Confusingly poor VR performance and a weird head position issue.

[jnTracks]

So I just got my Oculus Rift S.

FIrst after installing: It's mind blowing how much fun very simple things are, playing around in the Oculus Home software.

So I download the Oculus version of ED and start to play. I'm pleasantly surprised at how it all seems to work out of the gate. Again, full brain explosion about how huge everything is (and oh-man this will take some getting used to to stay out of barf land)! But then I dig into the settings to maybe turn down some of the eye candy in favor of some super sampling since that becomes so much more obvious in VR. For the sake of it I started the Oculus debug tool so I can view performance.

Firstly. I got a new GTX 1660TI to be sure I'd have the power to play when this headset arrived. Reviews saying this new card slightly outruns a GTX 1070 and even more so in newer games. So that's what I'm working with.
GTX 1660TI 6GB
16GB ram
i5-6400 (skylake)

On a flat panel 1080p this game runs with all settings maxed and I can even put on 1.5 super sampling and only get frames below 60 in rings with lots of other ships around. With uncapped frames I see the counter going over 180 a lot in open space. So I was thinking that I'd be fine for 80fps in VR.

As I open the game with the performance monitor overlay on I see that's pretty much always in ASW mode capping at 40fps and my extra GPU headroom is way in the negative. I've played around with settings quite a lot and with no super sampling at all I still can't get the settings low enough to show me a true 80fps in stations.
I found that I can turn down shadows and medium a couple other things to get the 40fps ASW to feel pretty smooth, but the image is pretty jagged on far off objects. So I'm using the lowest AA setting to take the edge off and trying to get 1.5 super sampling (enabled in oculus debug since it does seem to respond better). In open space it sometimes goes up to around 70-ish, but when facing a station it's usually stuck on 40 AWS. Now, this is with shadows and AO on low or off. And even with this setting it seems to drop even lower to 30-ish when I enter the station. It feels reasonably smooth with the 40 AWS, but gets really bad when it drops below that. The dropped frames are just constant.
I know the SS I'm using is rough on my card, but I really expected more from this. I feel like something is not working right. I expected to be able to find some setting where I at least had slight GPU headroom. Am I expecting too much or is something wrong?

FWIW I tried running steam VR and starting the game in there but it seemed even worse in that case. Maybe only slightly, but definitely not better. I really didn't leave the station that time since the frames weren't hitting 40 AWS even sitting in the cockpit.

Also I have this weird thing that seems to happen more when I first start and then settle down, but I'm seeing it a lot when I was going through this as I was often popping the headset off to change a setting and then coming back in.
The issue is the view goes desaturated for a second, and then the head position has shifted slightly to the right. So the tracking is being interrupted somehow and then not retaining it's center. I push my rest HMD position key and it restores, but I'm having to do this a lot.
I know this is a brand new HMD and it's inside-out tracking isn't what most of you are using, but maybe there's some insight as to what could be causing this or how to diagnose it? Maybe it's all the same issue? My computer is at it's limit and the tracking can't even keep up. I'll go go Oculus support about that one if it's not an easy fix.
Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[DragonIV]

Regarding the recenter bit--I use a DK2 myself, and I hit reset view so much it's a Voice Attack command today for me. Wasn't sure if perhaps it got better with the newer rift sets, but sounds like maybe not. And yes, when it loses the tracking, the view does indeed get desaturated.

But--your "a lot" and mine may be different in frequency. I don't pop off the headset much--at most I just push it up a bit. It's turns around to talk to my wife whose computer is in the opposite corner of the room that it tends to wig out. I usually hit recenter when first starting the game (as I'm starting VA and getting steam VR and oculus and the frontier launcher all playing nice). Then, I have to hit it maybe 2-3 more times every hour of play, and it's almost always caused by turning away from the sensor beyond its physical limitations on viewing angle.

 

[jnTracks]

Thanks, ok. since this one doesn't use external sensors I was thinking it would be simpler and require less fussing. It does ask about my lighting frequency (50-60hz) so maybe I'll do better if I have the brighter room lights on.

For kicks, what is your basic computer spec and what general settings are you running? Should I be accepting this 40hz thing or might there be something wrong?

 

[TheChafing]

Regarding the performance issues, your problem is that the 1660 Ti is nowhere close to fast enough for VR. I have a water cooled and heavily overclocked 1080 Ti, and it's just barely enough to drive my Vive Pro, which is roughly the same resolution as the Rift S. Unlike most VR games, Elite is a monitor game that had VR added later, as a feature. As such, it makes very few sacrifices in the name of performance for VR. Weak GPUs need not apply, unfortunately.

This is different from most natively VR games, which tend to have much simpler graphics so that a typical graphics card can keep up.

