OpenXR Render Scaling w/ 4080?

[ryanbatc 13,038]

I'm posting results here so they won't get lost in the main MSFS forum.  (G2 user).

I recently was shown a video link that has a guy increasing his render scale (for fun) to 200%.  He has a 4090 but I "only" have a 4080.  He was trying to simulate the Varjo Aero headset I guess.  I tried this just now and my results are as follows:

200% render with DLSS is somewhat doable in rural areas. TAA is NOT viable.   (my test is FT KBOS with fsltl traffic and multiple cloud layers).

With TAA fps are awful - barely 10 in my "crush my system" scenario.  With DLSS "quality" the clarity is actually quite good.  A lot better than at 100% render.  I did not know it was possible to change the render scale and that it would have such a dramatic effect.  Even at TAA the clarity (in the sweet spot only) is probably as good as my 1440p monitor maybe a touch less.  With DLSS 200% I feel the sweet spot clarity is about 1080p monitor - so really nice.  In Boston area (except this time NO AI traffic) I was getting about 18-22 fps.  I think I could swing 200% in a rural area.  When exiting the sim it CTD though hehe.  I'm going to attempt 150% with DLSS Quality.

EDIT:  150% and DLSS quality is slightly better than 100%.  It appears to be a good balance in fps.  I got about 30 taking off from boston instead of 22-24 at 200%.  I think if I fly rural I'd go to 200%.  But any city flying would be just 100-150% because I know I can run all the addons at my "worst case" airport hehe.

I'm curious if any of you 4090 owners have tried this?  It's essentially just cranking up the render scale in OpenXR for WMR to 200% instead of 100%.  The sweet spot is so much larger in the Aero or so I've heard but this tweak, at a large cost of fps, is kinda worth it imo.  My biggest issue with my HP Reverb so far is clarity.  It feels like I'm simming in 720i if using DLSS and maaaybe 1080i if using TAA (100% render).

Oh here's the link to the video for reference:  

 

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

As I posted in another thread, I'm getting very good results with my new 4080 at OXR 180, DLSS quality and mostly high VR graphics settings, pulling 30-35 FPS at busy large airports in complex aircraft, averaging 40 FPS in most places and punching into the high 40s FPS at altitude. Clarity with glass panels at such a high starting OXR level is now really good and the overall AA effect looks better than what I had at 100% OXR with TAA.

I'm also using OXRTK version 1.2.3 with 50% CAS sharpening, FFR 70% 1/4 and 100% 1/16 (can't see any artifacts in headset at this setting), anti-shake 40% and turbo mode engaged, all of which give me another 10-20% boost over not using OXRTK.

Edit: To add to this, the beauty of such a high starting OXR is that you don't have to go out of VR to improve performance, simply lower the DLSS quality setting down from Quality to Balanced or even Performance if you have to, then put it back up when you have sufficient performance headroom.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Reset XPDR

[ryanbatc 13,038]

Thanks for sharing.  I haven't set any other settings so I'll look into those.

[FakeWayne 84]

Maybe a bit off topic…but…

I find the Boston area to be the absolute worst performing metro area in the US.  I don’t know what it is, but my performance at and around KBOS, KBED, KOWD, etc… is just worse than pretty much everywhere. I get noticeably better performance in NYC and LA.

For reference I’m running a G2 with a 3080.  I’ve got my openXR at 100%.  I’m overring my resolution via the openXR toolkit to 3800 or so, per eye. No FSR/NIS. CAS is at 100.  DLSS performance.  

In the Boston area I get right around 35 fps.  Most other large metro areas I’m typically in the 40’s.

[ryanbatc 13,038]

I've got FlyTampa Boston so I always depart toward the city with Scattered Clouds and FSLTL traffic running as a stress test worst scenario hehe.  I also have some addon scenery for that area that fixes the waterways and shorelines so that could be a factor too.  Photogrammetry is also enabled.

[ryanbatc 13,038]

20 hours ago, Reset XPDR said:

As I posted in another thread, I'm getting very good results with my new 4080 at OXR 180, DLSS quality and mostly high VR graphics settings, pulling 30-35 FPS at busy large airports in complex aircraft, averaging 40 FPS in most places and punching into the high 40s FPS at altitude.

Forgot to ask if you're running any AI traffic with these numbers?  I think your CPU is slightly stronger than mine.

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

3 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Forgot to ask if you're running any AI traffic with these numbers? 

