are all turned down to be as fast as possible. - Low textures, sliders low, shadows Low, etc.  The only exceptions are MSAA = 2x and Anisotropic Filter = 16x, I always have those on regardless because they make it visually bearable.
• Oculus Quest2 --  Using Link Cable to a truly 1Gbps USB3.0 card, Oculus Menu settings at 120Hz,  Res Slider all the way to the right.  Yes...to the highest resolution possible.

Baseline using these:   F-16 Viper, Caucasus, Instant Action - Takeoff   and   Apache AH-64D, Caucasus, Instant Action -- Runway takeoff

(also, I'm using only the ingame FPS/Frametime Counter to measure)

Before change:

• In-game menu:  45FPS solid line
• F-16 in game:  Avg of 32 FPS, dips into 27 near cities/units, max of 45 at altitude looking up through canopy.  Micro stutters frequent, in all phases.
• Apache in game:  Avg of 29 FPS, dips as low as 19 near units/fires/smoke, max of 34...never saw higher than that in many hours and missions.  Micro and macro stutters abound.

After change:

• In game menu:  90FPS solid line
• F-16 in game:  Solid avg of 45 FPS, dips to maybe 40 while on the runway looking at the city ahead.  After takeoff and a little bit of altitude it averages 60FPS with a Max of 84 FPS looking up.  No stutters at all.  It feels as fluid as water in all phases, I love it!
• Apache in game:  It holds a solid 43-45 FPS in all situations except in the middle of burning fires and smoke, where it dips to maybe 38 at the lowest.  This is remarkable considering I was seeing FPS in high teens before....awful.  It gets a Max of 62 FPS when at high alt and looking down away from the rotor, but it just never dips down low enough to notice it lagging in just about any phase of flight.  I can fly it so much smoother and better, it feels like butter.

Best of all, it looks good -- very playable to me.  Someday I'll throw a 24GB card at it and then make it really pretty.  But everything is clear, crisp, I can read all gauges in the Viper and Apache just fine.

What's the secret?  

Desktop resolution size, basically.  I was unwittingly running mine full-bore for the last year, and I assume that it's been sapping resources from VR.  Once I found this way to definitely force re-size it and use a specific start procedure, I come into the game with hugely better performance. Most importantly, I can reproduce it at will and turn the performance gain on and off by only modulating the desktop resolution size here in Oculus Tray Tool (OTT) profile.

In OTT, as far as I can tell there is only one way to do that -- create a Profile for the DCS executable, and use that Profile.   I was always just setting the main menu settings of OTT and running it, but if you use a Profile you can activate two important features at the red arrows below.

• Audio confirmation box -- a nice lady informs you when OTT recognizes DCS launch so that you know your Profile is applied -- after all, you're in an HMD and can't look.
• Desktop Resolution -- The first time I saw this box it was set to my real desktop resolution of 3440 x 1440.  I changed it to the smallest possible, 800x600, and eureka! -- THAT is the performance gain.  I think now DCS is not trying to render the 2D desktop game at highest resolution and stack it onto VR load, and at 800x600 it's not a bad drain?  Seems plausible to me.

 null

 

One last super important thing.  There is literally only one way to make sure this works, at least for me, after changing it. I swear the Oculus will cache Link settings inside the HMD and it caused me a lot of frustration as random changes didn't seem to affect anything.  So, as a general method to make your life easier,  after making any change to Link, disconnect Link cable entirely and then restart the HMD.  Doing this makes sure all Link configurations get reset.  If you want to just try what I did and quickly see if it does anything for you, I highly recommend doing it like this:

1. Shutdown Quest app and hardware, disconnect Link cable (this is important)
2. Launch OTT, Create a profile as above.  I haven't tested any settings like ASW, SS >1.0 yet but like I said... this is barebones yet very playable and a good place to start.  On the main page, my key Link settings are:  2912 Encoding width, bitrate 150, Sharpening Enabled
3. Save that profile by closing the Profile window and then hitting Save on the main OTT menu.  Recycle it with the Services tab for good measure. Close OTT and Oculus app.
4. Delete all files in \Users\you\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\fxo and metashaders2 folders. It may not matter if you skip it, but I hypothesize that it actually is important in this procedure to make sure DCS rebuilds them cleanly within VR/desktop combo environment. 
5. Reboot PC

Once you've done all that one time, this is how you're going to launch DCS every time. 

