VR Performance tanking

CylonSurfer · Sep 12, 2016

Hi all,

So I have a quite high end system but performance in Elite is driving me nuts at the moment. I keep experiencing stutter no matter what settings I use. RES sites are pretty much unplayable as everytime I pitch I see microstutter or hitching, same at stations at points. It just seems like any fast manouver causes it. I've sat with the Oculus debug tool open and monitored my FPS, they report at 90FPS with small dips every now and again, but never below 80. I've monitored my CPU and GPU but neither show above 40 - 50%, RAM and VRAM still have room never maxing out... I wouldn't mind but I'm not even applying any SS at all. My ingame settings are for the most part set to high, with the usual things like blur, bloom and oclusion set to off.

My specs are, 1000W Corsair PSU, i7 6700K @ 4.6 GHz, 16GB of DDR4 RAM and an ASUS GTX 1080 STRIX.

Temps are all fine, GPU sitting at around 54 and CPU in the low to mid 30's (Water cooled).

What could be causing these dips in performance, is anyone else seeing them? Why should I get these dips when it appears my system still has room for more, surely my GPU or CPU should be maxing out before the game stutters...

dogbite · Sep 12, 2016

Sounds like a tracking issue. You could try changing usb ports and reboot. Is your power mgmt. turned off for usb? Are your usb drivers current? You could also try a recommended usb card. Just some thoughts.

[HJ]-RedRaven · Sep 13, 2016

CylonSurfer said:
Hi all,

So I have a quite high end system but performance in Elite is driving me nuts at the moment. I keep experiencing stutter no matter what settings I use. RES sites are pretty much unplayable as everytime I pitch I see microstutter or hitching, same at stations at points. It just seems like any fast manouver causes it. I've sat with the Oculus debug tool open and monitored my FPS, they report at 90FPS with small dips every now and again, but never below 80. I've monitored my CPU and GPU but neither show above 40 - 50%, RAM and VRAM still have room never maxing out... I wouldn't mind but I'm not even applying any SS at all. My ingame settings are for the most part set to high, with the usual things like blur, bloom and oclusion set to off.

What could be causing these dips in performance, is anyone else seeing them? Why should I get these dips when it appears my system still has room for more, surely my GPU or CPU should be maxing out before the game stutters...

Hmm. RES sites are some of the toughest areas of the game to render - there's a lot going on with ships, and the 'ambient' load is high being in an asteroid field.

- Do you see the same stutter if you shift your head left to right (not turning your head, but sliding/strafing left to right? (this is usually where I get most stutter).
- Does it stutter when a ship appears as you pitch towards it (ie just when you begin the see it, the frame rate goes down? (also, from clear space to lots of asteroids?)

- Is the compositor missing frames?
- Are one or two cpu cores maxing out? (overall cpu performance is not an ideal metric)
- Does it go away if you set everything to VR Low? (ie reducing geometric detail frees the cpu)

Any fast movement, whether its the ship or your head, will increase load on the cpu/3D card.
I'm just thinking of scenarios where the cache is 'missing' ie new assets appear on screen, or where the last image is unlike the previous one, so that there are assets/shaders/etc that the 3D card has to go fetch from memory or similar, slowing it down.

And VR is tough, even for 4GHz+ cpus and 1080-class 3D hardware.
Given the VR deadline-based timing the Oculus SDK sets, I'm not sure I entirely trust Task manager to show the actual CPU load. Nevertheless, try opening Task Manager, then using the Performance Monitor to get some more info on individual threads etc... something might be maxing out, or another entirely non-ED-related thread interrupting play... have a look.

CylonSurfer · Sep 13, 2016

Thanks for the reply.

Head tracking is fine, both in Elite and all other Rift games. Moving in all directions is smooth with no micro stutter or the shimmer that you get with low FPS. This is one thing I tested for everywhere.

The issues is noticeable when controlling the ships, i.e. rotating it quickly of pitching quickly for the most part.

I'll monitor core usage later and see what I come back with.

There are a number of people on here suggesting they run SS at 1.5 and get "silky smooth" performance at all times on a GTX1080. Are you suggesting that this is not true?

