VR Performace

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

To preface this let me say.... this is my favorite game of all time. Developers, hats off to you for a) creating this and b) continuing to put out content. I could rant about this game for hours but I'll get to the point.

 

Please, I beg you... there has to be a way to optimize this game for VR. This game is WHY I bought VR and I'm sure I'm not the only one who can say this. With VR tech becoming more affordable and mainstream I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the vast majority of IL*2's users are playing with headsets. I know it was not initially created for VR, but that is where things are heading.

 

The way things stand... VR performance is atrocious:

 

9700k overclocked to 5.0 Ghz, RTX 2080 Super, 32Gb 3000mzh DDR4 RAM... I get 45fps on the low/medium graphics settings during combat... on a 5 year old game. I could run any other modern game in VR game 200+fps if I had the screen refresh rate to keep up. For reference... I get 1100fps playing 2014's DOOM in VR. HUD off give a boost but I am still frequently dropping down to 45fps. I don't understand as CPU usage is 20-30% single thread and GPU usage is 60-70% yet I'm still getting low fps.

 

I have followed multiple guides for getting the most out of this game with VR, does not help. I find almost no difference in FPS between high setting and low. I just seems that VR and IL*2 do not play well. 

 

I'm not bashing the devs, like I said I know this wasn't created with VR in mind... but holy s#it there has never been a game with so much potential to knock your socks off in that environment... this is a plea. Please help us VR users enjoy this game at it's fullest. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Loki_1982b_rock1080

[Floppy_Sock]

What hmd are you using? 

 

Sounds to me like you haven't forced reprojection to be off and the stuttering is dropping you below your target fps and the vr app is using reprojection to keep your experience smooth. 

 

Are you using in game fps counter? If so don't. Consider something like the fpsvr app. 

 

This is an issue due to stutter. There's currently some bug in the game that's causing it to delay the rendering call for one or multiple frames. Regardless of system performance apparently. 

 

See my post:

 

It's likely you're experience is similar. 

 

You need to stop looking at average fps and instead look at frame times. The fpsvr app can show you your hardware utilization. Both CPU and GPU. You then see if it's truly the game or if you're bottlenecked somewhere.  It will show you exactly when the reprojection is turned on and how many total frames cause the reprojection to turn on. 

 

For example, in the post above, I have loads of overhead in both GPU and CPU and yet there is consistent frame drops every half second or so. Even worse in combat. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Floppy_Sock

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

Thanks for the reply. I 'll give fpsvr a shot and see what I find. I'm on a rift S

 

I've tried re projections off, ASW off. I've been searching forums for weeks and trying every combo of settings possible. I get some stuttering, but mostly just very very low fps which makes flying un enjoyable during combat situations.

 

I'm getting this same thing in any game mode.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Loki_1982b_rock1080

[RedKestrel]

29 minutes ago, Loki_1982b_rock1080 said:

Thanks for the reply. I 'll give fpsvr a shot and see what I find. I'm on a rift S

 

I've tried re projections off, ASW off. I've been searching forums for weeks and trying every combo of settings possible. I get some stuttering, but mostly just very very low fps which makes flying un enjoyable during combat situations.

 

I'm getting this same thing in any game mode.

I currently suffer somewhat from stutters in MP, not so much in SP. MP Stutters are, IMO, a separate issue with how the game works online. If you are experiencing stuttering in all game modes, you may simply have settings too high for your rig. If you are flying a lot on the BoBP map, be advised that the map is the most graphic intensive of what we have in Il-2, especially around cities.

Can you post a screenshot of your graphics settings? And maybe include your rig specs? 

I find there are less stutters when 4k Textures is turned to OFF. Generally lower settings work as well, but some people have found the opposite - simply cranking up all the settings reduced their stutters somehow.

Other things to try, make sure your power consumption in Windows is set to maximize performance, not balanced. My machine resets this every once in a while to balanced and this causes issues when high performance is requried. Make sure your video card power settings are set to use maximum performance too.

