Could not be more disappointed with VR with a RTX 3080 & R9 3900X

As a fellow tweaker, I guess I kind of get where you’re coming from, but I wouldn’t complain about max fluidity at max settings. I want to be able to actually use the sim from time to time as well.

It’s one thing to be running at lower quality settings because the graphics are just so far ahead of their time, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.

Right now there are driver issues, there stuttering issues that are likely completely fixable if the work is put in. DX12 isn’t the 100% instant performance boost people think it is, but it won’t hurt anything, and it’ll allow for things like DLSS (which would be a godsend). In non-VR the sim runs decently on top-end hardware. Once you turn on VR, CPUs melt, and this is probably avoidable to a degree.

What gives me hope is the monitor view (goggles). In my headset, it’s a stuttery mess. Take off the headset, and look at my monitor and move the headset around, and the goggles view looks great. Vivid colors and smooth. Why can’t I have that view in the headset? Buggy software and drivers.

Gives me hope that it can be fixed.

I think it’s rendering the scene twice or something.

10900k, 32g, 3090, G2

But, yeah, I agree with the OP, cyberpunk was bug free compared to this thing.

I definitely share your frustration. Sadly though I think a lot of us are all going to have to be patient and realise that the experience we all want to be having in FS2020 is probably one we’re realistically going to be having in a year or two’s time when Microsoft and Asobo have developed and optimised the sim a lot more. It is totally crazy that people like yourself with absolutely top spec hardware are only just hitting 30FPS. Its why I’m suspicious of some Youtubers who are saying they’ve got i9’s running with RTX 3090’s and are getting super smooth 50-60FPS in VR. Maybe they are but equally a lot of people clearly aren’t with a similar set up, so something has to be amiss somewhere.

I’ve noticed that this stuff can get really subjective really fast. For example, the default FS2020 VR settings are quite low. Lots of graphical options are turned off, not even on low. Then some of these YouTubers are running Oculus CV1 or Rift S with a fraction of the resolution of a G2. And then some people just have a much higher tolerance for stuttery, abysmal framerates than others.

I’ve spent weeks tweaking my top-end rig, and know the limits of FS2020 VR like the back of my hand. When people say “I don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s butter for me!”, I just ignore and move on

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The sim isn’t there for me yet not even with VR added.
Its simply something I enjoy messing around with alongside my go to VR sim for the time being.
That’s pretty much what I do for now. Explore things in the icon or a “simpler plane”.
The A320 flies like junk…and the other heavies just aren’t fun to fly.
As the sim sits right now…nothing interests me to fly full serious flights.
Too many things lacking.
I’m sure things will get better in years to come, but for now it’s what we have.
As for VR…eh its wishy washy for me…sometimes I boot up the sim in VR and I’m blown away depending on aircraft and location performance.
Other times I boot up the sim and simply find VR terrible looking and I immediately get turned off and exit the sim.

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@EgnixVeenstorp : Do you mean only in MSFS or in General?

Native display resolution of the G2 is 2160x2160. Because a VR headset has lenses that distort a “flat” picture. So after rendering the game image, the VR driver applies a counter-distortion filter before it sends the picture to the headset. When you look at this counter-distorted picture through the lenses, it evens out and you see a normal picture.

It is like a barrel effect. Some areas of the image are compressed, some expanded. To counteract clarity loss in expanding image areas, the original picture that comes from the game and goes to the VR driver should be ~140-150% super sampled to the native resolution of the displays. Because now you have actual pixel information for the areas that get expanded. For the G2 the the target pixel resolution (you could also say virtual display resolution) is 3156x3088. This value is embedded into the driver and reported to games/application to be the “100%”.

Steam:
image

MSFS with OpenXR at 100%:

3156x3088 is really a lot! More than 4k… and this is 3156x3088 per eye. But it makes a really massive difference in image sharpness and clarity in comparison to when you scale it down to the actual native (physical) display resolution of 2160x2160. I never expected this. But what has been seen can never be unseen.

Rendering resolution has a huge impact on GPU memory.

What I do not quiet understand yet is about the difference between for example OpenXR to 100% and in Game to 70% or as an alternative OpenXR to 70% and Game to 100%. It shows the exact same render resolution but the performance with higher OpenXR setting is worse.

In order to make the Cessna kind of flyable (for me in VR) in MSFS I followed these instructions made by @CptLucky8 for a RTX 2070 super.. He has a FPS target of 30 FPS. I can not do that because it is unbearable for me. I found out the worst compromise I can do for maybe half an hour is ~40-45 fps.

I assume because my 3080 has more power than his 2070 super, I can put the render scale (in game) to 80 instead of 70 and put all the texture related settings to high and still achieve 40-45 in a Cessna in a rural area.

