Quest 3 in-headset viewing expectation versus what is achievable

[MurrayCod]

I’m pretty new to VR, and have watched a number of YT videos and the like to try and achieve what is hopefully the optimum in-headset sharpness of image possible for my PC while maintaining smooth frame rates. 

I think I have adjusted settings to get the sharpest/clearest picture I can.  However before a VR headset I was hoping cockpit gauges would be super crisp.  Also (as an example) if flying the Spitfire in formation with the B17 in the Normandy free flight mission, I was hoping the B17 would appear to be super crisp as well.  What I have been able to achieve so far is very readable but not super crisp cockpit gauges, and the B17 image is certainly not as sharply defined as it is on a monitor with TrackIR.  On the plus side I can maintain a smooth 60FPS, but haven’t found a setting yet to get crisper images.

My question for today is, are super crisp visuals unrealistic for my set-up as follows:

Quest 3 with rendering resolution 5408 x 2912 at 90Hz, using either the Link Cable or Virtual Desktop

i9-11900K @ 3.5GHZ

96 GB RAM

RTX 4080 Super 16GB graphics card

Win10 home 64 bit

DCS settings in game settings:

- pixel density 1.4 (any higher drops FPS to single figures)

- Anti Aliasing DLAA

- Upscaling DLSS

- DLSS Perf/Quality set to Qualoty

- Sharpening 1.00

- Textures High

- Anisotropic filtering 16x

 

Alternatively would using a Pima Crystal Light be the magic bullet?

 

thanks in advance

 

[Phantom711]

Why are people always so obsessed with 90 Hz? My advice would be to use 72Hz. It will be way easier to achieve 72FPS to match the refresh rate.

However, that has nothing to do with the sharpness though.

Try without DLSS and to make up in terms of performance lower the pixel density (try 1.2 or 1.3).

At the end of the day, there still is a limit to how sharp it will ever be due to how close you are to the display and the res of Q3.
I‘ve never tried one, but yeah, I guess a Pimax Crystal would certainly deliver a sharper image.

Edited December 27, 2024 by Phantom711

[Roosterfeet]

You can get pretty sharp cockpit gauges by using MSAA instead of DLAA or DLSS. The tradeoff is pretty severe aliasing everywhere you look outside the cockpit. I suspect MSAA in DCS is partially broken at the moment.

[intruder11]

Your settings aren't great, DLSS by default in DCS is really bad with ghosting/blurriness.

See https://www.8492sqdn.net/guides/dcs/performance

[Phantom711]

For me, DLAA (without DLSS) offers the best visual quality. But I do use the DLSStweak.

[sleighzy]

Download the latest DLSS 3.8.10 (https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-dll/) and replace the nvngx_dlss.dll file in the DCS bin and bin-mt directories and this will remove some of the ghosting.

The 3.8.10 version will use preset E by default, which is better than the current version in DCS. You can additionally try using preset F as well which may help further by using DLLSTweaks to update your Nvida Global Profile to force preset F. The steps for updating the preset in the Nvidia Global Profile can be found here: 

 

 

You could also try using Quad Views to increase the resolution (will push more of the load from your GPU to your CPU so will need to balance that) vs. the pixel density setting in DCS. Depending on your CPU this may offer you the increase in clarity with less performance drops than you're seeing right now.

Have you also tried dropping your sharpening from 1.0 down to something like 0.6?

Edited December 27, 2024 by sleighzy

[diego999]

14 hours ago, MurrayCod said:

certainly not as sharply defined as it is on a monitor with TrackIR.  

 

A Q3 will never look as good and sharp as a monitor. You're trading visual quality for immersion.

[MurrayCod]

Thanks to everyone who responded.  You’ve given me some new things to try tweaking, plus answered my main question.  Hope everyone has fun in the virtual skies.

[Jive]

Instead of increasing PD in DCS I've seen a lot of advice to increase the PD slider to max in the Meta Link software. Mine stays there for everything. 

You can save some GPU perf by lowering the textures option and seeing if you notice a difference.

Another option is using OpenXR Toolkit to add some simple fixed foveated rendering or using Quadviews which works in a similar way with finer control. With Quadviews you can choose to downsample the edges of your view and increase the resolution of the middle, if you wanted to.

