Rift CV1 - FPS Drops although System isn't fully utilized

[OxKing]

tl;dnr: FPS drops in crowded scenes down to 55 FPS even with lowest Graphics although GPU and CPU are only utilized to 40-60%. PC don't seems to be the Problem.

I have bought me an Oculus Rift CV1 along with a GTX 1070 about an month ago. Only to play Elite Dangerous on it.
As i fiddled around with it and used the Oculus Debug Tool Performance Overlay i noticed FPS Drops.
(I also notice them in the game. Small random stutters or those jitter when Oculus ATW kicks in.)
I blamed my lower then Oculus recommended i5-4460 (3.4 GHz) and went all in to an i7-4790k (4.4 GHz) upgrade.
But it hasn't done anything really noticeable. (I've feared it all the way, as i didn't saw an i5 4460 as a real botleneck, but you know the uncertainty lets you made mad things.)

Now im flying around in the inner RES near Jaques Station in an Eagle and i've noticed Framedrops and FPS down to 75 to even 55 FPS at the worst moments.
Mostly when there are multiple ships engaging each other and me. All this in solo mode.
But now the wierd part: Both the GPU and the CPU aren't fully utilized. Both at maybe 50-60%.
(Use to look at the MSI Afterburner at my Monitor while i hold my Rift with my hand on the sensor to see these values.)
Also almost not matters what graphical settings i apply. It even happens when i set all to low.
(VR Low and then also set Texture Quality to low, Blur: Off and Depth of Field: off.)

My System: i7-4790k @4.4 GHz stable boost. GTX 1070 Overclocked to 2050 MHz with +200 MHz VRAM. 16 GB of 1600MHz DDR3 CL9 RAM. 850 Evo SSD.
Windows 10 64-Bit. No Swap file. 100mbit Internet Connection. The Oculus and the Sensor Camera is also connected (and working) via USB 3.0. Just to be sure.

As usual i hunt down any problem on my side. Drivers, Driver Settings, other Apps in the Background, BIOS (or better UEFI) Settings.
I even turned off all kind of Power Management features, Hyperthreading, CPU Boost, Speedstep and more just to test around. (PSA: PEG-ASPM Option: Off brought me 3% more Performance. )
I set the nvidia driver to performance, played around with the pre render limit and all. Nothing helped.
I also Benchmarked my system via 3D Mark (about 8500 Points at Firestrike Extreme) and stuff like RAM Performance with Sisoft Sandra. All good. Nothing hinting on any Problems.

I can fly around inside or outside a Station with Ultra Preset in the Rift with no problem. (Occasionally Drops to 87 FPS and GPU may be utilized up to 90-95% there IIRC.)

As i thrown a lot of money on the problem with the GTX 1070 in the first place and then the i7 just to fix this, it is a bit disappointing to not get a stable experience out of my favorite game.

So what is going on there? What do you guys think?
Do you have similar observations? Do you think Frontier could (and will) fix this by further optimizing the Game? No big deal?
Any hope i could kill this problem with throwing even more money on it? Like getting an 6 or 8 Core CPU, DDR4 RAM. Titan X? (I seriously doubt it. I think its a Game issue.)
Any other Tips to solve it?

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Try using the Oculus Debug tool HUD options - you may find something is holding the rendering back in certain situations. Try to get to a position where you can replicate the low-frame rate, try looking around (ie look towards a battle = low frame rate, look away from the battle = high frame rate - then you know its the game, and not hardware.

You probably don't need additional hardware, although the 1070 isn't the top card, its certainly fast enough for VR!

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

I use a 970 and the game is running smooth n VR with only slightest exceptions (deploying the SRV). I think, fps fluctuations are somehow linked to the network connection. When i get unexpected fps drops, i usually see bad network performance as well.

 

[Full_Ninja]

tl;dnr: FPS drops in crowded scenes down to 55 FPS even with lowest Graphics although GPU and CPU are only utilized to 40-60%. PC don't seems to be the Problem.

I have bought me an Oculus Rift CV1 along with a GTX 1070 about an month ago. Only to play Elite Dangerous on it.
As i fiddled around with it and used the Oculus Debug Tool Performance Overlay i noticed FPS Drops.
(I also notice them in the game. Small random stutters or those jitter when Oculus ATW kicks in.)
I blamed my lower then Oculus recommended i5-4460 (3.4 GHz) and went all in to an i7-4790k (4.4 GHz) upgrade.
But it hasn't done anything really noticeable. (I've feared it all the way, as i didn't saw an i5 4460 as a real botleneck, but you know the uncertainty lets you made mad things.)