But 80% render scale in Game and 70% in OpenXR multiplies to 2112x2067 which is almost point on the native display resolution which looks much worse than what I described in detail above.

Anyway, with these settings I end up with ~4,7 GB of VRAM usuage. This makes total sense because before I finally got the RTX 3080, I had a RX 580 with 4GB of ram, and with lower texture setting in Full HD I was using all these 4 GB.

So regarding the 10GB VRAM available, this isn’t a limitation for me in VR in MSFS.

To put things in perspective:

Half Life Alyx is the only game where I come close to maxing out the 10 GB. There is ~9.5GB used but I render it in 3156x3088 per eye with in game ultra settings (@ 90 FPS) The picture clarity and smoothness running this at 90 fps is really mind blowing. I spent half a day just staring at the walls in the first scene because it looks so incredible realistic and awesome in the G2)

In the racing sims (Automobilista 2, Project Cars 2, Assetto Corsa) I have to go down to 80% (2824x2760) per eye to hit 90 FPS (with a mixture of mainly middle settings, few high and some dispensable stuff off).

On the Nürburgring Nordschleife (a 20 km long racetrack in a demanding terrain with forests, 300 meter elevation change etc.) with 15 other cars on the track and in sight VRAM usuage is between 8-9 GB depending on which section of the track.

So it is a tight fit but it looks like the 10 GB of the RTX 3080 are really a good match in relation to its performance. Regarding this, I’m surprised in a positive way because I wasn’t that happy when the RTX 3080 was announced with just 10GB. Originally I wanted to go for a RX 6800XT but after months of waiting for an available GPU I was able to get a RTX 3080 for a reasonable price (regarding the circumstances) and decided to take it.

PS: Regarding my sentence with “what has been seen, can not be unseen”.

Racing sims and e.g. Half Life Alyx @90FPS look so good and are such a fantastic experience, I guess I really won’t overcome myself go back to MSFS, with a really bad blurry visual quality in comparison and additionally stuttering at low FPS.

I wish I could refund it and be done with it and maybe buy it again in a couple of years when everybody agrees that things have improved a lot.

I’m really angry with myself, that I bought the premium version despite mixed feelings with the “demo” over X-Box pass and before I got the 3080.

That said it is not about the money itself. But I just feel like MS/Asobo just don’t deserve it. If I were able to refund I’d rather give it to some animal shelter because they just deserve it more.

They should not have released it in that state… bevore DX12 or whatever will improve it. Or they should have re-written the engine from scratch to make use of next gen hardware (high core cpu). It is supposed to be the sim for the next decade…and it doesn’t even make use of 3 generations back technology.

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I maintain that there is something wrong somewhere if you’re somehow maxing out your CPU thread even with everything turned to low and your render resolution at a ridiculously low 30%. But since you said that I’m curious to see what I could get my FPS to if I turned everything down like that…

Thank you for this answer. I agree with everything you say but want to say something regarding the “poor optimization” and the “expectation” part:

Cyberpunk runs on all my CPU threads, Call Of Duty Black Ops (which came with the RTX 3080) also. Well they are DX12, so there is hope. But you can see, that it is possible that modern games use all of the modern resources.

MSFS is from Microsoft, and DX12 is from Microsoft. And DX12 is not “new”. In contrast, it is old by now (released in 2014). Still the next gen flight sim isn’t based on it. Sounds like a bad design choice from me. Okey they say it is comming. But to be honest, I have no hope that things will improve. I had high hopes and… here it comes… expectations for MSFS 2020 alltogether which were really… not met at.

I won’t make the mistake again and actually believe in an improvement. But I’ll be glad if there is one.

Another thing regarding expectations:

I’m new to VR. Starting now with the G2. Before my own G2, I’ve only tried VR 3 times for maybe 5-10 Minutes each time. One was a Playstation VR headset the others an Oculus Rift and a Oculus Rift S. I’ve tried them in a demo stand at a fair. I was quiet overwhelmed with the initial experience and don’t have any specific memories about picture clarity, POV and all the other characteristics. But what I remember is that they all had a quiet obvious screen door effect which kind of bothered me or made me feel like I’m standing close in front of a giant LED screen in a concert.

When the first reviews of the G2 came out which said, screen door is gone I decided to get one since I now have the proper gear to run it (except for MSFS obviously)

And I must say with the experiences in the game that run well I’m still stunned every time I use it about how good everything looks.

So maybe the people who are happy with how MSFS looks with a G2, maybe they are used to “worse” headsets (regarding clarity, sharpness) that scaling down the G2 doesn’t bother them? And maybe it is my (at the time) wrong expectation, that everything looks that good in VR, as I’m used to with my limited experience with my other games.