As above I also like 72hz with DLAA

 

[markturner1960]

Yeah plus one on the PD, mine is at 1 and cranked up in the meta software. I do use a quest pro though. But my VR experience is excellent and you have a slightly better PC than me. I also use the debug software and force ASW, plus quad views. Looks awesome and generally runs very smoothly at 36 or 72 depending on scenarios

[Dogmanbird]

I think the link PD upped to max (rather than using oxrtk or dcs) might work better for Q3 too.

[Qcumber]

On 12/27/2024 at 11:09 AM, MurrayCod said:

I’m pretty new to VR, and have watched a number of YT videos and the like to try and achieve what is hopefully the optimum in-headset sharpness of image possible for my PC while maintaining smooth frame rates. 

I think I have adjusted settings to get the sharpest/clearest picture I can.  However before a VR headset I was hoping cockpit gauges would be super crisp.  Also (as an example) if flying the Spitfire in formation with the B17 in the Normandy free flight mission, I was hoping the B17 would appear to be super crisp as well.  What I have been able to achieve so far is very readable but not super crisp cockpit gauges, and the B17 image is certainly not as sharply defined as it is on a monitor with TrackIR.  On the plus side I can maintain a smooth 60FPS, but haven’t found a setting yet to get crisper images.

My question for today is, are super crisp visuals unrealistic for my set-up as follows:

Quest 3 with rendering resolution 5408 x 2912 at 90Hz, using either the Link Cable or Virtual Desktop

i9-11900K @ 3.5GHZ

96 GB RAM

RTX 4080 Super 16GB graphics card

Win10 home 64 bit

DCS settings in game settings:

- pixel density 1.4 (any higher drops FPS to single figures)

- Anti Aliasing DLAA

- Upscaling DLSS

- DLSS Perf/Quality set to Qualoty

- Sharpening 1.00

- Textures High

- Anisotropic filtering 16x

 

Alternatively would using a Pima Crystal Light be the magic bullet?

 

thanks in advance

 

I would advise starting simple. Set PD in game to 1. Turn of all AA settings. 

In oculus link set the scaling to x1 and 72 Hz. 90 Hz is too much. 

Use either oculus debug tool or oculus tray tool to supersample to about 1.5 and see how the resolution looks. 

As has been mentioned above you can use QVFR to reduce the peripheral resolution. Default settings should be ok to start with.

Once you have a good balance between quality and performance you can start playing with sharpening and AA.

I have a Quest Pro and a 4070 and get very crisp views in the spitfire N2 free flight alongside the B17 with steady 72 fps and about 70% GPU utilisation. You should be able to get the same. 

[ischicopter]

Also on a Quest, or any other streamed Headset (as in: without a display port connection), never EVER increase ingame PD before increasing ENCODING resolution first.

If you are not on Virtual Desktop for whatever reason, you have to manually edit that in the Oculus Debug Tool, not the Link Software. However there is a hidden maximum value, which is only one of so many reasons you should buy VD. 

In VD you just tick the Godlike Preset box. It will then automatically set the render AND encoding resolution and encoding profile to the their optimal values. This is one of the biggest factors why VD looks and performs so much better than Link. 

 

Only now should you consider pushing even more pixels via the ingame PD setting, or via resolution override in OXRTK. 

You can also choose to sacrifice some FOV for very big gain in clarity via OXRTK in it´s FOV settings. I usually do 95% left/right, 90% up/down and disable HMD Mask in DCS VR settings. Unless you have your eyes right against the lenses you won´t loose any of your FOV but you will have gained some clarity without any impact on performance.

There is a similar option in Oculus Debug tool but it kind of works the other way around. There you trade FOV for a gain in performance, as the PD remains unaffected. To have the same effect as with OXRTK you would then have to increase the render resolution again which is cumbersome, so go with OXRTK right away.

Also uninstall Meta Link and get Virtual Desktop.

 

[beacon]

Open XR toolkit ,sorry guys you keep all mention this tool but as of 2024 this tool is abandend and wil not be updated anymore

[Roosterfeet]

I tried Open XR Toolkit recently because it let me enable turbo mode without turning on any foviation. Unfortunately, that caused DCS to crash every time I removed the headset. As you said, it's not supported any more. Quadviews does not cause a crash if the headset is removed so that's what I'm using now, it just took some tweaking to move the blurred area to the very edge of my field of view.