DCS VR Performance Optimization

[speed-of-heat]

2 minutes ago, edmuss said:

I may well be wrong but from what I understand you can set certain layers/areas/textures to be excluded from the upscaling which helps prevent the blurriness.  In MSFS this was the case with the blurring.  It could be pointed out that currently with NIS/FSR upscaling via openxr toolkit the MFD text clarity doesn't start to suffer really (in my case) till you're below around 65% scaling; I would hope that DLSS when implemented will be an improvement on this

agree

[hallaghan]

On 2/20/2023 at 10:20 PM, Ready said:

I am currently using native Open-XR. I have things turned down because I mainly play in MP and if I keep things at 100% it is a stutterfest when I have Motion Reprojection OFF. I need MR turned OFF, because otherwise my OBS recordings show crazy stutters. So it is tricky to find a balance where things are good inside the headset and inside the recording. I sometimes lock my frames at 55, but I mainly do this at places where my FPS is close to 55. When I fly SP I have it disabled because this gives me more smoothness.

 

Like Muzica9 mentioned, I have turbo mode on and I don't use MR because it looks terrible. I am using 100% Scale and it plays well even in servers that have a lot of scripting and players on. My PC, if anything, is a little worse than yours despite my 4090, you got a better CPU. Try a bit with turbo mode and maybe try foveated rendering as well.

[Ready]

14 hours ago, hallaghan said:

Like Muzica9 mentioned, I have turbo mode on and I don't use MR because it looks terrible. I am using 100% Scale and it plays well even in servers that have a lot of scripting and players on. My PC, if anything, is a little worse than yours despite my 4090, you got a better CPU. Try a bit with turbo mode and maybe try foveated rendering as well.

Tnx will give it a go

[Ready]

New items to take a look at, as advised by Torden:

1. MSI utility v3 to increase GPU Interrupt Priority.

2. Core Parking (not sure if this will help with DCS's current way of using cpu). https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

I have never had any success with the msi v3 utility, always end up breaking something and having to set it back to what is default.

[zildac]

New items to take a look at, as advised by Torden:
1. MSI utility v3 to increase GPU Interrupt Priority.
2. Core Parking (not sure if this will help with DCS's current way of using cpu). https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/
 
 

Are you referring to enabling message signalled interrupts for the gpu and the associated utility or the "actual" msi vendor gpu utility?

[speed-of-heat]

the message interrupt utility 

[zildac]

the message interrupt utility 

Has enabling msi caused you issues? I've had it enabled for a fair while and priority set to high. I've not noticed any detrimental affect, nor any obvious benefit to be fair.

[speed-of-heat]

Stability issues, mostly

[Ready]

Very curious with the latest OB update. Will definately experiment so see the impact of both Multithreading and the Shadow Fix.

DCS Multithreading FAQ: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/320618-dcs-multithreading-faq/

From the changelog:

Know Multithreading issue: Sporadic stuttering in 2D and VR

Fixed excessive amount of triangles and objects when terrain objects shadows set to FLAT/OFF

[muzica9]

i tested for 1 hour.

those who expected(including me) to run DCS in VR at stable 90 fps with all settings on high/ultra, will be disappointed. MT do not solve much. Only gained 5/6 fps and saw -5ms cpu frame time.Less cpu frametime = less fps drop when many ai units in one area. I will keep my old settings for dcs and openxr toolkit.

[Ready]

Did a quick flight on SP. Thus far I notice a small improvement with MT, but am getting some stutters as if every 10-20 seconds there is some quick loading going on.

It is not yet what I was hoping for. I hope the difference on our MP server is more pronounced. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Ready

[motoadve]

4090 with a Varjo Aero, slight performance increase.

4 to 5 fps more, but when I get lower fps , it does not get as low as before by about 15fps in favor

Did the p51 Furball instant mission, most of the time in mid 70s FPS, where without MT was high 60s.

Without MT lower fps where down to 52fps, with MT it never went below 65fps

I get a CPU Bound message from the DCS FPS counter, what does it mean.

[Ready]

I was hoping for a MT miracle. But that did not happen. Ofcourse there is an improvement, which is great, but I am not getting the improvement I need to have 90FPS everywhere to keep it all great without Motion Reprojection. Haven't flown on our MP-server yet, where I used to be CPU-bound all the time. Hoping the difference is bigger there.

Anyways, so I will now start experimenting with running the G2 at 60Hz, which was my backup plan. I restored my render resolution back to 100% and increased some visuals, since there is some overhead available. Did a quick flight and bit through it. Visually it looks sharp and crisp. My eyes are bleeding from the 60Hz flicker, the OpenXR-Toolkit sunglasses help a bit.

