fpsVR; a rude but necessary awakening

[Globusdiablo]

TL; DR: buy fpsVR and drop all settings across the board until you see a solid fps and little to no reprojection. The game will play and look better when you do (you need to exit to desktop to see changes effectively).

So, I just spent 2,2 euro on fpsVR through Steam. Turned out to be the best damned 2 euros I've spent in a long time.

I've got a pretty solid PC, with i5 1200k and a 3070ti, and I thought that would mean that I could run Elite: Dangerous (H3.8) VR at high settings across the board. I never had any actual readings of my fps while faffing about in an asteroid belt, but I wasn't really happy with how the game was running.

So I installed fpsVR and took my Krait for a quick spin through the rocks. Oh dear. Fps was anywhere from 35 to 60 and reprojection values were at approx.: 35%! I was shocked.

I immediately dialed all setting down to medium (except volumetric lighting at ultra - which for some reason still is necessary if you want to avoid shimmering rocks), and pretty much cut all settings in half. Including my beloved HMD quality setting, which I dropped from 1.5 to 1.25. Text took a hit in my Samsung Odyssey plus headset, but wow, what a transformation.

I now had almost rock solid 90fps in the RES, and reprojection values dropped from 35% to 4%. Vram usage at a pretty steady 5.9GB of the 8 available. CPU running at approx. 50%, GPU running at 80%. Everything hot, but well within operating temperatures.

The odd thing is that I thought graphic fidelity would take a hit from lowering settings, but the complete opposite happened. Textures seem sharper, and all of a sudden I have debris in the RES. Don't know where that was hiding before. Swallowed by the reprojection value maybe?

Anyway. A quick TL; DR: buy fpsVR and drop all settings across the board until you get a solid fps and little to no reprojection. The game will play and look better when you do.

Btw: You could set your settings while parked in a station, as it seems to take a huge toll, but I recommend setting them for the scene where you spend most of your time. Hopefully not a station.

Fly safe commanders.

Edit: Reprojection actually makes E: D blurrier, so keep it at an absolute minimum.

 

[[VR] SpaceGhostC2C]

Set it so you drop no more than 1/2 frame rate in a station
HP Revrb G2 90FPS 45 in stations.
I have to set my reprojection ratio to 50% and all settings on high,
bloom off
FX Quality low
Super sampling 1.0
HMD 1.25
If only they would fix the pancake foot play

 

[Globusdiablo]

Set it so you drop no more than 1/2 frame rate in a station
HP Revrb G2 90FPS 45 in stations.
I have to set my reprojection ratio to 50% and all settings on high,
bloom off
FX Quality low
Super sampling 1.0
HMD 1.25
If only they would fix the pancake foot play

You really should consider dropping your settings to get rid of the reprojection. It was an eye opener for me. Test it at least.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Depending on what ecosystem your HMD runs in fpsVR might lie to you. I run the Reverb G2, which is a WMR headset (as you know). My experience is that, in WMR for SteamVR, any SteamVR overlays, including fpsVR, tend to interfere with framerate and smoothness, sometimes severely dropping the framerate and introducing microstuttering. That's also why I completely banned using OVR Toolkit and others from my VR sessions.

What I do: I don't care about the actual framerate and detailed data. I activated the status "LED" in the WMR for SteamVR settings and go by that. It shows coloured squares at the bottom edge of my lenses; green meaning everything is peachy, blue and cyan meaning motion smoothing because of GFX / CPU frametimes, red meaning framerate lower than half of the HMD's refresh rate (45 fps in my case).

 

[Globusdiablo]

Depending on what ecosystem your HMD runs in fpsVR might lie to you. I run the Reverb G2, which is a WMR headset (as you know). My experience is that, in WMR for SteamVR, any SteamVR overlays, including fpsVR, tend to interfere with framerate and smoothness, sometimes severely dropping the framerate and introducing microstuttering. That's also why I completely banned using OVR Toolkit and others from my VR sessions.

What I do: I don't care about the actual framerate and detailed data. I activated the status "LED" in the WMR for SteamVR settings and go by that. It shows coloured squares at the bottom edge of my lenses; green meaning everything is peachy, blue and cyan meaning motion smoothing because of GFX / CPU frametimes, red meaning framerate lower than half of the HMD's refresh rate (45 fps in my case).

Interesting. Will have to check it out. Thanks.
But as an aside, I don't engage fpsVR after testing, so it can't affect performance while I play.

 

[[VR] SpaceGhostC2C]

You really should consider dropping your settings to get rid of the reprojection. It was an eye opener for me. Test it at least.