Now im flying around in the inner RES near Jaques Station in an Eagle and i've noticed Framedrops and FPS down to 75 to even 55 FPS at the worst moments.
Mostly when there are multiple ships engaging each other and me. All this in solo mode.
But now the wierd part: Both the GPU and the CPU aren't fully utilized. Both at maybe 50-60%.
(Use to look at the MSI Afterburner at my Monitor while i hold my Rift with my hand on the sensor to see these values.)
Also almost not matters what graphical settings i apply. It even happens when i set all to low.
(VR Low and then also set Texture Quality to low, Blur: Off and Depth of Field: off.)

My System: i7-4790k @4.4 GHz stable boost. GTX 1070 Overclocked to 2050 MHz with +200 MHz VRAM. 16 GB of 1600MHz DDR3 CL9 RAM. 850 Evo SSD.
Windows 10 64-Bit. No Swap file. 100mbit Internet Connection. The Oculus and the Sensor Camera is also connected (and working) via USB 3.0. Just to be sure.

As usual i hunt down any problem on my side. Drivers, Driver Settings, other Apps in the Background, BIOS (or better UEFI) Settings.
I even turned off all kind of Power Management features, Hyperthreading, CPU Boost, Speedstep and more just to test around. (PSA: PEG-ASPM Option: Off brought me 3% more Performance. )
I set the nvidia driver to performance, played around with the pre render limit and all. Nothing helped.
I also Benchmarked my system via 3D Mark (about 8500 Points at Firestrike Extreme) and stuff like RAM Performance with Sisoft Sandra. All good. Nothing hinting on any Problems.

I can fly around inside or outside a Station with Ultra Preset in the Rift with no problem. (Occasionally Drops to 87 FPS and GPU may be utilized up to 90-95% there IIRC.)

As i thrown a lot of money on the problem with the GTX 1070 in the first place and then the i7 just to fix this, it is a bit disappointing to not get a stable experience out of my favorite game.

So what is going on there? What do you guys think?
Do you have similar observations? Do you think Frontier could (and will) fix this by further optimizing the Game? No big deal?
Any hope i could kill this problem with throwing even more money on it? Like getting an 6 or 8 Core CPU, DDR4 RAM. Titan X? (I seriously doubt it. I think its a Game issue.)
Any other Tips to solve it?

I have noticed the same thing on the Vive. I use MSI afterburner to log my stats so when I’m done testing I can scroll through everything and see how my resources are being used. GPU and CPU show plenty of head room so it does look like the issue is from the network connection. You stated you had a 100mbit connection. Do you know the latency on that bandwidth? My latency is around 10 to 12ms. Maybe someone has a gig connection with really low latency could test.
Also everyone who claims to have perfectly smooth frame rate could you attach a screenshot of your logs showing that while in a resource extraction sight? That would help because then we would have a piece of working hardware and internet connection to reference against.

 

[CMDR Minion Blob]

I would not recommend the use of the Oculus Debug Tool in the current version of Elite and the latest Nvidia drivers. It really provides no added benefit at this point and can really slow down your system because the settings are aggregated to the in-game graphics options.

I don't know what SS value you've set but I would only use in-game settings. Anything above SS 1.5/SMAA on my system causes noticeable performance hits under the conditions you describe. I have a 2-way 1080 SLI setup OC'd to just below 2K MHz clock running on an i7-6770K clocked at 4.6GHz with 32GB 3300MHz XMP RAM and a 1.3TB Intel 750 NVMe SSD. I also see up to 7.5GB RAM utilization during peak times (asteroid fields, etc.) so with everything turned on looks like the 1080-based systems barely cut it without at least some visuals being toned down. The new Titans will most likely do OK for some time, such is the nature of progress. I am using a 150/150Mbps fiber Internet connection.

Just wait until some of the new luxury starport variants drop in 2.2 and--barring some new optimizations--prepare for another FPS hit with all that new eye candy.

https://youtu.be/v5QCdABC0lA

https://youtu.be/OgPymfKEmUo

 

[dutchy2000]

Look at the sticky at the top of this forum with regards to the sounds. There is something in there to allow you to fiddle with the audio settings. Lower numbers = beefier machine, try increasing the number and see how you do? I have an i7 6800k and to me stuff significantly improved after I increased the values.

 

[OxKing]

You stated you had a 100mbit connection. Do you know the latency on that bandwidth? My latency is around 10 to 12ms.

Im at 12 at best here and i tested the connection to London (don't know where the frontier servers might be), about 25ms.

