Circle of Pixilation improvements on Quest2 (updated with some quest2 tips also)

[[FF]Saiyon]

Thought I would update the original post rather than having my solution on page 2 etc.

 

The problem was a very visible band of aggressive pixilation on the quest2 at the "bubble" transition point.

 

My best solution so far and some other tips for quest2 users I have learnt this week:

 

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I have actually managed to significantly reduce the visible impact of the "bubble" and associated pixels. I can still see it but overall the situation is vastly improved. After lots of restarts and tweaking this is were I ended up.

 

There are three key graphics settings to make it look better. You need the following:

 

1. Select the "ultra" preset (you can still turn loads of other settings down e.g. shadows to low)

2. You need terrain distance to x4

3. You need cloud quality to high as a minimum

 

Then adjust everything else to get your desired FPS.

 

I have a quest2 and my GPU is an AMD 5700. Some of the other things I set are as follows:

 

I installed the "oculus tray tool" (OTT) and created an il2 profile.

 

1. I disabled ASW (I found this a huge improvement)

2. Disabled GPU scaling

3. Set my super sampling to 1.0 (the quest 2's native resolution is actually very high so at 1.0 I can still read everything easily)

4. In the oculus home app I set the refresh rate to 72hz  as I was normally sitting in game about 65-70 anyway

5. Turn on the audio notification for when OTT detects a new profile i.e. when you fire up il2.

6. If you don't hear the audio notification chances are it won't have turned off ASW (which Facebook seem to want to force on all the time)

7. You will know if ASW is on or off as the FPS counter in game will be locked to either 35 or 44 depending on what refresh rate you set in Oculus home i.e. 72 or 90 respectively

8. You will know that ASW is off when you see your real FPS e.g. mine fluctuates from 60 - 70

9. I also enabled the option in OTT to turn off the home environment

 

Turning cloud quality to high will hit you for about 20 - 25 FPS but it is critical to improve the look in game especially at the bubble transition.

 

My big trade to get high quality clouds was to switch off MSAA and switch over to FXAA x2. 

 

MSAA is nicer but it is a huge performance hit too.

 

I have shadows to low, canopy reflections off. 4k and sharpen on.

 

Also for quest / oculus users make sure to install "open composite". It stops you having to fire up steam VR in order to run the game, it must translate directly to the oculus SDK or something similar. it is a huge improvement an easy 10+ FPS.

 

If you want an IL2 steam desktop shortcut that will then launch directly into VR do this:

 

1. Create a normal steam desktop shortcut for IL2 then go to properties

2.  In url it will say something like this steam://rungameid/307960/

3. Change it to steam://launch/307960/vr

4. In summary you must change rungameid to launch and add /vr at the end

 

So now to launch IL2 in quest 2:

1. Fire up OTT

2. Put on quest2 and enable link

3. Double click your amended shortcut

4. Listen for "profile detected" when you see the il2 splash screen

5. If you don't hear it, restart services in OTT, you will probably need to enable link again

6. Getting OTT to apply it's setting doesn't seem to work smoothly for me every time

 

There is room for improvement but I am significantly happier with the look in game now. The pixel band was so bad it was immersion breaking for me and now it isn't.

 

Maybe someone else can get some use out of my settings too. For reference my gfx card is on par with a 2070 I believe .

 

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Original post:

 

"Can I just check that this is the same for everyone else?

 

In game when in VR there is a quite distinct amount of pixilation that starts in a near perfect circle around my plane at medium distance out.

 

It nearly looks like a terrible filter that has been imposed. Over land it is not that bad but over the sea it just looks horrendous. I struggle to not let it impact my enjoyment of the game. My worst experience was mission 10 of the Sea Dragons campaign.

 

I have tried all the settings I can think of and nothing gets rid of it. Even running low setting with loads of FPS and plenty of performance headroom.

 

If it is something baked into the game and not my settings is there a mod that get rids of it? I am pretty certain my rig could handle rendering the map to the horizon. I would even turn settings down to get rid of this.

 

However just for my sanity I need to know if this is my setup or the game"

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Saiyon

[[FF]Saiyon]

Some hunting on the forum suggests this is not me and ultra preset with 4x on terrain is the best you can get.

[Drum]

So circumference of perplexion, is the real question then.  ?

 

[Panzerlang]

I've noticed this too and I think it's a recent thing. The only thing I've been messing with is the game's IPD gizmo, I'll revisit it.

[coconut]

What’s your headset? I haven’t noticed it in my pimax or reverb g2

[[FF]Saiyon]

I have a quest2.

 

It is a large near 1 inch thick band of pixilation, that really stands out over the sea. The band moves with my aircraft so it is definitely something that is set graphically at a specific distance out in all directions. You shift very quickly from pretty water textures and reflections to blocky pixels. It is hard to describe but it nearly looks like an imposed filter.

 

Over land it is not as noticeable. It is like textures are turned off at a pre-determined distanced and you can see the pixilation at the point of transition from two different resolution settings. Once you look "over the top" and further into the distance it just looks like typically blurred distant objects. 