[HJ]-RedRaven · Sep 13, 2016

CylonSurfer said:
Thanks for the reply.
There are a number of people on here suggesting they run SS at 1.5 and get "silky smooth" performance at all times on a GTX1080. Are you suggesting that this is not true?

Some thoughts;

Pitching in ED brings the most new pixels into view per frame - and this includes rolling and then looking out of the cockpit to the left or right. On the faster-pitching ships you'll see a LOT of stutter.
I'm putting that down to simple cache misses in the 3D card as a lot of the scene is changing - and the 3D card is (trying to) render two different scenes for each of the 90 frames, so that will also reduce efficiency. Cache misses increases render time, and render time up means more frame drops as the timers run out and ATW kicks in. You're always seeing 90fps, just not 90-new-frames-per-second.

That also accounts for (possibly) why almost all the ships have reduced side visibility out of the cockpit (I haven't tried the Courier yet where visibility is excellent all-round). Maintain performance in the most demanding scenario.

Having a 1080 myself I don't think 'plug 1080 card in and win' is possible. There's too much reliance on subjective interpretation and too many differences in personal preference.

For example -
Some have tried setting the Oculus Debug Tool Pixel Density to 2.0x and then setting the in-game SS setting down to 0.65. It has the effect of heavily loading the 3D card, then down-sampling. The effect is to increase the frame rate (200fps!), and makes text a little sharper, but it kills overall texture and image quality so it definitely rests in the realm of personal preference. But some players love it *shrugs*

Try it - I think its a horrible aliased mess, but worth a shot. If your judders disappear, it may inform your other settings.

I just turned shadows down a bit, turned Ambient Occlusion to off, blur to off, bloom to low/medium (memory fails me). Also running at 1.0 SS in game but using the Debug Tool to 1.3x pixel density. Works for me as a happy medium. Pretty good in RES and stations and on-planet, but a little judder now and then.

Cliché · Sep 13, 2016

CylonSurfer said:
There are a number of people on here suggesting they run SS at 1.5 and get "silky smooth" performance at all times on a GTX1080. Are you suggesting that this is not true?

I think you have to sacrifice something to get "silky smooth" performance. But I'm not overclocking anything, so performance masters may be get better results. I get best performance at 1.3-1.4 SS (4790k & 1080). I've since pushed it to 1.5 SS and reduced some of the GFX settings for an adequate FPS. I prefer using the debug tool as it make everything look better.

Darkmark07 · Sep 13, 2016

I get the same symptoms, especially noticeable in fast direction changes in supercruise - I don't notice it so much in a dog fight because I'm not looking for it but I'm pretty sure that it's there. I've gone back to the old skool with a Cobra and with it's very wide front screen, this effect is very pronounced and measurable against the top of the screen.

In the case of the supercruise stuttering I get the same performance feedback as you're describing - low CPU and GPU usage and minimal frame drop. I'm also running a 1080 / 4970K combo.

To be honest, the upgrade to the 1080 from a 970 is nowhere near the silver bullet in terms of performance that I had hoped. I'm running pretty much 'VR high' preset with in-game SS at 1.0 and debug tool at 1.5 and Dr Kaii's recommended settings in the nvidia CP. Most of the time performance is acceptable but I wouldn't describe it as silky smooth.

As Red suggested above, it's all very subjective but for me it's definitely acceptable.

I'm sure that there's more tweaking to do to get small percentage gains here and there but I don't have enough time to play, let alone fiddle about and benchmark stuff!

I'm also coming to the conclusion that no matter how much GPU horsepower you throw at this game, there's always something that will jar. Whether the issue is with ED or Oculus drivers, I don't know, but there is definitely something else going on here.

dogbite · Sep 13, 2016

CylonSurfer said:
Thanks for the reply.

"Head tracking is fine, both in Elite and all other Rift games. Moving in all directions is smooth with no micro stutter or the shimmer that you get with low FPS. This is one thing I tested for everywhere."

