VR Performance P3D

[pegruder 65]

Hey folks - was just wondering what kind of performance everyone gets in their headsets these days.  Im running the Vive pro on a 2080ti with an i9 9900k and 64gb ram and only getting around 9fps on the ground at lga in the fsl bus, so I can only assume its something setting related.  Performance was never this bad for me in the NGX on my rift.

[dmaas 2]

My hardware: Intel i7 @ 3.4GHz, NVIDIA RTX2080, Oculus Rift. I've tested different Oculus Display Tool settings and settled on 1.5x Pixels per Display pixel, which is much sharper than 1.0x and usually achieves the same framerate. I get the best smoothness with "force 45fps AWS enabled".

Here is what I see in VR: In the PMDG 737NGX at most airports it'll lock at 22.5fps. Once in a while it reaches up to 30-45fps (e.g. in external view at cruise altitude). Worst case I get ~12fps near high-detail ground scenery. The FSL A32X has noticeably worse frame rate in the virtual cockpit compared to the PMDG 737. In the Airbus it's 22.5fps at cruise, down to 10-12fps during landing (even at not-too-detailed airports).

I rotated through all my addon aircraft recently to check relative performance. In terms of framerate, it was basically like this:
Majestic Q400 > PMDG 737 > PMDG 747 > FSL A32X, CaptainSim 757

Turning off VR and switching to my 4K monitor gets me 45-60fps under almost all conditions. It's too bad there is such a performance hit going into VR.

All of the above is definitely CPU-bound. I'm looking forward to an i9 upgrade soon.

btw I also tested X-Plane 11 in the Zibo 737 recently and was surprised that I couldn't match the performance of P3D's PMDG 737. Sitting on the tarmac at a default airport it was noticeably lower performance.

Edited June 17, 2019 by dmaas

[andreh 125]

You need lower settings for VR. It seems like a common mistake to assume that your old 2D settings will automatically translate into VR. 

The basics I've found that works best is:

• No HD textures - VR resolution isn't good enough to make use of them anyway
• Reduce detail in the distance - can't see it clearly in VR anyway
• Unlimited frames - no vsync
• Turn off anything you can't see from the flight deck - unless external views are important to you, of course. 

I also don't use any config tweaks - FFRF, AFs etc. Haven't experimented much with it, just never used any even in my 2D days.

The rest is just reasonable slider settings. 

Edited June 17, 2019 by andreh

[BrettT 63]

Hi Chris,

I have a similar system as yours 32GB of ram instead of 64GB.  I am using the Vive Pro with Fly Inside and the oversampling set to 1.5.  On the scenery complexity etc, I have everything set to the max with the exception of Autogen draw distance which I have set at medium.  For shadows, I have these set to receive on all and clouds to cast shadows along the internal shadows turned on.  Dynamic lights are off by dynamic reflections are on high.  Traffic is turned off.  With these settings I get 25-35/90 FPS at places like KSEA with ORBX scenery and Active sky using the NGX.   The 25-35 is the simulator frame rate where the 90 is the render frame rate.

Hope this helps

Brett

[pegruder 65]

5 hours ago, andreh said:

You need lower settings for VR. It seems like a common mistake to assume that your old 2D settings will automatically translate into VR. 

The basics I've found that works best is:

• No HD textures - VR resolution isn't good enough to make use of them anyway
• Reduce detail in the distance - can't see it clearly in VR anyway
• Unlimited frames - no vsync
• Turn off anything you can't see from the flight deck - unless external views are important to you, of course. 

I also don't use any config tweaks - FFRF, AFs etc. Haven't experimented much with it, just never used any even in my 2D days.

The rest is just reasonable slider settings. 

I figured they'd have to be lower - just haven't figured out how low to get them.

26 minutes ago, BrettT said:

Hi Chris,

I have a similar system as yours 32GB of ram instead of 64GB.  I am using the Vive Pro with Fly Inside and the oversampling set to 1.5.  On the scenery complexity etc, I have everything set to the max with the exception of Autogen draw distance which I have set at medium.  For shadows, I have these set to receive on all and clouds to cast shadows along the internal shadows turned on.  Dynamic lights are off by dynamic reflections are on high.  Traffic is turned off.  With these settings I get 25-35/90 FPS at places like KSEA with ORBX scenery and Active sky using the NGX.   The 25-35 is the simulator frame rate where the 90 is the render frame rate.

Hope this helps

Brett

I'll have to play around with some settings.  For some reason with P3D I always feel like I keep backing down settings with no change in FPS, but always a change in visuals - even in 2D.  I gotta get simstarter back again so I can make a separate profile when I want to run VR.