Regarding the tracking issue, I've see similar behavior with my OG Rift, where it pauses the tracking when you take the HMD off, and picks back up when you put it back on, all out of whack. I just got accustomed to using the reset HMD position key.

 

[DragonIV]

You know, I totally missed jnTracks comment on his card. I'm using a DK2, whose resolution is not as good as the Rift S, and I'm also running a 1060GTX 6GB, and I don't get anywhere near 80fps in stations--more like 35-40.

 

[jnTracks]

Regarding the performance issues, your problem is that the 1660 Ti is nowhere close to fast enough for VR. I have a water cooled and heavily overclocked 1080 Ti, and it's just barely enough to drive my Vive Pro, which is roughly the same resolution as the Rift S. Unlike most VR games, Elite is a monitor game that had VR added later, as a feature. As such, it makes very few sacrifices in the name of performance for VR. Weak GPUs need not apply, unfortunately.

This is different from most natively VR games, which tend to have much simpler graphics so that a typical graphics card can keep up.

Regarding the tracking issue, I've see similar behavior with my OG Rift, where it pauses the tracking when you take the HMD off, and picks back up when you put it back on, all out of whack. I just got accustomed to using the reset HMD position key.

Really? Before ordering this I found numerous forum and reddit posts where many people seemed to be using GTX970s happily with some compromised settings. I had a 970 but figured jumping up to the latest gen --a card that benchmarks higher than the 1070-- would be enough of a pad...

I also just found in the oculus software settings, a setting for "prefer performance" or "prefer quality", but it doesn't really explain what that's changing. Might it just be adjusting the same pixel SS that I'm playing with in OculusDebug?

 

[Paso]

Download and use ED Profiler. I cannot stress this enough, it is so convenient to have all the settings in one place for both vr and 2d. As for your specs, i suggest you leave ss and HMD on 1 and turn off shadows, AA, bloom, set some things to medium.
I run an overclocked rtx 2080 and with the rift s i can set ss 1, HMD 1.25 to get 80 fps everywhere, rings, cz, planets, stations etc.

 

[TheChafing]

Really? Before ordering this I found numerous forum and reddit posts where many people seemed to be using GTX970s happily with some compromised settings. I had a 970 but figured jumping up to the latest gen --a card that benchmarks higher than the 1070-- would be enough of a pad...

I also just found in the oculus software settings, a setting for "prefer performance" or "prefer quality", but it doesn't really explain what that's changing. Might it just be adjusting the same pixel SS that I'm playing with in OculusDebug?

As I recall, the 970 is listed as the minimum for use with the OG Rift. The Rift S really needs a GPU at least twice as fast, as its displays have about 2x the pixels, and that's just the minimum.

That said, some folks seem to be more sensitive to the framerate than others, and can't really tell the difference between real frames and reprojection. I can totally see reprojection most of the time, and it bothers me such that it just ruins the whole experience for me. Even my 1080 Ti struggles inside stations and on planets in this game.

 

[jnTracks]

Alright well, I guess this sets a computer upgrade goal. That'll be a while off... I thought saw somewhere 970 as being recommended min for ED but maybe they just meant for rift in general, Thought I'd do a little better with what should be slightly faster than 1 gen up of the same card, but Oh well.
Seems like I'm able to make good use of the ASW, which I can see, but it's pretty minimal and the thing does smooth out really quite well in appearance with that feature. Doesn't bother me much for now. I'm able to use some shadows and some FX quality with 1.25 SS enabled in the Oculus driver, which look much, much better than AA while in the headset. I think an issue with the 970 is that it's a generation too old to be able to use the ASW so that would really have been a no-go. I bet it would be lucky to do 20fps with all settings off.
It seems like with the ASW, 40 feels like 80 until you move your head to the side, then foreground objects double image.

 

[thistle]

I use a 970 with a Lenovo Explorer and it's great, it's certainly not 20fps and I have lots of the settings up reasonably high. It's the balance of SS in Steam and in game that makes all the difference I think in my case. In yours I guess that means Oculus SS and in game. I can't remember - my pc is currently dismantled - but I think in game SS is 1.0 and Steam equivalent is higher.

 

[DragonIV]

I had a 970 but figured jumping up to the latest gen --a card that benchmarks higher than the 1070-- would be enough of a pad...

The 1660ti is a midrange card, the 1070 may be previous gen but was upper midrange at least. It's really not higher than a 1070, per se. Most tests I've seen have it beating the 1070 on maybe half of the tests. In all tests, they really weren't very far apart. Definitely is an upgrade from the 970 tho.