[Floppy_Sock]

@Loki_1982b_rock1080 

 

I'm not experienced with oculus products but when you disable ASW and re-projection, are you doing this through steamvr or through the oculus app. You need to do both if I understand that correctly.

 

You can disable the steamvr ASW by going into the developer panel. Alternatively, in steamvr if you navigate to the video settings page and select il2 from the drop down menu. If you scroll down to the bottom and check the box "use legacy reprojection." This will disable steamvr's automatic re-projection. 

 

However, repro should only be kicking on if you cannot meet the required FPS for the HMD.  This is why checking for frame times is so important since in the average, the IL2 fps counter might be showing 1 or 2 FPS below the target (in the average) but there are many frames which are terribly delayed by the game engine holding frames from the GPU. 

 

If you do end up buying fpsVR this will look like long orange lines over what looks like otherwise stable frame times. These sudden holds in frametimes will not show up in an average fps measure.

 

Let me know if this fixes it! 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Floppy_Sock

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

1 hour ago, Floppy_Sock said:

@Loki_1982b_rock1080 

 

I'm not experienced with oculus products but when you disable ASW and re-projection, are you doing this through steamvr or through the oculus app. You need to do both if I understand that correctly.

 

You can disable the steamvr ASW by going into the developer panel. Alternatively, in steamvr if you navigate to the graphics settings page and select il2 from the drop down menu. If you scroll down and check the box "use legacy reprojection." This is likely your issue. 

 

Let me know if this fixes it! 

 

I'll give that a go, I actually hadn't set steam VR to legacy reprojections... fingers crossed. What FPS are you getting in Index? I'm thinking of ordering one but if I can't sort this out there would be no point in trying a higher Hz headset.

[Floppy_Sock]

Really depends on my supersampling and in-game settings. 

 

If this stuttering crap was sorted I could see myself finding a sweetspot at 90Hz that balances in-game/steam super-sampling with FPS. 

 

At the moment I'm leaving massive amounts of overhead at 80Hz just to try to lessen the impact of stuttering. 

 

I wouldn't bother with an upgrade until these performance bugs are sorted out unfortunately. The super high FPS in the index is honestly not necessary. 144 Hz generates an enormous amount of heat. I don't find it comfortable. Maybe 120 would be nice but honestly things move so "slowly" in this game compared to say a shooter, the crazy FPS would only really be nice for moving my head around and the image being smoother with quick movements.

 

 

 

 

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

Thanks for the info...

 

I'm in the same boat... tons of overhead still (we have identical systems) and shit FPS even if I make the game look like minecraft with all the settings on the bare min.

[DD_Arthur]

Do yourself a BIG favour and get rid of Steam VR.  It's a huge resource hog and not need for Rift users.

 

Replace it with this;

 

https://gitlab.com/znixian/OpenOVR/blob/master/README.md

 

Lots and lots of people use it here. Next up you need to use this;

 

 

and you need to have a good read through this thread

 

 

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

5 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Do yourself a BIG favour and get rid of Steam VR.  It's a huge resource hog and not need for Rift users.

 

Replace it with this;

 

https://gitlab.com/znixian/OpenOVR/blob/master/README.md

 

Lots and lots of people use it here. Next up you need to use this;

 

 

and you need to have a good read through this thread

 

 

 

I appreciate it but like I said, it is not a case of not enough resources from my PC.

 

An update:

-Disabled ASW in oculus debug tool.

-Disabled reprojections in SteamVR

 

Ran FPSVR... I am still dropping down to sub 45fps. Tons of dropped frames, GPU frametime jumping up to 18ms every other second especially in combat or on the runway. My GPU usage is around 50% even when I'm dropping down to 45 fps and lower. CPU usage is around 25-30%. All temps are well below operating norms (I have a very well cooled PC).

 

I have been messing around with ALL graphics settings like I said. Doesn't matter what I try. Perhaps Devs could dig into this or offer some help. It's getting frustrating to say the least. There is no reason my PC should be unable to run this at high settings in VR at 90fps.