[BrettT 63]

The two biggest settings that made the most difference to me was keeping the Autogen distance at Medium in P3D4.5.  With this the Tree and Building AG can be maxed.  To me this fits in well with the resolution of the Vive Pro anyways.  Also have the LOD radius set to max actually seemed to smooth things out as opposed to having it lowered.  I received some ridiculing for this but it is working for me and worth trying out.  Traffic was also a big one.  Overall I am very happy with how things look

[andreh 125]

1 hour ago, BrettT said:

The two biggest settings that made the most difference to me was keeping the Autogen distance at Medium in P3D4.5.  With this the Tree and Building AG can be maxed.  To me this fits in well with the resolution of the Vive Pro anyways.  Also have the LOD radius set to max actually seemed to smooth things out as opposed to having it lowered.  I received skiome ridiculing for this but it is working for me and worth trying out.  Traffic was also a big one.  Overall I am very happy with how things look

Powerful machine might explain that. I have the opposite philosophy - reduce detail in the distance. With VR resolution you can't see such detail anyway. I have LOD at medium, autogen distance at medium and density at normal. 

But I have a mere gtx1070 so my machine should naturally be less capable 

Edited June 17, 2019 by andreh

[pegruder 65]

Ill def play around tonight and report back on what does what.  Traffic funny enough enver seemed to impact me much, even in 2d.  For me I think its always weather.  LGA was overcast yesterday and I think that did me in.  Clear days performance is usually pretty good.  With that said - what texture resolution does everyone use on their clouds?  I think in ASCA i was using 2048 which its probably too high even for 2D.  I might drop back to 512.

[BrettT 63]

I use 512 for the cloud textures. 

[pegruder 65]

27 minutes ago, BrettT said:

I use 512 for the cloud textures. 

Dumb question - 32bit or DXT?  I never grasphed what the difference was for looks vs performance.

[BrettT 63]

I am not entirely certain.  Will have to double check

[andreh 125]

Don't know the specifics but DXT is more performance friendly. I've always used DXT and I don't see any difference. I use Rex softclouds and they're 512 only. 

Also be reasonable with visibility, cloud draw distance and no. Of cloud layers. 

Edited June 17, 2019 by andreh

[glider1 90]

3 hours ago, pegruder said:

Ill def play around tonight and report back on what does what.  Traffic funny enough enver seemed to impact me much, even in 2d.  For me I think its always weather.  LGA was overcast yesterday and I think that did me in.  Clear days performance is usually pretty good.  With that said - what texture resolution does everyone use on their clouds?  I think in ASCA i was using 2048 which its probably too high even for 2D.  I might drop back to 512.

256 DXT for clouds for me on 5.1GHz 7700k 208ti Rift CV1. Reason is clouds EAT performance they have a huge impact not necessarily on frames but on smoothness. Cloud draw distance and cloud AA have a big effect as well as the number of layers. 512 res is max for any VR setup in P3D. My settings that beat the cloud performance hog is 4MSAA 256DXT res and use AS16 to dynamically adjust cloud draw distance to minimise frame rate hit and often will reduce cloud layers down to 2. In IFR flying draw distance is often down to 60NM. Also cloud shadows can have huge frame rate hit in dawn and dusk when flying through cloud.

Edited June 17, 2019 by glider1

[BrettT 63]

Quote

1 hour ago, glider1 said:

use AS16 to dynamically adjust cloud draw distance to minimise frame rate hit and often will reduce cloud layers down to 2. In IFR flying draw distance is often down to 60NM. Also cloud shadows can have huge frame rate hit in dawn and dusk when flying through cloud.

 

Active Sky can dynamically adjust layers and distance?   I wasn't aware of that

[pegruder 65]

 

4 hours ago, glider1 said:

256 DXT for clouds for me on 5.1GHz 7700k 208ti Rift CV1. Reason is clouds EAT performance they have a huge impact not necessarily on frames but on smoothness. Cloud draw distance and cloud AA have a big effect as well as the number of layers. 512 res is max for any VR setup in P3D. My settings that beat the cloud performance hog is 4MSAA 256DXT res and use AS16 to dynamically adjust cloud draw distance to minimise frame rate hit and often will reduce cloud layers down to 2. In IFR flying draw distance is often down to 60NM. Also cloud shadows can have huge frame rate hit in dawn and dusk when flying through cloud.

Hows one set this up?  Is this the min/max cloud distance?

Im about to start my testing.  Dropped clouds to 512 DXT.