Hi

I fear that this is one of those, "Didn't you know THAT, AJZip???  We thought everybody knew THAT!!"  😉

Background - After upgrading my CPU (to a 5800X) and GPU (to a 3080Ti) I've progressively updated most of my drivers/software and have spent quite a long time tweaking&testing&tweaking the myriad of settings to see just how good I can get MSFS to run on my Gen 1 Reverb and I've been pleased with the results.  Much better LOD and reduced - but not eliminated - micro-stutter at significantly higher VR settings than I was achieving before

And I've followed the sound advice to go by what you see and not chase down the FPS rabbit holes.

That said, one of my experiments was to compare WMR OpenXR Runtime with SteamVR OpenXR Runtime (WMR is better for MSFS on my rig, by the way - tangibly clearer txt inside the VR cockpits).  Now a side benefit is that SteamVR gives me FPSVR (a useful FPS/Temperatures/Loadings facility that shows in the VR cockpit, which allowed me to see just how low the FPS actually is).  And out of curiosity, I turned on the MSFS Developer mode for the first time to see if that said the same thing.

Anyway, it shows exactly the same - FPS running at 12-20, lots of ms graphs in the red.

And a bit more information - "Limited by Rdr Thread".  And sure enough, the main GPU thread was running OK but the Rdr Thread graph was heavily in the red.

Bit of googling, I gather now that the Rdr Thread refers to the Render Threads in the GPU.

A bit more googling revealed that "Limited by Rdr Thread" was a common issue.  And, like all things like this, a zillion opinions of what it is and how it might be solved.  And one said, 'I turned FXAA off in the nVidia settings and it sorted it'.

So I also did that.

And it also did that. 

Everything went green in the FPS readings and the FPS leapt to 30-35FPS.

And - but admittedly I've only tried it on one aircraft so far (the fabulous P-38 Lightning from FlyingIron Simulations) - the micro-stutters seem to have gone away too 🙂

 

Anyone (or ref my opener, maybe everyone) found the same?  

Edited October 4, 20214 yr by AJZip

Yes - I've now replicated a number of flights that I have done many times before.  And yes - micro stutters both of the outside view and when looking round the cockpit have gone.  Major actual improvement rather than just a FPS-numbers gain.

Let's hope the next upgrade doesn't undo it all again! 😄

Clearly, it was just me not in the know, then 😄

Each time I have lowered AA method, the visual quality has had a corresponding drop. Also, I've never been limited by Radar Thread, hence wonder the applicability to me.

You haven't mentioned visual quality change after making this change, so I'm interested in your opinion of it.

I just had a look at my Nvidia settings, which are default, and FXAA is set to off globally anyay and FS2020 uses the global setting.

7 hours ago, Reset XPDR said:

I just had a look at my Nvidia settings, which are default, and FXAA is set to off globally anyay and FS2020 uses the global setting.

Yes - that's true, which is probably why fewer folk have come across this impact.  I need to check my notes, but I think I set it on ages ago before VR was available on msfs as it did give a tangible benefit in X plane where AA shimmer is a bit of a beast needing every trick in the book to tame!

It is a lesson learnt to check if I have any other nVidia settings set as global rather than game specific.

9 hours ago, Reset XPDR said:

Each time I have lowered AA method, the visual quality has had a corresponding drop. Also, I've never been limited by Radar Thread, hence wonder the applicability to me.

You haven't mentioned visual quality change after making this change, so I'm interested in your opinion of it.

Good point.   Visually, switching the FXAA off didn't make any difference.  And visually, I have to say I'm seeing the best VR view yet. 

It was just that tiny micro judder with the outside view and the larger micro judder when looking round the cockpit.  Turning the FXAA off gave me immediate judder free smoothness.  And the effect matched with a massive jump in fps.

Thanks for the response 🙂