1. Launch procedure:

• Launch OTT.  Hit View/Edit Profiles and put a checkmark on DCS if it's not already there, verify the 800x600 setting is still there, and close the Profile window.
• Either Start or Recycle the Oculus service from the Service and Startup tab of OTT, probably best to just recycle it in all cases before next steps.  Make sure Oculus App closes and reopens when you recycle.  (NOTE: for me, sometimes OTT crashes at this point, I don't know why.  I just start it again, recycle again, and make sure it stays running after it shows Status as a green UP in the Service tab.)
• Minimize all desktop windows including OTT and Oculus App. Do NOT close or exit them, just minimize them to bar.  Remember it's going to run your desktop in 800x600, so if you get another window in front of DCS it can ruin your session. No windows showing on the desktop here = no future trouble.
• Put on Quest2 HMD, start it up.  Once it's at "home", and only then, plug in the Link cable.  You'll see an info bar let you know Link is ready.  Launch Oculus Link with your controller as usual.
• Once into the infinite white world of Link, immediately shutoff Explore and have it where it's just you, the infinite plane, and the oculus Dash bar in front of you.  Then point and click the Desktop button on the dash to enter your PC desktop in VR.  It is REALLY important that you do not launch DCS from the Oculus Explorer or Library or anything other than from the PC desktop, via VR.  There is something about clicking the DCS icon on your PC desktop with the mouse - while in VR -  that can make or break this, at least in my tests.  TL;DR - You want to click the DCS icon that's on the desktop, using your mouse (not Quest controller), to launch DCS.  
• When DCS launches, you'll first hear the nice lady report that the OTT profile is active and you'll see part of your PC desktop - at 800x600 with giant icons, is the initial VR splash screen. That will have the DCS launch splash almost entirely filling it up.  Get excited right now because it's working for you, the VR version of your desktop is truly rendering at a super fast, low resolution now!

Once the in-game menu loads, hit R-Ctrl + Pause and look at the menu framerate.  It might be much better here, maybe not.  But fire up the same mission you baselined before doing all this (haha you did pre-test right?) and tell me if it helped you, I'm super curious!  I suspect that older/lesser cards like mine will see most benefit.

If you did all this and it doesn't improve, you might've already had your desktop rendering at a decently low setting.  Remember that I went from my  highest 2K resolution to 800x600 ... from one end of the spectrum to the other. I imagine that your own results will vary depending on how big this delta is for you.

I'm very tickled.  I can fly lookin really good in VR at 45 FPS or greater all day now.  

Edited November 11, 2022 by Fuggzy

[Steel Jaw]

Curious, thanks.

[jnr4817]

Seems to work with rift s also.

 

[diamond26]

I can confirm that using lower Resolution (either in OTT or in DCS game settings) does affect FPS. 

One important setting in ODT/OTT is the FOV reduction. For me it worked without visible degradation down to 0.75 (I see the OP has it already down to 0.8) 

The most important thing with OTT is what OP mentioned about the sequence of actions to launch DCS. 
Also there is no need to unplug the link cable after each change. You can only force a link cable test from Oculus app which will soft disconnect link. Then you can apply OTT settings and launch link. 

