Set back years.

[Moxica]

The situation was perfect with the G2's and the latest update.. Sparkling sharpness, and 90 fps!
But due to MS bricking that set, I got the Pimax Crystal lights.
Now I'm back to the days of 3060 and Quest 2 With hundreds of frustrations, crappy image and low framerate.
I went straight from 90 FPS to 60 and below. Looks great though, but I can't even land straight in that slide show.
So I started from scratch; Plowing through en endless array of Youtube intro's "welcome to my channel. Today I'm gonna teach you.. But first be sure to.."
eventually presenting the "good" advice.
I've dialed all the deteriorating settings, and now it looks like crap, and I gained 6 frames.
Not good. Not good at all, and straight out depressing.

Edited November 28, 2024 by Moxica

[Moxica]

All of a sudden, with settings back to "high", I get 90 fps again.. Different mission/map.
DCS is a rollercoaster. 
-Not sure this is gonna last.

[Peedee]

How long time  have you had your Crystal Light? With a 4090 and a decent CPU this will for sure work out with the Crystal Light. Be patient.

[Blackhawk163]

Not every map and missions within are going to yield the same fps unless you’re willing to compromise on some settings to get a more consistent playing experience.
 

Also isn’t the G2 only at 2160 per eye? That’s the medium setting on the PCL so you should be getting similar if not better results with your new headset over the G2 and with that 4090. 

[Dangerzone]

Are you running Quadviews. I couldn't get 90fps with my 4090 until I went to Quadviews and things have been fantastic ever since.

To confirm Quadviews is working, use quadviews companion and set the boundary box, load DCS and make sure that DCS is only showing in a square view. If this isn't happening, then Quadviews isn't active. 

[Moxica]

11 hours ago, Peedee said:

How long time  have you had your Crystal Light? With a 4090 and a decent CPU this will for sure work out with the Crystal Light. Be patient.

PCL's came on tuesday.
 

 

5 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Are you running Quadviews. I couldn't get 90fps with my 4090 until I went to Quadviews and things have been fantastic ever since.

To confirm Quadviews is working, use quadviews companion and set the boundary box, load DCS and make sure that DCS is only showing in a square view. If this isn't happening, then Quadviews isn't active. 

Not running Quadviews. Didn't think the crystal light was compatible with/supported quadviews or has foveated rendering?
But I will try.
Thx a lot! Reporting back after.. 
Edit: Tested with quadviews, and I don't see any difference. And no square view. (DCS in a square box on the mirrored PC monitor?)

Edited November 29, 2024 by Moxica

[Peedee]

3 hours ago, Moxica said:

PCL's came on tuesday.
 

 

Not running Quadviews. Didn't think the crystal light was compatible with/supported quadviews or has foveated rendering?
But I will try.
Thx a lot! Reporting back after.. 
Edit: Tested with quadviews, and I don't see any difference. And no square view. (DCS in a square box on the mirrored PC monitor?)

Ok, so you have not had it for so long then, but I understand your frustration. I´ve been into VR since 2017, and even then it took me some time to get best out of Pimax Crystal. I have had the original Pimax Crystal with eyetracking since september 2023 and got a Crystal Light on wednesday this week in addition. So now I got both. Hopefully, we can help you getting a good result with your Crystal Light.

About Quadviews, I think many of us using Quadviews here have been using it for some time, from before it was a part of Pimax Play. And then the OpenXR support for the headset itself was also controlled from an external app. And back then there were very thourough and detailed instructions on how to install Quadviews on your PC and how to set up corretly. It was a separate thing from Pimax Play... and yep.. anway - if you didn´t follow those long instructions exactly it wouldn´t work. And some people of course then didn´t think it did much. But it does when set up correctly.

For you (and other new users) there´s a new situation. OpenXR support is directly controlled in the Pimax Play app, and you can also choose to activate Quadviews in Pimax Play. That sounds like a good thing, right? Only thing is, there is very little control over how YOU want to use Quadviews  in Pimax Play. Back when we did this in an external installation we controlled it with either editing and long config file with lots of values, or using an external app that changed all those values for us. You could adjust a lot things which we now don´t have any control over in Pimax Play. I know this is not helping you much.

I have not had time to test the implementation of Quadviews in Pimax Play yet. I just recently upgraded my Pimax Play to that version which implements and controls Quadviews. But it seems very limited in its settings for quadviews, but we can hope this will get improved.

As to why you don´t see any difference, I don´t know. If it is working you are supposed to get better frames per second in the game. And yes, as I understand it, the Crystal Light should support Quadviews, but since Crystal Light does not have eye tracking, the degradation of the image quality will be visible on the outer areas of your image. And the more aggresive settings you are using to push up your frame rate, the more visible the degradation will be and covering a larger area too.