I would not recommend the use of the Oculus Debug Tool in the current version of Elite and the latest Nvidia drivers.
It really provides no added benefit at this point and can really slow down your system because the settings are aggregated to the in-game graphics options.

I don't know what SS value you've set but I would only use in-game settings.

I don't use any SS other then the 1.0x setting at all.
The Oculus Debug Tool only shows what i noticed without it. FPS definitely drops even without it.

Look at the sticky at the top of this forum with regards to the sounds. There is something in there to allow you to fiddle with the audio settings. Lower numbers = beefier machine, try increasing the number and see how you do? I have an i7 6800k and to me stuff significantly improved after I increased the values.

Interesting, i will try that.
My settings in the Oculus version were already:

<AudioConfig>
	<Latency>
		<RefillBuffers>1</RefillBuffers>
		<SamplesPerFrame>256</SamplesPerFrame>
	</Latency>
	<AudioAPI>0</AudioAPI>
</AudioConfig>

Without me ever touching it. Standard should be 4 and 1024 referred to the text in that file.
I go on and test that.

Edit: Thank you Dutchy, Seems you have a valid point here. I've just doubled the values and it seemed to be better then before but not gone yet.
I also had the feeling the FPS drops were linked to sounds start playing, as i only was sitting around and did nothing myself. I will further look into this at the weekend.

 

[OxKing]

So, i just messed further around with Elite and im not smarter then before really.
Those Framerates even drop down to 50 inside the outfitting menu when selecting different items as i switch up and down through them.
Sound seems not to be the problem in itself. (Tried different Sound Buffer Settings as mentiond earlier
and even disabling the Rifts Headset and putting it out of the Motherboard "Soundcard".)
I think it is more of that event that calls up the sound that i had made responsable to drop those FPS.
(A new contact on the scanner, not the click. Charging FSD message and not the sound. Or at least not only. I don't know.)

Then i discovered a strange thing inside those Asteroid Ring when having graphics set to ultra. Charging FSD will temporarily boost up the Shadow distance
on the Asteroids for 1-2 seconds in the opposide direction of the star.

I had sometimes in those fields (but with no shadows on very low settings) a larger framerate drop when pressing the FSD button and the charging message appeared.
Then it was present at every single FSD press and well to see on the Oculus debug performace graph.
When i was spamming the button my RAM filled up, up to the point the Game crashed and only a static image inside die Rift was present as i would play a game in this cinema kind mode
and on the mirror output it rendered normally with then 200 fps. I think this could be ATW of the Rift Software causing this fault with an memory leak. Elite may only trigger this due the frame drop in this situation.
But i can't reproduce this every time.

 

[Cliché]

I would not recommend the use of the Oculus Debug Tool in the current version of Elite and the latest Nvidia drivers. It really provides no added benefit at this point and can really slow down your system because the settings are aggregated to the in-game graphics options.

I tested 1.5x in-game, vs. 1.0x in-game and 1.5x debug tool, and had exactly the same FPS in the same situations. I just tested this a few days ago, so I think they have the same performance. Where you take performance hits is when using the debug tool with the in-game SS set to something other than 1.0x.

The added benefit of using the debug tool is for SS values between 1.0x and 1.5x, because 1.5x is really too high, even for a 1080, unless you are willing to live with FPS drops in a RES or on a planet.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

I would not recommend the use of the Oculus Debug Tool in the current version of Elite and the latest Nvidia drivers. It really provides no added benefit at this point and can really slow down your system because the settings are aggregated to the in-game graphics options.

Hmm, disagree.

The Oculus Debug tool and the in-game SS use different methods. The Debug Tool forces ED to over-render the game image at higher resolution, which is then down-sampled to the Rift native resolution. This retains more detail in the final displayed image simply because the GPU is rendering more detail, and has beneficial side-effects such as improving antialiasing, texture filtering etc.

Setting the pixel density setting higher using the ODT is faster than the in-game brute-force supersampling of the normal-resolution image presented to the Rift before the compositor distortion final display.

You should choose one setting or the other - using a higher pixel density through the ODT AND a SS setting in-game higher than 1.0x does put even more strain on your poor GPU. But the ODT is faster.

The in-game SS is somewhat slower and while it does improve visual quality, it doesn't equal the image quality given by jacking the pixel density up using the ODT.

 

[curious fish]

Changing my launcher shortcut to run this resulted in a noticeable reduction in random stuttering for me. (Only works with quad core + hyper thread systems)

start /HIGH /affinity 0x55 edlaunch

 

[OxKing]

Changing my launcher shortcut to run this resulted in a noticeable reduction in random stuttering for me. (Only works with quad core + hyper thread systems)

start /HIGH /affinity 0x55 edlaunch

Well ok, where are those command line options from (never heard about them), what do they actually do? Is there any source to read about them?

