Asynchronous Spacewarp - Big Improvement?

Nebula109 · Oct 7, 2016

Has anyone tried this yet? Apparently over on the Oculus reddit forums some users are getting huge performance increases.
Here's how you enable it, copied from a poster on reddit. I can't play until tonight. You need to be on the 1.8 runtime.

Run regedit.exe
Open the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Oculus VR, LLC\LibOVR
Create a new entry in LibOVR and call it: AswEnabled
Set the value of the new entry to 1.
Exit regedit and give it a try. No reboot is necessary.

If the path above doesn't exist:
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software and Create a new key under Software named: Oculus VR, LLC
Create another new key under the Oculus VR key you just created and name it: LibOVR

carabassa · Oct 7, 2016

Not tried yet but reports on reddit with other games seem to be very promising. If I am lucky will have some time to try today.
I am subscribing to this post waiting for other users impressions.

EDITED: Make sure to use a 32-bit DWORD, not 64-bit QWORD as someone else did.

Rubix · Oct 7, 2016

I've done some brief testing and it is a HUGE improvement. read further on the oculus touch sdk thread. I can't wait to get home and do some further testing

Badben · Oct 7, 2016

Nebula109 said:
Has anyone tried this yet? Apparently over on the Oculus reddit forums some users are getting huge performance increases.
Here's how you enable it, copied from a poster on reddit. I can't play until tonight. You need to be on the 1.8 runtime.

Run regedit.exe
Open the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Oculus VR, LLC\LibOVR
Create a new entry in LibOVR and call it: AswEnabled
Set the value of the new entry to 1.
Exit regedit and give it a try. No reboot is necessary.

If the path above doesn't exist:
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software and Create a new key under Software named: Oculus VR, LLC
Create another new key under the Oculus VR key you just created and name it: LibOVR

That seems like a pretty complicated way to get that to run, is it still in the testing stages or something? will they implement it as default at some point?

Rubix · Oct 7, 2016

Badben said:
That seems like a pretty complicated way to get that to run, is it still in the testing stages or something? will they implement it as default at some point?

It really isn't complicated at all. i didn't have that key and created it, as per the instructions above. it really is as simple as typing a few characters.

rohirm · Oct 7, 2016

Here is some more information about that:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/568912/how_to_enable_asw_in_18_via_registry_nvidia_only/

Munial · Oct 7, 2016

very excited to try this..

PravusJSB · Oct 7, 2016

Rubix said:
I've done some brief testing and it is a HUGE improvement. read further on the oculus touch sdk thread. I can't wait to get home and do some further testing

In what way? Maintaining 90fps or reducing GPU load?

I'm running ingame SS1.0 and 1.4 in the SDKTool, GTX1080 and 90fps almost everywhere except stations where it drops to about 75 on average. Sometimes I have random stuttering sometimes its fine (suspect something else on PC is stealing GPU time in the background)

Blian · Oct 7, 2016

PravusJSB said:
In what way? Maintaining 90fps or reducing GPU load?

I'm running ingame SS1.0 and 1.4 in the SDKTool, GTX1080 and 90fps almost everywhere except stations where it drops to about 75 on average. Sometimes I have random stuttering sometimes its fine (suspect something else on PC is stealing GPU time in the background)

It would seem that this affects the older 9 series cards more. I think the quality improvement on 10x0 will be significantly less than on 9x0 as those cards are insanely powerful

PravusJSB · Oct 7, 2016

Blian said:
It would seem that this affects the older 9 series cards more. I think the quality improvement on 10x0 will be significantly less than on 9x0 as those cards are insanely powerful

Aye yes, but still not enough power for VR if you ask me! Well.. in ED at least.

Raptoyd · Oct 7, 2016

So I created the Reg Key question do I open Oculus Home then hit the enter num pad 4 or once I have done this it is set?

rohirm · Oct 7, 2016

NVIDIA released new drivers 373.06. I heard that there are some VR optimizations done and less stuttering in games.

Rubix · Oct 7, 2016

Raptoid said:
So I created the Reg Key question do I open Oculus Home then hit the enter num pad 4 or once I have done this it is set?

If you've created the key, it will be set.

Using

CTRL+Numpad1: Disable ASW, go back to the original ATW mode
CTRL+Numpad2: Force apps to 45Hz, ASW disabled
CTRL+Numpad3: Force apps to 45Hz, ASW enabled
CTRL+Numpad4: Enable auto-ASW

milligna · Oct 7, 2016

Definitely a huge improvement, I can crank up the supersampling and effects and it looks great. This is going to be really helpful when we have 4K HMDs!

Rubix · Oct 7, 2016

So i have been playing around with this all afternoon. I was reasonably happy with Elite Dangerous with my original settings. I had figured i had the best i could get with my gtx970.

