Any creative solutions to the "ghosting" effect w/ Quest 2 in career mode?

[gydaveb]

Hi All,

 

Just started playing IL2 again after a hiatus (I had to get back in to try the Mosquito!) and I seem to now have a terrible ghosting problem in VR.

 

My specs:
Ryzen 5950X

64GB DDR4 RAM

SSD

RTX 3080

Quest 2

 

I always play with link enabled and with no ASW (ctrl-1 in-game). The Quest is set to the highest resolution in the Oculus software, and SteamVR is set to 100%. I run the Oculus at 72hz but have tried 90 as well.

 

When I'm in career mode the ghosting gets really bad... if I bank aggressively the terrain ghosts, or if I'm dogfighting the other aircraft ghost.

 

I've tried every combination of options imaginable... low shadows, 70km vis, etc, with no improvement. Open to any thoughts or suggestions.

 

Thanks, 

 

Dave

[firdimigdi]

After a lot of time invested in this I can positively say: there is none, it's a problem with the AI.

 

Graphic settings have no effect on it (lowest settings don't help), using OpenComposite/OpenXR instead of SteamVR has no effect on it, enabling or disabling motion reprojection/ASW makes no difference as does changing refresh rate, you just get a slight variation of the same stutter/ghosting. It's the same across HMD ecosystems, I have tested it both on a G2 and a Rift S, and across processors (people with AMD and Intel processors encounter it) and across GPU generations.

 

It is easily proven that it is not a settings/hardware-limitation issue if you simply record a track of a mission where it is happening and then go view the recorded track: it will be perfectly smooth since the AI isn't actually active in the recorded track.

 

See, and please consider contributing to, the issue report here:

 

A slightly more indepth analysis here:

 

And finally one of the earliest reports on the issue here:

 

There are also mentions of it on reddit.

 

Any more to enjoy singleplayer sessions I've taken to hosting missions on a separate PC in order to be able to play vs AI. As I mention in the other threads, if I host the very same mission on the same PC it will, once more, stutter/ghost.

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[Angry_Russian]

On 6/13/2022 at 7:14 PM, gydaveb said:

Hi All,

 

Just started playing IL2 again after a hiatus (I had to get back in to try the Mosquito!) and I seem to now have a terrible ghosting problem in VR.

 

My specs:
Ryzen 5950X

64GB DDR4 RAM

SSD

RTX 3080

Quest 2

 

I always play with link enabled and with no ASW (ctrl-1 in-game). The Quest is set to the highest resolution in the Oculus software, and SteamVR is set to 100%. I run the Oculus at 72hz but have tried 90 as well.

 

When I'm in career mode the ghosting gets really bad... if I bank aggressively the terrain ghosts, or if I'm dogfighting the other aircraft ghost.

 

I've tried every combination of options imaginable... low shadows, 70km vis, etc, with no improvement. Open to any thoughts or suggestions.

 

Thanks, 

 

Dave

Yep, join the club, this have killed SP IL2 for me, not buying anything from this series since beginning 2022 because of this. Apparently our issue is rare and devs have not acknowledge it yet, unfortunately. When I've posted this first in update thread in January and asked for an option to roll back the only thing I've got was confused emojis like I'm some kind of an idiot with arms growing from a wrong place ?

 

So, basically I thought screw this, and went fully into DCS, and now with OpenXR there I'm not seeing myself coming back to IL2. Unless maybe if they finally let us choose the game version, so we can avoid bugged updates and be able to show the devs "before" and "after". And before that I was the one bombing VR threads of DCS forum about great VR performance of IL2 after Christmas update 2021-2022. Man I loved WW1 fights after that first clouds update, was spending hours every day in PWCG, had a great Christmas holiday season. Just to have the unavoidable fix for that update kill it for me once and for all. What an irony, right? ?

Edited June 14, 2022 by Angry_Russian

[firdimigdi]

34 minutes ago, Angry_Russian said:

Apparently our issue is rare and devs have not acknowledge it yet, unfortunately.

 

Having tested it on two completely different machines with different VR ecosystems and seeing the same result, I do not believe it is rare at all - in fact I think it's the same for everyone in VR. The difference is that most who play in singleplayer do so with reprojection on which kinda muddles the result and think "ok this is how it is" and the rest play in MP where it doesn't happen.

 

I hadn't particularly noticed at the time this started because I was playing exclusively in MP then. Now due to certain life factors I need a pause button so have resorted to SP and this stood out immediately.

[horendus]

I have recently gotten back into il2 VR since upgrading to a 3080.