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

DD_Arthur didn't say it is your PC being too slow, he basically said it's a pipeline issue and gave you the solution for it. @Loki_1982b_rock1080

Edited December 19, 2019 by SCG_Fenris_Wolf

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

9 hours ago, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

DD_Arthur didn't say it is your PC being too slow, he basically said it's a pipeline issue and gave you the solution for it. @Loki_1982b_rock1080

 

Hey Fenris,

 

That is not a solution. I use OTT already and having steam running in the background is not the issue. My system is barely breaking a sweat. I tried OpenOVR just to make sure and it made no difference. I'm also not having issues spotting etc which seems to be what the other thread is regarding. I'd like to get my frame rate issues sorted out before I start worrying about that. Great thread over there by the way, I hope I get to take advantage of that if I can ever get this game running well. Thanks for the hard work!

 

Back to my original point... this was more of a plea for devs to step in or at least offer us VR users some insight. I'm not the only one having these issues. Seems to be most people are pointing to the game engine not taking advantage of advances in processing aka use of multiple cores. I think the fact that a game can outlive the technology it was originally built for speaks volumes about how well loved it is, so hats off to the developers! Just hopeful there is some feasible way to update the game engine.

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

On 12/19/2019 at 1:16 AM, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

DD_Arthur didn't say it is your PC being too slow, he basically said it's a pipeline issue and gave you the solution for it. @Loki_1982b_rock1080

 

Thanks for the link to that, didn't sort out my fps issues but spotting is WAY better. I give up for now on the fps issue, I'll just live with sitting around 45-50fps during heavy combat. Has anyone noticed if 3200hz ram makes that much of a difference over 3000? I don't know that the upgrade would be worth the few fps I gain.

 

Thanks again for all the replies everyone.

[PO_Baldrick]

I have been using dynamic resolution factor set to 0.5 and turned off reprojection (Reverb). So rather than dropping to 45 every so often the graphics just get reduced. Flying low with a number of planes around can get a bit low res but it does stay very smooth.

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

I have all re-projection turned off.

[DD_Arthur]

3 hours ago, Loki_1982b_rock1080 said:

 I give up for now on the fps issue, I'll just live with sitting around 45-50fps during heavy combat. 

 

 Is your game smooth and stutter free during combat?

[Loki_1982b_rock1080]

56 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

 Is your game smooth and stutter free during combat?

Nope, lots of the good ol micro stutters.

[Paul_RSXK]

It’s a rabbit hole. The key objective is smoothness not necessarily FPS. Try running open XR  instead of Steam VR. I’d also recommend using open composite as it automatically swaps and updates the necessary dll files and lets you switch back to Steam VR with a one button press.

in the open XR tool kit you can set motion re projection at 45FPS assuming your PC has the horsepower.

I have the in game resolution set via the XT tool at 80% ( my setting in Steam VR was 70%) via the Open XR tool. WMR at 100%, and Upscaling set at NIS in the open XR tool.

quite a bit to take in there, but there are plenty of guides online and via YouTube.

I have an RTX 3080 and an intel 10700k running at 3.8Ghz I’m running most settings on Ultra I get a steady 45 FPS. I recently tried a user created single player mission with over 50 aircraft in it to try to push my set up to the limit and the frames dropped to around 25-35, verging on the unplayable with that many aircraft, but as nearly half were ambient AI aircraft and only 25-30 were in the actual dogfight was more than doable when the AMbient AI aircraft were deleted).

normal in game SP and campaign missions are a rock steady 44-46 FPS.

I also use the VREM tool to sharpen the in cockpit graphics.

I have a Reverb G2 headset.

45FPS is more than enough for dogfighting and low level ground attacks.

45FPS via MR is the in-headset equivalent of 90FPS in the G2 which is the max refresh rate of the headset. Rift S is 60 Hz, IIRC. There is some ghosting, but it’s minimal.

 

if you turn the graphics down in game you’ll get a higher FPS but, in the reverb at least, if the game isn’t constantly hitting the headset max of 90 FPS the FPS will automatically halve in value.

open XR also eliminates the shaky menu loading screen we get in Steam VR. An added bonus.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Paul_RSXK
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