An appeal to FD - VR request for better FPS in REZ

[Korben Dallas]

Dear FD team,

I have done 2 tests that you can easily replicate.

Fire up Horizons 2.2.0.3 and start up the first training mission in the ice asteroid belt with a VR headset (I use the VIVE) and put the Quality option to VR Ultra in the options menu.

After Miss Blaine has put your ship in working order, try to fly rings around her ship and take in the scenery. Take note of the stuttering and the number of asteroids rendered in the distance.

Fire up Commanders Beta 2.3 and run the same mission again, with the same quality setting set to VR Ultra.

There are noticeably less asteroids rendered in the distance, and the gameplay is much less prone to stuttering, in fact it's hardly noticeable at all.

So I ask you to consider this... Please reduce the number of asteroids rendered ingame in RES to the visual equivalent in the training mission above, so we can enjoy stutter free RES hunting in VR again.

Please, pretty, please.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

It's not just the roids.
Training missions are entirely devoid of most of the npc logic AI etc that the main game has to run.
No networking calls, a totally scripted experience.

 

[Korben Dallas]

I totally agree, but all small things help. At the moment with VR still pretty much being xperimental tech, there are two things that hamper the VR experience for me.


1) Stuttering - AFAIK the main cause of this is GPU related, meaning that ASW needs to be 'on' almost all of the time.


2) Grey outs - AFAIK this is due to bottlenecks present when game engine tries to handle more information than it can handle. CPU related ? meaning, the screen greys out while the game skips a few beats. Prevalent during incoming transmissions, menus loading, maybe even networking calls etc...

Removal of the overkill amount of rendered roids in the distance without breaking the atmosphere could result in a smoother experience.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

The grey outs is a steam/vive issue.
All fairly intense titles has them, especially Raw data, which for me is nearly unplayable due to crashes etc.

As for elite and all those menus etc.
The thing is, Ed is heavily reliant on a responsive network connection.
Every instance shift, jump, cruise, disengage cruise, open a map etc etc.
Polls the servers for data, and when there is a delay in the response.
Performance suffer.

Especially station menus are prone to this.
But yes a lot of things need to be optimised further and I'm sure fd is working on it.
They might not prioritize the things we want.

In general I think I'm quite lucky, I'm not seeing nearly any of the stuttering, and my witch space sequence are usually 15-20 seconds long.
Most disengages to Stations etc are near instantaneous.
Unless of course my instance breaks, but that's not even the norm.

I don't really have a good machine either, an i5 4670, and a 980ti.
But where I exceed most is my connection.

I'm hardwired to my router via gigabit ethernet and have a FIOS 300/300 line with very good response throughout Europe.
I was able to download the beta during the rush in about an hour.

Again I repeat.
The training scenarios has obviously better performance because 98% of the game that isn't covered by the scenario is turned off.

 

[dogbite]

Roids, whether they be "aste" or "hemor" can be a real pain. hehe

 

[Korben Dallas]

I don't own Raw Data, so I can't judge on that. The only title where the grey outs were occasionally showing up was DCS (Digitalcombatsimulator) and that was greatly dependent on what module you played. Helicopters with their slower speeds were less prone to it than the jets. DCS does not use multiple cores AFAIK.

The grey-outs happen on the VIVE yes. But it would be unfair to just blame steamVR and VIVE for this issue. The same visual effect happens when your headset is not in range of both lighthouses, but it is surely related to some specific games as well as you stated with your example, Raw Data.

Aerofly FS 2, The Solus Project, and House Of The Dying Sun don't suffer from these gray outs. They are all new and resource heavy games and require decent hardware to function.

The reason I keep hammering on this is that I'm not entirely sure if FD playtest their game with both headsets (vive and oculus) on anything else than top-of-the-line-computers. You cannot devote time to rectify something you haven't experienced, and just hope it goes away after optimization was done. Some games suffer from this phenomenon, others don't, and I would like to get ED in the latter department preferably sooner than later.

I don't see myself going back to 'the flat screen' and track IR. At least not with ED.

