VR Benchmarks for nVidia Drivers

[MarcG 2,906]

Final Benchmarks, I've wasted too much time on this 😋, some points of interest:

1. The main "issue" from all these Benchmarks is that I've seen a clear need for much improved Optimisation with MSF using SteamVR, on the Charts below you can see I did two 461.33 SteamVR (that is OpenXR using SteamVR) Benchmarks with very different results, this is something I've noticed throughout. Yet look at the two 461.33 WMR (OpenXR using WMR) Benchmarks, they're roughly the same. This suggests there's still plenty of work to do from Asobo on the SteamVR side of VR Rendering, the rushed release of the VR Update clearly shows - to me - that there's work to be done in this area (remember originally it was only going to be WMR Users with the first VR Update then all others later on, instead both were released at the same time before Xmas).
2. You can see this for yourself in MSF, fly two identical Flights (use the Toolbar AP and rest your HMD on a steady surface and watch the Mirror on the Monitor), you'll see slight pauses/stutters in different places in each flight. Yet with just WMR it's pretty much all smooth every run.
3. These Benchmarks were done with a fresh Reboot after Driver change and conducted on the First run of MSF, with a Different Plane & Settings to the benchmarks previously posted (so don't compare with those) . Whenever I Restarted a Flight the performance was wildly different, very much like the Live Weather only working on First Flight, it seems VR is the same for smoothness, so if you're using SteamVR I'd recommend a complete Reboot and/or restart of MSF every time you fly...annoying yes but again points to the need for further Optimisation & Performance improvements (incidentally I used Clear Skies @ 9:30am so Live Weather did not play a part in these tests).
4. Switching In and Out of VR Mode also has detrimental affects when using SteamVR, firstly when you enter VR you need to leave it for a few seconds to let the Sim "settle down". This was shown in CapFrameX by the FPS bouncing all over the place at the start until it normalised, going back to Monitor and my system bogs down so much I have to close all VR programs in the background. Here comes another point, when I restarted them they wouldn't work correctly and FPS was in single figures, other times they restarted just fine, fingers pointing at SteamVR in this instance.
5. There's no doubt in my mind that nVidia Drivers have gone backwards prior to the 460s, having said that MSF is the *only* VR Sim that appears to be struggling on my system with different drivers, my VR Racing Sims and other general Games have all been perfectly fine with the latest drivers in recent months - again (!) this points to the need for Optimisation in this Sim.
6. Even though 451.14 SteamVR "Won" with the best results, the aforementioned sporadic behaviour means I'll be staying with WMR (OpenXR) and latest 461.33 until a Patch comes out with direct Change Log information on VR Optimisation for SteamVR and/or VR/the Sim in general. (If you're wondering I use OVR Toolkit and FPSVR a lot hence my want to use SteamVR, but I can live without those for now).
7. As ever these tests were completed on my System, your results & findings will vary so you need to find what works best for You on Your PC, do not take my Benchmarks as Gospel.
8. Finally, should Asobo surprise us with some Optimisation with next weeks Patch I'll try and find time to revisit and produce new Benchmarks, if they don't I wont bother as it does take a fair chunk of time! (feel free to ask questions though, I'm always lurking)

 

Before I go these are the Steps I take in creating as 100% Identical benchmarks as possible in VR (it's always difficult so there is a small 1%-3% margin for error I think).

