SteamVR broke the FSR mod?

[Panzerlang]

Their latest update, about a week ago now, and the G2 image quality with the FSR mod went to shit. Swapped it for the stock API and the image quality reverted to the old pre-FSR quality.

I have spent quite a few hours messing around with settings and have lost count how many times I've swapped the APIs around. At the same time as the FSR mod got broke the process for just getting IL2 and the add-ons I use running successfully radically changed.

Nobody else has noticed?

[firdimigdi]

I'm using SteamVR 1.21.12 (latest stable as of this post) and see no issue either with the FSR mod, I use it for the sharpening filter only as of IL-2 4.703 since performance has been improved considerably, or VRNS (or fpsVR, or Desktop+ which are some SteamVR addons I use often enough).

 

Initially make sure that the JSON syntax in your openvr_mod.cfg is valid, that's usually what can go wrong easily there.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Firdimigdi said:

I'm using SteamVR 1.21.12 (latest stable as of this post) and see no issue either with the FSR mod, I use it for the sharpening filter only as of IL-2 4.703 since performance has been improved considerably, or VRNS (or fpsVR, or Desktop+ which are some SteamVR addons I use often enough).

 

Initially make sure that the JSON syntax in your openvr_mod.cfg is valid, that's usually what can go wrong easily there.

 

Oh, that's weird then. I changed absolutely nothing between everything working beautifully to everything going tits up. I never changed anything in the FSR config either, it worked perfectly out of the box.

Original start-up was:

Power on the G2.
Start the WMR software.
Activate NeckSafer.
Fire up IL2, which auto started SimShaker.
Play.

Suddenly doing all that caused SteamVR to crash with the "critical error" message.

After three hours chasing shit I found the new process that got me into the game:

Power on the G2.
Fire up IL2.
Once the loading screen is active in all windows...
Open NeckSafer with "Run as Administrator", otherwise it fails with an OpenVR error message.
Manually start SimShaker.
Play.

First time that worked I immediately saw the graphics had gone to shit. Swapped out the FSR API for the stock one, back to decent graphics. Since then nothing I've tried has got the FSR working again.

WTF.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Hetzer-JG51

[Youtch]

35 minutes ago, Firdimigdi said:

I use it for the sharpening filter only as of IL-2 4.703 since performance has been improved considerably

You sharpen with NIS or with FSR? What is the value and radius you are using?

[firdimigdi]

35 minutes ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

Oh, that's weird then. I changed absolutely nothing between everything working beautifully to everything going tits up. I never changed anything in the FSR config either, it worked perfectly out of the box.

Original start-up was:

Power on the G2.
Start the WMR software.
Activate NeckSafer.
Fire up IL2, which auto started SimShaker.
Play.

Suddenly doing all that caused SteamVR to crash with the "critical error" message.

After three hours chasing shit I found the new process that got me into the game:

Power on the G2.
Fire up IL2.
Once the loading screen is active in all windows...
Open NeckSafer with "Run as Administrator", otherwise it fails with an OpenVR error message.
Manually start SimShaker.
Play.

First time that worked I immediately saw the graphics had gone to shit. Swapped out the FSR API for the stock one, back to decent graphics. Since then nothing I've tried has got the FSR working again.

WTF.

 

Yeah that's weird alright. Wish I knew what to propose.

 

After a point that I ended up with more than 2 related programs I simply opted to make a batch file which starts joytokey, voiceattack, steamvr, <pause for 6 seconds to allow steamvr to completely load>, vrns, simshaker and then il-2. Otherwise I always forgot one or the other. So all I do now is turn on the G2 and run that batch file.

 

21 minutes ago, Youtch said:

You sharpen with NIS or with FSR? What is the value and radius you are using?

 

FSR sharpen at 0.75 and radius 2.0 (== disabled). I find that anything above .75 for FSR sharpening causes over-sharpening halos on some textures, I think for NIS sharpening the limit I found was .25 or .35 before that starts happening.

[Guest]

Ok, hold on to your hat for some even weirder shit.

