ST runs better than MT

[Byzantine_SK]

I have found a “remedy” for the stuttering and blurred image after several days of testing various settings.

The culprit is enabled motion reprojection within MT. MR within ST will not produce this effect, only in MT!

That said, by turning off MR, the ST (MR enabled) and MT run similarly and without stuttering.

for whatever reason, the MT branch is producing this awful stuttering and visual “blurred” effect when MR is enabled. 
 

Disable MR/Motion smoothing and the stuttering disappears in the MT branch of DCS. 

[LOW_Hitman]

Am 4.8.2024 um 08:28 schrieb Byzantine_SK:

I have found a “remedy” for the stuttering and blurred image after several days of testing various settings.

The culprit is enabled motion reprojection within MT. MR within ST will not produce this effect, only in MT!

That said, by turning off MR, the ST (MR enabled) and MT run similarly and without stuttering.

for whatever reason, the MT branch is producing this awful stuttering and visual “blurred” effect when MR is enabled. 
 

Disable MR/Motion smoothing and the stuttering disappears in the MT branch of DCS. 

I don't use MR but i had also stutters every 3-5 seconds in dcs. Turbomode within openxr toolkit solved it for me.

[Joe1978]

 

[Byzantine_SK]

No change since recent update.

[tarnlicht]

I'm gonna try st version. I don't know what happened to DCS lately but it becomes unplayable. i have great specs but the micro stutter if horrible even when i maintain stable 90 the stutter is still there. 

[Joe1978]

Yes, at the moment, it remains broken. 

 

Edited August 21, 2024 by Joe1978

[Byzantine_SK]

Uninstalled open xr toolkit. Selecting  launch MT preview in Steam VR mode it seems to be working fine with MR/MS enabled. Selecting play MT preview with MR/MS still results in frame skips and a visual quality “blurriness”. This appears to be partially fixed. 

[jg777]

Same here, runs way better in Steam VR mode . Pimax Crystal light, Ryzen 5800X 3d, RTX 3080. This needs to be fixed before they do away with Steam VR.

[Snuten]

Hi,

I have been a bit off from DCS lately but have installed the latest updates and read that the ST mode is now removed with only MT version. This scares me a bit, not that Im against MT since that is the future. 

Im writing this since I have read about many people with this exact problem with VR and MT version(Facebook groups, Reddit etc) that might not reach to DCS forums.

When you first released the MT version I was really happy, and I could also use DLSS and increase my resolutions and quality even more to fully utilize my RTX4090. But back then I had my old but trusty i9 900k CPU and RTX4090 and could not get the MT version to run smooth. I saw that the fps was higher, but the stuttering was horrible. Something with frame timing is not syncing correct or interfering with hardware? Some reported this but the culprit was the E-cores, which I did not have.

So I ordered new components like new Motherboard, RAM, AMD 7800X3D CPU, Nvme m.2 discs, new cooling and 1200W  PSU. 

While waiting for these parts I read that someone else with this problem with the same CPU(i 9 900K) and GPU I had, and that he found a solution that worked. He re-installed the whole DCS into a SATA SSD disc instead of his Nvme m.2 disc. Then he could run DCS MT without stutter. I thought that was really strange, but I gave that a try as well since I was anyway waiting for my new components to arrive.

So I just copied(moved) my complete DCS Openbeta folder from my Nvme disc to one of my SATA SSD discs. Started it, and it worked. No more stuttering. But loading times was horrible though.

I then built my new system with the 7800X3D and all. Then installed everything and DCS installed into a brand new Samsung Nvme disc. And the stuttering was back with the MT version, exactly the same as on my old system. But the ST version was smooth.

I did investigate and tried a lot of things except for moving the game to a SATA SSD. But then one day I tried to turn on Turbo Mode in OpenXR Toolkit. That completely removed the stuttering and the game runs smooth and stable(still doing so with this turned on)

I have tried to completely uninstall OpenXR Toolkit to see if that it self is the problem. But no, the stutter was back. So re-installed OpenXR Toolkit again, tweaked it to my likings and turned on Turbo Mode again, stutter is gone.

Now my biggest concern is that Mbuccia (sorry for misspelling) that was developing all these tools for us have stoped doing so, understandable since it is not his job to fix companies flaws with VR(not just DCS), but now when we only have the MT version left, and then if or when OpenXR Toolkit no longer working, I will just have a lot of $$$$ sitting in useless modules and maps locked into my DCS account. And therefore I will not buy any more modules or maps. Which is sad.

I know that I might be hard to track this stutter bug down. But if moving DCS to a slower disc or running with Turbo Mode on fixes it, so perhaps someone smart knows where to look?

 

Im currently using Quest 3 with link cable. Had the same problem with my HP Reverb 2 as well.

 

I will try to get out my DCS log and Dxdiag log and send it later today.

 

Thanks

[Pillowcat]

10 minutes ago, Snuten said:

I thought that was really strange

NVMe shares PCIe bus with GPU at least on some AMD chipsets IIRC

[sleighzy]

18 minutes ago, Snuten said:

but now when we only have the MT version left, and then if or when OpenXR Toolkit no longer working

DCS has supported Quad Views for a long time now. You could try installing Quad-Views-Foveated (by Mbucchia as well) and enabling this in DCS, instead of using the OpenXR Toolkit. QVF also has a turbo mode which is enabled by default, so you may see the same performance improvement, if not more. 