1. Download CapFrameX, shouldn't take long to figure out how it works if you know your way around these things. I set 120seconds for the Benchmark to make sure they're all as similar as possible in the Results, you can chose how long you want though anything over 30seconds should do.
2. Install the Driver of your Choosing or don't if already using it.
3. Reboot your PC - Very important
4. Set your HMD down on a Steady Surface - DO NOT put it on your head during the Benchmark as any movement skews results drastically by looking around at stuff, you can use the VR Mirror on the Desktop just fine without moving the HMD at all.
5. Start up CapFrameX and MSF
6. I tend to start WMR at this point as well as sometimes I get the "your HMD is not running in 90hz mode" error (when that happens I need to Reboot all over again!)
7. At the World Map go to the Weather, set to Clear Skies and pick any time of Day & Date - Important: make sure you select the Same for all tests upon starting MSF)
8. I've used Various Planes so pick whichever works for you
9. Set Departure from London City, by default it Picks Runway 27 (I think) which points towards the City
10. Set Arrival to Heathrow and I think it defaults to 27R, either way make sure both Depart/Arrival Runways are the same every time like the Weather & Time
11. When it's loaded click the Fly button so you're on the runway.
12. Let the Sim "settle" for a few seconds, as above this is the same for standard Monitor use as well as VR for some reason.
13. Enter VR mode and let it settle again.
14. Here comes the Margin for Error part, Open the Toolbar (in VR I have this bound to a button), Select the AP and the Pop-Up Box appears. Hover your mouse over the Engage Button (bottom one forget the name) and your finger over the (default) F11 Key for CapFrameX to start - then Left Click followed immediately  by Finger Press and you're good to go!

[Republic3D 1,229]

Thanks for taking the time to do all those benchmarks!

A somewhat noobish question (I just got Rift S), I've done the registry change fix.. and I'm using Oculus software when running Flight Simulator, is that OpenXR?

[MarcG 2,906]

hmm latest drivers still no good, I’ll continue to stay with 457.30
Did 3 back-to-back benchmarks of each driver to avoid any unwarranted issues.

[Ixoye 1,812]

Thanks, I will stay with 457.30, why change something that works great.

[Ixoye 1,812]

Now after reading the whole thread, everything indicates that 451.48 is the best driver for MSFS if you do not have any problems with it in other applications, correct?

I have a 2080Ti

Edited January 27, 2021 by Ixoye

[dogmanbird 269]

Like Marc's tests, what I read on the other forums is similar in that the 20X0 series cards still benefit from the older drivers.

3080 - I don't see any differences in any driver for WMROpenXR. However, SteamOpenXR starts to improve in 461.33 and 461.40 with most games except for MSFS (unfortunately)

[MarcG 2,906]

[reheat 1]

4 hours ago, MarcG said:

That's unfortunate. Thanks.

[RXP 2,336]

1 hour ago, reheat said:

That's unfortunate. Thanks.

Or pathetic, depending how you view it 😂

[MarcG 2,906]

I tell you what is pathetic; I posted these findings over on the Official nVidia Forum, all very polite and merely linking to this thread and Official Forum threads only to have my posts immediately removed with no explanation...!

[dogmanbird 269]

461.72 with 3080 has just the same performance as prior drivers in OpenXR that I can see so far. I Haven't tried Steam OpenXR yet

[blueshark747 1,843]

22 hours ago, MarcG said:

I tell you what is pathetic; I posted these findings over on the Official nVidia Forum, all very polite and merely linking to this thread and Official Forum threads only to have my posts immediately removed with no explanation...!

Whoever's in charge of the Nvidia forum design needs to be fired immediately, how in the heck do people navigate that mess of an eye sore?

The original design was much easier to read and navigate.

Almost as if they want to make it as difficult as possible to use the forums.🤣

[Manuel_NVIDIA 8]

Hello everyone,

My name is Manuel and I work for NVIDIA. Someone submitted a feedback concerning this issue and we have been trying to reproduce the performance differences between R460 drivers and earlier branches in MSFS 2020 w/ VR using their GeForce graphics card.  This is a very specific bug for this game and not the other VR bug we have mentioned in the release notes of our drivers.  We would like to ask for help from the community.  If you are still seeing worse frametimes/FPS in MSFS 2020 w/ VR with the latest drivers compared to the previous driver branch, we ask if you would be willing to capture two ETW traces as described in the FAQ below:

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5167/

One trace should be using the latest driver 461.92 released today.  The other trace should be of the previous driver branch which shows much better FPS/frametimes in VR for this game.  As described in the FAQ, please send the trace logs to driverfeedback@nvidia.com along with the Microsoft System Information File as described in the FAQ below:

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2507/

Regards,
Manuel

www.twitter.com/ManuelGuzman

[MrFuzzy 2,117]

I tested the new drivers yesterday on the occasion of a general update of Windows 10 (I joined the Insider program - beta channel).