I second the use of ED profiler. Dr, Kai's tool is wonderful for tweaking parameters in ED for VR.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

First of all...
VOTE THIS ISSUE AFFECTING THE VR MODE (ALL HEADSETS)

Second:
WELCOME TO THE CLUB! Once you sort out your troubles you won't go back to a flat screen!

Third:
Anything below a GTX1080 is borderline.
I have an Oculus Rift (CV1), a GTX1080 and I play with medium-high setting. I can forget Supersampling: that stays at 1.0.
Your Oculus Rift S has a slightly higher resolution so it requires for sure higher performance than mine. I suggest you to plan an upgrade if you don't want troubles.

Fourth:
Stop looking at the FPS. You'll get sick if you don't stop. Just move the head around and as long as the tracking is smooth for your eyes you're fine. You don't need other test or numbers to verify if the performance is good or not.

Fifth:
AA is useless in VR, switch it OFF
Ambient Occlusion idem, OFF
Supersampling 1.0 (as just said)
HMD quality start from 1.0 and increase only if stable (I have 1.25 or 1.5 so don't expect miracles)
All other settings start from medium and all sliders in the middle. If you want to spend time playing around do small adjustments only when you feel that everything works in all conditions.
Keep the monitor in Window Mode, in Full Screen it's a big hit to the performance.
Remember that worst cases are: Combat Zones, inside rich/touristic stations, asteroid explosions (also mine sometimes stutters there) and inside blown up asteroids (because of the volumetric fx).

Last but not least:
About head position. Your version has a different tracking than mine. I have the sensors on the desk, you have the sensors on the headset.
I think that this is something that depends mostly on drivers and your Oculus is pretty new. I remember up to few months ago when I turned the head right and remove the headset to sneak out (to check kids) I always found the view rotated and not centered anymore. Since few updates this is not happening anymore. I believe that these kind of issues will be fixed in time as the drivers get more mature.

 

[jnTracks]

Wanted to pop back in and thank everybody for all your help!

It's sad that I was so wrong in prediction about how this would run on my rig, but I've got the settings whittled down now and the game is very fun.
I got ED Profiler set up so I can swap back into flat mode when I want to, but oh will I ever? Maybe if I do a long exploration again and want to watch videos and such.
The settings are very low, and I keep going back and forth on a couple of them. I'm having a hard time letting go of high shadows, and HMD qual 1.25. I know those are both pain points and I could smooth things if I let them go, but so far shadows just flicker so strongly when they are on low or medium, it's hard to take. Maybe I can get used to shadows off, but I don't want to. Then there's the HMD supersample. It really feels like even a slight SS like 1.25 makes an enormous difference to far objects and also text. This is obviously the biggest offender and I could probably have my shadows and be fine if I reduced it to native res. We'll see.
Things feel reasonably smooth now and only minor hiccups when dropping to stations (and sometimes stars), and when things get heavy in combat I see little studers. Maybe that's an indictment of the shadows, since those will likely only load in when I get close to the other ships, right?

I also wanted to say that when I first jumped into VR I was rightly astounded by the scale an realism of it all even at low settings. It's just so great. But I also was flying so carefully and barely turning for fear I'd tip over! I'm thankful I never had any nausea, but I sure did feel fake G force and was very disoriented. But last night (day 3 of having he HMD) something finally clicked and now I feel a lot better and I've even jumped into some combat in my FDL and felt good about it!
I think it was partially just time getting used to being in there, but I think I may have prolonged the time to acclimate by... simply trying to acclimate instead of playing the game. Instead of running missions or anything else I wanted to do, I was flying around trying to force myself to get used to it. Flying to planets and trying hard banking over the surface. After a while I was like well, let's just do some data missions and see what things are like when I'm not paying attention to acclimation. When I did this things seemed to get more comfortable right away. Then of course I was interdicted and my heart raced up in my throat! But as I evaded it I realized how much more comfortable it really was to do all that sudden banking and turning when I wasn't planning it for the sake of testing myself. It really clicked for me once I started just playing.
So now I'm back in the thick of it fighting in rings and CZ and having a great time. It really came together quick. Maybe that was just day 3, maybe it was just playing as normal. But that's my story!

 

[RobRoy-Outlaw]

AA is useless in VR, switch it OFF
Ambient Occlusion idem, OFF

I had no idea about these specific tips. Just gave it a whirl on my rig and - though I'm not counting frames - I'd swear it was just a natch smoother and no worse-off visually.

Very interesting!

Thank you.

 

[jnTracks]

I personally don’t think AA is useless in my oculus rift s. It’s not nearly as good as SS, but the performance hit is way less. I settled on using FXAA on top of 1.25 HMD supersample and it’s a gentle smoothing of the already improved text, and slightly less shimmer, almost as good as 1.5 SS, but without the bit frame drop.