I have, I dont like how it looks. run it at 100% and run all the settings on low/med? No thanks.
Its not like i dont have enough rig to run thier poorly coded game
12900KS runs 5.5ghz
2x 3090's
8Tb of Samsung 980 pro's

 

[Globusdiablo]

I have, I dont like how it looks. run it at 100% and run all the settings on low/med? No thanks.
Its not like i dont have enough rig to run thier poorly coded game
12900KS runs 5.5ghz
2x 3090's
8Tb of Samsung 980 pro's

Congratulations. I'm merely pointing out that reprojection is a feature designed for low-end systems, sacrificing clarity for artificial frames. It should be avoided with high-end systems.

 

[[VR] SpaceGhostC2C]

My bad not reprojection ratio.........screen resolution i have set at 50% per eye
I run my graphics settinds so I dont dip below 45fps, in stations or out mining.

I havent even hardley used my headset after I quit playing Elite, I miss it, I have a lot of hrs in VR, it was my go to game.

 

[Globusdiablo]

My bad not reprojection ratio.........screen resolution i have set at 50% per eye
I run my graphics settinds so I dont dip below 45fps, in stations or out mining.

I havent even hardley used my headset after I quit playing Elite, I miss it, I have a lot of hrs in VR, it was my go to game.

Well come back then. H3.8 is still an excellent game.

 

[[VR] SpaceGhostC2C]

Well something happened yesterday, after I tried running at Resolution @ 100%. CPU and GPU wouldnt run over 50fps, I had to DDU uninstal my drivers, install latest drivers, seen there was a new chipset driver installed that, then for what ever reason i was updating windows and noticed there was a update for Asus, next thing i know its installing a new F-ing bios, i'm like ok, going to have to go with it now. Well it wouldnt let me OC my Ring, so then I downloaded the latest bios for my board............... 12hrs later I'm just getting my board running like it was 5.7ghz single core, 5.4 multi core, 5.2 avx, set my 2nd 3090 to handle PhysX...............mever doing that agian.

 

[[VR] SpaceGhostC2C]

I think I finally got my rig running good again. You really have to tweak the memory of DDR5 I'm running 6400 @ 30-37-37-39 and all the sub timings need tweaked. I should have used a board that had DDR4, it makes a huge difference in VR performance

 

[aXeL]

Better yet ( IMO ) spend NO money on fpsVR, install OpenXR and OpenCC for free, get VR fps, comparative analysis of CPU vs GPU, amongst other things and get the performance improvement from foveated rendering all without getting out your credit card.

 

[bobtuck]

aXeL....been reading your posts in the other thread on here re. OpenXR and OpenCC and would love to try it (looking to return to ED after quite a long hiatus) BUT admit to finding most of it very confusing

I have a modest i7-4790k with 32GB ram (DDR3) and a GTX 1080 (vanilla not the Ti) and a HP Reverb G1

Is there any possibility that you, or anyone else, could do a STEP by STEP guide for idiots on how to do this jiggery pokery (sorry for the technical jargon)

I used to fire up the game this way.... Voice Attack, ED Profiler, SteamVR .....but far from convinced that I was getting the best out of the game!

Any help most gratefully received, thanks

Bob

Edit - Sorry forgot to mention, only play Horizons

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Better yet ( IMO ) spend NO money on fpsVR, install OpenXR and OpenCC for free, get VR fps, comparative analysis of CPU vs GPU, amongst other things and get the performance improvement from foveated rendering all without getting out your credit card.

foveated rendering in elite? i didnt know this was doable.

i am using open composite is that difference to openCC (figurative question, i shall google)
(open composite has made a significant improvment in my performane over steamvr and is also more stable for me in ED:O)

edit;;... ok Google fu failed me. didnt see anything for OpenCC (open Chinese Convert???) and openCC VR also did not seem to be relevant)

 

[bobtuck]

LOL Mad Mike......same Google fail for me, was left wondering how the hell I apply Open Chinese Convert to VR

Going to have to swot up, via YouTube, as to what all this OpenXR is......

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

openXR is an open standard created in partnership by Oculus, valve, MS, Nvidia and others....
performance wise in my experience it is very similar to the native performance of the oculus software running the rift.

OpenVR (or SteamVR) is the valve designed one which is one way or another for all PCVR headsets.
I cant comment on what it is like on actual native steamVR headsets such as the vive or index, but on oculus headsets as well as windowsMR headsets such as my reverbG2, in every case i can directly compare OpenVR/SteamVR has a performance penalty.

Open composite where it works offers more performance in every case i have tried.
its dead easy to switch between the 2. you load the open composite software and choose to run SteamVR or not - and you can tell if it is working properly because steamVR does not load, also the visuals of going into vr is slightly different..

Not all games run on it however and those which dont you click it off and run it as if open composite was not there.

there are 2 versions of opencomposite, the original one and a beta openXR one so it is worth downloading both as each has different compatibility.
if you want once you have decided which works best you can add it to your game install and then no clicking is needed, it will always run on your preferred platform.

i think that is about right, its off top of my head and am no expert. Important to this forum, in my experience (which is coloured by the fact that EDO is giving me issues in steamVR anyway for some reason) but for me Elite Ody is night and day better when running open composite on my rtx3090/amd 5800x powered reverb G2.

