Idea about loss of Supersampling quality in new patch

[spameroo]

I posted this in a bug report already, but want to bring it up here, to discuss potential workarounds, if the idea is correct. I've been having same issue as a lot of people with DK2 after patch, in my case with AMD 290X (latest beta driver).

I was previously using 0.6 runtime in Win10, not SteamVR, and played at 1.5x SS, full HMD quality slider, and MSAAx2 mostly smoothly.

Updated OVR runtime to 0.8 and set up SteamVR yesterday, and suddenly 1.5x SS is essentially the same as 1x, but with a moderate hit to frame rate. 2x doesn't even seem to be as clear as 1.5 used to be. I think I've seen mention of the same thing happening for people with access to Oculus 1.3 runtime, so I'm guessing the problem is with Elite and the way it's handling DK2s in 2.0.7.

I'm wondering if maybe the SS multipliers were changed to expect the CV1 resolution, causing a weird coefficient with the DK2? Possibly the multiplier associated with the HMD Quality slider could have been changed too/instead. In the actual settings file, it is called "HMD pixels per display pixel", or something similar, so perhaps the resolution at 1.0 used to be hardcoded to match the DK2 screen, but was increased to match the CV1.

I don't know if this is actually what's going on, but if so it seems like we could be able to tweak one or both of those coefficients to get back to a round multiple of the DK2 resolution.

I'll update this if I can figure it out myself....

 

[SLeeC]

The in game SS 1.5x still works for me and i definatley prefer it on.. but even 1.0x looks ok now.

The headtracking with 0.8 and SteamVR is so low latency to even notice even at 75hz.. still looking forward to 90hz

 

[Sanderson]

Wait for runtime 1.3 to be released on Monday.

 

[Tepescovir]

same issue i guess, was playing with ss1.5 with 0.5 runtime and beautifully smooth, now stuck on ss1.0 with 0.8 and back to a double image stuttering mess in inhabited systems since the patch, same as it was a month or so ago before they fixed it.
Never understand the issue where they fix things, then return to the same broken stuff they just fixed with the next patch?

 

[RAJA]

same issue i guess, was playing with ss1.5 with 0.5 runtime and beautifully smooth, now stuck on ss1.0 with 0.8 and back to a double image stuttering mess in inhabited systems since the patch, same as it was a month or so ago before they fixed it.
Never understand the issue where they fix things, then return to the same broken stuff they just fixed with the next patch?

Likely as this is more about CV1 now than DK2.

 

[spameroo]

Likely as this is more about CV1 now than DK2.

Yeah, I think it has to do with the new patch having been optimized for the higher resolution CV1. I'm hoping there's a relatively easy way to have the engine apply different optimizations based on the detected HMD resolution, but we'll see. Theoretically the engine should have been developed to make this as simple as possible going forward, as new HMDs are released with higher or lower specs.


One thing I have noticed since the update started giving me the mirrored display is that the rendered pixels are clearly larger than the display pixels. When I set the mirror display (which is on my 1080p TV) to 1080p, the image looks very similar to the upscaling you'd see with most Xbox 360 (and probably many Xbone) games, which were rendered at 720p or 960p. It's possible this would have always been the case, if I'd had a mirrored display, if it has more to do with the image in the Rift having been rendered twice at 1080x960, but I don't know.

 

[rich_hard1]

It's either Frontier intentionally dumbing down graphics to appeal to a more broader PC setup audience, or 1.3SDK will fix the supersampling issue out.

 

[gamer101]

I reckon ED has reduced some settings to meet the Vive and CV1 recommended specs.

CylonSurfer says that the SS issue also exists with 1.3.

Perhaps ED need to provide a more granular SS setting (perhaps widening the HMD quality slider range beyond 1.0) to allow tweakers to edge up the settings if their hardware permits.

I guess with the consumer launch of this technology, everyone wants things to just "work" so they are being conservative.

 

[RAJA]

I reckon ED has reduced some settings to meet the Vive and CV1 recommended specs.

CylonSurfer says that the SS issue also exists with 1.3.

Perhaps ED need to provide a more granular SS setting (perhaps widening the HMD quality slider range beyond 1.0) to allow tweakers to edge up the settings if their hardware permits.

I guess with the consumer launch of this technology, everyone wants things to just "work" so they are being conservative.

Likely adapted for the CV1. It does not need as much work on text to make it legible. I have used a CV1 at one of our shows, and found it significantly better than the DK2 in this regard. Moving forwards, best advice would be to sell or shelve the DK2 and upgrade to Vive or CV1 if one wants better support.