Is This All I Can Expect From VR in AC?

[newbert]

Wasn't sure whether to ask this here or in the "Computech" sub-forum. But since my numbers are from AC, I'm posting this here.

Having just upgraded my graphics card, my system specs are now: i7-7700 (Not K) CPU, 16 Gigs Ram, Geforce 1660ti (6 Gigs) videocard, Lenovo Explorer WMR Headset. In AC, from fpsVR, this system is giving me 83 fps, 18% reprojection when running solo around Road America, but only 45 FPS, 50% reprojection when racing 20 AI opponents around Road America.

All graphic settings in AC (Content Manager) are either set to OFF or Minimal.

Is this really all that I can expect from this system? Or are there further settings to adjust somewhere to get the FPS up when racing in VR? I'm asking because I've read some posts saying that some guys are achieving " a solid " 90 FPS in AC VR. (If so, what the heck kind of systems do they have?)

FWIW - with FRAPS, on single screen, I get approx. 175 fps running solo, and approx. 80 fps racing AI with the same race and graphics settings as above.

Do any of these numbers seem low to you guys? If so, what can be done to improve them (especially in VR)?

Thanks!

 

[Miguel Batista]

Do you use content manager? Have you checked openVR settings? You might be using a lot of SS unwillingly due to steam's automatic management.

 

[newbert]

YES - I use Content Manager. (Is that a problem contributing to this?)
NO - I have not checked openVR settings, but I have checked (and played around with) SteamVR settings.

Can you elaborate what I need to do to check the possibility of unwittingly using a lot of SS?

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 197115]

1) Are you CPU or GPU bottlenecked, you should see it in fpsVR
2) If possible turn off reprojection, it has some recently introduced issue when it can put you in reprojection mode when you system is capable running at 90 fps, seems like extra load on GPU.
But honestly I would not expect miracles with your spec, esp with 20 AIs, start with lower numbers, like 5 and go up until you start dropping below 90.

Try to turn on all optimization options in CM/Custom Shader Settings.

One more, if possible keep SS exactly at 200%, it is the sharpest ratio for WMR.

See if this doc helps

 

[newbert]

1) Are you CPU or GPU bottlenecked, you should see it in fpsVR
2) If possible turn off reprojection, it has some recently introduced issue when it can put you in reprojection mode when you system is capable running at 90 fps, seems like extra load on GPU.
But honestly I would not expect miracles with your spec, esp with 20 AIs, start with lower numbers, like 5 and go up until you start dropping below 90.

Try to turn on all optimization options in CM/Custom Shader Settings.

One more, if possible keep SS exactly at 200%, it is the sharpest ratio for WMR.

See if this doc helps

Thanks again, but a lot of this is new to me and I need really basic instructions on how to do certain things:

1. I have fpsVR - but how where does it indicate whether I'm CPU or GPU bound?
2. How/where exactly do I turn off reprojection?

About keeping SS exactly at 200: Do you mean SteamVR/Settings/Video/Manual Override - Set slider to 200%? If not, please explain how/where I set the SS.

Sorry for the basic questions, but I do appreciate the help!

Thanks!

 

[newbert]

Another question: Should G-SYNC be enabled or not in the Nvidea settings (to get best results out of WMR)?

Thanks again!

 

[Andy-R]

Just set Oculus Tray Tool to 45fps asw mode and never worry about fps again works for me

 

[Miguel Batista]

YES - I use Content Manager. (Is that a problem contributing to this?)
NO - I have not checked openVR settings, but I have checked (and played around with) SteamVR settings.

Can you elaborate what I need to do to check the possibility of unwittingly using a lot of SS?

Thanks!

Content manager allows you to set SS it we more to double check the settings there. As for steam VR, on the general options you have several options to manually over ride or SteamVR automatically does so. I would select manually over ride and set the slider to 100%. Do the start of a race and see what you get. Then change the SS in the app settings individually. That should allow you to keep above 45 fps. Turn off reproduction too. As said before some people have issues with it. Finally be prepared to have dips bellow 90 fps at race start. It happens. Once the field clears a bit the fps will increase. If it is really bothering you, remove SS altogether and use msaa and lower graphical options. You should hit those 90 fps eventually.

