Foveated Rendering Support for DCS

[dburne]

3 hours ago, skywalker22 said:

Will this be a part of OpenXR Toolkit?

@mbucchia stated earlier this morning over on Varjo DCS Discord that he is close to having it working with the Toolkit for both Aero and Quest Pro. 

Quote

It's almost working.
I have OpenXR Toolkit working with Meta-Foveated on Quest.
And I have a flavor of my Meta-Foveated that reads eye tracking from Varjo (dang I am going to need to find better names for all this cause this is confusing if Varjo users need to install something called Meta*).
There's one bug left when using the "Meta-Varjo-Foveated" and OpenXR Toolkit, but otherwise looks promising...

 

[mbucchia]

The first version of foveated rendering for Quest Pro will release very soon.

It will be a separate tool, incompatible with OpenXR Toolkit.

However it includes its own CAS sharpening and Turbo mode, two of the most appreciated features of OpenXR Toolkit.

Compatibility with OpenXR Toolkit may happen later.

Also to be very clear on the expectations: it will NOT work with Virtual Desktop. This is out of my control: Virtual Desktop uses SteamVR, and the SteamVR OpenXR support doesn't let you do eye tracking. It will require the use of Air Link or Link Cable.

Edited June 20, 2023 by mbucchia

[mbucchia]

It is live now!

It comes with some very comprehensive instructions, please read the steps for enabling the eye tracking feature in the Oculus software, and all the notes about incompatible game options.

Home · mbucchia/Meta-Foveated Wiki (github.com)

 

[freehand]

lovely jubbly

Edited June 21, 2023 by freehand

[Dentedend10]

1 hour ago, mbucchia said:

It is live now!

It comes with some very comprehensive instructions, please read the steps for enabling the eye tracking feature in the Oculus software, and all the notes about incompatible game options.

Home · mbucchia/Meta-Foveated Wiki (github.com)

 

This is absolutely phenomenal! DCS is a completely new experience to me. I'm not even sure what made such a huge difference in the way the sim looks, as I was mostly expecting performance boost. Maybe turning off the bloom effect, CAS sharpening, or turbo mode. Basically whatever shimmering I had before is 90% gone! Clouds look amazing, everything is sharper, and no shimmering. What a treat! 

Thank you so much for your work on this!

The only thing I noticed is on Marianas map in the F14, where usually ASW kicks in, I was seeing the usual ghosting I used to see with ASW. However, I thought foveated rendering might not work with ASW. Anyways just minor observation, getting back into the virtual cockpit for now!

[mbucchia]

13 minutes ago, Dentedend10 said:

However, I thought foveated rendering might not work with ASW

I fixed that. The initial version did prevent ASW from working, but then I found a way to make it work!

Glad to hear it's working well for you so far!

[Werewolf_fs]

Tested. The improvement is substantial, I already use the FIXED foveated and even so the improvement is noticeable. What surprised me the most is the Sharpening that this application adds, much better or more noticeable than that of OpenXR tools, the improvement by eliminating glare and flicker and so on is brutal in the scene.

On the other hand, I continue to have problems with the tube mode, the ASW adds more artifacts and, apart from that, if I take off my heatset even for a second and put them back on, the DCS loock and CTD. Sometimes it also does so when returning to cockpit from the F10 map. This already happened with the Tubo Mode in OpenXR tools in MT mode, that's why I didn't use it, deactivating it solves it.

Great job @mbucchia, you are the best!

Tested in 13900K, 64Gb, 4090
 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Werewolf_fs

[mimamema]

5 hours ago, Dentedend10 said:

This is absolutely phenomenal! DCS is a completely new experience to me. I'm not even sure what made such a huge difference in the way the sim looks, as I was mostly expecting performance boost. Maybe turning off the bloom effect, CAS sharpening, or turbo mode. Basically whatever shimmering I had before is 90% gone! Clouds look amazing, everything is sharper, and no shimmering. What a treat! 

Thank you so much for your work on this!

The only thing I noticed is on Marianas map in the F14, where usually ASW kicks in, I was seeing the usual ghosting I used to see with ASW. However, I thought foveated rendering might not work with ASW. Anyways just minor observation, getting back into the virtual cockpit for now!

