Awesome work, thank you. I thinki I found some good tips to improve FPS with Sol/CM/VR. Just giving back and I can not post to the forums.
I have a strong rig. 7700k OC to 4.9, 2080TI OC to 2000, 16gb Z270 Fanatec CSW, 8020 rig with sim-commander and 4 buttkickers, csl LC pedals, Oculus Rift S,Viotek 32" curved 1440p freesync.
In non-vr I can run DSR at 5k resolution and in ACC, PC2 I am well into the 120+ FPS and below 4k I will see 150FPS-200FPS. Daytime racing 20+ cars. Night time and rain still around 100FPS 5k. In call of duty at 4k, raytacing, max and online I average around 100fps solid. Not bragging just giving context.
In AC stock I was seeing the same results with DSR 5k daytime I was at 180FPS+
With CM/SOL and different filters: One it looks incredible. It actually is better then PC2 which still beat out ACC imho for graphics. But AC/SOL/CM the replays are hands down photo realistic!!! I am using Immersive, A3PP and SOL filters. I am playing on Laguna daytime and dusk.
But non-VR most of my FPS are averaging as low as 70FPS! So a 50%+ hit! I used the stock CM install, 1.52 and SOL install with the install guide. And I left my AC video settings the same. maximum and 1024 shadow and reflections. Once I went into VR I was stuck 40 (ASW) most of the time and it sucked, so I started playing with the settings.
Test run: 15 cars: 14:00 Laguna Sol scattered sky race 2 laps.
In my other games I can usually run 1.3SS and car/world detail max with no problems. But no matter what I changed in the video settings made much impact. I was stuck in ASW most of the time so here are my tips.
1: World, DOF, Quality all had little quality impact in VR to me. I tried low-max and there was a FPS hit but I was stuck in ASW with low and with Max.So that wasn't the culprit. Stayed in the hi 40s
2: Then I followed some YT video on SOL,VR tips and basically turned off most of the features. Just had Lighting,General, Weather on with optimizations. That definitely helped but still dipped into ASW but still into the 50fps average. Then I added everything back for my non-VR setup and found it had maybe a 5-7fps hit but it looks so much better, reflections, shadows, brakes.
3: Shadows: I know this is a hit in every game but I figure running 128 or even 32 would be ok. Nope I turned shadows off in Video settings and that was a huge gain. Now at the start and some areas I have ASW but I was seeing 80FPS when by myself on the track.
4: I tried shadows off but left smart shadows on in CSP with just interior lit active but still was a hit so left both shadows off. Video and CSP.
5: Then I went back and played with Video settings and CSP settings. Video I ended up all at low since CSP and PPfilters made it looked good.
Turning CSP effects on/off and video quality settings didnt have much loss or quality gain so.
So now running CSP with optimizations, (no smart shadow or mirrors, extrafx or grass) but brakes, tire, track, weather, reflections graphics, light all active. Video: Reflections: 256, world medium, rest low, PPfilter sol (brightness I set to .8), skybox 140, SS 1.1 4x and 16x on AA and filters. Shadows off, no blue, mirrors 128 and high qt, FXAA enabled
Then I was running much closer to 70FPS still ASW and some dip[s but it looked great. AA in AC is so much better then ACC or PC2! It is smooth with CSP and SOl. Even 1.1 I can probably run at 1. I ran at 1.2 and it was playable but not much gain for the loss in FPS. I still had one more thing to try.
In Graphics of CSP I had the AA disabled for post processing. Figure that would be the fastest NOPE. I have FXAA enabled (and tried disabled in video as well to confirm it worked) I played with all the AA settings in CSP settings and the CMAA 2018 by far was the fastest. Nvidia looked a little better but not much.
So Now I have AA enabled in CSP using CMAA 2018 and I was running full 80FPS on my test track it was night and day.
So to confirm my theory, I left my video settings alone and disabled CSP, and ran a stock filter in VR using my low settings. I couldn't get the stock VR to look as good since it had no PF AA. So I cranked up SS like I would in any other game. I went from 1.1 to 1.3 and I couldn't run at 80fps.
Switched back to 1.1 and CSP with CMAA and looks so much better and runs a solid 80FPS.
At night I can drop from 4x to 2x and 1.0 if needed but really didn't see the need. It ran well with just those few tweaks.
Hope it helps.