I’m also aware, that the G2 got a fair bit of criticism regarding FOV, sweet spot etc. but because I have no memories of a “better” experience in these characteristic it doesn’t bother me.

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This is only in VR mode and in an airliner!

In non VR I’m at ~60-70 with graphical stuff turned down if I remember correctly. But on the normal monitor stable 30 FPS don’t bother me and I have almost everything on high/ultra except in very dense areas.

I have a 9700K, RTX 3080, Valve Index and it’s almost unplayable in VR even on Low settings 70% render scale. I get about 30 FPS at best with constant stuttering if I fly the Savage Cub in a rural area.

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So I tried the A320 out of Sea-Tac with everything as low as it will go (I didn’t touch my SteamVR settings so SS was at 150). It definitely didn’t perform like I expected - 30-40 FPS on the runway, compared to 15-20 with my normal settings. The airliners must just be extra demanding on the CPU (and GPU too I would imagine as there is a lot more detail in the cockpit to render).

@NonSmallJohn - I have a very similar spec PC (9600K, 3080, Index) and in rural areas I can do 30 or 40 FPS (depending on which one I lock my FPS too) in a steam gauge plane (like the savage cub) with everything on high - and ultra on trees, grass, and textures. 100 on render scale and both sliders. 1024 on the two settings that have those options, and SteamSS set to 150. It’s not much worse with the GA planes with the Garmin displays though.

Check your Nvidia settings - this is what I use.

What is your OpenXR Render Scale and in Game Render Scale, what actual resolution does it show? Just asking because of all the confusing percentages and how they multiply to a resulting resolution. Additionally as we’re talking about different head sets.

Were you actually replying to my post? Everything I’ve written in this thread is basically 100% in line with what you’ve said, so I’m not really sure why you went into optimization and expectations like it was a point of disagreement.

Since I’m using the Index I don’t use OpenXR as a separate application - it’s built into Steam VR.
SteamVR SS at 150 gives me a resolution of 2468x2740
Render Scale in MSFS is 100 - but doesn’t show a resolution, so I assume I’m getting the number shown by Steam.

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They don’t even implement force feedback for the Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2… released more than 20 years ago, let alone they don’t even provide a standard profile for it.

PS: I own one and it is like brand new still, incredible sturdy and precise piece of joystick all these years!

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I agree you should not buy it given your level of expectation (especially when you can try it for $1), but MSFS in VR experience is amazing for me (and I have only the 2070 Super). I see no reason for Asobo to disallow everyone to enjoy this simply because they can’t satisfy some.

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Oops. I was mistakenly thinking I’m “mainthread limited” when VR. In VR (G2) I’m GPU limited. Out of VR I’m GPU limited.

@cymantix :star_struck:

Yes I’m aware :grinning: I just wanted to point out that I don’t deny that I have (maybe too) high expectations. But I think MS and Asobo are too blame for it because the way they pushed and advertised the whole product wrapped in suspicious NDA’s (no we know why) had the intention to set high expectations (and make money of course).

@bdshort550 : In 2468x2740 in can get it running with GA aircraft, no question but like I said, it doesn’t really look enjoyable (for me) in the G2. Somehow I’m now really curious whether the overall picture quality/clarity is better at the same render resolution in a headset with a lower native resolution. Too sad I don’t know anyone who has a different VR headset to try it out.

@NguyenQHy : I’d also be really curious to experience how it looks on your setup/hardware and compare it to my experience and expectations in contrast. I’m really getting more and more unsure if I’m just spoiled from my first impressions in other games because that run so much better.

I just follow all the suggestions from CptLucky8, and I can get 90Hz with medium settings, scaled down resolution and reprojection. It’s amazingly smooth, responsive and immersive. I can still read numbers in the cockpit, although the outside scenery looks kinda gamey and not as impressive as 2D graphics (where I can turn on Ultra for everything).
And yeah if you expect flight sim to be as light as racing sim, you are in for disappointment.

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I’d be curious too - I’d actually love to see what kind of clarity is possible right now with the G2, but overall I’m extremely happy with my Index. I like the higher FOV compared to my old CV1 and the resolution is “good enough” right now - plus it has excellent optics, most of the image is in focus across the lens.

Fingers crossed that with some more time Asobo can do some more optimization, and with the switch to DX12, they can implement DLSS and it can help (I’m not sure how that would work with things like small text on instruments though…). I’d be ecstatic if I could get 40-45 FPS in a worst case scenario (busy airport/big city/big jet) with my current settings. That may need another generation of hardware though.