 

[newbert]

Content manager allows you to set SS it we more to double check the settings there. As for steam VR, on the general options you have several options to manually over ride or SteamVR automatically does so. I would select manually over ride and set the slider to 100%. Do the start of a race and see what you get. Then change the SS in the app settings individually. That should allow you to keep above 45 fps. Turn off reproduction too. As said before some people have issues with it. Finally be prepared to have dips bellow 90 fps at race start. It happens. Once the field clears a bit the fps will increase. If it is really bothering you, remove SS altogether and use msaa and lower graphical options. You should hit those 90 fps eventually.

I'd like to give these suggestions a try, but:

Can you tell me exactly where I can set /check SS in Content Manager? I can't find it anywhere.

And exactly where/how can I turn reprojection off in SteamVR? I can't find that setting anywhere either (although it says that it's on).

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 197115]

AC and correspondingly CM SS settings are for Oculus only, stop confusing already confused person.
@newbert, just follow setting in the doc linked in my previos reply. Disable all in game apps and minimize number of AIs.

 

[newbert]

AC and correspondingly CM SS settings are for Oculus only, stop confusing already confused person.
@newbert, just follow setting in the doc linked in my previos reply. Disable all in game apps and minimize number of AIs.

OK - I'm trying what's in the doc. but:

1. On Page 5, I don't have the item in Red (Multiplier for Car LOD's). Perhaps I need a newer version of Custom Shader's patch? If so, how do check which version I have, and where do I find a newer version?

2. How do I get to the settings shown on Page 8?

In the meantime, except for these 2 items, I have updated everything. I'll now give them a tryout and will report back.

Thanks!

 

[newbert]

OK - I'm trying what's in the doc. but:

1. On Page 5, I don't have the item in Red (Multiplier for Car LOD's). Perhaps I need a newer version of Custom Shader's patch? If so, how do check which version I have, and where do I find a newer version?

2. How do I get to the settings shown on Page 8?

In the meantime, except for these 2 items, I have updated everything. I'll now give them a tryout and will report back.

Thanks!

WHOA! Performance is much. much WORSE. GPU Bar in fpsVR (while in cockpit) is SOLID RED and frame rate has dropped to 30! All this while practicing on track alone (no AI). This is with graphics settings from Page 1 of the document.

I will try the settings from Page 2 instead and will report back. Note: I do not have GBW Suite so will use "Default" for filter instead. brb.

OK - I'm back. With Page 2 settings, my FPS is 36 and GPU Bar is Yellow and Red. This is again with running alone in Practice (No AI).

So it's now worse than where I started from. I suspect there's a GPU setting I need to adjust - How do I get to what's shown on the doc's Page 8?

Thanks!

 

[newbert]

OK - I found the settings shown on Page 8 and changed ALL to match what's there. Very little change, if any. FPS is still at 36 with the GPU Bar Yellow and Red.

I'm out of ideas - Awaiting your thoughts.

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 197115]

You GPU is pretty weak as it seems.
Drop SS, try 100%,
lower MSAA to 2,
disable PP,
in CM/Shader Patch settings turn on all optimization options,
LOD Bias back to 0
use this mesh LOD settings instead

check if you get better performance with reprojection off, settings in wmrsettings.xml

 

[Ryno917]

With solo driving you have a GPU bottleneck; did a quick compare lookup and your GPU is worse than mine (1080). It's not abysmal, but it'll limit you.

With AI, though, you have a significant CPU bottleneck. I'm bottlenecked on my 4790K, and it's a decent bit faster than your CPU. AC runs almost entirely on a single core; all physics are calculated on a single core and AC is the only sim where the AI uses the exact same physics model (others use a simplified model) for AI, so single core speed is the most important metric for AC with AI.

I've been itching for a CPU upgrade myself for some time now, so I'm not surprised you have some FPS issues running with AI.

