OpenXR +VRtoolkit vs Reshade +VRtoolkit, my thoughts

[YoYo]

Hi, I spent for a few last days testing this tool (OpenXR mode + toolkit of course) in IL-2 BoX. I know this soft very well from MSFS and DCS (and I know very well and use ReshadeVR too for comparison) but never tested OpenXR in BoX. Firstly - its not "holy grail" for the BoX series for me! Here I must correct you. FPS are a little worse that in SteamVR if you have the same settings of goggles and the same settings in the Sim. In BoX I fly on Reverb G2 so OpenXR its a kind of my native system for this goggle. What is important in BoX I dont use any kind of motion reprojection (off). BoX is doing very well in VR mode, so near 98% of situation I have stable 90FPS (IL2 settings - high, but no MSAA or FXAA at the expense of higher resolution than native) but if I dont use MR I see how FPS are working here and even small stutter if it appears. In BoX I fly on 2600 x 2548 pxt in SteamVR. Its a kind of upscaling but gives me quite nice, sharp picture (MR takes sharpness too, remeber it). I did most of the tests on the Rheinland map (most demending) with 1/3 cloudy, on Me-262 (I recommend it for testing because it is more demanding than all other models in BoX) or Bf-109 and FC1/2 planes. When it comes to tests, it is also worth moving your head from left to right "on the chair" in VR (so from side of the cockpit to oposite side, quickly) and looking at the gauges (do not turn your head, so all the time look at front). You can notice how many frames the GPU loose, especially around the clouds.

 

1/ Why SteamVR works better.

What I noticed, on the same settings of goggles and in the Sim I recived more stable FPS on SteamVR. Example, SteamVR, stable 90FPS, the same situation with OpenXR 85-90FPS, but this is case of small stutter (tested with upscaling FSR). Maybe BoX is better optimized for SteamVR, so it looks like it was created by developers from default. The same performance I recived only if I didnt use NIS/FSR, but quelity the picture (sharpness and spotting the enemy from a distance) is worse in OpenXR than with SteamVR. Btw. also if you turn on motion reprojection in OpenXR it looks worse than in SteamVR (more artefacts are visble on fast moving targets or on gunsight). OpenXR will also not keep up with the frames, in a fast, very low flight over the treetops and over big forests. Looking to the right or to the left (90 degrees) it is noticeable, SteamVR in my opinion copes with it better and the delay is much lower (with the same resolution Steam vs Open).

 

2/ Note with NIS and FSR upscaling options.

NIS looks worse than FSR in IL-2, like in other simulators but what I noticed, if the override resolution for G2 isn't touched it generates leak of one (the whole!) line of pixels, in height or width. Very strange. I didnt notice it in DCS or MSFS (so this is IL2 + OpenXR upscaling "feature"). This line is placed on the buttom (something like 2/5 on the button, or 2/5 on the right of picture in goggle). Looks like missing pixels on the whole line (or 2 lines) and a broken screen in goggles ?. Very small width, but its very visible on the text, you will see distortion of letters (for example briefings in campaignes), something like a cut strand, very annoiyng, if you notice it, it will stay in your memory. Anamorphing option doesnt solve it for me. What is good, finally I solve it. If you touch Override resolution (a little up) and will put non standard resolution (100%=3156 x 3088pxt), you can enjoy picture without missing line of pixels. I use 3200x3131, and next you can lower the resolution in FSR option. Will be good. About performance here - Im sure, using NIS or FSR it takes more FPS. So if You fly in OpenXR and dont touch Upscaling, perhaps you dont notice any changes (just small in quality), but if You touch upscaling you will loose few FPS (you will notice it only, if you fly without MR). This is really strange for me, because this option works very well in DCS or MSFS. Personally, I had to descend clouds settings from High to Medium to get the same performance like with SteamVR. I must to use FSR, because I need sharpness option (for me its very important to see details of map and enemy from distance). But what do I need to add if somone has performance problem you can use more agressive settings for resolution togheter with sharpness. I recived amazing performance with OpenXR toolkit for example with FSR=73% (so something about 2250pxt, small upscalling from native res. of G2), maybe the picture wasnt very sharp (like with 2600 x 2548pxt), but I didnt notice any performance issue, stable 90FPS in every situation so it's best to start testing from this up.