Your original Op you said "I keep experiencing stutter no matter what settings I use. RES sites are pretty much unplayable as everytime I pitch I see microstutter or hitching"

You said you have stutter and microstutter in your first post then you said smooth no microstutter in following post so you can appreciate that I might be confused. Given your high-end hardware and that you said "I keep experiencing stutter NO MATTER WHAT SETTINGS " I still think your issue is related to your tracking sensor but might be wrong given your contradictory description.

Full_Ninja · Sep 13, 2016

Darkmark07 said:
I'm also coming to the conclusion that no matter how much GPU horsepower you throw at this game, there's always something that will jar. Whether the issue is with ED or Oculus drivers, I don't know, but there is definitely something else going on here.

I agree unfortunately. I came to the realization that Elite might just be the Jaguar E-type of video games. Both are made in England and both offer the most amazing experience available in their respective fields for the time they existed. But here's the catch, when they work.

I really hope the work they mentioned they are doing with some outside company is Valve and they are switching to Valve's render that is used for The Lab. Or making a stand alone Elite VR that is not but of the small screen version.

CylonSurfer · Sep 13, 2016

Dogbite, you appear to have missed an important part of my post in that quote. Here it is in full.

"So I have a quite high end system but performance in Elite is driving me nuts at the moment. I keep experiencing stutter no matter what settings I use. RES sites are pretty much unplayable as everytime I pitch I see microstutter or hitching"

Head tracking and positional tracking is solid at all times. The stutter and hitching I'm referring to is when controlling the ship only, during pitch and roll in particular.

Apologies if that caused any misunderstanding.

Looking at everyone's replies (thanks all), it appears normal with some more willing to over look these hitches and small stutters than perhaps myself.

dogbite · Sep 14, 2016

CylonSurfer said:
Dogbite, you appear to have missed an important part of my post in that quote. Here it is in full.

"So I have a quite high end system but performance in Elite is driving me nuts at the moment. I keep experiencing stutter no matter what settings I use. RES sites are pretty much unplayable as everytime I pitch I see microstutter or hitching"

Head tracking and positional tracking is solid at all times. The stutter and hitching I'm referring to is when controlling the ship only, during pitch and roll in particular.

Apologies if that caused any misunderstanding.

Looking at everyone's replies (thanks all), it appears normal with some more willing to over look these hitches and small stutters than perhaps myself.

Didn't miss your point. Just found it a tad ambiguous. If your not happy with ED performance in Res areas in VR, your not alone. I generally explore in offline mode. I run a GTX980 at pd 1.2 VR high and usually don't see stutter except on planet surfaces on occasion. That you said "I keep experiencing stutter no matter what settings I use" lead me to believe you were having stutter all the time, hence the tracking conclusion.

[HJ]-RedRaven · Sep 14, 2016

Full_Ninja said:
...I came to the realization that Elite might just be the Jaguar E-type of video games. Both are made in England and both offer the most amazing experience available in their respective fields for the time they existed. But here's the catch, when they work.

...the work they mentioned they are doing with some outside company...

As the owner of a Birkin (a Lotus 7 replica sports car, I thoroughly agree. Howled, repped.

Which outside work was that? I missed something?

There are so many systems at work in Elite - is it because we have high(er) end hardware that we expect a flawless experience?

Are other software/game experiences more smooth whilst having a similar level of load for the system?

I cannot accuse ED of not being 'optimised' - it works nearly flawlessly in many regards considering the millions of lines of code in the game, Oculus/Vive SDK, drivers, underlying OS all at work at almost the same time.

I'm sure there will be places the Cobra engine programmers will say 'oh, that part could be better' for sure - but if it works 90% as well as it should, often that will be enough to move to the next task. They have a lot of code ground to cover for incoming features, and probably only a small proportion of time is spent re-coding parts that do work at 90% just to squeeze an additional 1-2% out. Its a diminishing return for the time invested.

[HJ]-RedRaven · Sep 14, 2016

CylonSurfer said:
...So I have a quite high end system but performance in Elite is driving me nuts at the moment. I keep experiencing stutter no matter what settings I use. RES sites are pretty much unplayable as everytime I pitch I see microstutter or hitching"

Head tracking and positional tracking is solid at all times. The stutter and hitching I'm referring to is when controlling the ship only, during pitch and roll in particular.

