Odyssey VR Performance Discussion

[Darkfyre99]

In an effort to stop getting the Odyssey VR bug report derailed, please post here to discuss EDO performance in general:

You wouldn't swap the performance of Odyssey for the performance of Horizons? I would, in a heartbeat. There's something wrong with Odyssey and VR highlights those problems.

Personally, EDO brings far too much to the table, that I’d be willing to take a hit in performance. The thing is, I don’t need to make that choice. My eight year old rig with a GTX980 can handle even settlements in VR-High since update 11, and my current rig has even more headroom. I’d be more than willing to accept VR low if it means I get EDO gameplay, features, and UI improvements.

I think in fairness what they are talking about is the performance issues we see in Odyssey and how that especially impacts VR users. Something that isn't so much a problem in Horizons its a matter of choosing your settings on more mainstream PC hardware.

I guess it comes down to whether you, I and everyone else views Odyssey performance in VR as a bug or a quality issue.

Its a tricky one because for many once performance in VR drops to a certain level the experience becomes unplayable for them so for those people yeah it legitimately could be considered a bug or fault where as for others with more high end hardware its a quality issue and choice to jump between the two.

Myself I think its unreasonable to start quoting software engineering terms and definitions on a public forum for gamers, there is quite clearly a performance penalty which a few can brute force with 1-2k worth of GPU hardware to an acceptable level for them. Arguably they are being short changed as well because with Horizons like performance they could increase their quality settings further.

I agree… but I’m getting similar performance between EDO and EDG now, on both my eight year old rig with a video card card three generations old, as well as as my current rig. There’s still issues, certainly, but they seem to be more specific to certain builds, as opposed to in general.

Ody plays just as good as Horizon for me. I don't know why is doesn't for you.

Same here.

 

[JR250]

Thanks, OP, now we can talk

So, no, Horizons performs way better in VR than Odyssey, in my experience. EDO has come along way and performance is ok now, but not what Horizons can do in terms of frames-per-second.

Aside from optimization, which FDev continues to address with each patch, Odyssey simply does more than Horizons. It has a better rendering engine, colors are deeper, has higher contrasts (including deep blacks instead of washed out grays), reflections are noticeably better, and has higher quality special effects. That costs performance so we will likely not see Odyssey running as good as Horizons on lesser hardware.

In my case, I run an RTX 3080 and an Oculus Quest 2. I started by selecting the "medium" VR preset from the graphics menu, then turned off blur and bloom. I also turned off all forms of AA and supersampling and set the HMD to 1.25x. Most other stuff is set to medium or high.

In the Oculus app, I set resolution to 1.3x. I thought this, along with the higher settings in Elite would tax the graphics card too much but it didn't. In fact, GPU utilization remained flat vs the very low quality settings I had before. What the new settings did was open up crisp texts, significantly reduced aliasing, and beautifully detailed graphics everywhere.

Since the flat mirror screen is not used all that much with VR, I turned that down to a 800x600 window and set refresh rate to 30 Hz to possibly reduce rendering load.

Here's something I like to use as a VR clarity and performance test. When you're leaving an orbital station, there are two (too large) warning signs with an indicator light on them. There is warning text on those, can you read them? I can only do that when my anti-aliasing, scaling is off, and I have good display clarity.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I’ve got a first generation HTC Vive, so that might explain why I’m not seeing a difference between EDO and EDH. Lower native resolution. I do wonder if some performance issues are due to other bottlenecks than the GPU. I was taught that the motherboard is the foundation of a PC, so make sure it’s a good one.

Here's something I like to use as a VR clarity and performance test. When you're leaving an orbital station, there are two (too large) warning signs with an indicator light on them. There is warning text on those, can you read them? I can only do that when my anti-aliasing, scaling is off, and I have good display clarity.

I’m typically too busy dodging traffic while boosting out of a station to pay attention to that kind of thing. I’ll check them out the next time I play.

 

[JR250]

Yeah, it's strange. Logic says if ED is not performing well at current resolution, lowering it would be the way to go. But in my case, I get lower frames-per-second performance, much worse AA, and fuzzy texts at lower res. Increasing the resolution by 1.3x in the Oculus app and 1.25x in ED made it so much better. I can't explain that one.

I've heard NPC and their AI calls can load up the CPU. That might be but it's not my experience. I frequent the chaotic instance of compromised nav beacons and CZ with a couple dozen+ NPCs on several combat scenarios and ED performs great there. I go out shopping to the Haz RES mall all the time and it works fine as well - even with the many moving rocks and ships around.

Update 13 improved my experience approaching planets, which was the worst performance I saw. Before U13, approaching landing and as soon as I entered gliding, my screen would freeze, stutter and even show an hourglass. The settlement itself was also terrible. Those are pretty much gone with the latest update. Still not perfect but definitely improved.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I would have to check in again to investigate certainly when I played the other week there was a noticeable issue undocking from Jameson and flying out to the first FSD jump

 

[jojon]

Just a minor thought about the colours thing, just in case: If anybody was using any post effect injectors with Horizons, and maybe even forgot about it, perhaps it could be worth adding it to Odyssey as well...

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Thanks, OP, now we can talk

So, no, Horizons performs way better in VR than Odyssey, in my experience. EDO has come along way and performance is ok now, but not what Horizons can do in terms of frames-per-second.

Aside from optimization, which FDev continues to address with each patch, Odyssey simply does more than Horizons. It has a better rendering engine, colors are deeper, has higher contrasts (including deep blacks instead of washed out grays), reflections are noticeably better, and has higher quality special effects. That costs performance so we will likely not see Odyssey running as good as Horizons on lesser hardware.

In my case, I run an RTX 3080 and an Oculus Quest 2. I started by selecting the "medium" VR preset from the graphics menu, then turned off blur and bloom. I also turned off all forms of AA and supersampling and set the HMD to 1.25x. Most other stuff is set to medium or high.

In the Oculus app, I set resolution to 1.3x. I thought this, along with the higher settings in Elite would tax the graphics card too much but it didn't. In fact, GPU utilization remained flat vs the very low quality settings I had before. What the new settings did was open up crisp texts, significantly reduced aliasing, and beautifully detailed graphics everywhere.

Since the flat mirror screen is not used all that much with VR, I turned that down to a 800x600 window and set refresh rate to 30 Hz to possibly reduce rendering load.

Here's something I like to use as a VR clarity and performance test. When you're leaving an orbital station, there are two (too large) warning signs with an indicator light on them. There is warning text on those, can you read them? I can only do that when my anti-aliasing, scaling is off, and I have good display clarity.

Nice!

I like metrics like that and it sounds like a gooden as it's texture. Similar to Gamer Muscle's racing sim clarity test where he reverses as far as poss until he can't read a sign.
Where are you exactly when performing your clarity test? Is this inside or outside the station?

I personally think EDH's performance sucks. When I am trench running, why does my performance tank when I look directly down despite being able to see far less land?? The station graphics are what, eight years old (and you can tell by looking at them!) so why does my performance tank near or in stations??

I am looking forward to when Horizon players get to play with Ody graphics. I am dreading performance! Fingers crossed FDev keep the old school and force the upgrade!

BTW
Would it be possible to state your resolution instead of what it says on the slider please? 1.3x at 120Hz is different to a 90Hz 1.3, which is different to 80Hz etc.. The only thing we can tell by the slider is that all the way to the right is native and anything left of that is less than native.

 

[JR250]

Would it be possible to state your resolution instead of what it says on the slider please? 1.3x at 120Hz is different to a 90Hz 1.3, which is different to 80Hz etc.. The only thing we can tell by the slider is that all the way to the right is native and anything left of that is less than native.

Certainly. Mine's currently set to 4704 x 2384 @ 72 Hz, 1.3x in my system.

I also turned off Asynchronous SpaceWarp and gained a significant amount of FPS headroom from that. With ASW, Odyssey ran at 36 FPS/reprojection nearly always. With it off, it remains at 72 FPS in all but a few momentary instances. I believe it can be turned up to 80 or 90 FPS. Personally, I'm fine with 72.

One very much imagined possibility is that EDO was optimized for settings of the typically higher resolution flat screens. Lowering the resolution or certain effects reduces performance and adds AA issues. I don't recall offhand which ones but there are reports of a few graphics settings that tank performance when they're set to 'low' instead of 'medium'.

 

[epoch5]

For me Horizon and ODY play the same smooth as glass.

 

[JR250]

Does that include ground settlements? Up to Update 12, settlements were always a challenge. With 13, it's markedly better now. I still get a screen glitch when SC/Hyperspace jumping but it looks like that's just me as no one else has confirmed it. Performance wise, it's much better.

There's one spot that was the absolute worst for me in Odyssey: settlement ground war from space. So a ground CZ but you stay in space fighting ships while your wing mates fight on the ground. Performance in general was pretty bad but if I turned my ship and faced down to the settlement, I would get (seemingly) <5 frames per second and moments where the whole thing would freeze. I haven't tried that again after Update 13, has anyone?