Edit: Oh, it's a Windows generic type of thing to get a higher CPU time prioritization for a certain task, like you can do in the Task manager, right?
I also did this in the Taskmanager to Elite and then the Oculus Tasks as well, but i couldn't really get much out of it, but i might try that specific thing here too.
Do i have to set this up as a .bat file? I also wonder if this will work as i use the the Steam or the Oculus version of the game, not the generic one anymore.

Edit2: Ok, i've tried that. I fired it up via cmd line towards the edlaunch of the oculus directory.
Yeah it's setting the priority to High and the use of the processor Cores to just use the real cores without the hyperthreaded virtual ones i think.
But i doesn't do anything about the frame drops.

 

[tootired]

I know this thread has been idle for a few months, but I have to say ME TOO!
I love E. After trying a friend's DK2 with it, I knew I must have the CV1 to play "properly". I had been playing flat (ie normal display) very happily with an AMD R9-280, but when the oculus arrived, flat just didn't cut the mustard. Soo, I went (almost) all-out and got a GTX 1080.

Anyway, I'm posting on your thread because I found the same issue - in a RES, the framerate drops off even though Afterburner indicates everything is just ticking over (~50% load, GPU and CPU).
My processor is an I7-3770. A Little long in the tooth, and currently not listed as being optimal for oculus (why???)
Anyway, I was seriously wondering if I need to throw more hardware at this problem and step up to an i7-6700K when I read your thread (you've gone through the same process).
Single-thread performance is often touted as the important factor for games, so I checked the cpubenchmark.net website.
My 4 year old i7-3770 scores 2069, and the shiny new i7-6700K scores 2342. At around 15% increase, I don't think that's going to be the silver bullet.

I started to suspect that E was CPU capped, and it didn't use much multi-threading. Turning off Hyperthreading just helped to confirm this (no difference).
Then I did a simple test: I squared up to the RES marker, then reversed out of the asteroid field at right angles to its plane.
At approx 25km away, the frame rate jumped up from 45Hz to 90Hz. There was a sweet spot distance where the frame rate would jump between 45 & 90, as it flips in and out of using ATW - I could see a correlation with AI ships coming in/out of instance range (not scanner range).
I also found that changing the graphics quality made no difference to FPS (except give the GPU less to do).
Conclusion: A limited number of threads (2, maybe 3 at a push) are overloaded making the AI/Physics computation updates for the spinning asteroids, ships, missiles, etc. They just can't update all objects in range within the 11ms needed to sustain 90Hz, so it falls back to 45Hz + ATW.
The CPU is underutilized because of the lack of multi-threaded design.
The GPU is underutilized because it is asked to render frames less often. It even slows its core clock.

I have used sysinternals Process Explorer to see the thread activity for the executable, and the lions share of the work is done by 2 threads, in equal share. One is a Rendering thread, the other seems to be thunking the nvidia driver! (tho without the debug symbols, I can't be sure).

I'd love to hear from anyone who has a solid 90FPS with Oculus in a RES (in solo mode), and what hardware they are running.

 

[OxKing]

Upgrading my Haswell i5 to a speedier i7 had brought nothing in this regards.
I really spend about an extra 500€ for it to just solve that problem. And needless to say i was quite disappointed then.
(New cooler and then a new ITX Mainboard too, because my old one wouldn't support bigger coolers because the CPU was right next to the PCIe Slot.)
As i had this problems and wasn't happy with the resolution (or SDE) and the Field of View of the Oculus anyway i eventually sold my Rift on eBay.
Now my Game keeps stuttering, even in 2D although the FPS are stable at 60. This seems to happen since 2.2, but im not sure, because i had my 1070 at the same time.
Theres an Thread about it too: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/300470-Microstuttering-and-Performance-loss

 

[Oasis81]

So, i see that i'm not the only one.

i had i5 6500 and GTX 1070

my problem was this:

with ASW ON: frame capped 45 in station and 90 or less out... with less stuttering ( sometimes)

with ASW OFF : FPS from 70 to 90 but stuttering everywhere
also mid-low config

here a sample

the green line that you see show that my gpu didn't received a completly and constant power.... why? i don't know...
so, i think it was the CPU.

I've tried again with Battlefield 1 at full detail and 200% resolution (no oculus)
same problem

I've change the I5 6500 with I7 6700k... this evening i'll do other tests to see if it was a cpu bottleneck, a 1070 problem or it's ONLY a game problem in VR.