Looking at everyone's replies (thanks all), it appears normal with some more willing to over look these hitches and small stutters than perhaps myself.

Everyone's tolerances are different - this is the main theme I see with VR. Generally, performance tolerance whist in a dogfight will also be different to tolerance when you have time to look about between fights too (and generally I tend to seek out scenic vistas' when between fights, hooning around asteroids and the like so I notice the engine performance more at those in-between times).

You could be right in that you're seeing normal performance (you should with that hardware) but are somehow sensitive to the small hitches.

But by your quote above, it sounds a little abnormal. I do experience a lower frame rate in RES sites, but not major hitching (ATW having to make up more than 2 lost frames). I see similar performance drops in Eve Valkyrie in geometry-heavy levels and in similar circumstance as the fighters in EV are fairly quick.

The effect as I explained will be worse with larger grosser movements, pitch and roll especially in faster ships - and it appears you agree.

But if you don't see the same hitching in 2D (at higher settings and resolution) then perhaps it is the Oculus driver/SDK that is holding things up.

I close any Oculus warnings, switch to my library so its a static window, and minimise Oculus Home window so there's no possibility of it interrupting ED. Same for most other windows.
I have WinAMP running generally, but it doesn't seem to affect ED at all.

Ideas (you may have already tried)
Recalibrate joystick/Hotas etc, update driver if needed
Reduce shadows to minimum (try a RES instance and see if it improves things)
Is ED installed on SSD?
OS and Oculus software also installed on SSD?
Update video card driver (possibly try an older version too, with a clean video card driver install)
Reinstall Oculus Software
Defrag drive
Network driver (disable second network card on motherboard if there is one)
Sound settings
Sound driver (a classic issue even if it sounds like its working fine)
Stop any/all other services and programs running in the background (Apple, Adobe are prime offenders in my book)
*I'm running out of ideas*

If you've covered those bases, then it gets more difficult. Perhaps try a different activity in ED that doesn't continue to sensitise you to the hitches?
Only because continuing in RES might end up with you tossing in the towel.

Darkmark07 · Sep 14, 2016

Also worth double-checking NV CP settings against Dr. Kaii's baselines here:

I've seen some (small) performance improvements by switching PhysX to CPU rather than GPU.

Also, I used to experience some strange PhysX-related weirdness with the drivers for my Rhino X55 - not sure if you're using a HOTAS and whether it's that model - if so worth uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers for that as per Red's comment above.

Finally, sometimes a change in perspective helps. If I may suggest that spending less time focusing on the flaws and trying to find fixes for them and more time enjoying the game for what it is may help to enjoy the experience more.

Cliché · Sep 14, 2016

I may have experienced this, or something similar, last night. As I was flying toward a planet, if I looked around there was no problem, but if I pitched the ship there was a continuous "micro stutter" while moving. It was very minor though, and was certainly still playable. It appeared to be just a drop in FPS.

dutchy2000 · Sep 14, 2016

See if it is the audio system causing the problems. I have a similar system but only 980ti but I have my audio configured to be less intense and I no stutters whatsoever. See the audio sticky at the top on how to change it.

CylonSurfer · Sep 15, 2016

dutchy2000 said:
See if it is the audio system causing the problems. I have a similar system but only 980ti but I have my audio configured to be less intense and I no stutters whatsoever. See the audio sticky at the top on how to change it.

What settings did you settle on?

dutchy2000 · Sep 15, 2016

RefillBuffers at double the default (8 I think) and SamplesPerFrame at 2048.

CylonSurfer · Sep 16, 2016

My RefillBuffer was only set to 1 as default.... Just going to give your suggestion a try.

Darkmark07 · Sep 17, 2016

CylonSurfer said:
My RefillBuffer was only set to 1 as default.... Just going to give your suggestion a try.

Remember to remove the comment tags from the relevant section. Without an override (provided by this config) the default are 4 and 256

Also suggest starting at 512 as that sets the audio timing to close to the traget frame rate of the rift / vive.

Tries this yesterday but too early to see whether its made too mich of a change. Initial reaction is cautiously positive but that is subject to review!