@Fuggzy Having seeing your results I believe you will be better off with 90hz in Oculus rather than 120. If your system was able to handle 120 you would have 120 in game settings and 60 when ASW was active. ( and despite our efforts to put it off I believe Oculus forces ASW when FPS drop below the setting we put in) The only benefit with  ASW on in difficult maps/ scenarios is that you don’t have issues with ghosting as long as your system can keep the half of the used hz (36 for 72hz, 40 for 80hz, 45 for 90hz) 

There is a nice tool called CapframeX that gives a lot of nice statistics on FPS, power, thermals of your system while playing. 

 

[Mordants]

When screen is set to 800 x 600 and minimised I loose mouse focus and cannot restore it to select mission start, anyone have any ideas?

[5ephir0th]

10 minutes ago, Mordants said:

When screen is set to 800 x 600 and minimised I loose mouse focus and cannot restore it to select mission start, anyone have any ideas?

DCS as to be on focus, if not you get "Window is out of focus" message and you cant interact with DCS

[Mordants]

3 minutes ago, 5ephir0th said:

DCS as to be on focus, if not you get "Window is out of focus" message and you cant interact with DCS

I know this, which is why I asked the question, how to get focus back when you can't maximise the screen.

[diamond26]

18 minutes ago, Mordants said:

I know this, which is why I asked the question, how to get focus back when you can't maximise the screen.

In my case the window is not maximized but I use these two options (cursor confined to game window) in system and VR options and I have no issues

nullnull

Edited November 11, 2022 by diamond26

[av8orDave]

What is the benefit of lowering the desktop resolution through OTT rather than just setting it lower in DCS settings?

[Fuggzy]

5 hours ago, Mordants said:

I know this, which is why I asked the question, how to get focus back when you can't maximise the screen.

I'm sorry, I actually did leave out an important instruction.  After I click the DCS icon on my desktop to start it, I immediately click the DCS icon that spawns in the taskbar so that it's highlighted.   This ensures it's in focus.  

Edited November 11, 2022 by Fuggzy

[Fuggzy]

9 hours ago, diamond26 said:

I can confirm that using lower Resolution (either in OTT or in DCS game settings) does affect FPS. 

One important setting in ODT/OTT is the FOV reduction. For me it worked without visible degradation down to 0.75 (I see the OP has it already down to 0.8) 

The most important thing with OTT is what OP mentioned about the sequence of actions to launch DCS. 
Also there is no need to unplug the link cable after each change. You can only force a link cable test from Oculus app which will soft disconnect link. Then you can apply OTT settings and launch link. 

@Fuggzy Having seeing your results I believe you will be better off with 90hz in Oculus rather than 120. If your system was able to handle 120 you would have 120 in game settings and 60 when ASW was active. ( and despite our efforts to put it off I believe Oculus forces ASW when FPS drop below the setting we put in) The only benefit with  ASW on in difficult maps/ scenarios is that you don’t have issues with ghosting as long as your system can keep the half of the used hz (36 for 72hz, 40 for 80hz, 45 for 90hz) 

There is a nice tool called CapframeX that gives a lot of nice statistics on FPS, power, thermals of your system while playing. 

 

Thank you for the thoughtful reply, @diamond26   Good to know about the link cable, it's such a pain to plug in when it's on my head -- like trying to plug in something behind the couch.  

I definitely need to use CapframeX or something similar to get better analysis.  And that's a good idea to try 90Hz on the Oculus and compare!  Prior to now, when performance was in the toilet, I didn't use ASW at all because I couldn't maintain 30 FPS, and enabling it at 30 created a stuttery effect that would get worse over time.  But now that my system can breathe... I think I'll play with Oculus/ASW at 90/45, 80/40, heck maybe 72/36 if it's rock solid might be best.  I'll probably write another wall of text on that.   

Edited November 11, 2022 by Fuggzy

[Mordants]

1 hour ago, Fuggzy said:

I'm sorry, I actually did leave out an important instruction.  After I click the DCS icon on my desktop to start it, I immediately click the icon that spawns in the taskbar so that it's highlighted.   This ensures it's in focus.  