If there are a lot of MP aircraft in the area (like 15+ at the same airport) I don't run AI traffic, otherwise I turn FSLTL on when clear of such MP traffic density and with that I have middling settings like 30 IFR max, 10 VFR max, 3/10 additional parked aircraft, max radius 50kms and no blank or generic aircraft. I also keep my TLOD at default high 100 whereas I read of lot of people that like to push that up, which really stresses your CPU and in turn your GPU.

[Gerwil 179]

Oh wow, with these resolutions you guys are utilising you don't need AA at all 😁

My resolution is at 3100x3029 in G2/DX12 and I have AA off. There is some shimmering but not annoying. Everything is SUPER crisp and no stutters.

I have set the resolution in OXRTK (system tab/override resolution). This way there is no need to set render resolution in MSFS or OXR. Using NIS or FSR at 96% may help to get rid of remaining shimmers. Model edge jaggyness remains but at those res. not a big deal.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Gerwil

[ryanbatc 13,038]

13 hours ago, Reset XPDR said:

If there are a lot of MP aircraft in the area (like 15+ at the same airport) I don't run AI traffic, otherwise I turn FSLTL on when clear of such MP traffic density and with that I have middling settings like 30 IFR max, 10 VFR max, 3/10 additional parked aircraft, max radius 50kms and no blank or generic aircraft. I also keep my TLOD at default high 100 whereas I read of lot of people that like to push that up, which really stresses your CPU and in turn your GPU.

I'm about the same with FSLTL settings.  I did try your exact OXR settings and I get a lot of waves or whatever you call them when I move my head around.

I'll have to mess around more I guess.  The FFR didn't really seem to change much compared to disabling it.  I did see the rings change when I enabled it though.

[ryanbatc 13,038]

Ok so the waves were because I was in TAA - waves must be my video card choking or something haha?  And then when I tried switching to dlss the sim CTD.  So I started in 2D, changed the profile to VR and then set dlss..... then entered VR and now the settings are okay.

Although I cannot increase anti shake - I can decrease it but not increase it

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

2 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Although I cannot increase anti shake - I can decrease it but not increase it

Anti shake's range is either zero or negative. So when I said 40% I actually meant -40%. CTRL F1 and CTRL F3 works to change the setting but IIRC it is opposite to the other settings as it is negative.

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

2 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Ok so the waves were because I was in TAA - waves must be my video card choking or something haha?

Waves at the side of the headset when you move your head are normally because FPS is low and TAA @ 180 OXR will probably do that.

Wobbling waves across moving parts of the image, especially propellers, are most often Motion Reprojection artifacts. While tuning your system, I suggest you turn MR off and, once tweaked, only turn MR on if you prefer smoothness over wobbliness (which I don't).

[TheFamilyMan 281]

A bit late to this party, but here's the low-down on the downscaling that DLSS performs when doing its thing:

DLSS Setting	Input Resolution	Scale Factor	VR SS
OFF	1.00	1.00x	1.00
QUALITY	0.66	1.50x	1.22 (√1.50)
BALANCED	0.58	1.72x	1.31 (√1.72)
PERFORMANCE	0.50	2.00x	1.41 (√2.00)
ULTRA PERFORMANCE	0.33	3.00x	1.73 (√3.00)

So this means that DLSS Quality downscales the 'input resolution' to 66% of the original resolution.  MSFS renders the frame (i.e. scene) at that downscaled resolution and then the gcard's tensor cores upscales that rendered frame by 150% while performing its 'intelligent' sharpening.  Obviously it's the MSFS downscaled rendering which yields the FPS increase.

Using the OpenXR layer (OpenXR Tools for WMR) to the increase, i.e. upscale, the fed in 'input resolution' and then to hopefully super-sample the downscale of the DLSS processed frame that's fed to the G2 is cool way to use DLSS.  It'd be great to know what sort of SSAA (if any) the OXR layer is performing when doing that downscaling.  What's also interesting is the DLSS option of DLAA, which runs the tensor core DLSS sharpening without any frame scaling being applied.  Dang, there are just too many permutations of down/up scaling 'shell games' to be tried.  It'd be interesting to see a comprehensive white paper of which are best and which are placebo.

Edited January 2, 2023 by TheFamilyMan

[AJZip 252]

Interesting discussion!

As you probably know, I've gone the other way - I've upgraded my CPU & Motherboard recently but am having to leave the upgrade from my o/c 3080Ti to a 4080 until (probably much) later in the year.

When I get some decent free time, I'll see what happens if I replicate your other settings, @ryanbatc, and then start notching up the render settings progressively from 100%.  Clearly, GPU and CPU impact is interactive and interdependent so it might be interesting to see what 5.5Ghz manages with a slower GPU.