Speculation about MSFS VR Performance

[Kopteeni 819]

Hello everyone, hope you're well.

With the upcoming MSFS VR implementation I've been trying to figure out what kind of graphical fidelity is realistic to expect from MSFS in VR. Unfortunately, so far none of the press preview owners have released content that would test how low they have to drop their graphics settings to get MSFS to push 90 fps in 4k which is a benchmark I believe is required for a fluid VR.

There seems to be a massive amount of graphics settings in MSFS, some of which can be turned off or set to low that have not much benefit in VR. These include things like Object detail and object draw distance. However, it's impossible to know at this point how much performance can be gained from those settings alone. Of course, there's also hope that Asobo develops optimisations directly targeted for VR.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Kopteeni
typos

[Spit40 197]

3080ti, or possibly 2180ti

I'm assuming I'll need that for my Reverb G2 and am pleased that Nvidia are almost certainly announcing it on August 31st. I wouldn't be surprised if Asobo are already testing MSFS using this latest card and the delayed VR launch is related to the release of it, so that they can benefit from some good results by youtubers who can get their hands on one.

[nickhod 425]

90fps is desirable but not necessarily a minimum. X-Plane at 45fps on the Reverb is a good experience (with motion reprojection doing its job).
It's also not really 4k. It's about 2k x 2k (given super-sampling or high res headsets) and various GPU wizardry is rendering the 'other' eye efficiently. 

Asobo has said that we should expect the equivalent of 'medium' graphics settings for VR. I'm hopeful that high end systems might reach 'high' graphic settings in VR at 45 fps.

Even medium looks great in MSFS though, compared to what we have in X-Plane or any other VR sim currently.

 

[Kopteeni 819]

3 hours ago, Spit40 said:

3080ti, or possibly 2180ti

I'm assuming I'll need that for my Reverb G2 and am pleased that Nvidia are almost certainly announcing it on August 31st. I wouldn't be surprised if Asobo are already testing MSFS using this latest card and the delayed VR launch is related to the release of it, so that they can benefit from some good results by youtubers who can get their hands on one.

The good news about Reverb G2 is that its improvements in the screen, audio etc. compared to G1 shouldn't cause any extra stress on the system. The resolution is the same after all. I'm also keeping a close eye on the next gen GPU's. They should bring lots of extra performance in VR.

 

19 minutes ago, nickhod said:

90fps is desirable but not necessarily a minimum. X-Plane at 45fps on the Reverb is a good experience (with motion reprojection doing its job).
It's also not really 4k. It's about 2k x 2k (given super-sampling or high res headsets) and various GPU wizardry is rendering the 'other' eye efficiently. 

Asobo has said that we should expect the equivalent of 'medium' graphics settings for VR. I'm hopeful that high end systems might reach 'high' graphic settings in VR at 45 fps.

Even medium looks great in MSFS though, compared to what we have in X-Plane or any other VR sim currently.

 

I thought running Reverb with native res is equivalent to 4k. This is a good news if I'm wrong here.

I would be more than happy if we can run medium graphics settings in MSFS VR. It looks ok in 2d and in VR I think it'd be an absolute delight. Don't know how visible the autogen popping would be but I'd imagine it's not as distracting as in 2d since scenery tends to blur a bit in the distance. 

If Asobo can do this right (and that's what they stated is their goal) MSFS VR will be another AAA VR experience after Half-Life: Alyx. It would probably pull a lot of VR players in even if flight sims are not their thing.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Kopteeni

[chass32 138]

We should have DLSS 2.0 rather than relying in a "kidney" worthy graphics card like a 3080ti. That should mean a decent improvement in fps even for VR for current high end cards.

Cheers

Carlos

[Spit40 197]

This is one of the great things about Microsoft getting back into the game. They have the clout & $$$ to invest in DLSS and all the other AI optimisation goodies that are possible for AAA titles.

[Kopteeni 819]

36 minutes ago, Spit40 said:

This is one of the great things about Microsoft getting back into the game. They have the clout & $$$ to invest in DLSS and all the other AI optimisation goodies that are possible for AAA titles.

Yes absolutely. But we need that DX12 for that. Maybe not too optimistic to say it's gonna happen next year 🤐

[chass32 138]

16 minutes ago, Kopteeni said:

Yes absolutely. But we need that DX12 for that. Maybe not too optimistic to say it's gonna happen next year 🤐

In the "oficial" forum I was told that DX12 is not really needed for DLSS 2.0. Is that true?

Cheers

Carlos

[Flying Fisherman 41]

1 hour ago, chass32 said:

We should have DLSS 2.0 rather than relying in a "kidney" worthy graphics card like a 3080ti. That should mean a decent improvement in fps even for VR for current high end cards.

Cheers

Carlos

Very interesting Carlos and thanks for that info. Well-implemented DLSS would be very beneficial particularly to flight sims where decent frame rates in high-resolution modes whether they be 4K monitors or high-res VR are difficult to achieve. Hope Asobo and developers of the other flight sims are working on this!

[Kopteeni 819]

10 minutes ago, chass32 said:

In the "oficial" forum I was told that DX12 is not really needed for DLSS 2.0. Is that true?

Cheers

Carlos

I'm not sure where that's coming from. As far as I know DLSS is strictly a DX12 Ultimate feature. I could not find any DX11 titles that have DLSS support.

[nickhod 425]

1 hour ago, Kopteeni said:

I thought running Reverb with native res is equivalent to 4k. This is a good news if I'm wrong here.

Each eye is 2160 on a Reverb, but with modern VR, both eyes are rendered in a single pass.

There's maybe some similarity in the GPU work required to render 2D 4k vs two VR 2k images in a single pass, but they're not necessarily the same.

[chass32 138]

1 hour ago, Kopteeni said:

I'm not sure where that's coming from. As far as I know DLSS is strictly a DX12 Ultimate feature. I could not find any DX11 titles that have DLSS support.

I think you`re right. Sometimes you get so much misinformation, you have to be filtering constantly.

Cheers

Carlods

[dilore 126]

I hardly know what all this stuff really means, but why is there so much focus on DLSS here? I would think VRS and Mesh Shader culling (both features of DX12 ultimate) would be equally or more important for improving the performance in MSFS.

[Kopteeni 819]

20 minutes ago, dilore said:

I hardly know what all this stuff really means, but why is there so much focus on DLSS here? I would think VRS and Mesh Shader culling (both features of DX12 ultimate) would be equally or more important for improving the performance in MSFS.

I was going to mention VRS but I have no first hand experience. I know some popular VR titles support it such as Boneworks but I just found a lot of posts where people weren't getting much out of it. Curious to hear if you've found it useful.

As for mesh shadet culling I have to admit I haven't heard about it. Will do some research tomorrow.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Kopteeni

[dilore 126]

8 hours ago, Kopteeni said:

I was going to mention VRS but I have no first hand experience...Curious to hear if you've found it useful.

As for mesh shadet culling I have to admit I haven't heard about it. 

As I said, I hardly know what these APIs mean, I am not a professional game developer and got my info from YT clips like these: