Elite on the Rift S

[Avindair]

At this point, I would look towards making sure you are actually using the HMD position reset in game, and if you are, I'd look at perhaps a corrupted file or something.

To clarify, are you referring to the "F12" HMD-reset button? If so, I've remapped it to my HOTAS, as well as keeping it on F12. It is not an exaggeration to say I have to hit it no less than four or five times per minute.

I can even see it coming: I'll be looking around, and suddenly the colors briefly desaturate, and then my head is laying on my left thigh.

 

[Avindair]

I’m not having the problem anymore after upgrading my cpu and usage went from 100% to 40 or so. Nothing else changed so just offering something to check out.

I appreciate the feedback, and I will check CPU usage on each sim I mentioned, and on Elite, but that still doesn't solve an issue I have with this problem: I shouldn't need to be doing beta-testing and QA analysis on my entertainment package. I did more than enough of that in the 1990s, and in my two decade's of system administration. From my perspective, Elite being the only title with this unusual constraint puts the onus on Frontier to research the problem, not the consumer.

Just my two cents on that matter.

Off to check CPU load.

 

[erbse-1]

So does my old system have any hope of running ED on a Rift S? Anybody? Maybe their system requirements are just for Lucky's Tale.

Its enough for elite with ASW enabled.

 

[Avindair]

Okay, so I just did a quick test of Elite, IL-2, and X-Plane 11. I'm attaching the CPU load results below.

So Elite did load down the CPU, but so did the other two sims. The biggest difference, ironically enough, was that the GPU actually saw a heavier load on Elite than the other two sims. This made me think that perhaps there was a mismatch between CPU and GPU load, based on my Elite VR settings.

Additional information: When I got the 2080, I was able to go from "VR-Low" to "VR-Ultra" for the first time. This, of course, was with the CV-1 and it worked amazingly well. (And damn, it was beautiful.)

When I got the Rift-S, I had to lower the resolution down to "VR-High," as the increased resolution really seemed to tax the card more. I never really got to adjust, of course, due to the head-position problems.

With the GPU information in hand, I switched to "VR-Low" again, and tried a training mission. It appeared to fix it, as I had no tracking issues whatsoever. Unfortunately, the moment I got into Open Play again, the head tracking issue re-appeared.

TL;DR: There does not appear to be a correlation of CPU Load-to-Head Tracking issues.

 

[Gortron]

Its enough for elite with ASW enabled.

I agree. I have the same GPU and it runs fine with ASW on. To run with it off would require a faster GPU and more cores on the CPU. A 6 core chip and and RTX 2080 or RTX 2070 super (probably).

It’s perfectly playable with ASW enabled.

 

[Gortron]

Okay, so I just did a quick test of Elite, IL-2, and X-Plane 11. I'm attaching the CPU load results below.

So Elite did load down the CPU, but so did the other two sims. The biggest difference, ironically enough, was that the GPU actually saw a heavier load on Elite than the other two sims. This made me think that perhaps there was a mismatch between CPU and GPU load, based on my Elite VR settings.

Additional information: When I got the 2080, I was able to go from "VR-Low" to "VR-Ultra" for the first time. This, of course, was with the CV-1 and it worked amazingly well. (And damn, it was beautiful.)

When I got the Rift-S, I had to lower the resolution down to "VR-High," as the increased resolution really seemed to tax the card more. I never really got to adjust, of course, due to the head-position problems.

With the GPU information in hand, I switched to "VR-Low" again, and tried a training mission. It appeared to fix it, as I had no tracking issues whatsoever. Unfortunately, the moment I got into Open Play again, the head tracking issue re-appeared.

TL;DR: There does not appear to be a correlation of CPU Load-to-Head Tracking issues.


View attachment 136472View attachment 136473View attachment 136474

It would make sense it was your CPU load causing the issue if your getting 80FPS everywhere and you CPU is running flat out but achieve sufficient draw calls.

Before I upgraded my CPU I could get 90FPS on the old rift in training sessions and in solo where I had no chance in open. I assumed it was to do with the CPU working harder as the load clearly when up in open compared to solo.

It would be interesting to see if you still had tracking issues if you forced ASW on at 40FPS through the debug tool as that should lower CPU use of you are experiencing the issues only at 80FPS. If that fixed it it would suggest to me it is something to do with your CPU as the load on it should be less than 100%. If still at 100% try solo as well.