I just kept mine at my monitor's default resolution. Frame rate and particularly shimmering improved for me in single player. Not so great in multiplayer for me though so far. Enigma's is a definite FPS stealer. More testing regarding your suggestion above I reckon. My Graphics card is a 3080ti, but even small improvements are better than nothing. 

Thanks for the ideas.

Edit: just came of Enigma's after seeing a 10 fps improvement and visuals much better.  I've never seen 41 -45 fps before now!  Normally average 20 - 30 if I'm lucky and not many on. Good so far.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Mordants
Additional info

[Fuggzy]

Hi @diamond26  -- Wow you were right, I got some very interesting (and pleasing) results testing different Oculus refresh rates.

First, all my numbers above were with Oculus at 120Hz, full resolution.  And in all these tests, I keep resolution maxed:

90Hz - I'd say the average FPS goes up a bit, but there is some strange flicker at that rate with the Apache's rotor that bothers me.  Other than that, it's the same as 120Hz to my eyes and the FPS improved maybe by 2.

80Hz - This provides a very stable 40 FPS in the F-16.   Almost as stable in the Apache, but looking at the FPS and Frametime lines on the graph, FPS is kind of jittery.  But this felt very smooth.

72Hz - Solid 36 FPS, no deviations.  Still some minor little spikes up/down on frametimes, and an occasional hiccup on FPS that just shows as a blip on the graph.  Very good.

Then I added ASW into the mix:

90Hz w/ ASW at 45 --  It rendered 45 FPS in the game menu, but FPS was all over the map in the game.  Large spikes, FPS really can't maintain 45 but more like 40.  That was the worst combo yet, very choppy and bad.

72Hz w/ ASW at 30 --  THIS IS THE SAUCE.  When I first launched in, I almost bailed out at the game menu... it showed 24FPS.  24??? I expected 30.  But I went ahead and fired up the Viper anyways, and had my socks knocked off.  I had never used ASW before because I never could get enough baseline FPS to use it.  But like this, it is absolutely the smoothest experience I've had in DCS VR yet.  I know 24 FPS sounds like crap, but the thing is that it never deviates from 24 a single frame up or down, in Viper or Apache, in cities, shooting stuff, everything is solid.  The framerate and frametime graphs are completely solid lines, no jiggles.   Best of all, it fixed the bad ghosting.  Now I can look out the side fast on the deck, and actually make out objects clearly as they whiz by me.   This alone makes the whole experience a million times better to my brain!  This is just awesome.  After I've spent the next week tweaking more stuff to get the most out of it, I'll post a concise settings list for anyone that might be interested.  

Happy, happy day.  

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Fuggzy

[RuskyV]

I cannot believe the difference this has made, it’s insane! 
 

30hz at 800x600 desktop Res through a profile in the Oculus tray tool. 
 

I can’t thank you enough mate really well done! 

[Steel Jaw]

What is the best ASW setting?

[Fuggzy]

2 hours ago, RuskyV said:

I cannot believe the difference this has made, it’s insane! 
 

30hz at 800x600 desktop Res through a profile in the Oculus tray tool. 
 

I can’t thank you enough mate really well done! 

So happy that somebody else found the same smooth-as-butter result, there @RuskyV  

To briefly recap my latest settings that give me performance:

• Oculus - 72Hz, max resolution (slider all the way right)
• OTT - ASW at 30hz, Supersampling/PD at 1.0, FOV multiplier .80 on both, Adaptive GPU=1, Mirror=0, and the most important setting of all: Desktop resolution = 800x600 (in profile)
• DCS - everything as low, lean, and mean as I can get it -- except MSAA=2x and Anisotropic filter = 16x
• Then, make sure to start everything up in the right sequence so that OTT is really used.

In all aircraft and cases, I'm holding a rock-solid 24FPS, AWS takes care of the ghosting, all dials/displays are completely legible, and I know it sounds crazy... but that 24FPS truly feels like 60FPS without any micro stuttering or hiccups at all.  Fast movement doesn't phase it.