I reinstalled the FSR. Fired up the game, QQM vs 8 bombers. At first the bombers 2000m ahead were crisp. Yay, FSR working again! No, they turned back to blocky shimmering shit. Closed in, shot some down, went level and was about to F2 to inspect the plane externally when I noticed...the instrument panel, crisp and beautiful. WTF, FSR working again...then it went shit...then crisp again, like the graphics were 'breathing'. Absolutely regular, like breathing...crisp, shit, crisp, shit...

I have NEVER encountered or heard of anything like this before.

On top of which, like there's an entity in my PC, hit shadow-play to record last ten minutes, exited game, recording shows ten minutes right up to the second before I launched the game. Hit the button to save the last ten minutes again, nada. GeForce Overlay had DEACTIVATED BY ITSELF and wouldn't reactivate in settings.

I'm having a serious The Exorcist PC experience here right now. Lol.

[firdimigdi]

1 hour ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

Ok, hold on to your hat for some even weirder shit.

I reinstalled the FSR. Fired up the game, QQM vs 8 bombers. At first the bombers 2000m ahead were crisp. Yay, FSR working again! No, they turned back to blocky shimmering shit. Closed in, shot some down, went level and was about to F2 to inspect the plane externally when I noticed...the instrument panel, crisp and beautiful. WTF, FSR working again...then it went shit...then crisp again, like the graphics were 'breathing'. Absolutely regular, like breathing...crisp, shit, crisp, shit...

 

That sounds like you either have this set in-game to reduce resolution to match target FPS:

 

Or you don't have this set like so in the WMR portal:

 

[Guest]

In-game DRF is zero, Target FPS is off.
Experience options, they don't look quite like that in my setup (WMR settings) but I have Best Visual Quality and resolutions are maxed.

I just did a re-install of WMR, it did a lot of stuff so I was hopeful. All I got however was all my desktop icons placed into the top-left corner of my screen (WTF?) and zero improvement in IL2 with FRS installed (the weird pulsing has gone though).

Baffled. Best guess is it's a Win11 screwup that's basically trashed my PC.

 

 

Oh boy, check this out. I turned off WMR and my G2, all my desktop icons returned to their correct positions. Powered up the G2 and started WMR again, all the icons went to the top-left of the screen again.

PC re-boot coming up...maybe it'll grow fking horns. ?

Edited April 14, 2022 by Hetzer-JG51

[firdimigdi]

11 minutes ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

In-game DRF is zero, Target FPS is off.

 

I realize you probably mistyped but just to be sure, it should not be zero, it should be "Full" or rescale_target = 1.0 in the .cfg file otherwise it will try to reduce resolution to hit your HMD's refresh rate.

 

But yes, that thing with the icons doesn't sound right - never seen anything like that happen; I am still on Windows 10 however.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Firdimigdi said:

 

I realize you probably mistyped but just to be sure, it should not be zero, it should be "Full" or rescale_target = 1.0 in the .cfg file otherwise it will try to reduce resolution to hit your HMD's refresh rate.

 

But yes, that thing with the icons doesn't sound right - never seen anything like that happen; I am still on Windows 10 however.

 

Oh. Shit. Lol. I'll put it to Full then. I thought it was supposed to be zero.

No, that can't be right. Target FPS has always been off for me and it has to be ON for that DRF to be adjustable. I'll give the game a go regardless but...

Holy crap, that was it. The Target FPS gets greyed-out in VR but the DRF stays active and it fixed it.

Mandela effect. I swear to god I have no memory of screwing with that slider previously.

Thank you Firdi. THANK YOU!!! ?

Edited April 14, 2022 by Hetzer-JG51

[firdimigdi]

Ah good, glad that's sorted out.

[Youtch]

2 hours ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

The Target FPS gets greyed-out in VR but the DRF stays active and it fixed it.

Target FPS is indeed greyed out in VR. Does the value there as any meaning or it shall be off?

[Guest]

Just now, Youtch said:

Target FPS is indeed greyed out in VR. Does the value there as any meaning or it shall be off?

I set mine to OFF.

[Youtch]

I was under the impression that if it was  greyed out it had no effect, but I will put it off as well. 

 

Soooo many settings, to mess up with, that you never know what you end up with.

 

There shall be a section in the forum with some reference configurations people are happy with and the with corresponding startup.cfg.

 

After so many error and trials, I am no longer sure if in the process of tweaking I ended up messing something.