Before ASW my settings, debug tool 1.5 and in game SS 0.65, graphics were all low to medium, shadows, bloom, anti-aliasing, ambient occlusion all off. it was smooth as silk, but obviously sacrificing visuals, i could live with that.

Using this ASW i have tweaked and tweaked and ended up with the following.

debug tool 1.2 and in game SS x1.0. graphics(environment, textures, fx etc) are now all high/ultra. shadows=low, bloom=off, anti-aliasing=SMAA, ambient occlusion=medium, Depth of field=off I am in absolutely no doubt that ASW has had a HUGE impact on the visuals for my system. I get the occasional micro stutter when entering a hanger. Other than that, it's stable and looks gorgeous! (compared to what i have had for the last week)

I can push the in game SS up to 1.5 but have to turn off or put everything to low and still get some judder.

I can push the debug tool to 1.7 but have to lower the in game SS to 0.65 and have everything low to medium or disabled for it to be smooth.

The happy medium for me is debug tool 1.2 and in game SS x1.0 with all the graphics options. it is a far better experience and graphics look really lovely, even on my old system! I can definitely live with the occasional micro stutter having much better visuals.

Soda Popinski · Oct 7, 2016

Any other impressions from 1080 users? I won't get a chance to really try it until tomorrow. I'm guessing NVidia is glad ASW didn't come out prior to the 1080!

Yololo69 · Oct 7, 2016

GTX 1080 owner here OC (2Ghz) and I7 3770K OC 4,4Ghz, and yes big improvement with ASW.

I first created the registry entry and selected the "Performance" tab for Oculus HUD in Debug tools. First launch of the game and an ASW default was on by default without any keypress as FPS was already locked to 45fps. That mean CTRL+2 or CTRL+3 was already selected first time.
Pressing CTRL+1 and I retrieved my 90fps in station George Lucas with my currents settings.
Selected CTRL+3 to force 45fps and ASW and fps was locked to 45fps. Moving my head and I couldn't detect the visual difference between CTRL+1 90fps and CTRL+3 forced 45fps and ASW ON.

That's pretty good.

So I went in Graphical options and raised all to the max, fps lowered to 59/60fps and switching to CTRL+3 (or 4 in auto) and FPS was back to 45fps and all seems smooth. So I'm now able to raise all my settings to the max and have something sometimes at 90fps sometimes at 45fps without really notifying a difference (or slightly). All my tests made with SS in game to default 1.0 and in Debug Tools as usual to 1.5.

BTW Those tests allowed me to see than FPS eater are, for my configuration, Shadows, Occlusions and AA settings. Other have small impact on my FPS.

Great move Oculus: !)

Raptoyd · Oct 7, 2016

Yololo69 said:
GTX 1080 owner here OC (2Ghz) and I7 3770K OC 4,4Ghz, and yes big improvement with ASW.

I first created the registry entry and selected the "Performance" tab for Oculus HUD in Debug tools. First launch of the game and an ASW default was on by default without any keypress as FPS was already locked to 45fps. That mean CTRL+2 or CTRL+3 was already selected first time.
Pressing CTRL+1 and I retrieved my 90fps in station George Lucas with my currents settings.
Selected CTRL+3 to force 45fps and ASW and fps was locked to 45fps. Moving my head and I couldn't detect the visual difference between CTRL+1 90fps and CTRL+3 forced 45fps and ASW ON.

That's pretty good.

So I went in Graphical options and raised all to the max, fps lowered to 59/60fps and switching to CTRL+3 (or 4 in auto) and FPS was back to 45fps and all seems smooth. So I'm now able to raise all my settings to the max and have something sometimes at 90fps sometimes at 45fps without really notifying a difference (or slightly). All my tests made with SS in game to default 1.0 and in Debug Tools as usual to 1.5.

BTW Those tests allowed me to see than FPS eater are, for my configuration, Shadows, Occlusions and AA settings. Other have small impact on my FPS.

Great move Oculus: !)

Nice comparison going to try that myself, thanks.

Yololo69 · Oct 7, 2016

By the way be careful when doing FPS tests with the HUD Performance window of the Oculus Debug tools. One of the ED graphical settings have a re-initialization bug if you stay in game, and I think it's the Occlusion one.
I explain : when doing those fps tests to find fps eater options, I made only one change at a time, with CTRL+1 selected (so limited to 90fps) all long. When doing that for Occlusion, selecting several times between Disabled and Max to see fps differences, the fps stayed at lower value after a while, even when selecting Disabled. That mean this setting (I'm pretty sure it was Occlusion), wasn't happy to be Disabled and Enabled several time, staying in menu, without closing entirely the game. It mean it didn't "reset" well, and a complete game restart is needed to clear the problem. I hope I'm clear

CMDR_JAMESONS · Oct 7, 2016

Yes AWS is a huge improvement IMHO.