Constant stutters & dropped frames with a 3080 & OpenXR/WMR Motion Reprojection. Please help

User Support Hub Virtual Reality (VR)
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My PC stats are - 5800X, 3080, 1GB NVMe, 32GB 3200mhz RAM. OpenXR Toolkit enabled.

I can run FS at 40-50 FPS over a populated city with MR disabled. Frame times look good and FPS fluctuations are fairly minor. So with 10-20 frames headroom I should be able to get a smooth 30 FPS MR easily, right? Wrong!

As soon as I enable MR the CPU frame times shoot from 10ms to 35ms+ and every movement of the plane or my head results in dropped frames and stutters.

I troubleshooted endlessly until I finally turned EVERY graphic setting down to basically NOTHING. 20 render scale, low, low, low everything just to make sure it is not a GPU bottleneck. Nope! Frames still stutter from 25-30 FPS in MR. Disable MR and frame rate rockets up to 80+ with such low settings.

Already done Nvidia Control Panel settings, DDU wipe, reinstall different driver versions. Nope. Tried both making sure GPU is at 90%+ load to make sure processes aren’t being sent to the CPU too quickly, as well as the above “make it look like ■■■” approach to completely rule out GPU bottleneck. Nope. Hardware acceleration disabled/enabled. Nope. WIPED WINDOWS!! NOPE!

Every. Single. Time. I turn on MR the MainThread frame times shoot above 30ms and FPS stutters between 28-30FPS stationary, 25-30 FPS if I’m looking around. MainThread limited the dev tool claims, but neither a single CPU core nor the GPU are anywhere near full utilization!

In fact, when MR is OFF the fans of the 3080 and the rest of my computer go full jet engine mode like they should. 99% GPU util, 10ms frame times, few stutters/lag spikes. Beautiful! But then MR is flipped on and the computer goes quiet because the load it’s putting on GPU/CPU to maintain the 30 frames is a joke, and the stuttering begins.

I have immersed myself in aviation the past few months and have been so, so, so looking forward to upgrading my PC to finally play FS smoothly in VR. But this has been such a painful few days of troubleshooting I don’t know how much more I have left in me.

Please help me FS forum, you’re my only hope :frowning:

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Which headset? And I assume you are enabling MR in OpenXR?

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Reverb G2. Yes, MR enabled through OpenXR.

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Are you using the OpenXR Tooklit?

Set OpenXR to Custom Resolution, but leave it at 100%.
Set your HP G2 to 60hz in WMR with Best Quality Resolution.
Leave the in game resolution at 100%.
Turn down the input sensitivity in the OpenXR Toolkit.
Using the OpenXR Toolkit, set the NIS or FSR scaling to 65% with 15% Sharpening.
If you are still not getting the best results, turn on Foveated Rendering Preset Performance in the OpenXR Toolkit.

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Yes OpenXR Toolkit. I did try the 60hz mode already but unfortunately I was not able to handle the flicker. Also already running foveated rendering :\

I really don’t think it’s an issue of performance headroom. If it was, turning all the settings down already would have given me more than enough extra headroom to get a rock solid 30 FPS. Instead, my game just lowered the load on my CPU/GPU even further while continue to claim “Mainthread limited” and stuttering around at 25-30 FPS.

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Have you turned off ALL AI’s in Traffic settings? Have you turned off Photogrammetry? Have you tried turning off Bing Maps?

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All AI’s are off. I have not tried turning off Photogrammatery or Bing maps. Will try and report back. Thanks for your replies.

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CPU throttling due to overheating? Check your fans, BIOS, reset to default settings etc…

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I experience this also.

MR just straight up doesn’t work a lot of times, OR it goes in and out. Sometimes my framerate fluctuates between 14-25 fps for a few minutes and then things stabilize and I’m able to get a nice smooth 23 or 30 fps with MR. BUT eventually it just stops working.

If I exit VR and re-enter VR, it all goes to ■■■■ and I have to restart the sim to have any shot of MR working again. I, like you, have absolutely no idea why it happens…but it’s really annoying.

Like you said, I know I’ve got the specs to make it work as intended. I’ve tried so many different combinations of settings to get it working properly, and nothing. Even with setting every single ingame setting to LOW, the issue persists.

I’m on a 3080 with a G2 and a Ryzen 3700x.

This does not happen with MR disabled. If MR is disabled, I get my typical framerate immediately, and it’s rock solid in the high 30’s to high 40’s usually.