 

After playing some Quick missions on a few maps with 5v8 dogfight on MUCH higher graphic settings than my 1080 with fantastic performance pretty much pegged at 80fps with really tight frame times evident in smooth consistent views of the terrain and fighters zipping by I was rather disappointed with how much ghosting and inconsistent feeling frame times I was experiencing in Fortress over the Volga, often with LESS fighters onscreen than than my quick missions.

 

I then checked some frame tools and found the ghosting micro stuttery movement in the scripted campaign was really not showing up as I expected it would in my tools with still pretty good FPS and no missed frames and spikes.

 

 

So there is 100% something going on here with the rendering when there is also heavy scripting and or AI running as well which is a massive pain the back side for us VR players.

 

Has anyone over in pancake land reported this or does it seem to only effect VR? 

 

[firdimigdi]

1 hour ago, horendus said:

Has anyone over in pancake land reported this or does it seem to only effect VR? 

 

The only mention I've seen so far of a very close match with it was on reddit here:

But it was very specific about the Moscow career mode and it was fixed for them in the next hotfix released at the time. However the description given was that the reported framerate never dropped yet the game was stuttering. Apparently related to the AI's pathfinding (or something) since the bug had them all flying to some direction off map.

[Angry_Russian]

22 hours ago, Firdimigdi said:

 

Having tested it on two completely different machines with different VR ecosystems and seeing the same result, I do not believe it is rare at all - in fact I think it's the same for everyone in VR. The difference is that most who play in singleplayer do so with reprojection on which kinda muddles the result and think "ok this is how it is" and the rest play in MP where it doesn't happen.

 

I hadn't particularly noticed at the time this started because I was playing exclusively in MP then. Now due to certain life factors I need a pause button so have resorted to SP and this stood out immediately.

Do you really think people play IL2 with reprojection? That would be really surprising to me. I mean IL2 always had so nice VR performance that I believe people played at 80-90 fps depending on a headset. In DCS I would agree, but I don't really think that many people play IL2 with reprojection, it's very noticeable in this game, it's not DCS, and for sure not MSFS.

 

I've always been playing mainly SP and this started for me only in January 2022. Before that I was always sitting at 80 fps on Quest 2 with my rtx3070 with beautiful graphics and even then I've never had an issue with framerate, even in relatively heavy PWCG missions, and for sure none with vanilla campaigns. Again, I was really happy when clouds update was released, as it not only looked nice but improved performance even more, it literally was butter smooth, I could even bump same visuals to 90 fps!

 

But then I had a break for a couple of weeks, meanwhile I've upgraded to 3080ti (completely clean system) and at around the same time the hotfix for the clouds was released. That is when the problem started for me.

 

As for your suggestion that fps is dropping due to CPU, that is strange part - my Quest 2 doesn't report a single dropped frame. I believe something is wrong with the way the game itself presenting the frames for rendering, as none of the tips I've tried show a single fps drop. I've tried monitoring everything (with Oculus debug tools, MSI afterburner, OXRTK, etc.) and was not able to find any bottleneck, not with GPU, nor with CPU.. 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Angry_Russian

[firdimigdi]

12 hours ago, Angry_Russian said:

Do you really think people play IL2 with reprojection?

 

I know it for a fact  - it's been stated in this subforum by several people so far because they prefer to play with things like 4xMSAA on or with 100% render resolution on headsets like the G2, or equally demanding ones, with all the bells and whistles on and do not mind the reprojection artifacts.

 

  

12 hours ago, Angry_Russian said:

As for your suggestion that fps is dropping due to CPU

 

I don't suggest that at all - in fact I've presented charts that show that this is not what is happening and I also mention it explicitly in the revised first post in the report thread here:

My theory as to what is happening is that something in the AI thread of the game is causing locking and de-synchronizing the rendering thread. But without a way to prove this, that's just a hunch.

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[Tchandour]

So glad to see I'm not alone with this. I'd be so excited to play, but this is what's keeping me from enjoying the game.

 

Despite solid 90 fps and CPU and GPU frametimes that easily allow that, I see the surrounding world (ground and planes) stutter in this sort of ghosting double image when I roll my aircraft. Happens more in Career Mode than Quick Missions (CPU related, then?). I'm running RTX3070, i7-10700K (5 GHz all-core, HT off), 16 GB 3200 MHz RAM, and playing in VR on the Quest 2 (ASW off) through Opencomposite (tested on my computer using a Rift S, too; still get the same issue).