I hope I will get used ot it and that the combination of MT and 60Hz gives me what I need to get both stable visuals inside the G2 and in my recordings. I will give it a week and will fly a sortie or two and decide. 

[Flextremes]

3 minutes ago, Ready said:

I was hoping for a MT miracle. But that did not happen. Ofcourse there is an improvement, which is great, but I am not getting the improvement I need to have 90FPS everywhere to keep it all great without Motion Reprojection. Haven't flown on our MP-server yet, where I used to be CPU-bound all the time. Hoping the difference is bigger there.

Anyways, so I will now start experimenting with running the G2 at 60Hz, which was my backup plan. I restored my render resolution back to 100% and increased some visuals, since there is some overhead available. Did a quick flight and bit through it. Visually it looks sharp and crisp. My eyes are bleeding from the 60Hz flicker, the OpenXR-Toolkit sunglasses help a bit.

I hope I will get used ot it and that the combination of MT and 60Hz gives me what I need to get both stable visuals inside the G2 and in my recordings. I will give it a week and will fly a sortie or two and decide. 

100% 90fps is currently impossible now for sure. For 90fps 'app CPU' & 'rdr CPU' frame times combined and 'app GPU' need to be both beneath 10ms. 

However, did you already try these tweaks:

and...

 

[durka-durka]

11 minutes ago, Ready said:

I was hoping for a MT miracle. But that did not happen. Ofcourse there is an improvement, which is great, but I am not getting the improvement I need to have 90FPS everywhere to keep it all great without Motion Reprojection. Haven't flown on our MP-server yet, where I used to be CPU-bound all the time. Hoping the difference is bigger there.

Anyways, so I will now start experimenting with running the G2 at 60Hz, which was my backup plan. I restored my render resolution back to 100% and increased some visuals, since there is some overhead available. Did a quick flight and bit through it. Visually it looks sharp and crisp. My eyes are bleeding from the 60Hz flicker, the OpenXR-Toolkit sunglasses help a bit.

I hope I will get used ot it and that the combination of MT and 60Hz gives me what I need to get both stable visuals inside the G2 and in my recordings. I will give it a week and will fly a sortie or two and decide. 

Here's what my view looks like with 60hz.  Not sure why. Have you seen this before?
 

[Ready]

3 minutes ago, durka-durka said:

Here's what my view looks like with 60hz.  Not sure why. Have you seen this before?

No I haven't. 

[Ready]

41 minutes ago, Flextremes said:

100% 90fps is currently impossible now for sure. For 90fps 'app CPU' & 'rdr CPU' frame times combined and 'app GPU' need to be both beneath 10ms. 

However, did you already try these tweaks:

and...

 

No I haven't. Will give them a go. Thanks for sharing!!

[oz555]

41 minutes ago, Ready said:

I was hoping for a MT miracle. But that did not happen. Ofcourse there is an improvement, which is great, but I am not getting the improvement I need to have 90FPS everywhere to keep it all great without Motion Reprojection. Haven't flown on our MP-server yet, where I used to be CPU-bound all the time. Hoping the difference is bigger there.

Anyways, so I will now start experimenting with running the G2 at 60Hz, which was my backup plan. I restored my render resolution back to 100% and increased some visuals, since there is some overhead available. Did a quick flight and bit through it. Visually it looks sharp and crisp. My eyes are bleeding from the 60Hz flicker, the OpenXR-Toolkit sunglasses help a bit.

I hope I will get used ot it and that the combination of MT and 60Hz gives me what I need to get both stable visuals inside the G2 and in my recordings. I will give it a week and will fly a sortie or two and decide. 

I've been running DCS at 60Hz/100% with no reprojection for a few months now. After 6 years of using VR I finally have good clarity and headroom enough to not be constantly tinkering with settings. As for the flickering, initially I though no chance, now it is barely noticeable at start-up and completely forgotten once flying . It was a jump in performance and visuals I've not experienced with any new card or processor.   

[Flextremes]

2 minutes ago, oz555 said:

I've been running DCS at 60Hz/100% with no reprojection for a few months now. After 6 years of using VR I finally have good clarity and headroom enough to not be constantly tinkering with settings. As for the flickering, initially I though no chance, now it is barely noticeable at start-up and completely forgotten once flying . It was a jump in performance and visuals I've not experienced with any new card or processor.   

I envy you: 60hz is an instant headache for me. Luckily I can stand reprojection at 45fps.

[Ready]

5 hours ago, Flextremes said:

100% 90fps is currently impossible now for sure. For 90fps 'app CPU' & 'rdr CPU' frame times combined and 'app GPU' need to be both beneath 10ms. 

However, did you already try these tweaks:

 

I have everything on 12-15 and DCS on 0-11. I don't notice a difference. I am running DCS, sit on the tarmac, pay attention to the numbers, close Lasso, all numbers stay about thesame..