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Yeah, I considered this. But temps look good. And I can push the machine to the limits with 99% GPU load and all fans going 100% like a jet engine with MR off.

But it’s like as soon as I turn on MR, the computer goes “Ahhhh, he only wants 30 frames. Alright, let’s kick our feet up and give him between 25 and 30”… CPU/GPU loads drop, temps decrease, fans turn off, CPU frame times 35ms+… All immediately after activating MR.

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■■■■, sorry you’re experiencing this as well. At least we’re not alone.

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Exactly what happens to me. I’ve tried different power settings with my cpu and gpu also. Nothing works. As soon as MR is enabled, my entire PC just decides to work at half capacity it seems.

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Turn MR off, trust me, you will save yourself weeks of going round in circles. It works as expected for many folks, but not for others.

Oculus ASW worked on my system (and my previous PC), SteamVR motion smoothing works (in fact SteamVR has come a long way) but I have never had a solid steady image with Windows MR.

Sorry I cannot suggest anything more to try but you are not alone - I feel your pain after spending a non trivial amount of money on hardware. At least Oculus had some semblance of aftersales and support, I really hope Oculus bring out a proper tethered headset with a resolution close to the G2, because ASW was flawless.

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As well as those things, it might be worth using the OpenXR Toolkit to try locking the MR update rate to 22.5 as well? This sounds like either a WMR bug or an issue where the MR doesn’t have enough CPU headroom to work and is never finishing.

Also, as crazy as it sounds, but if you get jittering in WMR, it can sometimes help to bring up a ctrl/alt/del Task Manager, put focus on it, and then switch back to MSFS. I don’t get why that sometimes helps (unless it’s pure placebo, dunno) but worth a shot.

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You could try disabling hyperthreading in bios, uninstall/reinstall wmr portal, openxr.
What helped me once was turning online functionality in the data tab off and on again whilst sat in aircraft.

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Re-install MSFS in your fastest SSD. Set a fixed size windows PageFile. Disable HAGS. Disable HyperThreading. Disable G-Synch.

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The only other thing I’ve seen mentioned around the web is a bad cable. I just few an MR test, and it held 30fps no issues.

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I uninstalled/reinstalled Mixed Reality Portal along with OpenXR Tools and tried a test without the OpenXR Toolkit. I foolishly thought I had solved the issue because my frames were a SOLID 31 FPS… I mean, it doesn’t move a single frame. 9ms MainThread, 18ms GPU. GPU fans are blasting, core load is 75%. This is what MR looks like in all the flight sim youtubers setups. Beautiful!!

Oh, wait. Reprojection is disabled by default on a fresh WMR install and I had 31 FPS in Nvidia control panel enabled as a trial. Let’s turn MR on… Instantly 27-30 FPS stuttering, 35ms MainThread, and CPU/GPU loads drop. I turned graphics all the way down to 30% utilization, and all the way up to 99% GPU utilization again. Exactly the same behavior. Stuttering between 27-29.9 FPS with some OCCASSIONAL 30 FPS frames if I’m lucky. Sigh.

Along with all the warnings about the G2 someone else mentioned rock solid performance with ASW on Oculus and that has me thinking on how I can settle this for myself… I am going to reluctantly install the Oculus drivers and Tray Tool on this fresh install of Windows. If my old Rift S gives me a rock solid ASW, I will probably have to start looking at my other options outside of the G2.

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No apologies needed, you inspired me to run a test with my old Rift S and the results are unsurprising. Oculus Tray Tool Supersampling @ 1.4, ASW 40hz forced, and 190 resolution scale of 2856x3052 in MSFS with reasonable settings give me a SOLID 40 FPS. There are a few hiccups here and there, but the difference between the smoothness of this experience and the G2 is night and day.

Everything performs predictably, as it should… The more I increase/decrease the settings the more the fans/heat/load go up or down, along with frametimes. The mainthread stays in the yellow/green with about 20ms frame time. As opposed to the G2 that is 35ms+ and in the red immediately regardless of what settings are being used.

There’s no way I could go back to this headset, though. So this is really, really unfortunate :frowning: I can’t imagine how nice the G2 would be to use if it could hold 30 FPS steady like this Rift S is doing. And apparently so many do get to enjoy that, while us unfortunate few get shafted by this strange phenomenon :frowning:

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I had to disable Toolkit and Projection to get the best performance. I’m using a Reverb G2 in DX12.
Performance greatly improved that way but miss all of the features of Toolkit.