That is mainly because with the default settings you are actually seeing the focus area ( where your eyes are looking at)  like you were using 1.1 supersampling in ODT or OTT added to the resolution selected in the Meta app, that gives you a noticeable increase in clarity, CAS is helping as well.

And all of this with an increment in performance of around 4ms of GPU frame time, this experience obviously varies depending on the user settings as well. 

[Sile]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Werewolf_fs:

Tested. The improvement is substantial, I already use the FIXED foveated and even so the improvement is noticeable. What surprised me the most is the Sharpening that this application adds, much better or more noticeable than that of OpenXR tools, the improvement by eliminating glare and flicker and so on is brutal in the scene.

On the other hand, I continue to have problems with the tube mode, the ASW adds more artifacts and, apart from that, if I take off my heatset even for a second and put them back on, the DCS loock and CTD. Sometimes it also does so when returning to cockpit from the F10 map. This already happened with the Tubo Mode in OpenXR tools in MT mode, that's why I didn't use it, deactivating it solves it.

Great job @mbucchia, you are the best!

Tested in 13900K, 64Gb, 4090
 

 

Thanks for posting your feedback here. Can't wait to test myself. Still at work atm and was hoping to read some feedback here.

I'm confused that you still need ASW since i could disable it before DFR was available.
And interesting to hear you are also getting DCS crashes with Turbo Mode in OXR Tools in MT when taking off the Headset.

[slughead]

Thanks for this. I've not had much of a chance to fly with this and give it a proper test. My first observation though is that I can see the rectangle as my eyes move around. The image drawn within it is slightly darker so it's quite apparent to me.

[markturner1960]

Keen to try this....I am currently running my Quest Pro on my number 2 machine while I try and troubleshoot an issue ( which is looking more and more like a hardware problem on main PC)

I am logged into my Oculus account, on my phone app, developer mode is on, I am running V55.0.0.91.272 on both headset and oculus home. 

However, on my settings /Beta in the oculus home GUI, I do not have the 4 options below Demo mode, shown in the installation instrcutions.....

Any idea why? Is it possible to be logged in to one oculus account on the PC and another on the mobile app? As I had to make a new Oculus account to log in to home on the second PC ( see my problems with this here: 

 

[slughead]

6 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

Keen to try this....I am currently running my Quest Pro on my number 2 machine while I try and troubleshoot an issue ( which is looking more and more like a hardware problem on main PC)

I am logged into my Oculus account, on my phone app, developer mode is on, I am running V55.0.0.91.272 on both headset and oculus home. 

However, on my settings /Beta in the oculus home GUI, I do not have the 4 options below Demo mode, shown in the installation instrcutions.....

Any idea why? Is it possible to be logged in to one oculus account on the PC and another on the mobile app? As I had to make a new Oculus account to log in to home on the second PC ( see my problems with this here: 

 

It's not in the "home" GUI, i.e. within the headset. It's in the Oculus PC app.

[markturner1960]

Thanks, the interface for this is sending me quietly insane......so just ( bear in mind what I said above about the accounts...) I went to the phone app, which last time I looked was linked and synched....now, it was not, so it said link headset, asked me to enter the pairing code that wa sshown in the headset...only problem, no pairing code being shown......

I looked in accounts, to see if I could maybe switch accounts ( remember I had to make another ) but it said I needed to turn tracking on...I pressed ok, but that just got me back to the accounts screen again. I had a look, cant see where to turn on tracking. 

I seem stuck in this situation whereby I am possibly using differing accounts ( why do you even bloody well need them, its crazy...) on the phone, PC and headset, with no way to tell which I am using on which and how to synch it all up. 

Its completely and unnecessarily complicated and stupid. I dont know what to do now.....and of course, impossible to talk to anyone at meta to sort it out and guide you through it.....

I have logged out of the mobil;e phone app....to make sure I am using the correct account etc, what details do I use? The Oculus account I set up on the machine yesterday? Rather than my meta account? 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by markturner1960

[Sile]

@markturner1960

This thread is for "Foveated Rendering Support for DCS".