For units with eye tracking, you can be really aggressive with the Quadview settings (which again, the Pimax Play version of Quadviews implementation really don´t give all that control over) without seeing the degradation of the image clarity simply because your eyes are not looking at it, t- he high quality area of the image follows your eyes. Of course, if you go nuts with your settings (which we could do earlier when it was outside of Pimax Play) then you would start seeing the degradation on the outer areas even with eye tracking. But, it is amazing how much you can reduce outer area quality without seeing it, and gaining lots for fps. That´s why we love it, and that is why I hope Pimax wil upgrade their Pimax Play app to let us have more control of Quadviews settings, so we can dial it in correctly for our own eyes. I think people can have very different tolerances for what is both acceptable and what they simply don´t see.

This long answer didn´t help you anything. I guess.. Oh, another thing - the Game itself must support Quadviews or else it doesn´t work! I only know of DCS and Pavlov that support Quadviews. And you need to actually be inside DCS flying to see the effect. Microsoft Flightsimulator and most other games out there does not. support it. Some people doesn´t know this and complain it doesn´t work in their games. It is simply because their game doesn´t support it. Recently an important  to the community and well known VR Flightsim youtuber, who mostly fly Microsoft Flightsimulator, did a VR "best settings" video for the new Microsoft Flightsimulator 2024, and suggested turning on Quadviews in Pimax Play, but he didn´t think it gave so many more fps.... no <profanity> Sherlock... Microsoft Flightsimulator 2020 and 2024 doesn´t support or use quadviews so it gave zero effect

Keep on experimenting... It should be playable with reasonable framerates and fluidity with the Pimax Crystal and still give you a clear image. I have yet to Play DCS since I updated Pimax Play to the version that controls Quadviews, so I don´t know how well it works now. I have been busy with MSFS2020...ehhhm.. soryy. Hopefully, sometime during the weekend it will test DCS again. Maybe I can get some ideas. 

My suggestion is still to stick with 72hz/fps mode in Pimax Play. It is easer to reach and therefore keep the game smooth. 72hz smooth is better than 90hz and stuttering because your system never reach 90fps.

Do not use 90hz upscale mode. Then you render the image in 2160x2160 per eye it becomes upscaled - which degrades the image too much in your case. It is for those with lower end graphic cards.  The full render resolution of the Crystal and Crystal Light actually is 4300x5100 ish.. per eye. You can choose in Pimax Play to lower the resolution, to .85 or something and experiment from there. That is way higher than 90hz upscale. But still lessens the effort for your systems and gives you a bette balance of image clarity and fps. So play around with that slider a bit. I think you have to restart DCS for everytime you change it though.  

 

Edited November 29, 2024 by Peedee

[Moxica]

THX! Peedee!
The 72hz/fps mode did wonders for a smooth experience. Graphics are also fantastic. I also turned off the quadviews in the Pimax app. Not sure if the companion does anything. There is no difference if its on or not. Also goes for the in-app setting; No difference.
Anyhoo, I tried 2X MSAA and it looked just the way I want it, but framerate dropped back to 60, and no smooth.
No AA for me.
Thank you so much for your extensive and encouraging introduction to the matter. Very much appreciated. I really feel much better now.

Edited November 29, 2024 by Moxica

[Moxica]

I had to give that up. 
Best results is 120Hz with 60 Fps locked.
Still I'm at 54 stuttering fps average. Sometimes (often) worse.
Even menu has micro stutters. Syria map missions has that dreaded regular stutter every 7 second.
I suspect the foveated render is broken; I can see no differencve with it on or off, and there is no difference in performance/framerate.
My gawd. It is the old nightmare from years ago once again; Sweating through all kinds of settings, including tampering with CPU functionality. (No five cores are not better than 12)
This thing is a fracking never ending troubleshoot.
 

Edited December 1, 2024 by Moxica

[Dangerzone]

On 11/29/2024 at 7:36 PM, Moxica said:

Not running Quadviews. Didn't think the crystal light was compatible with/supported quadviews or has foveated rendering?

It's fixed foviated rendering with Quadviews for PCL. The difference it made for me was huge. 

However, it did take a bit to get working. You can confirm if it's working by opening up Quadviews companion, ticking the "Focus View" checkbox down the bottom, apply the changes, then launch DCS. (This needs to be done before launching DCS).

The focus view will create a black border so you see only what will be sharp. The black area will be the less rendered area, but the black just makes it stand out so you can confirm for sure that it's definitely working for you first. Once you've confirmed it's working, you can untick the focus view and go back to 'normal operation'. 

I know OpenToolkit can interfere with it, so it might be worth uninstalling OXRTK and re-installing Quadviews plus Quadviews companion, and then enabling it.

For me, since having this installed, I've never had any GPU rendering issues again. I think my card runs about 60% usage. I could up it, but my primary problem now is being bottlenecked by the CPU. 

Yes - it's a pain to get up and running, but once working the difference is night and day.

