Vive: Elite misses every other frame.

Eggplant! · May 6, 2016

So, folks seem all up in arms over some resolution issues. I'm not really seeing that.

What I am seeing, however, is that under Vive Elite misses every other frame. It's exactly every other frame. No matter what settings I use. Turning off reprojection and bringing up the perf graph makes this super obvious. There is some timing issue going on. Reprojection is smoothing things out for the most part, but something is amiss.

Anyone else seeing this?

BillD · May 6, 2016

Are you using SLI? If so turn off SLI and see if it goes away.

Eggplant! · May 6, 2016

With SLI off it misses every other frame. With it on, it's worse.

tsh · May 6, 2016

45 fps, and with reprojection the perf graph shows gpu 100% used (and occasional 2 frame drops, every few sec). I find I can play with this though, seated its not quite such a problem as standing. Single R9 290 (and was getting maybe 50 fps @4k previously - now driving a 1080p TV as a monitor).
Edit: Resolution seems OK now, aliasing is still present on text, but not a deal-breaker any more.

daveylad · May 6, 2016

Yep. I noticed the missing frames also, and that's with SLI off.

grammatonfeather · May 6, 2016

tsh said:
45 fps, and with reprojection the perf graph shows gpu 100% used (and occasional 2 frame drops, every few sec). I find I can play with this though, seated its not quite such a problem as standing. Single R9 290 (and was getting maybe 50 fps @4k previously - now driving a 1080p TV as a monitor).
Edit: Resolution seems OK now, aliasing is still present on text, but not a deal-breaker any more.

Why would you play Elite standing?

You should be sitting down with HOTAS controls.

ED has some judder for me now with Vive. With Oculus 1.3 and DK2 it was perfect above minimum. On steamvr VR Low preset is still too slow really.

I'm curious to know what systems people are using?

i5 2500k @ 4.8ghz with GTX 970 + 123mhz OC.

Some people have posted they have smooth performance with Vive and a GTX 970... the difference being they have a more modern CPU. I'm thinking it's because I'm limiting my GPU to PCIe 2.0 rather than the full bandwidth of 3.0?

Ultimately though is a steamvr poor performance issue.

shadragon · May 6, 2016

grammatonfeather said:
Some people have posted they have smooth performance with Vive and a GTX 970... the difference being they have a more modern CPU. I'm thinking it's because I'm limiting my GPU to PCIe 2.0 rather than the full bandwidth of 3.0?

RAM and Mobo have an impact on performance as well as CPU / GPU.

My specs in sig. My Vive should be delivered late today or first thing tomorrow so I'll let you know how it works.

blastard · May 6, 2016

grammatonfeather said:
Why would you play Elite standing?

You should be sitting down with HOTAS controls.

Why?. I have over 1200hrs in ED using VR and I play standing up - always have done. I sometimes have extended periods in-game (8hrs+ with breaks) and sitting in the same relative position for that long is not good for you. When I stand and play I can walk around my ship (a bit), look out of windows etc and not cause my back to ache or my legs and feet to go numb through relative inactivity. But its 'horses for courses' I suppose.

grammatonfeather · May 6, 2016

shadragon said:
RAM and Mobo have an impact on performance as well as CPU / GPU.

My specs in sig. My Vive should be delivered late today or first thing tomorrow so I'll let you know how it works.

My ram scores very very high on low latency. Speed is acceptable: 2133mhz. Mobo? Well I have no issues with Elite outside of steamvr over on Oculus. Steamvr is a snail.

blastard said:
Why?. I have over 1200hrs in ED using VR and I play standing up - always have done. I sometimes have extended periods in-game (8hrs+ with breaks) and sitting in the same relative position for that long is not good for you. When I stand and play I can walk around my ship (a bit), look out of windows etc and not cause my back to ache or my legs and feet to go numb through relative inactivity. But its 'horses for courses' I suppose.

Ok, you may continue to stand. I enjoy standing experiences with Vive now. Nice to get exercise.

tsh · May 6, 2016

grammatonfeather said:
Why would you play Elite standing?

very little of my VR time has been with Elite, so I generally care about performance when I'm standing - then dropped frames are disturbing.

grammatonfeather · May 7, 2016

tsh said:
very little of my VR time has been with Elite, so I generally care about performance when I'm standing - then dropped frames are disturbing.

I'm having a lot of fun on space pirate trainer.

Amazing.

Good exercise.

Skaldy · May 7, 2016

In Holopoint you can be switching between standing and kneeling on one knee all the time. It's a great workout, and addictive.

grammatonfeather · May 7, 2016

Skaldy said:
In Holopoint you can be switching between standing and kneeling on one knee all the time. It's a great workout, and addictive.

Yar, I got Holopoint as well. Will be playing it some more soon.

Eggplant! · May 7, 2016

Right so, back on topic.

Sounds like most folks see this problem. Any solutions? I read about some players hitting 90fps, so there must be some workaround for this timing issue.

grammatonfeather · May 7, 2016

So this problem results in maxed out GPU and choppiness? Judder?

With ED set to the graphics detail I was playing on DK2 with 1.3 runtime... On vive that was causing micro-stuttering. No judder on head turn but micro stuttering made it unplayable. I've had to knock ED down to "Low VR" preset and that got rid of the problem.

cmdr awesome · May 7, 2016

Remember that the vive is higher resolution and higher refresh rate than the dk2, so you should not expect the same performance.

grammatonfeather · May 7, 2016

cmdr awesome said:
Remember that the vive is higher resolution and higher refresh rate than the dk2, so you should not expect the same performance.

True.

I forgot about the refresh. 75 versus 90.

+ res.

Eggplant! · May 8, 2016

No, you've missed what I'm saying.

Regardless of settings, Vive is missing every other frame. There is some timing issue. not a performance one. I'm wondering how many other see it (sounds like many) and whether anyone has found a workaround yet.

Brains MkNutt · May 8, 2016

Eggplant! said:
What I am seeing, however, is that under Vive Elite misses every other frame. It's exactly every other frame. No matter what settings I use. Turning off reprojection and bringing up the perf graph makes this super obvious. There is some timing issue going on. Reprojection is smoothing things out for the most part, but something is amiss.

Anyone else seeing this?

I'm not quite seeing what you are but have had a significant pattern of repeated missed frames (HTC Vive consumer with single GTX 980ti).

For me it turned out to be a problem with steam's Desktop Game Theatre. I don't have elite from the steam store, but I do have the elite launcher added to steam as a Non-Steam game shortcut.
If you've got the same configuration, it might be worth trying to run the elite launcher from outside steam rather than using the shortcut from within steam. Bit more background in this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=247969

Eggplant! · May 8, 2016

Brains MkNutt said:
I'm not quite seeing what you are but have had a significant pattern of repeated missed frames (HTC Vive consumer with single GTX 980ti).

For me it turned out to be a problem with steam's Desktop Game Theatre. I don't have elite from the steam store, but I do have the elite launcher added to steam as a Non-Steam game shortcut.
If you've got the same configuration, it might be worth trying to run the elite launcher from outside steam rather than using the shortcut from within steam. Bit more background in this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=247969

Brilliant! That solved it! Rep to you!