[firdimigdi]

18 minutes ago, Youtch said:

Target FPS is indeed greyed out in VR. Does the value there as any meaning or it shall be off?

 

For VR it is implied to be your HMD's reported refresh rate. If you set the refactor value it acts as multiplier to apply to your rendering resolution when FPS is less than your HMD's max current rate in an attempt to increase performance until it can render again at your chosen resolution.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[Youtch]

5 hours ago, Firdimigdi said:

FSR sharpen at 0.75 and radius 2.0 (== disabled). I find that anything above .75 for FSR sharpening causes over-sharpening halos on some textures

Even with scaling disabled, you are still considering hence that the FSR sharpening is better than the in-game sharpening, to use it instead of what is already provided?

[firdimigdi]

Just now, Youtch said:

Even with scaling disabled, you are still considering hence that the FSR sharpening is better than the in-game sharpening, to use it instead of what is already provided?

 

I prefer it, yes. The built-in sharpening filter is too harsh for my taste.

[Guest]

The FSR not only sharpens beautifully, it removes nearly all the atrocious shimmer. ?

[Guest]

What now. Within 30 seconds or a couple of minutes the FPS tanks to 35 and doesn't recover. I was previously getting solid performance, even at 45fps things were smooth (motion projection on). Now it's a 35fps stutter-fest. Starts at 90, goes between that and ~80~65, down to 45, up to 90 (the usual up and down, always decently smooth and playable), then tanks to 35 stutter and doesn't recover. Same map (Moscow), same planes, same graphics settings but even on Balanced it does it (not even my 1080Ti was this bad).

RTX3080Ti. SteamVR 150% global, 100% IL2, motion projection on in both, no super-sampling.

Cleared environment data, no joy.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Hetzer-JG51

[firdimigdi]

5 hours ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

SteamVR 150% global, 100% IL2

 

What is the or_width and or_height reported in your startup.cfg when using those numbers?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Firdimigdi said:

 

What is the or_width and or_height reported in your startup.cfg when using those numbers?

Which config? I'm looking here but don't see those.

I:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config

[Drum]

steam > steamapps > common > Il-2 sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad > data

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Drum

[Guest]

Found it I think (IL2 startup, right?).

or_ca = 0.00448
    or_dummy = 0
    or_enable = 1
    or_height = 2916
    or_hud_rad = 1.50000
    or_hud_size = 0.75000
    or_ipd = 0.06799
    or_render_eye = 1
    or_sipdc = -0.09000
    or_width = 2981

1 minute ago, Drum said:

steam > steamapps > common > Il-2 sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad > data

 

Lol. I googled "or_width or_height" and one of the links was to here:

Settings to optimize VR (especially Oculus) (simulatedcombat.group)

Google is freaky sometimes. ?

Edited April 15, 2022 by Hetzer-JG51

[Drum]

That was good place to go as well, Fenris has helped me a ton, too.

[firdimigdi]

1 hour ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

Found it I think (IL2 startup, right?).

 

Are you also upscaling via FSR? 2981 x 2916 sounds odd for a G2 running at 150%, people have noted differences based on GPU but that's rather extreme.

 

Keep in mind that after a certain resolution upscaling has rather diminishing returns, the frametime added by doing the upscaling is the same or more than what it would take to display the image directly at the target resolution. So you might be better served rendering the game directly at 2981x2916 instead. Not that the fps drop you mention is directly related to this, just an observation.

 

To debug the fps drop you should try it with fpsvr or a similar tool enabled and see if you should be looking at CPU or GPU. If it's a single player scenario it can easily be CPU-related, especially if you are experiencing time dilation in-game.

 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Firdimigdi said:

 

Are you also upscaling via FSR? 2981 x 2916 sounds odd for a G2 running at 150%, people have noted differences based on GPU but that's rather extreme.

 

Keep in mind that after a certain resolution upscaling has rather diminishing returns, the frametime added by doing the upscaling is the same or more than what it would take to display the image directly at the target resolution. So you might be better served rendering the game directly at 2981x2916 instead. Not that the fps drop you mention is directly related to this, just an observation.

 

To debug the fps drop you should try it with fpsvr or a similar tool enabled and see if you should be looking at CPU or GPU. If it's a single player scenario it can easily be CPU-related, especially if you are experiencing time dilation in-game.