Edited December 1, 2024 by Dangerzone

[Blackhawk163]

8 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

It's fixed foviated rendering with Quadviews for PCL. The difference it made for me was huge. 

However, it did take a bit to get working. You can confirm if it's working by opening up Quadviews companion, ticking the "Focus View" checkbox down the bottom, apply the changes, then launch DCS. (This needs to be done before launching DCS).

The focus view will create a black border so you see only what will be sharp. The black area will be the less rendered area, but the black just makes it stand out so you can confirm for sure that it's definitely working for you first. Once you've confirmed it's working, you can untick the focus view and go back to 'normal operation'. 

I know OpenToolkit can interfere with it, so it might be worth uninstalling OXRTK and re-installing Quadviews plus Quadviews companion, and then enabling it.

For me, since having this installed, I've never had any GPU rendering issues again. I think my card runs about 60% usage. I could up it, but my primary problem now is being bottlenecked by the CPU. 

Yes - it's a pain to get up and running, but once working the difference is night and day.

exactly this!

 

Decided to reinstall the OXRTK and others back and my performance went up. Kandahar landing mission with the F4 used to drop me down mid 50's when landing and 45fps while taxing to a particular spot. Today it dropped to 65 whilst landing and then 58 at my spot where I shut down. A massive improvement. The F4 and Tom are the biggest hogs when it comes to performance and having all these apps helped out. The f16 cold and dark mission in the PG map has a bunch of F-15e's parked and taxing and with everything enabled and set (I have my headset at 72hz) and locked to 70fps, it stayed locked at 70fps as I started up the F16 and followed the last flight of Mudhens down the taxi and flew formation with them.

[Moxica]

13 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

It's fixed foviated rendering with Quadviews for PCL. The difference it made for me was huge. 

However, it did take a bit to get working. You can confirm if it's working by opening up Quadviews companion, ticking the "Focus View" checkbox down the bottom, apply the changes, then launch DCS. (This needs to be done before launching DCS).

The focus view will create a black border so you see only what will be sharp. The black area will be the less rendered area, but the black just makes it stand out so you can confirm for sure that it's definitely working for you first. Once you've confirmed it's working, you can untick the focus view and go back to 'normal operation'. 

I know OpenToolkit can interfere with it, so it might be worth uninstalling OXRTK and re-installing Quadviews plus Quadviews companion, and then enabling it.

For me, since having this installed, I've never had any GPU rendering issues again. I think my card runs about 60% usage. I could up it, but my primary problem now is being bottlenecked by the CPU. 

Yes - it's a pain to get up and running, but once working the difference is night and day.

Thanks!
Will Quadviews override settings in Pimax client?

[Panzerlang]

15 minutes ago, Moxica said:

Thanks!
Will Quadviews override settings in Pimax client?

Turn off DFR in Pimax Play, though I've not noticed any difference with it on.

[Moxica]

I get this warning in launcher:
Does it matter?
 

 

Edited December 2, 2024 by Moxica

[Blackhawk163]

16 minutes ago, Moxica said:

I get this warning in launcher:
Does it matter?
 

 

I have the same thing, no. 

[Moxica]

Gentlemen!
I found Quadviews version 1.0.12 just now!
That took me pretty close to home in a heartbeat!
This seems to be the first time any kind of Foveated rendering has been active. 
My stresslevel went down to about 65.
Some weird micro stutter in debrief/menu to deal with now.
Thank you so much for your dignified, encouraging and helpful responses to a fairly stressed out me.
I really needed that to keep on tinkering. Luckily I have an extra day off.

[Moxica]

Oh! My! Gawd!
I never imagined it would look that much better!

Edited December 3, 2024 by Moxica

[Panzerlang]

10 minutes ago, Moxica said:

Oh! My! Gawd!
I never imagined it would look so much better!

I've experienced flawless smoothness but every time there's an update the view from the cockpit sideways reintroduces very mild 'steppiness'. Lol. It can be quite exhausting trying to re-obtain the previous perfection, but I do at least know it's possible.

[Dangerzone]

36 minutes ago, Moxica said:

I never imagined it would look so much better!

Yes - going to 160% in the centre for me and 5% on the outer edges improved not only the FPS but the image as well significantly. 

That steppiness (or jitters, or stutters - it has a few names ) is common to DCS - and I think it may actually be CPU, not GPU related. I managed to get rid of it for a while there. Can't remember exactly what I did, but I was chasing CPU stuff, not GPU stuff. Disabling hotplug, using Process Lasso, changes in the BIOS to disable energy efficient stuff, disabled core parking (I think the core parking might have been it, but can't say for sure), 

[Marshallman]

About to mention V1.0.12   I found it by chance too.

[Blackhawk163]

trying to download but it's the only program from the whole openxr series to ever trigger this response from my PC : Trojan:Script/Wacatac.B!ml