 

[Darkfyre99]

Yeah, it's strange. Logic says if ED is not performing well at current resolution, lowering it would be the way to go. But in my case, I get lower frames-per-second performance, much worse AA, and fuzzy texts at lower res. Increasing the resolution by 1.3x in the Oculus app and 1.25x in ED made it so much better. I can't explain that one.

Isn’t that the equivalent of nearly quadrupling the number of pixels rendered, and then scaling it back to normal for display?

Certainly. Mine's currently set to 4704 x 2384 @ 72 Hz, 1.3x in my system.

Is that your monitor setting? Unless I’m recording, I usually set mine as small and slow as possible in VR, since I won’t be actually using the monitor anyways.

There's one spot that was the absolute worst for me in Odyssey: settlement ground war from space. So a ground CZ but you stay in space fighting ships while your wing mates fight on the ground. Performance in general was pretty bad but if I turned my ship and faced down to the settlement, I would get (seemingly) <5 frames per second and moments where the whole thing would freeze. I haven't tried that again after Update 13, has anyone?

I’m not normally a big shooty person. I favor the stealthy missions when I have enough free time, and delivery missions when I don’t. I’ll make a note to investigate a CZ the next time I’m near one.

 

[jojon]

Always worth reminding now and again, by the way: If anybody is using SteamVR, and setting render resolution to something very high in SteamVR settings, you should know that SteamVR has a limiter to the resolution it recommends to the game, which defaults to 4096, width or height - whichever is larger for your HMD. The resolution that is displayed above the slider in settings is before this limiter is applied, and consequently inaccurate if either value exceeds the limit.

The default can be changed in the JSON file: "steamvr.vrsettings", and the relevant key is: "maxRecommendedResolution" : 8192 in the "steamvr" : {} section; The value I have got there doubles the default.

 

[Arioch]

I still get a screen glitch when SC/Hyperspace jumping but it looks like that's just me as no one else has confirmed it.

I thought you had confirmations from myself and at least one other in the VR issue report thread, as well as a link to the Confirmed & Acknowledged issue report about the same problem?

(https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/37825 - although the title is limited to Glide, many confirmations describe the issue as occurring on any Jump)

 

[JR250]

Oh I had not seen others confirming the flash/glitch issue. I added my comments, the video link above, and to my surprise, they even let me vote on it! Thanks!!

 

[epoch5]

I just don't get it. I have none of the problems that other players seem to be having.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

wow!
i logged into ED:H for the 1st time tonight since pretty soon after ED:O launched.

the improved performance is quite startling in VR at least. No re projection at all on max settings with my reverb G2... i cant do that with ED:O and i have a 3090 RTX with a 5800x cpu

 

[VR andysonofbob]

wow!
i logged into ED:H for the 1st time tonight since pretty soon after ED:O launched.

the improved performance is quite startling in VR at least. No reprojection at all on max settings with my reverb G2... i can't do that with ED:O and i have a 3090 RTX with a 5800x cpu

Yeah, I haven't got EDO but I am interested in the change in performance when we get the visual upgrade as I get reprojection in bases and stations in EDH :/

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Yeah, I haven't got EDO but I am interested in the change in performance when we get the visual upgrade as I get reprojection in bases and stations in EDH :/

well to a point you will find out soon with 4.0 i imagine. btw i know you understand what i meant but i noticed an unfortunate typo in my post you quoted. i CANT play EDO on full bubble on my reverb G2 without reprojection. i wrote I can, which is a bit different

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I just don't get it. I have none of the problems that other players seem to be having.

all i can say is, post your exact settings and your specs with vr headset, as well as any tools used (does openXR work yet in ED?) as well as a few screenshots of you running around bases and flying at other hot spots at 90fps..... and then never ever change your drivers or your settings because you have clearly found the sweetspot. buy maybe there is a specific setting you have turned on, either in game or out of game in windows which is skipping around a problem in elites coding?

i am not calling you a liar at all so please dont see it that way, but having fiddled a fair bit (but not with open XR recently it must be said) but i think it is a subjectivity thing and you are either not noticing reprojection artifacts or you are not minding frame drops or have another setting dialed back..... which is great.... but for those of use who do, they stand out like a sore thumb, esp like for me when i went back to ED:H where everything is noticably better performing (but perhaps not quite as pretty)

 

[VR andysonofbob]

well to a point you will find out soon with 4.0 i imagine.

We will indeed. I am really hoping EDO will run within reprojection limits on a Ryzen 3600x, 16GB and 1070 on the Q2's lowest slider settings!

btw i know you understand what i meant but i noticed an unfortunate typo in my post you quoted. i CANT play EDO on full bubble on my reverb G2 without reprojection. i wrote I can, which is a bit different

Mate. Totally realised.