 

I'm running the FSR mod as it came, I've not altered any of its stock parameters.

I'm a bit wooly on a lot of stuff. As I recall, the global SteamVR setting being at 150% has something to do with making sure there's no "barrel distortion"? And the app setting for IL2 being at 100%, supposedly it's a "multiplier" of the global 150% setting, which means nothing to me. I guess I'll mess with those two settings and see what happens. Bear in mind I've not changed anything in SteamVR since the game was running good, so I suspect (again) that the last SteamVR update screwed stuff.

[Guest]

With the SteamVR global slider at 100% the FSR mod magic is noticeably reduced but the FPS is high and smooth. 

[Guest]

And here again is the WTF weirdness. Never mind that FSR used to work perfectly at SteamVR 150%/100%, it was like 50% effective with SteamVR at 100%/100%. But frames were high and smooth.

So I figured I'd give 150%/100% a go again. Zero difference. That was with shutting SteamVR down and restarting the game fresh. So, shut everything down, reboot PC. Zero difference. Check FSR config file, all as it should be.

SteamVR is clearly broken, in as much as it's own settings aren't working properly. Can't really work with that.

Anyway, graphics are good and frames are high and smooth, good enough. ?

Thanks Firdi. ?

[Youtch]

On 4/14/2022 at 12:15 PM, Firdimigdi said:

FSR sharpen at 0.75 and radius 2.0 (== disabled). I find that anything above .75 for FSR sharpening causes over-sharpening halos on some texture

Thank you Firdimigdi! I reduced the sharpening from .85 to .75 following your recommendation and it indeed improves a lot the shimmering.

 

I haven t dared yet getting rid of the upscale, which i have currently at 0.8. I have a 3080, but i fear it will bring my 80-90 fps average to 60-70fps to maintain SS at 100% on G2, but i guess it mostly depends on the settings you have with startup.cfg.

 

Thanks again for your help in improving my VR experience.

[firdimigdi]

2 hours ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

I'm a bit wooly on a lot of stuff. As I recall, the global SteamVR setting being at 150% has something to do with making sure there's no "barrel distortion"? And the app setting for IL2 being at 100%, supposedly it's a "multiplier" of the global 150% setting, which means nothing to me.

 

OK, what's happening then:

 

The stock configuration of  the FSR mod has  renderScale set to 0.77 - which means that since your game is rendering at 2981 width, you have set steam to about 3871 width (2981/0.77). That is the 150% you have set. Setting IL-2 to 100% just means it follows Steam's desired resolution (3871 width). The distortion correction is already calculated in SteamVR's resolution. If you note, it says "resolution per eye"; the G2's resolution per eye is 2160x2160 - so setting steam to 100% is quite enough for the distortion profile (in my case it results in 3156x3084) as it means it is actually rendering at 146% of the G2's native resolution already.

 

Now, my suggestion for you would be to set SteamVR resolution per eye to 100%, IL-2's to 85% and in the FSR mod's openvr_mod.cfg set renderScale to 1.0 - this will by-pass the upscaling and render directly at about 2912 or so pixels width. It is my opinion that this will be the same or better visual quality with the same or better performance for you, especially since you don't mind running with reprojection/motion smoothing enabled.

 

Of course make a copy of the openvr_mod.cfg in case you want to revert to your previous configuration.

 

30 minutes ago, Youtch said:

Thanks again for your help in improving my VR experience.

 

No worries, glad that helped.

[Youtch]

3 hours ago, Firdimigdi said:

SteamVR resolution per eye to 100%, IL-2's to 85% and in the FSR mod's openvr_mod.cfg set renderScale to 1.0

This is what you have on your configuration or you have it to higher %?

 

I didn t fully understand how you were calculating the 146%.

 

Thanks again for your guidance.

[firdimigdi]

3156 / 2160 ≈ 1.46

SteamVR res / G2 panel res

https://youtu.be/ya8vKZRBXdw?t=362 -> same principles, but fast forward a few years and now SteamVR's resolution slider result always includes the distortion correction for pretty much all HMDs -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyehrn9EKIY

 

Yes, those are the settings I use with a 3080Ti.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Firdimigdi