[Flextremes]

16 minutes ago, Ready said:

I have everything on 12-15 and DCS on 0-11. I don't notice a difference. I am running DCS, sit on the tarmac, pay attention to the numbers, close Lasso, all numbers stay about thesame..

Ahhhh... 

Yes the numbers should be the same  Disabling Proces Lasso should not make a big difference: affinity is persistent until you reboot or restart a process. So compare before and after you enable Process Lasso. Not the other way round. 

Easy way to validate frame times yourself:

Choose a stable, non-moving, scene (while being parked) in the external view (with loads of objects, I really like to use external view the F18 carrier mission on the Persian Gulf map) that has high but relatively stable 'rdr CPU' frame times.

Enable advanced FPS in openXR. This is about 'rdr CPU' and 'app GPU'. 'app CPU' should be unaffected.

Wait for frame times to stabilize before comparing/screenshotting 'rdr CPU' and 'app GPU' values.

Screenshot before you enable Process Lasso. 

Enabling Process Lasso,  and make a second making sure you have the exact same view angle in VR.

Make it easy by enabling screenshots in the OpenXR toolkit companion app, enable the Advanced OpenXR FPS counter, and select CTRL + F12 to create a screenshot create before and after with the exact same view in VR. 

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Flextremes

[Ready]

Okay will do. Big thanks as well for sharing all your configuration details with me.

Much appreciated!

I will try-out the following;

1. Enable Hyperthreading - I have SMT, it is enabled by default.
2. Set bios curve optimizer all cores -30
3. Set Process lasso and reboot. See if it works.
   EDIT: This division is giving me bad performance on other parts of the system. I am recording and OBS is having seizures. So need to adjust.
4. Gigabyte performance boost - I did some OC on the 3080, before but did not touch the 4090 yet because I wanted to wait what others would find. Will give it a go, I think settings depend on individual system specs, can't copy yours I believe.
5. NVCP Global
   1. Set Power Management Mode to Max Performance
   2. Increase Shader Cache to 10GB
6. NVCP DCS
   1. Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization OFF
   2. Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias ALLOW -> UPDATE: It creates aliasing, will set to CLAMP
   3. Texture filtering - Quality - UPDATE: I set it to HIGH QUALITY
   4. Threaded optimization - OFF
   5. Vertical sync OFF - UPDATE: This is for flat screens only. I ignore this one.
7. OpenXR Toolkit
   1. Foveated rendering - I also don't use foveated rendering because on the recordings it looks ugly.
   2. FSR: I had it on 80% before and also had resolution override on. Edmuss advised this to me. I switched back when I was tinkering with other things. Will go back to it and see how it goes.
      UPDATE: I tried it, as well as the resolution override. The visuals get very grainy, almost like a screendoor-effect. I am reverting to without FRS and upscaling. 
8. OpenXR Tools for WMR
   1. Custom render scale - I leave it at 100 for now
   2. Motion Reprojection - I can't live without reprojection. I used to have it enabled when I was using a 3080, but it is giving me too many artifacts and makes my kneeboards unbearable.
9. Windows Security exclusions - I have these set already.
10. Device Management
    1. High Precision event timer - DISABLED

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by Ready

[Ready]

So I have been running 60Hz for a couple of flights now. The visuals are way better, once I get through the strobing. @edmuss I think I will get used to it, thanks for all the explanations.

I have to reduce some of the DCS settings since I am combining with OBS recording in 4k and I mainly fly Multiplayer, where our server still makes me CPU-bound, mostly on the ground.

Latest Changes

1. G2 headset frequency 60Hz
2. OpenXR Tools - Custom Render resolution - DISABLED
3. OpenXR Toolkit
   1. Upscaling - DISABLED
   2. Foveated Rendering - DISABLED
   3. Turbo Mode - ON (Still have to test the difference between ON/OFF)
   4. Frame Rate Throttling - 60Hz (Thanks @Thunder Cat)
   5. Shaking Reduction - 20% (used for stabilizing OBS Recordings)
   6. Override Resolution - NO
   7. Motion Reprojection - OFF
   8. Sun Glasses - DARK (to help with the 60Hz strobing) 
4. DCS
   1. Multi Threading ON
   2. System Settings - See attached
5. OBS - Currently trying to remove all stutters. 
   1. Canvas and output - 3840 x 2160 
   2. FPS 60
   3. Output mode - Simple, see attached

Edited March 19, 2023 by Ready

[muzica9]

With you specs, can not get stable 60 fps with Frame Rate Throttling in open xr? You still have to apply that junk settings of 60hz and destroy your eyes??!! Why??!!