 

3/ Post processing.

I like it and I like to use my color palette (set a little bit warmer to make the sun give a little yellowish tint to objects, as in real life) it works OK in OpenXR toolkit and we have most important settings for this here. However we have the same in Reshade VR with VR toolkit (what I have used so far in my profile and I also advise you to check how it works with IL-2 BoX, you may be surprised). Pity that sharpness option is only available when you use NIS/FSR option. In SteamVR+ReshadeVR no problem to use it without turning on the other settings. Here you can use it with FSR but it gives few FPS less. No this problem with Reshade.

 

Summary. Its not Holy Grail like I said. I think in this case, however, it wins SteamVR + Reshade VR toolkit for me (btw. with Reshade you dont need to restart the sim, near each time). I have a smoother image by a few frames in this case, however the tool is really nice and easy to use however I stay with OpenXR few days more to check it more and make up your mind completely about how it works here with BoX.  The differences are very small between tools (ReshadeVR puts less strain on the system I suppose) so I decide later if i stay here or come back to the ReshadeVR toolkit.

 

Please remember, do not give in to a placebo that something new is better , it is not always the case. I'm absolutely not saying it's bad, but I'm a bit surprised that I did have better results with SteamVR and ReshadeVR, in contrast to my MSFS and DCS experience. Perhaps this FSR is not simply compatible to the end here. Another thing is the lack of Foveated Rendering which gives few FPS more. So maybe this? Notice that ReshadeVR has kind of this, and you can use circles, defined areas for appropriate rendering, here no this tool (in MSFS and DCS it works). It is possible, therefore, that due to the lack of it, you lose some of the efficiency in relation to ReshadeVR. However, it all depends on your own tastes and preferences, as always :).

 

What is good, its very easy to switch beteween two rendering systems, OpenXR or SteamVR, also you can save in OpenCompiste whitch simulator must to work with which software, so you can do what you want without manual changes.

 

Here you have my settings, which give me the best picture for me for G2 in OpenXR.

 

100% rendering = means 3156 x 3088 pxt for G2 (btw. in OpenXR toolkit it means 3157 x 3088 pxt).

 

 

 

 

I play here 2560x2504, in Steam VR 2600 x 2548 pxt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Useful links:

OpenXR tool

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/openxr-tools-for-windows-mixed-reality/9N5CVVL23QBT?hl=en-us&gl=US

OpenComposite, scroll down to 'System Wide Installation' and click download link titled 'OpenComposite Launcher'

https://gitlab.com/znixian/OpenOVR/-/tree/openxr

OpenXR toolkit 

https://mbucchia.github.io/OpenXR-Toolkit/

 

+ Reshade:

https://reshade.me/

 

Bigger topic here:

I hope it helps. Thx!

 

btw. signatures are hidden, I'm going on RTX3090.

Edited June 21, 2022 by YoYo

[firdimigdi]

Interesting, thanks for the write-up.

 

Here's my settings while playing on a 3080Ti.

 

OpenXR Tools

Spoiler

I set it to 85% since all the games I play at that resolution. Used the same with SteamVR for IL-2 before OpenComposite.

 

OpenXR Toolkit

Spoiler

No upscaling - at these resolutions it starts being a bit of a game of diminishing returns, it starts costing more in frametime to upscale.

 

IL-2

Spoiler

Usually when playing I keep it in fullscreen mode. No difference between the settings I used to use in SteamVR.

 

In a test scenario I run (a pre-recorded track of an 8vs8 furball in Rheinland map with heavy clouds at the height of the engagement) the above maintains the same frametimes I had in SteamVR (8-9ms on average, so 90fps) with what seems like smoother recovery when the frametime increases (SteamVR would register these as spikes with synthetic frames and there was a visible microstutter when alternating - this is not present in OpenXR; so either it's handled more gracefully or it's simply not handled at all whereas SteamVR attempts to handle it and results in the microstutter).

 

Visually I cannot perceive any vast difference between SteamVR and OpenXR on their own. Both provide me with the same spotting/IDing ability when combined with FSR sharpening. The major added benefit is that I don't have to run SteamVR any more. The other side-benefit is that XRNeckSafer is smoother than VRNeckSafer since it doesn't rely on resetting the chaperone boundaries any more and directly affects the HMD's pose instead.