 

[vic]

Let us know your results.
Personnally I believe it's server/network related.

 

[Yololo69]

I know this thread has been idle for a few months, but I have to say ME TOO!
I love E. After trying a friend's DK2 with it, I knew I must have the CV1 to play "properly". I had been playing flat (ie normal display) very happily with an AMD R9-280, but when the oculus arrived, flat just didn't cut the mustard. Soo, I went (almost) all-out and got a GTX 1080.

Anyway, I'm posting on your thread because I found the same issue - in a RES, the framerate drops off even though Afterburner indicates everything is just ticking over (~50% load, GPU and CPU).
My processor is an I7-3770. A Little long in the tooth, and currently not listed as being optimal for oculus (why???)
Anyway, I was seriously wondering if I need to throw more hardware at this problem and step up to an i7-6700K when I read your thread (you've gone through the same process).
Single-thread performance is often touted as the important factor for games, so I checked the cpubenchmark.net website.
My 4 year old i7-3770 scores 2069, and the shiny new i7-6700K scores 2342. At around 15% increase, I don't think that's going to be the silver bullet.

I started to suspect that E was CPU capped, and it didn't use much multi-threading. Turning off Hyperthreading just helped to confirm this (no difference).
Then I did a simple test: I squared up to the RES marker, then reversed out of the asteroid field at right angles to its plane.
At approx 25km away, the frame rate jumped up from 45Hz to 90Hz. There was a sweet spot distance where the frame rate would jump between 45 & 90, as it flips in and out of using ATW - I could see a correlation with AI ships coming in/out of instance range (not scanner range).
I also found that changing the graphics quality made no difference to FPS (except give the GPU less to do).
Conclusion: A limited number of threads (2, maybe 3 at a push) are overloaded making the AI/Physics computation updates for the spinning asteroids, ships, missiles, etc. They just can't update all objects in range within the 11ms needed to sustain 90Hz, so it falls back to 45Hz + ATW.
The CPU is underutilized because of the lack of multi-threaded design.
The GPU is underutilized because it is asked to render frames less often. It even slows its core clock.

I have used sysinternals Process Explorer to see the thread activity for the executable, and the lions share of the work is done by 2 threads, in equal share. One is a Rendering thread, the other seems to be thunking the nvidia driver! (tho without the debug symbols, I can't be sure).

I'd love to hear from anyone who has a solid 90FPS with Oculus in a RES (in solo mode), and what hardware they are running.

You have probably right, not enough use of different thread our CPUs can handle. So they display a 50% and player think it have headroom but in fact all used thread by the game (E.g. 2 or 3) run at 100% and other unused stay idle. Sound logical. My I7 3770K is OC to 4,4Ghz but I still have the same issue...

 

[Oasis81]

so. changed CPU
I7 6700k instead of i5 6500

game on ULTRA

the screens are not good , but i think it's a game optimization problem...
but in game, zero stuttering.

Spoiler

so, the CPU power override the bad optimization of the game in VR.


in fact, with BF1 at 200% of resolution

Spoiler

so, was a bottleneck

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Agree, 3770K to 6700K is only a mild 15% increase in overall cpu power. I had to upgrade as my motherboard died.

I almost always disable ASW in ED as it turns on too quickly, limiting fps to 45 and introduces quite a few little visual artifacts that I find annoying. Turning it off recovers the frame rate to 90 instations (for my GTX1080)... I prefer the small ATW jitters over the ASW-affected frames.
(Ctrl Numpad 1, with NumLock ON)

 

[tootired]

Agree, 3770K to 6700K is only a mild 15% increase in overall cpu power. I had to upgrade as my motherboard died.

I almost always disable ASW in ED as it turns on too quickly, limiting fps to 45 and introduces quite a few little visual artifacts that I find annoying. Turning it off recovers the frame rate to 90 instations (for my GTX1080)... I prefer the small ATW jitters over the ASW-affected frames.
(Ctrl Numpad 1, with NumLock ON)

I totally agree - ASW is horrible in ED - I just don't think it's designed for the detailed UI of fine lines, text, and rectangular boxes. It's fine on panoramas in FPS like BF1, but not the cockpit of a spacecraft. As I said, I think the renderer is switching between 90Hz "raw" and 45Hz with ATW interleaving (when ASW is turned off, of course).

It's beginning to sound like there is no commodity hardware out there that can run ED on an oculus CV1 flat-out. We're relying on Frontier to optimise the game a bit, and either take out some of the overhead, or multi-thread the computation, or even use the GPU (after all, that's what they are increasingly being used for in real-world physics - modelling the universe).

Ho hum, stutter here we come ...