Stalingrad/Flying Circus is a pixelated mess in VR for me

[Blondini]

Hi all,

 

I just "invested" in a HTC Vive Pro 2, with one aim of playing Flying Circus in IL2, but as the title suggests I'm seeing graphics something on a par with a 1990s arcade game.  The cockpit is less pixelated than the exterior and scenery, but still unreadable without pushing my (virtual) head in real close. There is stepping on lines close to the cockpit and aliasing close in on the wing struts and wires and it's just a mess of shimmering pixels looking further out.  Not sure if it's related, but in the loading screen individual letters in the STURMOVIK title seem to flicker around.

 

It's driving me nuts because I see the great graphics on my monitor (and on those inspirational Growling Sidewinder YouTube videos) but I am nowhere even in the ballpark of that in VR.

 

I'm using Windows 10 on:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz (It's fairly old - it and the Mobo are from 2016) - is this likely to be the problem? I thought everything VR mostly ran off the GPU... or does it?)
32Gb RAM 2133Mhz

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti

 

I have the Vive Console graphics set to Extreme (4896 x 2448, 120hz) and SteamVR for IL2 set to 150% (2544 x 2544).  In the game I have graphics set to ULTRA.  I've tried FXAA and MSAA and can't see a difference.

 

In FPSVR I am seeing quite a bit of orange on the GPU and mostly green on the CPU but with very regular spikes of red, not sure how interpret this.

 

I've run through the fixes as suggested in the VR tweaking guide, possibly they made a bit of a difference... maybe.  In the end, on my monitor I'm seeing great, hi-res graphics and smooth frame rates - on VR I'm seeing Minecraft, with decent 60+ FPS (according to the in game FPS counter anyway).

 

Any suggestions appreciated.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Blondini

[chiliwili69]

This is strange. I had VP2 in the past an it was working quite OK.

 

Firstly, don´t try to run it at 120Hz. There is no graphic card or CPU on earth able to run your VP2 at that frequency.

Use 90Hz.

 

Try other VP2 modes.

Also according to my tests, verify that the resolutions reported by SteamVR with SS=100% are the same than the table below.

 

 

Verify also that you switch off  the "Target FPS" option in IL-2 setting,so the dynamic resolution factor is disabled.

 

I am not familiar with the HTC software, but be sure that there is no other automatic resolution mechanism enabled.

 

You can also verify any of these hardware/software items:

 

 

[Blondini]

Ok, thank you very much.

 

I thought I had the Target FPS option off - when I did as you said there was a significant change: a lot of the things like the stepping and aliasing improved very much, at the same time the FPS dropped significantly.  At the same time it is still rendering at a minimal level but at least the trees have trunks now...

 

Checking against your chart, on each mode my SS 100% values in SteamVR are much lower than the expected pixel counts.  I think this supports my suspicion that my rig is bottlenecked somewhere or more likely not up to task.

 

Thanks again, this was super useful.

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

Realistically to run VR with high fidelity you need a 2022 or later high-end cpu (Intel 12th Gen i5/i7/i9 or Ryzen 5800X3D or better) and even the 3070 is not close to enough to run all of the pixels in that headset at full resolution without low frames and/or reprojection.

 

IMO, an RTX 3080 or better is the minimum for a good experience with a modern headset.

[Blondini]

So I have now further invested in a new CPU, Mobo and RAM.  I will report back.

[von_Tom]

5 hours ago, Blondini said:

So I have now further invested in a new CPU, Mobo and RAM.  I will report back.

 

 

Ah the slippery slope of VR.  If you haven't got all of the peripherals to go with it (HOTAS and pedals) I'd start saving.

 

von Tom

[spreckair]

10 hours ago, von_Tom said:

Ah the slippery slope of VR.

So true.  The cost differential between playing on a monitor versus VR can be huge.  I play exclusively in VR and my wallet is very despondent.

[ZiggyZiggyStar]

2 hours ago, spreckair said:

So true.  The cost differential between playing on a monitor versus VR can be huge.  I play exclusively in VR and my wallet is very despondent.

And yet, if you are anything like me, there is just no going back  ?

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

21 hours ago, spreckair said:

So true.  The cost differential between playing on a monitor versus VR can be huge.  I play exclusively in VR and my wallet is very despondent.

The only time it is minor is when you're upgrading and going to build/buy a beefy system anyway.

[TimSell75]

Check your Steam VR Settings file "steamvr.vrsettings" in \Steam\config

 

There should be a line called "maxRecommendedResolution" :

 

Set this to 8192

[Blondini]

On 11/25/2023 at 12:14 PM, TimSell75 said:

Check your Steam VR Settings file "steamvr.vrsettings" in \Steam\config

 

There should be a line called "maxRecommendedResolution" :

 

Set this to 8192

This line doesn't show up in "steamvr.vrsettings" at all...

Edited November 26, 2023 by Blondini

[TimSell75]

It should read like this:

 

   "steamvr" : {
      "allowAsyncReprojection" : false,
      "allowInterleavedReprojection" : false,
      "allowSupersampleFiltering" : true,
      "background" : "#0D0D0DFF",
      "haveStartedTutorialForNativeChaperoneDriver" : true,
      "installID" : "18087713924105613852",
      "lastVersionNotice" : "2.1.4",
      "lastVersionNoticeDate" : "1700250481",
      "maxRecommendedResolution" : 8192,
      "motionSmoothing" : false,
      "showAdvancedSettings" : true,
      "supersampleManualOverride" : true

[giftgruen]

Your CPU/GPU Combo imho is not able to drive Your Vive Pro at native 100% Steam Resolution with InGame Ultra settings and MSAA Antialiasing.

However - also 2x 2000x2000 = 8Mio Pixels can be okay if the rest is done well.

 

Yes. You should upgrade your CPU/Board. Maybe something  from reuse market if you cant spent the money for an actual / new Combo would already help.

 

However already now: First try to target something like 60Hz without any AA.   Try how much SupperSamling ( Steam % slider ) you can go.

If you have a base, try if it looks better with in game AA and lowered Steam Supersampling.

MSAA looks better than FXAA but costs a lot of GPU power. 

 

Do NOT se all on ULTRA in IL2. Especially Clouds an Shadows are 'expensive' so start with a lower setting here.

Switch SSOA off. Sharpenig maybe is necessary, depends on Headset ( I dont know the HTC stuff ).

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by giftgruen

[Blondini]

All right, thanks everyone.

 

A bunch of these suggestions helped and got me quite a bit further with the new CPU/Mobo, but it looks like the naysayers about my GPU win this one.

 

Even though I could maintain a smooth framerate (~70-80fps) I just can't get past the low res experience.  I think I'll bail until I can get a GPU which gets me even close to the kind of clarity I get with TrackIR etc.

 

Cheers.