Blurry runways in VR (Quest 3)

User Support Hub Virtual Reality (VR)
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1

Hello,

I’ve lost count of the number of forums I’ve read, YouTube videos I’ve watched and hours of tweaking settings to try and get my Quest 3 running Flight Simulator 2024 happily.

In the most part, I’ve been successful. I can now fly my A2A Piper Comanche around in VR using Virtual Desktop and getting a consistent, smooth 80fps (SpaceWarped frames) in most areas I fly. Although I’m sure the frame rate would tank if I tried flying over Manhattan or London! :face_with_peeking_eye:

As I’ve said, I’m very happy with the final setup I’ve got to, allowing smooth and enjoyable flights in VR. But… I’m trying to figure out whether I’ve missed something or whether this is “just how it is” with Asobo’s VR implementation.

The problem I saw in my testing was the runway at KAVL (Asheville Regional) when on short finals appeared blurry in VR, and yet when I switched to flatscreen (flatscreen mode is also set with exactly the same graphics config as for VR) the runway looks clearer, and has better colour.

The colour was mitigated with the Gamma reduction in Virtual Desktop, and I have tried to resolve the blurry runway by upping the Terrain LOD, Anisotropic Filtering and Texture Quality. These three setting changes improved things marginally but still not comparable to flatscreen mode. The rest of the scenery around looks great, and the instrument panel is sharp and clear… which is why I’m struggling to understand why the runway is blurred.

So I setup another temporary test dropping the frame rate to 72hz, dropping the Global Render Quality down to Medium BUT bumping those three settings to max (TLOD = 400, AF = x16 & TQ = Ultra). Again, the runway quality on short finals is still blurry in VR, not as much as before but certainly worse than flatscreen.

My specs are below, and I’d be interested to know whether I’m missing anything obvious or whether this is, as I said, “just the way it is” with Asobo and VR.

Any thoughts?

PC Spec:

ASUS TUF Gaming B760M-Plus D4

Intel i7 12700KF CPU (240mm liquid cooled)

32GB 3600mhz DDR4 RAM

240GB M.2 NVMe SSD (boot)

1TB M.2 NVMe SSD (Steam & Xbox Libraries)

ASUS Dual Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU

Virtual Desktop Settings:

  • Streamer

    • Preferred Codec = AV1 10-bit

    • OpenXR Runtime = VDXR

    • Automatically Adjust Bitrate = ON

  • Headset app (Streaming)

    • VR Graphics Quality = Ultra

    • VR Frame Rate = 80fps

    • VR Bitrate = 100Mbps

    • Sharpening = 70%

    • Gamma = 0.75

    • SSW = Always enabled

MSFS 2024 VR Graphics Settings:

  • DLSS enabled and set to Balanced

  • Fidelity FX Sharpening = 100

  • Foveated Rendering = OFF

  • Max Frame Rate = 40

  • Reprojection Mode = OFF

  • Nvidia Low Latency = ON

  • Target Frame Rate = 40

  • Global Rendering Quality = High-end

    • Terrain LOD = 200

    • Anisotropic Filtering = x16

    • Texture Quality = Ultra

2

I’m seeing this too, and I’m afraid it is the “just the way it is” category, such as The resolution degradation with increasing distance of 3D-Trees is far too aggressive in VR, since SU3 or Too strict LOD rule on Aircraft landing gears! (Culling of Aircrafts Gear) and likely won’t ever be fixed…

3

Try for testing purpose:

Target frame rate - off
Dynamic settings - off
Tlod - 200
Olod - 200
Texture quality - ultra
Trees - high

4

Unrelated to your specific problem, but I’ve had good results with enabling Foveated Rendering (set it to 50) with the Quest 3. Can’t say I noticed any quality loss with my peripheral vision but definitely gained a small bit of performance.

For the runways specifically, I can’t recall if I see them blurry, but I do often notice their edges look jaggy on approach, in a low-res jpeg kind of way. Usually clears up once much closer, but it’s an effect I never noticed while using 2020 but I see it a lot in 2024, even with the airport downloaded.

5

I’m sorry but I just am not getting this situation at all. Runways to me look crisp and not blurred. The only times when they appeared blurred (the whole area was) was what I deduced to be a server issue where streaming was terribly degraded. I’m on a 5700X3D processor and 4060ti 16gb graphics card and mostly fly in VR. If that problem was going to show on any machine it would be mine since it is certainly not high end hardware. I am using DLSS 4.5 preset M in VR but none in 2D. My settings are medium to high with decent LOD numbers. Now if this issue is happening on consoles my experience has no bearing.