If it weren’t for you having no issues in other games I’d say it sounds like a faulty headset.

The other games you mentioned are probably hard into ASW and although you will likely have one core going bonkers there will be probably be less going on in the other cores so less chance of the oculus stuff getting held back. Where as ED will max out all cores if they are there to use. Not that I’m saying you CPU is faulty or anything and this is all educated guess work.

 

[jnTracks]

Wow, that totally pinned CPU is, I bet, a major contributor to your troubles; that looks very much like what I had before updating my CPU from i5 to i7.
I had a ton of head tracking issues before the update and none after.

In the mean time what I did to help with head tracking was set the Oculus server process to above normal priority. (you'll have to reset this each time you reboot the computer) My working theory is that when the CPU maxes out somethings have to wait. When the Oculus server has to wait, it glitches and looses tracking for a moment.
(Again, I stress since I got so much flak here already about this: I'M NOT SAYING CPU IS THE ONLY ISSUE WITH TRACKING, but it did solve mine, and my charts looked like yours)
With the Oculus server process set to above normal, I didn't get the tracking issues nearly as much, but I did notice some lower frames and an occational flash of an hourglass. I think this was because now ED was being forced to wait, while the OC server gets priority to finish it's tasks tracking head position and generating ASW frames if necessary.
I also found that since the CPU is bound but GPU had lots of headroom, turning detail settings up loaded up the GPU more with little/no impact on anything; maybe a little smoother. I think this is exactly the case where CPU isn't fast enough to keep up with what the GPU is capable of in VR, and that imbalance causes weirdness.
In VR the CPU and GPU parts of the draw cycle can not overlap because the GPU has to wait for the CPU to finish before it can start on it's next frame. In non VR, they can overlap a lot and the GPU can pre-render frames so even if a game is CPU bound it won't be as visually noticeable. This can't happen with VR since the position might not be right, and it dissorients the user.

Ok so that's my theory and hope maybe it can help. This made combat much more playable for me before I got my new CPU. I dealt with a little frame dropping instead of having to constantly take fingers off he trigger to push my "reset HMD position" button. It's a stop-gap.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Running in spacewarp on, actually puts more load on your CPU, I would be very very surprised if you where even maintaining 45fps with a CPU that pinned to 100%.

And task manager pools all resources into one bucket, so if it shows 100% it means all cores are pegged to 100% to even reach it.
A single threaded task that is maxing out would only show up as a 25% cpu load on a quad core, 12.5% if it's a hyperthreaded CPU, seriously task manager is that whack.

You are clearly limiting the 2080 something fiercely, that thing is performing at about the same level as a 980ti or 1070, all because of the CPU.
I can fairly clearly see that you get GPU spikes right where your CPU utilisation drops just a little.

 

[jnTracks]

I guess I should add, the 2080 is way faster than mine so probably you don’t have a lot of detail to raise, or that might make it worse in your case... but try that process priority to help with head position.
And look at a cpu upgrade.

 

[Avindair]

And look at a cpu upgrade.

...and while I appreciate the advice, be advised that this is absolutely no way an acceptable answer.

Consider: The CV-1 allowed me to play at VR-Ultra with the 2080. Zero tracking problems (nor did it have any on the 980TI.) Upgrading the Rift-S resulted in this issue, not the CPU.

In short, because of a VR headset update, the answer I'm getting for the only application I'm having trouble with here is to upgrade my CPU.

I'm not convinced. From my perspective, everything here points to an issue with Frontier's VR code with Rift-S here, not with the CPU.

 

[Gortron]

Running in spacewarp on, actually puts more load on your CPU, I would be very very surprised if you where even maintaining 45fps with a CPU that pinned to 100%.

And task manager pools all resources into one bucket, so if it shows 100% it means all cores are pegged to 100% to even reach it.
A single threaded task that is maxing out would only show up as a 25% cpu load on a quad core, 12.5% if it's a hyperthreaded CPU, seriously task manager is that whack.

You are clearly limiting the 2080 something fiercely, that thing is performing at about the same level as a 980ti or 1070, all because of the CPU.
I can fairly clearly see that you get GPU spikes right where your CPU utilisation drops just a little.

Hmm, in my experience ASW on uses considerably less CPU than running at 2x the frame rate. That’s why people keep saying the CPU doesn’t matter in ED because they have graphics settings through the roof in ASW so huge GPU usage and plenty of CPU head room.