[HunDread]

33 minutes ago, Saiyon said:

I have a quest2.

 

It is a large near 1 inch thick band of pixilation, that really stands out over the sea. The band moves with my aircraft so it is definitely something that is set graphically at a specific distance out in all directions. You shift very quickly from pretty water textures and reflections to blocky pixels. It is hard to describe but it nearly looks like an imposed filter.

 

Over land it is not as noticeable. It is like textures are turned off at a pre-determined distanced and you can see the pixilation at the point of transition from two different resolution settings. Once you look "over the top" and further into the distance it just looks like typically blurred distant objects. 

 

Aren't the clouds you see pixelating? And the cloud reflections over water?

 

[[FF]Saiyon]

43 minutes ago, HunDread said:

 

Aren't the clouds you see pixelating? And the cloud reflections over water?

 

 

I do think this is part of it. which is why it doesn't look as bad over land because it doesn't reflect. Turning cloud detail up doesn't seem to fix it.

[ktriggerk0ld]

2 hours ago, Saiyon said:

I have a quest2.

 

It is a large near 1 inch thick band of pixilation, that really stands out over the sea. The band moves with my aircraft so it is definitely something that is set graphically at a specific distance out in all directions. You shift very quickly from pretty water textures and reflections to blocky pixels. It is hard to describe but it nearly looks like an imposed filter.

 

Over land it is not as noticeable. It is like textures are turned off at a pre-determined distanced and you can see the pixilation at the point of transition from two different resolution settings. Once you look "over the top" and further into the distance it just looks like typically blurred distant objects. 

I see the exact same thing. I have a lower end rig but can run things relatively smoothly at High and MSAA x4 on Quest. I see this "circle of shame" around my airplane at all times. I am on the BoM map and I can describe this as seeing nice terrain in a perfect circle around me out to about 2km, then there is a "transition" band of about 100m or so beyond which it's a blur all the way out to the horizon. I tried getting rid of it by changing graphics settings but to no avail.

[[FF]Saiyon]

OK thanks for confirming it is not me!!!

[Panzerlang]

4 hours ago, Saiyon said:

I have a quest2.

 

It is a large near 1 inch thick band of pixilation, that really stands out over the sea. The band moves with my aircraft so it is definitely something that is set graphically at a specific distance out in all directions. You shift very quickly from pretty water textures and reflections to blocky pixels. It is hard to describe but it nearly looks like an imposed filter.

 

Over land it is not as noticeable. It is like textures are turned off at a pre-determined distanced and you can see the pixilation at the point of transition from two different resolution settings. Once you look "over the top" and further into the distance it just looks like typically blurred distant objects. 

Oh, I misunderstood, I thought you meant around the outline of the planes. I think what you're referring to is the perimeter of the draw-distance 'bubble'.

[[FF]Saiyon]

Update:

 

I have actually managed to significantly reduce the visible impact of the "bubble" and associated pixels. I can still see it but overall the situation is vastly improved. After lots of restarts and tweaking this is were I ended up.

 

There are three key graphics settings to make it look better. You need the following:

 

1. Select the "ultra" preset (you can still turn loads of other settings down e.g. shadows to low)

2. You need terrain distance to x4

3. You need cloud quality to high as a minimum

 

Then adjust everything else to get your desired FPS.

 

I have a quest2 and my GPU is an AMD 5700. Some of the other things I set are as follows:

 

I installed the "oculus tray tool" (OTT) and created an il2 profile.

 

1. I disabled ASW (I found this a huge improvement)

2. Disabled GPU scaling

3. Set my super sampling to 1.0 (the quest 2's native resolution is actually very high so at 1.0 I can still read everything easily)

4. In the oculus home app I set the refresh rate to 72hz  as I was normally sitting in game about 65-70 anyway

5. Turn on the audio notification for when OTT detects a new profile i.e. when you fire up il2.

6. If you don't hear the audio notification chances are it won't have turned off ASW (which facebook seem to want to force on all the time)

7. You will know if ASW is on or off as the FPS counter in game will be locked to either 35 or 44 depending on what refresh rate you set in Oculus home i.e. 72 or 90 respectively

8. You will know that ASW is off when you see your real FPS e.g. mine fluctuates from 60 - 70

9. I also enabled the option in OTT to turn off the home environment

 

Turning cloud quality to high will hit you for about 20 - 25 FPS but it is critical to improve the look in game especially at the bubble transition.

 

My big trade to get high quality clouds was to switch off MSAA and switch over to FXAA x2. 

 

MSAA is nicer but it is a huge performance hit too.

 

I have shadows to low, canopy reflections off. 4k and sharpen on.

 

There is room for improvement but I am significantly happier with the look in game now. The pixel band was so bad it was immersion breaking for me and now it isn't.

 

Maybe someone else can get some use out of my settings too.

 

Cheers

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Saiyon