Don't you already have a spearate thread for your log in issues?

 

[markturner1960]

Yes, I dont want to derail.......But its all Quest pro .....

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by markturner1960

[etienne1968]

Hello gents,

Did  anyone notice a performance drop in VR, using foveated rendition/Multi-threading + Varjo Aero, from the latest software update (2.8.6.41066.1) ? I was previously enjoying so much flying  90 frames/sec no something nor reprojection stuff. Multi-trheading + foveated rendition was the win win combo with no compromise and now I deplore the stutters fest comeback. I didn't finger at all my graphic settings and my rig is more than up to date to face power demand (I9 13900K + RTX 4090 + 32Gb RAM DDR5).

Many thanks to share your own experiences

Best regards

[nikoel]

23 minutes ago, etienne1968 said:

Hello gents,

Did  anyone notice a performance drop in VR, using foveated rendition/Multi-threading + Varjo Aero, from the latest software update (2.8.6.41066.1) ? I was previously enjoying so much flying  90 frames/sec no something nor reprojection stuff. Multi-trheading + foveated rendition was the win win combo with no compromise and now I deplore the stutters fest comeback. I didn't finger at all my graphic settings and my rig is more than up to date to face power demand (I9 13900K + RTX 4090 + 32Gb RAM DDR5).

Many thanks to share your own experiences

Best regards

Have you tried the slow clean/repair via Skatezilla utility followed by the shader folder clean? That song and dance usually solved a lot of issues after updating 

[dburne]

49 minutes ago, etienne1968 said:

Hello gents,

Did  anyone notice a performance drop in VR, using foveated rendition/Multi-threading + Varjo Aero, from the latest software update (2.8.6.41066.1) ? I was previously enjoying so much flying  90 frames/sec no something nor reprojection stuff. Multi-trheading + foveated rendition was the win win combo with no compromise and now I deplore the stutters fest comeback. I didn't finger at all my graphic settings and my rig is more than up to date to face power demand (I9 13900K + RTX 4090 + 32Gb RAM DDR5).

Many thanks to share your own experiences

Best regards

 

I myself have not.

[gdoggyc]

4 hours ago, slughead said:

Thanks for this. I've not had much of a chance to fly with this and give it a proper test. My first observation though is that I can see the rectangle as my eyes move around. The image drawn within it is slightly darker so it's quite apparent to me.

@slughead I noticed this too and then double checked my install and setup...I had enabled eye tracking in the oculus settings (inside VR) but I missed the instruction to enable "Eye tracking over Oculus Link" under Developer Runtime Features (Beta tab in Oculus Home).  Now the darker rectangle is gone and I can see foveated rendering working as I move my eyes.  HOWEVER, I am getting choppy performance now.  Was smooth as silk before using OXR Toolkit...using 72Hz and 1.0 resolution in Oculus settings.  No supersampling.  2X MSAA, medium shadows, no land shadows, medium distance.  Should not be choppy.  13900K with 4090.  I'll have to investigate or go back to using OXR Toolkit without foveated rendering.  The scene DOES look really nice!

[slughead]

1 minute ago, gdoggyc said:

@slughead I noticed this too and then double checked my install and setup...I had enabled eye tracking in the oculus settings (inside VR) but I missed the instruction to enable "Eye tracking over Oculus Link" under Developer Runtime Features (Beta tab in Oculus Home).  Now the darker rectangle is gone and I can see foveated rendering working as I move my eyes.  HOWEVER, I am getting choppy performance now.  Was smooth as silk before using OXR Toolkit...using 72Hz and 1.0 resolution in Oculus settings.  No supersampling.  2X MSAA, medium shadows, no land shadows, medium distance.  Should not be choppy.  13900K with 4090.  I'll have to investigate or go back to using OXR Toolkit without foveated rendering.  The scene DOES look really nice!