My PC is fairly new and I overclocked it as well:

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GT72VR-6RE-Dominator-Pro-Tobii.html#hero-overview

Should be able to handle VR nicely...

- - - Updated - - -

Roids, whether they be "aste" or "hemor" can be a real pain. hehe

Always in the '@rse' department you will agree.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

I don't own Raw Data, so I can't judge on that. The only title where the grey outs were occasionally showing up was DCS (Digitalcombatsimulator) and that was greatly dependent on what module you played. Helicopters with their slower speeds were less prone to it than the jets. DCS does not use multiple cores AFAIK.

The grey-outs happen on the VIVE yes. But it would be unfair to just blame steamVR and VIVE for this issue. The same visual effect happens when your headset is not in range of both lighthouses, but it is surely related to some specific games as well as you stated with your example, Raw Data.

Aerofly FS 2, The Solus Project, and House Of The Dying Sun don't suffer from these gray outs. They are all new and resource heavy games and require decent hardware to function.

The reason I keep hammering on this is that I'm not entirely sure if FD playtest their game with both headsets (vive and oculus) on anything else than top-of-the-line-computers. You cannot devote time to rectify something you haven't experienced, and just hope it goes away after optimization was done. Some games suffer from this phenomenon, others don't, and I would like to get ED in the latter department preferably sooner than later.

I don't see myself going back to 'the flat screen' and track IR. At least not with ED.

My PC is fairly new and I overclocked it as well:

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GT72VR-6RE-Dominator-Pro-Tobii.html#hero-overview

Should be able to handle VR nicely...

- - - Updated - - -




Always in the '@rse' department you will agree.

The closes I have gotten to a explanation to the grey outs, that some thread\task isn't getting it's expected responses most likely because the cpu is overloaded doing other things.
And the tracking service freaks out, assumes it has lost tracking, and proceeds to grey out.

I have experienced it many times with the vive, and the only truly common part is the steamvr sdk and well, a swamped cpu.
And yes, Elite can be heavy on the cpu as well as graphics.

 

[xondk]

Dear FD team,

I have done 2 tests that you can easily replicate.

Fire up Horizons 2.2.0.3 and start up the first training mission in the ice asteroid belt with a VR headset (I use the VIVE) and put the Quality option to VR Ultra in the options menu.

After Miss Blaine has put your ship in working order, try to fly rings around her ship and take in the scenery. Take note of the stuttering and the number of asteroids rendered in the distance.

Fire up Commanders Beta 2.3 and run the same mission again, with the same quality setting set to VR Ultra.

There are noticeably less asteroids rendered in the distance, and the gameplay is much less prone to stuttering, in fact it's hardly noticeable at all.

So I ask you to consider this... Please reduce the number of asteroids rendered ingame in RES to the visual equivalent in the training mission above, so we can enjoy stutter free RES hunting in VR again.

Please, pretty, please.

VR is....very heavy, and unless you are testing the same location, results can vary.

Maybe your rig just isn't up to VR ultra?

 

[Korben Dallas]

@TorTorden, yes a 'swamped CPU' as you call it seems to trigger it. I have 'Process Lasso Pro' and took the time to give following processes priority:

Elitedangerous64.exe
VrCompositor.exe
vrserver.exe

I have also reduced the HMD image quality to 0.75. Supersampling is still at 1.0.

It keeps the cpu at an average of 45% on Elite Dangerous.

@XonDraken

Yes, as written in my OP the test location is identical, with identical settings except for the version. One test in Beta 2.3 and one in 2.2.0.3 (current build)

I can run it in Ultra yes, but in RES with lots of NPC's the stuttering and the grey outs happen twice or more every minute in the current version of horizons. This makes it unplayable. The result is approximately the same in VR Low on current Horizons. That should not happen as I've played on VR medium without troubles just before the new year.

The beta 2.3 results are much better even at VR Ultra - I play it on VR Medium however to have a decent framerate of about 90 FPS and the occasional stutter.

As long as the soon to be updated ED Horizons will work as fluently as the current 2.3 beta now, I can stop the nagwagon.

When in SC, USS or after interdicting, the stuttering is almost non existant and the grey outs to an acceptable level.