Let's talk about performance

[Junky Juke]

I ran a performance test by the oculus debug tool. I discovered after a week that I'm running @45 fps in stations, asteroid fields and crowded scenes. The rest of time I'm at stable 90fps.
Is it normal on this rig?

Asus GTX 1070 8Gb video card
i7 6700K @4 Ghz CPU
Win 10 anniversary OS
8 Gb ram
Oculus CV1

Also I noticed that headroom performance is always red with negative values. And FPS drops from 90 to 45 without middle measures.

Fact is that my eyes can't notice fps drops. The overall experience seems to be smooth except for odd deformations when I fly too close to under heavy attack NPC ships and, when I land to a station or planet, there is some stuttering that disappears after few seconds.

I have set SS to 0.65 and HMD quality to 2.0. General quality settings can vary from low VR to high VR without any considerable performance loss.

I'm getting confused. There are so many threads about graphic tweaks and so many tools I don't know where to start from.

Could anyone suggest me a simple way to manage all this stuff? I'd like to spend more time in game than tweaking settings.

Thanks!

JJ

 

[Globusdiablo]

I ran a performance test by the oculus debug tool. I discovered after a week that I'm running @45 fps in stations, asteroid fields and crowded scenes. The rest of time I'm at stable 90fps.
Is it normal on this rig?

Asus GTX 1070 8Gb video card
i7 6700K @4 Ghz CPU
Win 10 anniversary OS
8 Gb ram
Oculus CV1

Also I noticed that headroom performance is always red with negative values. And FPS drops from 90 to 45 without middle measures.

Fact is that my eyes can't notice fps drops. The overall experience seems to be smooth except for odd deformations when I fly too close to under heavy attack NPC ships and, when I land to a station or planet, there is some stuttering that disappears after few seconds.

I have set SS to 0.65 and HMD quality to 2.0. General quality settings can vary from low VR to high VR without any considerable performance loss.

I'm getting confused. There are so many threads about graphic tweaks and so many tools I don't know where to start from.

Could anyone suggest me a simple way to manage all this stuff? I'd like to spend more time in game than tweaking settings.

Thanks!

JJ

Emphasis mine.

If it doesn't bother you, don't worry about it. Your settings seem appropriate. I would throw in an extra 8 gigs though, as I've read somewhere that Elite: Dangerous can exceed 8 gigs of use during continued play.

Experience depends very much on your play style. I found that flying in a busy RES tore my FPS apart when I flew close to the those floating rocks.

TL; DR: If it works for you, don't worry about what others say.

 

[Junky Juke]

Ok I will stick to my config then and I will never switch on again the performance hud. I don't want to become a numbers slave
And yes, an additional 8gigs bar in on the way. From that moment on, I will conisder my machine finished. Thanks!

 

[Gortron]

Hi Junky,

What you are seeing is ASW (Asychronous spacewarp) kicking in. It's some sort of trickery where if your GPU can't keep up at 90fps it halves the frame rate and makes up the frames in between using some elaborate guess work. It looks just as smooth but does produce a few graphical anomalies that bug the heck of of some people. I won't tell you what they are because once seen they can't be unseen and if you are happy with the experience all the better for it.

I struggled like hell to get my GTX 1080 to almost never let ASW kick in, think I set VR ultra then turned SS to 1.0, HMD to 1.25 and reduced AA to FX mode... it still kicks in sometimes though unless I turn it off and then it's not smooth. You can spend ages faffing about so like Glousdiablo said, if it works for you don't worry about it. Also I think the debug tool doesn't really indicate ASW hence the huge negative headroom.

 

[Wood67]

I have a similar rig (though with 32Gb RAM) and get the same type of results. I have ASW enabled, and also wondered why it was either 90fps or 45fps but nothing really in between, so thanks Gortron for explaining that. On my setup I have SS at 1.0 and HMDq at 1.25 or 1.5. Bloom off, and basic AA. I stopped looking at the fps counter because although it drops in Stations and sometimes at RES, ASW does a pretty neat job making up the difference. SRV work is fine, and a lot more comfy with the horizon locked - though driving over bumpy ground is trickier to track as a result.

I also finally resolved the issue of the CV-1 disconnecting every 5 minutes because the Inatek PCIe card ignores the power management settings. Now I can get back to slowly earning some cash to upgrade my new Python!

 

[Junky Juke]

Thanks Gortron, now I finally understand that was that misteriuous ASW. I'm little affected by it even if I turn quality down to the ground and I set SS and HMDQ to 1.0. It pops up expecially inside stations during landing pad transitions and when navigating the station's UI. Also it appears when I'm sticking to the back of NPC ships when there's a lot of incoming fire from system authority. So I can live with it and play the game at custom mid quality (I like to see good textures and special effects).
What is disturbing me the most is the random stutter when near planets both in SC and normal space and when in asteroid fields and outside stations. I guess it is RAM related and I hope it will disappear when I will install another 8gigs RAM on my machine.
Fingers crossed.

 

[Wood67]

What is disturbing me the most is the random stutter when near planets both in SC and normal space and when in asteroid fields and outside stations. I guess it is RAM related and I hope it will disappear when I will install another 8gigs RAM on my machine.

It won't disappear entirely. I still get a couple of seconds judder on SC exit by a station sometimes. I RP is at adjustment from hyperspace, and it soon goes away. Planet flybys are pretty good, but complex RES can occasionally still induce a small bit of stutter.

 

[Junky Juke]

I could live with it because I was used to some stuttering when playing with my old pre-VR machine

+1 virtual rep for the RP thing

 

[Gortron]

I recently went from 8gb to 16gb and it doesn't really make much of a difference, a little perhaps. I still get it where Wood67 has said.

By the way, if ASW is working out ok for you then you can probably up your graphics settings to the Ultra default and not notice much, if any performance difference. When you drop to 45fps your GPU is probably doing around 40% less work than it would to maintain 90fps with the same settings (i.e if it was 100% use it drops to 60% use so a bit more power to play with for pretty effects). All you need to try and avoid is having them up so high it drops below 45fps in stations or on planets or that it never goes up to 90fps in space.