Am I missing something here coz I sure you know what I’m talking about? Is he at 100% CPU at 40FPS and if so what the heck would be causing that![/QUOTE]

 

[jnTracks]

People who are saying CPU doesn’t matter in ED are mistaken. It’s a CPU heavy game, as are many sandbox type games.

Anyway, sorry that this seemed to be come a problem with the rift s... do you still have the old headset? Test that. Rift s is a resolution bump and that’s not nothing. Lower FPS is supposed to compensate but I expect it’s not really the same thing.

 

[Avindair]

Where as ED will max out all cores if they are there to use. Not that I’m saying you CPU is faulty or anything and this is all educated guess work.

Okay, I'l admit that I missed the earlier part of the thread that indicated that ED utilizes multiple cores, whereas most flight simulators are limited to a single core. This seems to me to be indicative of part of the issue.

Additionally, I used the Debug tool to disable ASW to test out whether this would impact either framerate or the head tracking issue. Framerate seemed the same, but the head tracking issue remained.

I'll be ed if I have to find an i7 7700K (the highest CPU I can run on my MB) to fix this, but I'm forced to admit that it's starting to look that way.

 

[Gortron]

Okay, I'l admit that I missed the earlier part of the thread that indicated that ED utilizes multiple cores, whereas most flight simulators are limited to a single core. This seems to me to be indicative of part of the issue.

Additionally, I used the Debug tool to disable ASW to test out whether this would impact either framerate or the head tracking issue. Framerate seemed the same, but the head tracking issue remained.

I'll be ed if I have to find an i7 7700K (the highest CPU I can run on my MB) to fix this, but I'm forced to admit that it's starting to look that way.

No try to force enable ASW not disable it (sorry if I said the opposite). Set synchronous Spacewarp to Force 45PFS, ASW enabled. Then use Ctrl+F in game so you can see the FPS on the monitor. If it is working for the purpose of the test it will never go over 40FPS. Failing that set the HMD quality or SS to something stupid like 2.0 and sit in a station and see if it happens. I think what might be happening is you are getting to 80FPS in some situations, your CPU is reaching 100% driving your GPU at that speed and you are getting the tracking issues. If you are getting 100% with ASW forced on or at bonkers settings and you are at sure you are at 40FPS then something is else is hogging your CPU.

If that is 80FPS causing it then you don't need a new CPU just turn your graphics settings up higher or force enable ASW in Elite.

 

[jnTracks]

7700K is the fastest CPU my mobo would take also, so that's what I went to and I was amazed at how much smoother even sitting at a station turning my head around was. My GPU is 1660ti so I'm definitely still always in ASW, but now that my CPU is stable around 40 to 60% it plays nice with ASW. Feels really smooth.

I know it sucks to have to buy a new CPU, but that's what I had to do to really fix the jumpy ED performance. Even got some detail settings up higher on my 1660ti after that.

 

[Gortron]

7700K is the fastest CPU my mobo would take also, so that's what I went to and I was amazed at how much smoother even sitting at a station turning my head around was. My GPU is 1660ti so I'm definitely still always in ASW, but now that my CPU is stable around 40 to 60% it plays nice with ASW. Feels really smooth.

I know it sucks to have to buy a new CPU, but that's what I had to do to really fix the jumpy ED performance. Even got some detail settings up higher on my 1660ti after that.

That means something has definitely changed when it comes to Elite with the CV1 vs the Rift S. It doesn't explain why Avindair isn't having problems in other games like X Plane. I play X Plane more than anything else and it is an unoptimised mess compared to Elite. Elite runs like silk (though in ASW where it could do 90 in the CV1) by comparison on my 8700K @4.9 + GTX1080. The only thing I can think of is that the inside out tracking using 5 cameras if way more demanding on the CPU than the old method without changes that haven't been made to the code of ED that have the other game mentioned.

 

[Avindair]

No try to force enable ASW not disable it (sorry if I said the opposite).

Tried that as well. No joy.

Thanks to everyone on the thread about this. At this point I've opened a trouble ticket, as I'm still firmly of the belief that this is an Elite issue, and not a CPU, GPU, or HMD issue. When the only thing that has changed was the HMD, and when that HMD works perfectly with everything else, logic dictates that the problem isn't with my system, but with the software using my system.

Guess I'll be grounded until this is resolved.

Thanks again, everyone.