I think your best options are to completely disable shadows, reflections, apps and PP filters. Those are all things that hit CPU the most IIRC.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

With solo driving you have a GPU bottleneck; did a quick compare lookup and your GPU is worse than mine (1080). It's not abysmal, but it'll limit you.

With AI, though, you have a significant CPU bottleneck. I'm bottlenecked on my 4790K, and it's a decent bit faster than your CPU. AC runs almost entirely on a single core; all physics are calculated on a single core and AC is the only sim where the AI uses the exact same physics model (others use a simplified model) for AI, so single core speed is the most important metric for AC with AI.

I've been itching for a CPU upgrade myself for some time now, so I'm not surprised you have some FPS issues running with AI.

I think your best options are to completely disable shadows, reflections, apps and PP filters. Those are all things that hit CPU the most IIRC.

There are a separate threads for rendering and for physics.
Adding opponents in VR tanks the rendering thread first as frame timing gets tighter (90fps and two passes (one for each eye)). Physics thread impact is the same as on a flat screen.

Some of that info you can get out of AC rendering stats app.
Here's some description from Stefano posted a while back.

Render Stats App
---------------------------
FPS - Frames Per Second, your framerate
FT - Frame Time, time in milliseconds for how long a frame takes to render
Main_T - see below
DIP - Number of draw calls (not really important to the average player) DIP the better the performance in general, Indicating Optimized game assets like tracks, cars)
TRI - Total number of triangle polygons
B.Size - Average size of draw call batches (again, not important to the player but the lower the better)
SCENE - Tri count of the scene (after culling) on screen
PHY - see below
PHY_LATE - same as above, shoulderstand indicate the number of times physics calculation Took over 3 ms per frame
FMOD USAGE - FMOD is the sound engine used in AC. Not sure what the percentage exactly to but high values have impact on performance.

Main_T value is for the graphics thread. It shows the relationship between the time spent in the application (CPU) and the time spent to complete a frame (FRAME TIME). Values of CPU near 100% indicate a CPU-bound system graphically.
EX ... if a frame took 16ms to complete and CPU is 50% it means that AC was able to prepare the frame in 8ms .. and the GPU took 16ms to render it. (GPU bound) .. if CPU is 100% then it took the CPU 16ms to prepare the frame and the GPU is probably capable of faster (CPU bound).
No relationship whatsoever with the value read in task manager.

PHY is relative to the physics thread, values above 100% indicates that the system is not ready to calculate the physics in time (3ms per step) and that the game is now running slower than realtime (slowmo). Practically, there are too many AI and the CPU is not ready to handle it.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

And your GPU is definitely a drag on the otherwise good system, see if you can get something better.

 

[newbert]

You GPU is pretty weak as it seems.
Drop SS, try 100%,
lower MSAA to 2,
disable PP,
in CM/Shader Patch settings turn on all optimization options,
LOD Bias back to 0
use this mesh LOD settings instead
View attachment 294720
check if you get better performance with reprojection off, settings in wmrsettings.xml

Did everything except the LOD settings adjustment and turning reprojection off (because I couldn't find them). FPS is up to 87.6 running solo now, but image looks like crap, of course.

Where do I find that wmrsettings.xml file?

 

[newbert]

And your GPU is definitely a drag on the otherwise good system, see if you can get something better.

View attachment 294739

Well that is pretty disappointing because I just upgraded to the 1660ti from a 1060 (3Gig). It was recommended to me by someone in another thread. I was expecting much more of an improvement than what I'm seeing.

But there's good news too - I can still return the 1660ti for refund (bought from Amazon Prime), and I just came into some money. So, forgetting about budget for the moment - which card would you recommend? NOTE: The limiting factor is physical length. I full size card will not fit into my case. And my CPU is max'ed out for this motherboard (ie - I don't want to swap motherboard or CPU.)

Thanks!

 

[newbert]

I think your best options are to completely disable shadows, reflections, apps and PP filters. Those are all things that hit CPU the most IIRC.

Doing that raised the average FPS to 89.6. But, of course, looks terrible. I guess that's the max that I can squeeze out of this GPU?

Thanks!