VR and Open XR

[dburne]

Open XR is really coming a long way. It does great with MSFS 2020 which has support for it.

Currently Open XR benefits Reverb or any WMR users and also Varjo supports Open XR as well.

Also one of the developers involved with Open XR has offered a toolkit to add some nice features to it as well. 

It would be nice if someday 1CGS could add Open XR support for VR users. I don't know how much is involved in doing that.

I hope someday 1CGS can take a look at doing this. It would really help in the performance department for the sim in VR. Performance is already good with what they have done with the sim, this would only make it even better.

[TheSNAFU]

I don’t have any games that use OXR so I haven’t got an opinion on how it impacts vr performance. But if it does increase performance a lot then I’d hope the devs will decide it would be worthwhile to do it. 

[firdimigdi]

Ideally, the plan is, all games at some point will only use OpenXR as in theory it greatly reduces the workload from game developers and moves it to the headset manufacturers to create good implementations of the API via their software.

[AcidBath]

As an HP Reverb G2 user I find the MS OpenXR Mixed Reality Portal feature set offering rather paltry in comparison to SteamVR's feature set.  I think it's a bit amusing and embarrassing for MS that a few of its OpenXR developers have taken matters into their own hands to improve MRP/OpenXR by developing and releasing an OpenXR mod which provides features which IMO MS has neglected for its MRP users, though at this time the mod is only focused on MSFS 2020.  BTW, I use their mod, think it's great and applaud its devs' efforts.  Fortunately for StreamVR titles like BoS, there's the openvr_fsr mod that provides similar OpenXR mod features, which also aren't in SteamVR, for improving the sim's performance.

 

But beyond that, it is a bit clumsy that SteamVR eventually funnels into MS OpenXR for WMR devices.  It definitely could be better, but since each VR vendor has a dog in this fight it's hard say if eventually there will be one VR API and associated user platform to rule them all.

Edited March 10, 2022 by AcidBath

[enyak]

The latest version of this OpenComposite fork now works with IL-2:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/tg7ovf/openxropencomposite_quickstart_guide_for_reverb/

 

[Walkirium]

29 minutes ago, enyak said:

The latest version of this OpenComposite fork now works with IL-2:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/tg7ovf/openxropencomposite_quickstart_guide_for_reverb/

 

Could it be used with RIFTs?
 

[Picchio]

1 hour ago, enyak said:

The latest version of this OpenComposite fork now works with IL-2:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/tg7ovf/openxropencomposite_quickstart_guide_for_reverb/

 

 

Have you tested it? There have been enthusiastic reports in regards to its implementation in DCS!

[enyak]

Yes it works well if you can use it without motion reprojection, ie 90fps in the G2.

[pepper9881]

Unfortunately, running IL2 through OpenXR is useless from a practical point of view,
because when you enable OpenXR Toolkit layer - the game freezes immediately on startup, just as it happened when using
vrperfkit. But if when working through OpenVR we have at least a working openvr_fsr, then for OpenXR there is nothing that would bring performance in VR to an acceptable level.

[enyak]

OpenXR toolkit doesn't work for IL-2 currently I found. However the benefit is still higher performance, resolution and feel of latency.

[pepper9881]

Performance through OpenVR and openvr_fsr with an FSR upscaling factor of 0.77 is much better than through pure OpenXR/OpenComposite without upscaling.

Of course, you can do scaling through the OpenXR Developer tool, but the quality suffers significantly compared to the algorithm from AMD.
And I do not believe that the problem with the hungs from OpenXR toolkit will be solved in the near future.

Since the author of the OpenXR toolkit mbucchia admitted that he took the key elements of the FFR code from the vrperfkit and the freezing problem is clearly of a general nature. I spent a lot of time trying to get vrperfkit to work with Il2 (I even managed to do a 1v1 fight a couple of times for a few minutes in a quick editor with FFR enabled, but it always ended up freezing) and I came to the conclusion that the problem with freezing lies in the game engine.

And here the main sadness is that game programmers have not been engaged in optimizing performance and adding new features to VR for a long time.  Everything that does not bring additional money is mostly ignored by them, since the team is small and very limited in staff. 

[dburne]

50 minutes ago, enyak said:

OpenXR toolkit doesn't work for IL-2 currently I found. However the benefit is still higher performance, resolution and feel of latency.

 

Best case scenario would be if 1CGS could offer support for Open XR runtime with IL-2. 

Not sure if that is something they have the time or resources to look at doing. They already provide native Steam VR support which works with all headsets.

Open XR seems to be developing a lot of steam(no pun intended) especially amongst the flight sim community. 

 

[firdimigdi]

On 3/23/2022 at 10:02 AM, Walkirium said:

Could it be used with RIFTs?
 

 

Don't see why not as long as oculus' runtime is handling OpenXR - however you can use the original OpenComposite fork which works only with Oculus to start with.