[Snuten]

21 minutes ago, Pillowcat said:

NVMe shares PCIe bus with GPU at least on some AMD chipsets IIRC

It was the same on my Intel i9 as well. And I have not used that PCIe slot that is shared with the one for the GPU

13 minutes ago, sleighzy said:

DCS has supported Quad Views for a long time now. You could try installing Quad-Views-Foveated (by Mbucchia as well) and enabling this in DCS, instead of using the OpenXR Toolkit. QVF also has a turbo mode which is enabled by default, so you may see the same performance improvement, if not more. 

Hi, thanks. I will try this!

[Flyingfish]

I tried moving the install from my NVMe drive to a normal SSD but still had the stuttering unfortunately.

Like Snuten I won't buy any more DCS modules until the problem is fixed. I don't want to have to rely on a third party program to be able to run DCS MT smoothly. If openxr toolkit stops working with DCS then it'll become unplayable for me

[Snuten]

4 hours ago, Flyingfish said:

I tried moving the install from my NVMe drive to a normal SSD but still had the stuttering unfortunately.

Like Snuten I won't buy any more DCS modules until the problem is fixed. I don't want to have to rely on a third party program to be able to run DCS MT smoothly. If openxr toolkit stops working with DCS then it'll become unplayable for me

So then the NVMe does not solve it for everyone, so I guess that is even more uncertain where the problem is. And as you say, the solution just can't be a third party developers "hack" to make it work. And when thinking in a bigger picture, imagine new people coming to DCS and want to fly in VR and it is a stutter fest. That kills emersion completely and they are going to add them self to the growing list of people saying "VR could be cool, but not in another 10 years or so".. But it is the coolest thing you can do now, if it works as intended.

I did just now tried out Quad Views. I did a lot of tweaking in the cfg file and I'm quite satisfied. Now running in 72hz/fps and no stutter thanks to the Turbo Mode. Turbo Mode, what ever it is, should be on by default in DCS.

 

Edited October 22, 2024 by Snuten

[sleighzy]

3 hours ago, Snuten said:

I did just now tried out Quad Views. I did a lot of tweaking in the cfg file and I'm quite satisfied. Now running in 72hz/fps and no stutter thanks to the Turbo Mode. Turbo Mode, what ever it is, should be on by default in DCS.

Awesome, glad it helped! Yeah, Quad Views pushes a lot of the processing to the CPU, but can help significantly when configured properly to your taste.

Turbo mode forces the game to render frames as fast as it can, ignoring what your runtime tells it to. This is an experimental feature, and Mbucchia has actually updated his config to have this off by default (although that hasn't been released so the default is still on), due to the problems it can cause. Basically it forces the game to render frames as fast as it can. Because it ignores what the runtime tells it to then it can mess with things like ASW/SSW which would ordinarily tell the game to lock the fps to half the refresh rate of the headset, and the headset would inject "fake" frames to get it back up to the required refresh rate, if for example you couldn't make the 72fps you'd set.

Full information on this can be found here: https://mbucchia.github.io/OpenXR-Toolkit/other-features.html#turbo-mode (note that this info comes from OpenXR Toolkit, but was linked from the QVF docs as this is the same functionality added there).

[Snuten]

8 hours ago, sleighzy said:

Awesome, glad it helped! Yeah, Quad Views pushes a lot of the processing to the CPU, but can help significantly when configured properly to your taste.

Turbo mode forces the game to render frames as fast as it can, ignoring what your runtime tells it to. This is an experimental feature, and Mbucchia has actually updated his config to have this off by default (although that hasn't been released so the default is still on), due to the problems it can cause. Basically it forces the game to render frames as fast as it can. Because it ignores what the runtime tells it to then it can mess with things like ASW/SSW which would ordinarily tell the game to lock the fps to half the refresh rate of the headset, and the headset would inject "fake" frames to get it back up to the required refresh rate, if for example you couldn't make the 72fps you'd set.

Full information on this can be found here: https://mbucchia.github.io/OpenXR-Toolkit/other-features.html#turbo-mode (note that this info comes from OpenXR Toolkit, but was linked from the QVF docs as this is the same functionality added there).

Thanks! And thanks for the explanation of the Turbo Mode, I think I get it now.

But I did before, with Toolkit, have it at 90hz and 45fps (ASW on, Ctrl+numpad 3) and it worked as well and butter smooth. But if I was flying and I turned it off and then on again, it crashed DCS in like 5/10 times. So I guessed that was because of the ASW as the read warning text warns about in the menu.

But then again I would think that DCS should not stutter if I choose to go without a third party injection. It do seem to work on some systems and some not. The trick for Intel seems to be to turn off HT, E-cores or trick with processor-lasso. But for my 7800X3D it does not help if I turn off HT or XMP (or what it is called).

But I will stop whining about this, for a while and hope that Quadviews will be here for a longer period and hopefully developed more.  

[Qcumber]

22 hours ago, Snuten said:

Turbo Mode, what ever it is, should be on by default in DCS.

Turbo mode can cause issues with meta link. It messes up with my setup anyway. It works well with Virtual Desktop though.