DLSS made my RTX 3080 into an amazing GPU

User Support Hub Virtual Reality (VR)
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I am not one for hyperbole, but this experience has completely changed my VR experience.
It all started with this video : SU11 + DLSS MSFS VR tuning for Reverb G2, RTX 3090, 12900k, with OpenXR Toolkit - YouTube
A lot of video’s about VR settings involve using the OpenXR toolkit. While I do not want to argue the added value that this toolkit can bring, I have it disabled. The settings it offers are a bit too much for me, I like to keep things simple. This video mentions this toolkit too, but for the real improvement you do not need it.
You do need the OpenXR tools for Windows Mixed Reality.

My PC : Ryzen 5900X, RTX 3080, 32GB RAM, Reverb G2. Quite powerful but nothing to make headlines with these days.

My old VR settings were roughly these :
In OpenXR : no custom resolution, motion reprojection Automatic, latest preview enabled.
In MSFS : 130% render resolution, TAA. All the other settings have an impact, but not drastically, so I will not specify them, they are mostly high.

My new VR settings :
In OpenXR : 140% resolution, motion reprojection Automatic, latest preview enabled
In MSFS : 100% render resolution, DLSS Balanced.

So what happens is that the game renders at 58% ( Balanced ) of 140% ( OpenXR ) of the resolution, which equals about 81% of the full G2 resolution. The image is then upscaled to 140% of the full resolution using DLSS to create the missing information, and finally the OpenXR layer compresses this back into the native resolution. Both the up- and downscaling are fast, constant time operations.

The game looks and feels completely different now.
The terrain is so sharp, and moves so smooth now. I have never seen this before in the sim. It is amazing to fly around, my brain still has to adjust, because the smoothness and sharpness is the same as in real-life, while before I had to suspend the disbelief for a little bit.
Before, the movement was reasonably smooth when looking straight ahead - though the image was not really sharp - but looking sideways, observing the lateral motion of the terrain, was always a chopfest. Even the simplest terrain was a bit jerky. This kind of motion is the hardest for any type of animation engine to make smooth, because of how our brain works. It has to be ultra smooth, or you will see the jerks. Just look at any panning shot in a movie on a TV with smoothing algo’s turned off, there are frames missing due movie-fps to TV-fps conversions, and you notice.
In the sim, this type of motion is now smooth.

The cockpit is also very crisp and clear, especially panel texts and steam gauges.

There are some artefacts, mainly around the propeller, heat waves, rapidly moving glass panel numbers and certain contrasting features, like a white wing strut against dark asphalt. You may not like the propeller artefacts on planes with a nose propeller. On helis or planes with wing mounted engines, they are not a factor.

Anyways, if you want to have more VR performance and quality on a G2, you should play around with these settings. You can even bump the OpenXR resolution to more than 140% and the game will still have to render less pixels than native.

I used to think TAA was the ultimate resampling mechanism, but DLSS turned my current PC into a next gen one.

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I agree with you, Dlss works very well for my Rtx3080 too, paired with I7 9700K, 32gb.
Have to try your settings, have slso stopped using the toolkit. I just get overwhelmed if there are too many parameters to adjust.
Just yesterday I switched back to Dx11 and the picture with my HpG2 has significantly improved. Although FPS down slightly it looks much better, very clear.
Still blows me away what flightsimmng has become considering the immersion in VR with the HpG2.

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i just wish you’d take the time and explore the wonderful thing that is OXR Toolkit and the benefits it brings. What you’re describing is well known and very true but what you have now could be orders of magnitude better with the toolkit. It’s not like you even have to change any settings you have now “discovered”, just add the toolkit above it. If nothing else, try the foveated rendering (wide/quality preset) and the color/brightness modifications and enable CAS (at the same 100% resolution ingame you’re using already). Cheers

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FYI, from my research on this the maths of render scaling doesn’t quite work out like this. With OpenXR, that 140% setting is actually producing 140% more pixels, but the X and Y components have only increased by the square root of this increase, ie. 118%. However, DLSS render scale reductions relate directly to the X and Y components.

As such, in your case your OpenXR resolution scales your G2’s native X resolution up by 118% from 3152 to 3729, then DLSS balanced downscales that 3729 by 58% to 2163. Same thing for the Y resolution. The end result is that total pixel wise is 47% of native G2 and X and Y resolution is 69%.

You can verify this by looking at developer mode FPS view. Here’s mine at 180 OXR and DLSS quality (66.7%). G2 RES * SQRT (OXR) * DLSS DS = Render ie. For X resolution 3152 * sqrt (1.8) * 0.667 = 2819

image

In any case, this is all moot if you are getting the desire result of sharp and fast graphics. Just set OXR to whatever your GPU can handle and enjoy the outcome!