Mine is configured as per the instructions. It has been that way for a long time before the tool was released. Yet I am seeing this darker rectangle. It isn't present all the time. There are scenes where you can't see it and others where you can. I will experiment and try to pinpoint a scene where it can be seen and if possible I will capture it. For the time being though, I'm just having fun with it. I've only had a couple of short flights so far and also want to demonstrate some absolutely bizarre AI pilot behaviour to ED. Lot's to do!

And no, your performance is fubar. I have the same spec system 72Hz, 4x MSAA, 1.3x (ish) PD, all DCS settings maxed out and it's pretty darn good. Moreso with the ETFR.

Have to admit that I notice the FR. I'll just have to get used to it. Sacrifices and compromises. It is what it is.

[mbucchia]

12 minutes ago, slughead said:

Yet I am seeing this darker rectangle. It isn't present all the time. There are scenes where you can't see it and others where you can

This is a bug in DCS itself. Not much can be done about it unfortunately (maybe more people can report it to ED now). If you own Pavlov VR (the other game with quad views support) the bug isn't there and it shows you how it's meant to be done).

One solution might be to slightly increase the size of the focus view, but this will cost you performance. 

AFAIK the Aero users haven't found this bug too bothersome though. Did you make sure to disable the 2 effects listed in the instructions?

> In the DCS World settings, you must disable 'VR' -> 'Bloom effect' and 'System' -> 'Lens Effects' as they produced poor visuals when using foveated rendering

Edited June 21, 2023 by mbucchia

[Tepnox]

43 minutes ago, gdoggyc said:

@slughead I noticed this too and then double checked my install and setup...I had enabled eye tracking in the oculus settings (inside VR) but I missed the instruction to enable "Eye tracking over Oculus Link" under Developer Runtime Features (Beta tab in Oculus Home).  Now the darker rectangle is gone and I can see foveated rendering working as I move my eyes.  HOWEVER, I am getting choppy performance now.  Was smooth as silk before using OXR Toolkit...using 72Hz and 1.0 resolution in Oculus settings.  No supersampling.  2X MSAA, medium shadows, no land shadows, medium distance.  Should not be choppy.  13900K with 4090.  I'll have to investigate or go back to using OXR Toolkit without foveated rendering.  The scene DOES look really nice!

I am also getting "choppy" performance with the plugin. Followed all installation steps, eye tracking is working and logs look fine. I run my Quest Pro with 90 Hz and 5408x2736 Oculus Home Setting, even with ASW disabled I only get around 68 fps in the main menu (should be 90 fps straight). While in-mission my GPU load only reaches around 70%. Something is off here.

Are there any other performance logs I can provide @mbucchia to help myself with some trouble-shooting?

To be specific - I get alot of Application Frames Dropped, this also happens in the menu.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Tepnox

[slughead]

6 minutes ago, mbucchia said:

This is a bug in DCS itself. Not much can be done about it unfortunately (maybe more people can report it to ED now). If you own Pavlov VR (the other game with quad views support) the bug isn't there and it shows you how it's meant to be done).

One solution might be to slightly increase the size of the focus view, but this will cost you performance. 

AFAIK the Aero users haven't found this bug too bothersome though. Did you make sure to disable the 2 effects listed in the instructions?

> In the DCS World settings, you must disable 'VR' -> 'Bloom effect' and 'System' -> 'Lens Effects' as they produced poor visuals when using foveated rendering

 

Bloom effect. Missed that one. I'll turn it off and retest.

[Sile]

uh. how can i test if my eye tracking is working. something feels wrong. 

i don't think i have missed a step and the log looks promissing (attatched). openxr Explorer shows it correctly. DCS starts fine. the settings have an effect, but not the expected:

but when i reduce horizontal_focus_section=0.2 and vertical_focus_section=0.2 they only reduce overall resolution - i expected to be able to see the edges of focus area.

XR_APILAYER_MBUCCHIA_meta_foveated.log

[biotech]

can't even launch DCS with it. everything of prerequisites is done, OXRTK and other OXR layers is off, oculus debug tool in default settings.

trying to start DCS, and in few seconds got com.oculus.bodyapiservice error in headset. then DCS crashes.

XR_APILAYER_MBUCCHIA_meta_foveated.log

Edited June 21, 2023 by biotech