This is all with an RTX2060 Super card.  The day I get my mitts on 24GB video card might be the day I can add high textures and "stuff" back in.  Until then, this is quite playable.  

 

[Blinde]

Good results here too. Thanks for the tips.

[diamond26]

6 hours ago, Steel Jaw said:

What is the best ASW setting?

Depends on your system. The idea is to use ASW to the point your system can support this particular refresh rate. 
So if you see that with 80hz, for example, you go as low as 40fps during your flight (with ASW off) then ASW ON will help a lot to avoid ghosting in 3-9 line.

On the other side if you push for 90hz and you still get 40 fps then ASW ON won’t help that much.

That’s why @Fuggzyis now happier with what he sees with 72hz compared to 120hz he had before 

 

[diamond26]

To give an illustrated example you can see below in picture 2 (South Atlantic map, single player settings), despite using 90hz, my system goes down to a minimum of 23 FPS. ASW is ON and mostly keeps up as the average is above 45 but in those moments where FPS are dropping you clearly see the ghosting.nullnull

In picture 1 (Persian Gulf, single player settings) you can see that the system is always capable of producing at least 45 FPS and regardless of ASW being OFF I'm not experiencing any ghosting (as I said Oculus is always doing something on the background with ASW regardless of our choice)  nullnullnull

null

Edited November 12, 2022 by diamond26

[Steel Jaw]

Should ASW be set to a particular FPS or are the auto modes better?

[Ala12Rv-Tundra]

34 minutes ago, Steel Jaw said:

Should ASW be set to a particular FPS or are the auto modes better?

For me, when ASW is off, anytime I move my head, the cockpit becomes blurried. If I keep my head static, image is fine. 

I set aws forces to 40hz, then the cockpit image is crystal clear no matter what, but external fast objects, like enemy planes on dogfight, and planes launching from carriers, got blurried 

[diamond26]

8 hours ago, Steel Jaw said:

Should ASW be set to a particular FPS or are the auto modes better?

ASW ON ( enabled) works best if your system can cover FPS at least to the 50% of the chosen hz setting. 36 for 72, 40 for 80, 45 for 90, 60 for 120. In those cases you won’t have many artifacts.  If it is not able to cover 36 minimum then you need to go for 30 lock in OTT  which is equivalent to 1/3 of the chosen hz setting but you will have artifacts like ghosting, blurring etc.

[5ephir0th]

18 hours ago, diamond26 said:

ASW ON ( enabled) works best if your system can cover FPS at least to the 50% of the chosen hz setting. 36 for 72, 40 for 80, 45 for 90, 60 for 120. In those cases you won’t have many artifacts.  If it is not able to cover 36 minimum then you need to go for 30 lock in OTT  which is equivalent to 1/3 of the chosen hz setting but you will have artifacts like ghosting, blurring etc.

You still get pretty obovious artifacts on half fps with ASW on, easy to see on planes with HMD devices (when you move the head the hmd is full of artifacts) or ghosting on planes near you, you get ghosting too if you fly low and fast

[diamond26]

15 hours ago, 5ephir0th said:

You still get pretty obovious artifacts on half fps with ASW on, easy to see on planes with HMD devices (when you move the head the hmd is full of artifacts) or ghosting on planes near you, you get ghosting too if you fly low and fast

In my case that is only visible if the FPS is lower than the 50%. I can see that with my gaming laptop (RTX 2060, image below). In my PC rig where I'm always above 50% of the designated hz setting I don't see ghosting on anything on HMD (like numbers not being clear for example) null

Edited November 15, 2022 by diamond26

[diamond26]

I run a session with my gaming laptop with ASW lock on 30 (@72hz this is 24FPS locked) and while the flight was smoother than ASW OFF or ON, the artifacts in HMD and very close objects were annoying.