2 hours ago, AJZip said:

how to turn on that pesky VR panel!

AMEN TO THAT!!!

And so, finally, a complete back-to-back flight of MSFS2024 and MSFS2020

- Same Simbrief Flightplan 

- Same time of day (8:30 - 10:00 am)

- Same AutoFPS settings used in both

- Same BeyondATC used in both

- Same Crystal Light/Pimax Play settings in both

- Both preset Clear Skies

 

And, once again, the results surprised me.

Starting with the flightsim experience...

Smoothness

MSFS2024 smoother, except for a tight taxi turn on landing where the outside view suffered some micro judders.  MSFS2020 was consistent, but actually throughout the flight, the side external view, from the cockpit, had a small but perceptible micro judder.  MSFS2024 didn't

Cockpit Clarity

Both very good (the Crystal Light excels here) with text, button lights, gauges and glass screens all clear and readable.  Colour contrast and sharpness was better in MSFS2020 but they were both good.  The brightness of the paintwork, etc, however, made MSFS2024 feel like a sim.  In MSFS2020, you felt like you were in a A320 cockpit

External Scenery - from outside

Both were very similar in detail and sharpness at the designated 9000' and 3000' flight levels (the flight was a relatively short UK cross-country).  The exaggerated mist was similar in both.

External Scenery - from the cockpit

Detail-wise, both very similar.  However, this is where the milky wash of the external views from the cockpit in MSFS2024 really shows - MSFS2020 won by a country mile.  I have experimented, by the way, with adjusting colour and brightness in the MSFS2024 settings - it makes a difference when you are outside the aircraft but from in the cockpit looking out, it makes little difference.

 

But, overall, both were very enjoyable flights - I preferred the smoothness of MSFS2024 at these settings but I preferred the visuals of MSFS2020

 

And here's the shocker - remember, 2024 was visually smoother...

...because AutoFPS of course, gives you the fps, TLOD and OLOD dynamic values

MSFS2024  FPS varied from 16 (yes, 16 and no stutters!) to 23.  Most of the flight was running at 22 - 23 with TLOD running most of the time at 100 and OLOD varying from 30 to 100

MSFS2020   FPS varied from 32 to 35.  TLOD at 100 pretty much throughout OLOD 100 - 165

 

So MSFS2024 running at 16-23fps through the Crystal Light was smoother than MSFS2020 running at 32 - 35fps.

Wasn't expecting THAT! 

  

 

 

19 hours ago, AJZip said:

Clearly, the question about how to turn on or off the VR FPS pop up in the Crystal Light also has the Pimax technical team stumped...no answer yet 

You might try this.... https://store.steampowered.com/app/908520/fpsVR/

6 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

You might try this.... https://store.steampowered.com/app/908520/fpsVR/

If I understand correctly, it requires SteamVR, which means I'll have to run PCL through SteamVR -> OpenXR for VR in 2020/2024. Right now I run PCL directly through OpenXR, hesitating to add SteamVR in between.

 

6 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

You might try this.... https://store.steampowered.com/app/908520/fpsVR/

Yes, that's a good product when you are using Steam @HiFlyer.  I used to use fpsVR in X-plane 11 and it worked very well. 

But I agree with @FlyIce - while SteamVR works with the Crystal Light, it probably carries a bit more software baggage with it than the Pimax OpenXR...and it's one less program interfacing with an already stretched sim. 

As I would normally use AutoFPS to actually take some burden off the sim, it is no problem for me to lift my headset at the various stages of flight to see what impact my various settings are having.  It is just intriguing that the Pimax fps panel sometimes pops up 'by accident' in the Crystal Light VR view...and, so far, Pimax Support seem also not to know where from or what you do to see it and what you do to switch it off.  I've had an initial (and pleasingly quick) response but no answer yet.

Someone must know, surely?  Anyone here know? 

Edited January 14, 20251 yr by AJZip

On 1/11/2025 at 3:31 PM, AJZip said:

I really do think I'm getting somewhere.

That was your first mistake. Its like going up to a bloke and asking him to kick you in the teeth. 😁

But some good has come out of it. You've successfully put me off getting a VR headset. 😉

1 hour ago, Ron Attwood said:

That was your first mistake. Its like going up to a bloke and asking him to kick you in the teeth. 😁

But some good has come out of it. You've successfully put me off getting a VR headset. 😉

 

That made me laugh out loud 😄

17 hours ago, Ron Attwood said:

That was your first mistake. Its like going up to a bloke and asking him to kick you in the teeth. 😁

But some good has come out of it. You've successfully put me off getting a VR headset. 😉

Curious if you have ever tried MSFS (either version) in VR.  I personally could never go back to flying in "pancake mode".  It is true getting VR to work well on any particular system can be a headache, but the end result truly is so worth the effort.