[cmorris975]

I've always struggled with this, but it does seem to get at least a little better as I upgrade my system. I'm running decidedly mid-level hardware, I admit that, but since I encounter this problem in all the VR flight sims, I'm not really motivated to spend the money on very fast/cutting-edge PC performance. I just don't think the engines that the current crop of flight sims use are dialed in for VR (yet).

 

I recently went from a 1070 ti to a 6650 xt, and I can see in Oculus Tray Tool that my application render times are 30% better. The VR in IL-2 is somewhat smoother now, but I don't expect it to be completely without ghosting. This is on a Quest 2 with a 9700K running at 4.8 ghz and 32 GB of 3200 RAM, solid state HD.

 

I run the game at 72 FPS on low settings with medium clouds, sharpening on, low shadows. It looks decent - way better than War Thunder and that game hitches constantly in VR.

 

My go to test for IL-2 VR is the "Scramble" mission in the IL-2 Stalingrad mission folder. I get a little ghosting sometimes, but it's better than it used to be. It's overall a pretty smooth VR experience. 

 

Unfortunately, from years of endlessly tweaking graphics and overclocks while trying to get IL-2/DCS/War Thunder to play without ghosting, my brain is really tuned in to it. I noticed every slight ghosting of planes or the landscape. I'm trying to just have fun now and accept it. 

 

Someday a sim will come out that is ghost-free. War Thunder was like that until about a year ago, but that's more of a game with sim elements anyways.

 

Like most of you, I'd guess, Il-2 runs a lot smoother in VR multiplayer mode.

Edited July 21, 2022 by cmorris975

[HotCarl73]

I have the same problem. AMD 5950. RTX 3080. 32 Gigs DDR4 3200. Samsung 980 1 TB. Reverb G2V2. Mediumish settings, No AA. Open Composite. Render Scale 90% NIS Scaler 85%. I keep reducing settings but I'm at a solid 90 FPS already, frametimes in single digits, spikes to about 12ish, trying to get rid of the ghosting. No reprojection. Only tried single player. Every other plane is double vision going in front of me. everything off the wingtips are double vision at low altitude. I was trying to get it tuned out on Valve Index and SteamVR a couple months ago and gave up. I thought the G2 would help. The resolution is nicer, but still ghosting on all the other planes. The only mod type things I run are XRNeckSaver and Voice Attack, and it still ghosts with those not running. I've been looking forward to Normandy, but I can't VR like this and flatscreen just isn't gonna cut it.

Edited July 29, 2022 by HotCarl73

[Tchandour]

I'll just echo here what I mentioned in the corresponding topic in the bug reports section of the forum: I've had this exact issue since August 2021. That's approximately when I started playing, so I can't remember if I've actually ever NOT had the issue. At first, I fiddled around in Quick Missions a lot to get stuff working, and soon noticed that in many career missions I'd suffer from this problem.

[FTC_horsky]

I usually dont play singleplayer campaigns, mp for me and the occasional qm just to try out something new, but yesterday I got the urge to try the custom campaign Komando Nowotny and I experienced exactly what you guys are describing, I thought it was weird because everything is normal in mp and qm with great performance and visuals with the g2. 

[HotCarl73]

I did all my tweaking in Quick Mission builder. I kept reducing settings until there was no ghosting. My test was 4 C-47's dropping 16 paratroppers each and 4 Yaks defending them on the Kuban map by the water with a couple ships and a city nearby. No ghosting. When it was finally all tweaked, I tried the Winds of Fury scripted campaign. Ghosting all over the place. I've just been dabbling in VR (index when it first released) for a couple years with flight sims. I couldn't get anywhere with my old Ryzen 5 3600 and 2070 Super, so I thought it was just because I needed to upgrade my PC, and didn't understand VR. But the problem has always been the ghosting. I was mostly playing Assetto Corsa the last few years and understand VR better now. When i upgraded to the Ryzen 9 and 3080, I thought the time was right to try VR flight sims again. No dice. So I tried uograding my headset, no dice. It seems somewhere along the way, I missed the part where it works, so I have no comparison. I've followed every guide and tweaked every setting, days and days of just trying to figure this out. I've been playing IL-2 since the original, perhaps it's finally time to venture into multiplayer and check out the ghosting situation there.

Edited July 29, 2022 by HotCarl73

[HotCarl73]

I'm disappointed to report that all is well in multiplayer. No ghosting at all. It doesn't seem to be a problem that I'm going to be able to upgrade or tweak my way out of. I wish I wanted to play multiplayer. If I'm gonna get ghosting and bad VR performance anyway, I guess I'll try WWII DCS for a while.