Before I used to stick to drivers 457.30 with Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) OFF and VR pre-rendered frames to 2 - because anything different gave worse performance (15-20% lower framerate (different drivers) and stuttering (this was caused particularly by HAGS)).

I have to say that, at least with my config, the following setup gives better performance and smoothness than the previous one. The framerates are good and consistent: 35-40 fps in VR with 70% Open XR render scale (Reverb G2), 100% resolution scale in sim, high graphics settings, very good responsiveness of the headset, no stuttering, mainly GPU limited with GPU usage pegged at 100% and the GPU fans spinning faster than before. Airliners on big photogrammetry cities (i.e. NY JFK landing challenge with the 747) give the occasional dips under 30 fps but without dramatic stuttering and anyway with the previous drivers it was not better. 

Also SteamVR games perform better (I tried Assetto Corsa Competizione 2 and Project Cars 2), very smooth and without stuttering, whereas before it was impossible to avoid stuttering with HAGS ON and any driver version different than 457.30.

I can say that this is the best VR experience I had since I bought the G2 and if you have recent hardware (I tested this only on my PC), I suggest you to update all your softwares and reset everything to default settings. If you have time and don't remember all the settings you changed trying to tweak and improve performance (many times following youtubers' advice based on placebos...) I recommend you a clean reinstall of everything!

So my setup now is basically everything up to date to the latest (even beta) software available:

- Windows 10 build 19043.899 (Version 21H1 with Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3030.0)

- Reverb G2 headset firmware 1.9.36 (you can get this firmware only with Windows 21H1 so you have to join the Insider program)

- nVidia drivers 461.92 without GeForce experience

- NVCP with default settings (so the VR pre-rendered frames is back to 1*)

- HAGS ON*

- Open XR runtime version 105.2102.11004 with 70% render scale, use latest preview runtime ON, motion reprojection OFF**

*As for HAGS and VR pre-rendered frames, which were critical parameters before, now they seem not to affect the performance at all, so I left HAGS ON and VR pre-rendered frames to 1 in order to reduce headset latency.

**As for motion reprojection, despite in the conditions it was tested the framerate was constantly closer to 40 than to 30 fps, I did not manage to make it work decently. Periodical and reproducible stuttering with "main thread" spikes every second (like a swiss watch) in case HAGS is ON. With HAGS OFF slightly better, with HAGS OFF and VR pre-rendered frames to 2 better but so many artifacts and a sense of smoothness perceived as "fake".

I don't know if it's nVidia or HP or WMR Open XR or MSFS fault, but the implementation of reprojection on my system leaves much to be desired and at least for now I prefer to leave it OFF.

OK, enough with tweaking and testing. This is my experience and now it's time to fly. Because at one point, you HAVE TO STOP tweaking and fiddling and cursing, say "enough!" and start enjoying the game 🙂

Happy landings!

Edited March 17, 2021 by MrFuzzy

[RXP 2,336]

@Manuel_NVIDIA Thank you for coming forward and directly letting us know about what you're doing to help, it is much appreciated!

I'd like to make a suggestion: I've published 3 guides meant to help other simmers getting the most of their NVidia hardware with FS2020. I'm explaining the rationale behind the choice of some of the NVidia settings, along with some graphics related Win10 settings, and their outcome in the game, as I've been able to determining their pros and cons with an empirical testing of every single combination of these settings.

I'm not sure though whether these recommendations are best because they seemed to be the best for FS2020 in particular, or whether because they are unexpectedly best for FS2020, there is a problem with the drivers not delivering what would have been expected otherwise.

These guides popularity leads me to believing they are really helping many people. Can you please consider reviewing these recommendations and eventually offer some corrections and/or guidelines about the specific NVidia/Win10 settings commented on in these guides?

Here are the links to the guides:

My 2070 SUPER 4K settings and suggestions - episode 2 - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
My 2070 SUPER VR settings and suggestion (Reverb G2 - WMR) - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
My 2070 SUPER VR settings and suggestions (Index - SteamVR) - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

Thank you for your consideration.

Edited March 17, 2021 by RXP