 

The issue you mention about the "missing line" of pixels I have encountered on occasion but it was not IL-2 specific - sometimes the initialization of the headset would cause this to happen and it was also visible in the WMR portal/home/space; only way I found to fix this would be to power down the HMD and restart it. It used to happen maybe once a month but I haven't seen it occur in a while.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[YoYo]

4 minutes ago, Firdimigdi said:

The issue you mention about the "missing line" of pixels I have encountered on occasion but it was not IL-2 specific - sometimes the initialization of the headset would cause this to happen and it was also visible in the WMR portal/home/space; only way I found to fix this would be to power down the HMD and restart it. It used to happen maybe once a month but I haven't seen it occur in a while.

 

I checked it many times in Portal, and restarted WMR too at beginning. It wasnt present so I think this is the work of the OpenXR toolkit after all. ?

btw.

Sure, if you have it set in OpenXR Tools (85%) and here 100%, you can't actually see it. but eg for MSFS I need 100% so I don't touch anything in the main tool.

Edited June 21, 2022 by YoYo

[firdimigdi]

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

I checked it many times in Portal, and restarted WMR too at beginning. It wasnt present so I think this is the work of the OpenXR toolkit after all. ?

 

Odd, probably a different issue to the one I was seeing then because this was before OpenXR Toolkit even existed.

 

  

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

Sure, if you have it set in OpenXR Tools (85%) and here 100%, you can't actually see it. but eg for MSFS I need 100% so I don't touch anything in the main tool.

 

Well I had tried 100% (with upscaling methods and without) before I settled to the 85% - it was all matter of benchmarking it until I came to the conclusion that the frametimes were actually better there for the same or better image clarity.

 

EDIT

@YoYo just tried it again now out of curiosity and did not see anything of the like. We're probably talking about something different - what I mean is something like this, like a section of the rendered image was offset.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[SCG_motoadve]

I tried it , Varjo Aero,3090Ti,  lost about 20 to 25 FPS with this, and mage quality was not better.

Back to Steam VR where I fly most of the time at 90FPS.

Also there are a few very confused YouTubers posting videos about this ,giving advice that is wrong, so be aware.

 

Now I am debating to keep using FSR/NIS or not, not sure if it helps performance for this kind of lenses, can anyone confirm?

 

The Varjo Aero features a cutting-edge optical design that propels users to a new level of visual fidelity, pushing the pixels tighter together directly in front of you. The variable resolution lenses create an ultra-sharp peak resolution of 35 PPD, right at the center of focus where it matters most – mimicking the way the human eye works. Alternative commercially available headsets max out closer to 20 PPD.

Compared to the murky experience of consumer-grade Fresnel lenses, the lenses in the Aero are aspheric, offering an incredible true-to-life visual experience that makes god rays and the screen-door effect a thing of the past.

 

[firdimigdi]

1 hour ago, SCG_motoadve said:

I tried it , Varjo Aero,3090Ti,  lost about 20 to 25 FPS with this, and mage quality was not better.

 

Yes, it is highly dependent on the implementation of OpenXR that each vendor provides. Currently for WMR headsets and Oculus it's pretty mature. For native OpenVR/SteamVR headsets like the Vive I think there's no point in actually using this, especially as far as performance goes; at least I cannot see a benefit other than getting access to the OpenXR Toolkit.

 

  

1 hour ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Now I am debating to keep using FSR/NIS or not, not sure if it helps performance for this kind of lenses, can anyone confirm?

 

Upscaling from decently lower resolution to native resolution can provide a performance benefit regardless of lenses. But it will, naturally sacrifice some quality. You can use fholger's openvr_api.dll mod to try upscaling under SteamVR instead of OpenComposite since the latter hurts performance with the Aero.

 

With a 3090Ti though I really wouldn't bother. Why sacrifice the Aero's image quality if it's as good as reported?

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[dgiatr]

1 hour ago, Firdimigdi said:

 

Yes, it is highly dependent on the implementation of OpenXR that each vendor provides. Currently for WMR headsets and Oculus it's pretty mature. For native OpenVR/SteamVR headsets like the Vive I think there's no point in actually using this, especially as far as performance goes; at least I cannot see a benefit other than getting access to the OpenXR Toolkit.

 

  

 

Upscaling from decently lower resolution to native resolution can provide a performance benefit regardless of lenses. But it will, naturally sacrifice some quality. You can use fholger's openvr_api.dll mod to try upscaling under SteamVR instead of OpenComposite since the latter hurts performance.

 

I tried opencomposite plus openxrtoolkit and i think that performance is a little worse from steamvr plus fholhers fsr upscaling for the same settings but i see a better and more clear image with opencomposite than with steamvr resulting in better spotting and identification. Can anybody verify that or its a placebo? Currently using g2 with 2650x2600 sort off with 80% upscaling and 100% fsr sharpness.

[firdimigdi]

11 minutes ago, dgiatr said:

I tried opencomposite plus openxrtoolkit and i think that performance is a little worse from steamvr plus fholhers fsr upscaling

Looking at the frametiming during a fixed test (recorded track) does away with the guesswork.

 

This increase on the lower framerates that shirazjohn reported here is similar to what I've noticed, albeit at a smaller scale (of course he is using a 1080Ti so that limits the upper range):

 

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[[CPT]Crunch]

For me the big take away is the cleared up horizons, I can adjust effects to see clearly to the edge of the horizon making navigation and location awareness a none factor, don't have to waste time and effort to navigate allowing me more brain and eye cycles to devote to air combat.  Over huge swaths of terrain on the maps I'm familiar with I don't even need to pop open the map.  Using SteamVR I can forget about that, it's a perpetual fogged up banded horizon with every physical feature obscured and blurred beyond two grids requiring constant map awareness and use.

 

The color, lighting, sharpen, and all the other adjustments are a vast improvement, all these settings allow tuning for better clarity and target spotting.  FPS be damned, I'll take a hit to have these improvements, but it runs just as good here.  For me this has been on the level of a HMD upgrade without having to buy a new unit, that much improvement on overall game play.  Steam is going to have to revolutionize something now that necksafer works, cause as it sits now I'm never going back to that downgrade.

 

[dgiatr]

2 hours ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

For me the big take away is the cleared up horizons, I can adjust effects to see clearly to the edge of the horizon making navigation and location awareness a none factor, don't have to waste time and effort to navigate allowing me more brain and eye cycles to devote to air combat.  Over huge swaths of terrain on the maps I'm familiar with I don't even need to pop open the map.  Using SteamVR I can forget about that, it's a perpetual fogged up banded horizon with every physical feature obscured and blurred beyond two grids requiring constant map awareness and use.

 

The color, lighting, sharpen, and all the other adjustments are a vast improvement, all these settings allow tuning for better clarity and target spotting. 

Except gamma(lighting) and sharpness what else can you adjust in openxr toolkit in order to get better spotting? I tried higher values in SATURATION but i think i didnt get better results i could say the contrary...

 

[YoYo]

15 minutes ago, dgiatr said:

Except gamma(lighting) and sharpness what else can you adjust in openxr toolkit in order to get better spotting? I tried higher values in SATURATION but i think i didnt get better results i could say the contrary...

 

 

For me - better spotting means more sharpness (+ contrast).

[[CPT]Crunch]

Yes, the contrast, brightness, and sharpening, just a tish of sharp running with in game sharpening on really helps make things in motion more noticeable.  Also intensifying the colors helps with identification in combination with shadows set at high level as the minimum.  I'd run ultra but it grinds too much over cities and I don't really gain much over high except my own planes shadow. 

 

It takes a while to find a good balance of settings, something that isn't even possible to do in steam, in which the majority of these tool kit settings aren't available or accessible.  Not only that but the added bonus many can be tinkered with and changed right in the cockpit, saves one hours of tinkering.  Can't be beat for user friendliness. 

 

I'm leaving the gamma default, brightness levels are a better way to clear out the air, in combination with the rest of the available tuning settings.

 

[firdimigdi]

A note:

 

Using the in-game gamma setting or enabling HDR mode (which is more like "eye adaptation"/auto-level mode which means dynamic adjustment) makes it very difficult to use the post processing in OpenXR Toolkit to adjust settings - as displayed in @YoYo's screenshot from above you need to do some extreme adjustments and those probably won't work out well with changing lighting conditions:

If I set contrast to 10 and highlights to 80 I'd end up with a completely washed out image.

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Firdimigdi