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i9-12900, 3080, G2
I have very sharp clear vision with DLSS Balanced, DX11, Toolkit “On” because I like the colour adjustable settings and the motion stability etc…OXR set at 100, no motion reprojection.
Everytime I try someone’s suggestions with the same specs as mine, it bombs-out lol! Every system reacts differently, even if it’s identical. Bizarre. Yet I’ll give it a go just to see :+1:

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Please let us know how it went. You have indeed very similar specs.

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Why are both of you talking about “100% render/resolution” in game, isn’t this option unavailable when using DLSS?

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120% + resolution in OpenXR
and DLSS enabled in the sim

This should be the default starting point for everyone using a Reverb G2.

I use 130% with a 3070 and DLSS set to performance.

Haven’t touched a single setting in weeks.

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not a big fan of dlss in VR here… also not a fan of the oxr toolkit, which causes CTD and freezes when changing the upscaling method. this leads to 5 minutes waiting time to start up the sim again (very frustrating) Ive been spending last 2 weeks fiddling around tweaking settings but to no avail. everytime I get a somehow crisp image, whether performance is really bad (jittering, tearing) or sim just shuts down itself. on my system, no oxr toolkit, only dlss quality and wmr running, I get better results than with oxr toolkit, and the best thing, NO crashes whatsoever
3070ti
13900kf
32gb 3200

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Mucking about with these settings I can only see that my 5600X really struggles with VR. If I go about 100% in OXR I get about 10 -15FPS in the sim and its just a stuttery mess. I need a new CPU. My 3080 needs to be paired with something better.

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True. It’s not available anymore.

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I paired my 3080 from an i7-10700 to an i9-12900 last year. But the upgrade required a new mobo and case too. Well worth it as everything for me smoothed-out and improved greatly.

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Just tested settings; OXR at 120, makes cockpit a bit jittery and increases stutters and black-outs.
But it’s a much clearer and sharper view. I settled on 110% and so far seems a bit clearer than 100 with less stutters and fps loss.
If I set higher and set MR in any form, its a stuttery mess with swirling artifacts along the edges of my view.

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Mucked about with my settings a bit more and watched that video properly. There’s definitely some good tips there and I do have better over all performance now and certainly a clearer image.

I set OXR at 100% but then increased the over ride resolution with the toolkit. I’m nicely locked at 30FPS with MR on but the clarity is way better than I had before. Its definitely the best over all VR experience I’d had with the sim since getting my G2.

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I can’t get past all the artifacts that motion reprojection causes so I don’t ever use it. I’ve spent enough time chasing rainbows using different settings for my 3080 ti (FTW3) driven G2 and have settled with what works best for me. I ‘need’ a consistent 45 FPS to be happy in VR and I’ve dialed in the setting mix to get me there with decent image detail and quality. In the end, I play the following juggling act to maximize my experience:

  • Heavy cloud cover including low clouds being flown through: DLSS balanced, clouds low
  • Flying under heavy cover, no low clouds: DLSS balanced, clouds medium or high
  • Flying above any cloud cover: DLSS quality, clouds medium or high
  • Flying under medium to light cloud cover: DLSS balanced, clouds medium or high
  • Light to no cloud cover: DLSS quality, clouds high

Essentially it’s the clouds that choke my 3080 ti (note that I’ve abandoned using ultra clouds). As far as my system’s i7 1070, which runs a full time 4.9 Ghz OC with 2x16GB 4000 cas 16 DDR4, it seems it only chokes when LOD is set too high to handle the the area I’m flying through. BTW, I’m a low and slowish GA flyer, so my results are tuned to that. This could also be why I get by fine with my 1070.

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I do like VR but whenever I delve into VR threads on this forum it always makes me yearn for the day we can just relax and effortlessly enjoy VR in the sim the same way we do in 2D on a screen.

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It reminds me of using printers in the early nineties. Great when it worked.
PITA when it didn’t.

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I agree with you, the VR forum threads are not a great advertisment for VR, they are predominantly about settings, tweaks, third party programs and various issues.

What’s interesting though is that since FINALLY getting everything running satisfactorily in VR, I am now enjoying the content produced by 2D sim pilots flying full routes, reading the threads about various payware AC, spending money on peripherals (boeing throttle, new rudder pedals, diy switchbox stuff etc) and buying the odd airport on the marketplace.

So essentially once VR is working satisfactorily all the VR specfic content fades into the background, and it becomes all about the hobby again - just like it was with 2d.

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I guess he was talking about the CAS option resolution inside the Sim in the VR section, apart then the CAS in the toolkit, the mix of them make “magic”.

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Relax and enjoy is always the goal. But consider that fs enthusiasts have for years been hung up on tweaking for the utmost in image quality and performance. VR is just the latest iteration of the endless, as NickN used to say ‘hamster wheel’ that fs enthusiasts find themselves hung up on. Nothing has changed with flight simming if VR is looked at in this way.

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