 

[Gortron]

Tried that as well. No joy.

Thanks to everyone on the thread about this. At this point I've opened a trouble ticket, as I'm still firmly of the belief that this is an Elite issue, and not a CPU, GPU, or HMD issue. When the only thing that has changed was the HMD, and when that HMD works perfectly with everything else, logic dictates that the problem isn't with my system, but with the software using my system.

Guess I'll be grounded until this is resolved.

Thanks again, everyone.

One final thing you could try... click the Processes tab in task manager. It will show what is being used by what in more detail.

Hope you fix it.

 

[jnTracks]

Tried that as well. No joy.

Thanks to everyone on the thread about this. At this point I've opened a trouble ticket, as I'm still firmly of the belief that this is an Elite issue, and not a CPU, GPU, or HMD issue. When the only thing that has changed was the HMD, and when that HMD works perfectly with everything else, logic dictates that the problem isn't with my system, but with the software using my system.

Guess I'll be grounded until this is resolved.

Thanks again, everyone.

Well, if you ask me, you haven't ruled out that it's not simply your CPU not being strong enough. Just because it works in other games without this issue, could just be that they aren't as demanding on CPU headroom.
Have you tried setting the Oculus server process above normal priority? That was a stop gap for me when my task manager chart looked just like yours. Kept it from loosing head position when the CPU maxed. I know I've repeated myself a few times about this, just wanting to be sure you've tried everything to help.

 

[Cliché]

Thanks for the advise. I decided to give the S a try and see what happens. I got it a day early, today, and have been playing in it for 4 hours. That's with an i7 4790k and GTX-1080 in a 4.5 year old computer. It's been 9 months since I used my CV1. The first thing I noticed was, that although not a Gen 2 headset, it is a big visual improvement over the CV1. I went straight into ED and set it to VR Low for about 1 hour. It looked so much sharper than the CV1. I didn't even think about SDE because I wasn't looking for it and didn't see it. I noticed the blacks weren't as black, but after playing a while it just wasn't something I noticed. Tracking worked really well and I'm not sure I even needed to reset it. One issue was I saw a couple white flashes that I thought were supposed to be fixed with an update. It was a dream not having to deal with the failing to detect sensors and powered USB hub.

Actually, I should say the first thing I noticed was the scuba effect (coming from 43" 4k display) and just how big the ship is. I'd never seen the Krait II in VR, and those gun pylons are just huge. And after a short while, I just didn't really notice the scuba effect anymore.

Then I tried VR Medium. Again, things worked really well. I did notice a little more ASW, or whatever, kicking in while scrolling station menus. Tracking still worked great and there were more white flashes.

Then I tried VR High and was surprised again how well it worked. There was more ASW glitches in menus, and a stutter or two in stations, but otherwise it was really smooth, even on planets. The tracking was drifting a bit, but I don't know if the was caused by changing lighting conditions or by the system being taxed. Then I headed over to a ring High Res and was shocked how smooth everything was looking. I really didn't notice a difference between the S with stock settings and the CV1 with ASW disabled. Until I tried combat, that is. Then I started seeing heavy glitching that was bad enough it was distracting. So I went down to VR Medium. I still got some glitching, but it wasn't nearly as bad. I figure I can tweak the settings from here and have a really playable experience.

My main problem was trying to wear the HMD and have a good sweet spot. I had to wear it much lower on my nose than I did with the CV1. After playing with it a few hours, I noticed that I actually had two sweet spots - one above and one below, with it slightly blurry in the middle. So I found an old pair of reading glasses, that had the nose pads broken off, and I put them on. I can push them right up close to my eyes and I can have the Rift S also pushed up as close as possible w/o hitting the glasses. This totally cleared up my sweet spot problem. Now I have a huge sweet spot, compared to the CV1.

I definitely consider the S an upgrade to the CV1, and well worth the money, until a real, high quality, consumer Gen 2 HMD comes out. Yeah, the speakers suck, but I can just use my head phones w/o any problems, except I'll need to use a USB extension cable if I want to play any room scale games. I'm really happy I don't need to buy a CPU upgrade, or return the unit, and that I get to play in VR again.

My only concern is the white flashes. I've read that it is a software issue, that was supposedly solved with an update. I've also read that it is a hardware issue, that can be solved with a new display cable. So I'll just keep my eye on that and maybe contact Oculus if it doesn't get any better over the next couple of updates.