Campbell Suter (ZNix) / OpenComposite · GitLab

Reimplementation of OpenVR, translating calls to OpenXR.

gitlab.com

OpenComposite

OpenXR Toolkit

mbucchia.github.io

 

[Crank Larson]

SteamVR diagnostics will give you the same information without needing to fork out for a new application (even if it is only 2 euro ).

 

[aXeL]

foveated rendering in elite? i didnt know this was doable.

i am using open composite is that difference to openCC (figurative question, i shall google)
(open composite has made a significant improvment in my performane over steamvr and is also more stable for me in ED:O)

edit;;... ok Google fu failed me. didnt see anything for OpenCC (open Chinese Convert???) and openCC VR also did not seem to be relevant)

Sorry, mild aphasia on my part. OpenC ( not CC ) when I am too lazy to type OpenComposite

 

[jojon]

foveated rendering in elite? i didnt know this was doable.

I have not tried these things myself, but I believe for ("fixed") foveated rendering, you'll want to use this, as a companion to OpenComposite:

Quickstart

OpenXR Toolkit

mbucchia.github.io

 

[aXeL]

aXeL....been reading your posts in the other thread on here re. OpenXR and OpenCC and would love to try it (looking to return to ED after quite a long hiatus) BUT admit to finding most of it very confusing

Oh heck, it's been about 3 months since I muddled my way through but let me see...

Ok, not all the steps are necessary I suspect, I'm just trying to recall what I did step by step:

1) Remove SteamVR. This is not necessary but I hate this bloatware POS that should be buried alongside Mantle, HAVOC and Zune. You might have some games that need it but none of mine do except XR Rebirth. However since that game, literally, has nothing to do - I don't play it anyway.

2) Go to the OpenXR Toolkit here and download this and install it. This integrates with WMR

3) Install OpenXR Developer Tools for WMR from the Microsoft Store. I think this was only for when I was fettling the Render Scale ( don't ) because it had a setting for this so you 'may' not need it. Handy to make me nauseous though..

( I may have done ( 2 ) and ( 3 ) the other way around - can't recall for sure ).

4) Now, because of the proprietary nature of SteamVR and the cr@ppy bespoke development practises Steam endorses, some games, and unfortunately EDH and EDO included, won't natively talk nicely to open standards, i.e. OpenXR so we need an interposer to translate Steam API cr@p into something more friendly. Enter OpenComposite. Again, community software and I'm trying to recall which Git repo I used to DL mine.... Ok, I think it was this repo and... ah ha - DL this ( nothing else from there ) and install it into any convenient directory - it's self contained. ( It will want firewall access for updates - if you choose them. Not like SteamVR that forces you. FYI - I NEVER update unless something is broken ).

Using the Tools - this is a one-off, you don't need to load the tools every time you game. Only until you see that they've retained your settings ( They don't always on the first attempt after the initial installation ).

5) Load OpenXR Tools. Note the hotkey settings. You may want to change them. This is for b*ggering your in game VR graphics. Pick comfortable combos you can operate with your headset on because you're going to spend a lot of time playing with the settings and then restoring them before you understand what you're doing

6) Still in OpenXR Tools. Note the text box at the bottom, which may/may not already list VR games you have and the Runtime they're using. If not don't worry because loading the game will populate it BUT DON'T!! EDH is not OpenXR friendly remember so there's something we want to do first.

7) Load OpenComposite and hit 'Configure' which opens a new window. Here you can set which VR Runtime your games are going to use so select EDH and set the drop down to OpenComposite. Kill the window and the main OpenComposite window shows you the 'default' VR Runtime you're using so you can flick it back and forth ( If SteamVR is still installed ). However, since the 'Configure' screen allows you to set it on a per game basis, leave the default on OpenXR.

8) Load up EDH as normal

9) In Game Meddling. Use your Hot Key combo to bring up the OpenXR menu and learn the clunky way to navigate it. There you can have all kinds of fun with foveated rendering, different SS methods, fps, zoom, renderscale and various other creative ways to make you vomit until you get the hang of the settings.

It's testimony to just how bad SteamVR is that community built OpenXR kits ( there are a few ) AND the various OpenComposite kits, together, give better performance than SteamVR on it's own... with a game written for SteamVR.

Let me know if it works, I think I captured everything I did but I may need to update this depending on how you get on.

P.S. There are certain ED graphics settings that can break OpenC+OpenXR. I think it may have been EDO rather than EDH and using any other SS method except 'Normal' breaks it but it's been awhile and I never recorded 'problem settings'. Or it might've been setting HMD SS > 1 that broke it. Don't recall. I think all the other settings were fine though.