A useful week of experiments - but now back to flying a sim for the pure enjoyment of it - so I'm going to try to remember my original settings and get MSFS2020 back to it's full smoothness and start flying some of the splendid aircraft at my disposal!

But it has been worth the effort and I will be watching with interest any updates, etc in MSFS2024 over the coming months and will try it out from time to time to see if they improve the VR experience.

And so my overall conclusions?

Well, as one of my school reports said many decades ago, "Has potential - but must try much harder!"

Things that have pleasantly surprised me: it seems very resilient to low fps values; the cockpit views can almost match 2020; the external views from outside the cockpit do match 2020; that the performance is almost oblivious to where in the world you are (unlike 2020 where I would usually need to load the regional updates for the new region I want to fly).

Things in the 'must do better' camp (not a fully comprehensive list): some of the stock aircraft are a bit clunky, either in features or performance; the VR external view from inside the cockpit is an immersion killer; too few of the 'most 2020 marketplace aircraft will transfer across fine' actually do; the VR taskbar...really?? ; the morphing of the scenery...and the niggle of, with streaming, is this likely to be a permanent feature? 

Hope this has been of interest  🙂

 

 

Edited January 15, 20251 yr by AJZip

Just a short postscript for those who understand or are interested in such things.

As explained above, I needed to make a few adjustments to my previous MSFS2020 settings in one or two shared areas in order to get the best out of MSFS2024 and, when I went back to MSFS2020 there were a few judders in the external view that needed sorting out.  I have therefore made some tweaks back and then ran MSFS2020 again and, I'm pleased to say, all is back to normal and good.  Smooth and great to use. 

As part of this, I booted up the MSFS 'Developer' FPS etc panel, which we VR users know is a joke - the panel isn't scale-able or moveable (or not that I've been able to find) and is usually either just out of sight or takes up the complete Left or Right lens so close that you can't see the numbers! 😆  Anyone would think that MS don't want us to actually see what's going on under the hood...

Anyway, with the time-served trick of lifting the headset away from my face and peeping at the monitor through the gap, I was able to do an A/B of the critical stats...and it's interesting.  Standard Cessna 172; same time; same weather; same airport; same height; same headset (Pimax Crystal Light); same Pimax Play settings; Beyond ATC running

 

Measure                      MSFS2020                    MSFS2024

FPS                               45 - 53                           20 - 23

Limiting Factor             Evens GPU/CPU             GPU

GPU Memory               7.5 of 14GB avail            10.2 of 14GB avail

GPU Speed                   18-21ms                         35-37ms

RAM                             16 of 31GB avail            24 of 31GB avail

Peak RAM usage         19GB                              25GB

 

So, maybe an upgrade of RAM would be useful (I'll start saving up) - but it seems to be mainly the GPU (no chance in the foreseeable)

BeyondATC (with live traffic in MSFS2020) made NO tangible difference to the results when running or not running.  

 

Again, hope this is of interest to those who are interested...

                                 

So basically MSFS2024 VR halves fps comparing to MSFS2020, that kind of matches my impression that 2024 is at least 10fps less than 2020 VR which is around 35-40fps with similar settings.   

 

People are not factoring in the general FPS loss when using DX12 vs DX11, which up to now has been generally faster in VR.....

Also, using DLSS rather than TAA mode cuts the difference between the two sims by quite a lot.

Lots of variables!

1 hour ago, HiFlyer said:

People are not factoring in the general FPS loss when using DX12 vs DX11, which up to now has been generally faster in VR.....

Also, using DLSS rather than TAA mode cuts the difference between the two sims by quite a lot.

Lots of variables!

Yes - if I get time tomorrow, I'll do the same with both sims running DX12 and DLSS rather than the above test that was done with one in DX11 and one DX12 and both in TAA.

The problem is that no one seems to have found the magic settings to achieve TAA clarity of the VR instruments in DLSS.  I hope they do - there is a tendency for all enhancements to these sims to need a little bit more system oomph...and, as you can see, there's not much oomph left for me with MSFS2024...

Edited January 16, 20251 yr by AJZip

Strangely I really don't have any problems with instrument clarity at all in DLSS. There may be bit ghosting on changing numbers, but over all both steam gauges and PFDs look crystal clear under DLSS quality or balanced. 

I'm not sure whether I'm running DX11 or 12 in 2020, but I remember there was very little differences. If anything I kind of remember DX12 gave me slightly better performance in 2020 VR.

4 hours ago, AJZip said:

The problem is that no one seems to have found the magic settings to achieve TAA clarity of the VR instruments in DLSS.

You need to up the rendering resolution in DLSS to match TAA instrument image quality. You give up some FPS to run the higher resolution but not as much as TAA costs.