Thanks @CptLucky8 for these detailed posts. I thought I’d leave some thoughts here that could be titled “What I wish I’d known before trying to read CptLucky’s performance posts”
One thing I’d like to reiterate is that while it’s fine to just read this post and use it as a starting point or even your settings endgame so you can just get flying, it’s good to remember that this has all be tuned to one user’s specific hardware, and a little bit of your own research can go a long way.
If nothing else, it’s helpful to know about the Developer option in FS2020 and the FPS option you can turn on in those tools. The graph it puts on the screen will show 3 important things:
MainThread frametime
RdrThread frametime
GPU frametime
MainThread frametime is your “CPU time”. FS2020 is very, very heavily CPU bottlenecked. ESPECIALLY in VR.
RdrThread is, well, the render thread. Arguably the one users have the least control over. It just is what it is. There is a clip from the FS2020 developers saying that a migration to DX12 wouldn’t be an all-encompassing performance fix, it would really just help if you are RdrThread bottlenecked. Which is not that rare in VR, apparently.
GPU frametime is how long it takes the GPU to draw each frame. In just about any game that’s not FS2020 above 1080p resolution, the GPU frametime is always going to be the bottleneck.
It’s good for people to understand that for each frame, each of these 3 things takes time to do its work, and the only time that matters is the longest of the 3 for any given frame. This is the definition of a bottleneck, and at the top of the performance overlay, it will say “Limited by MainThread|RdrThread|GPU”
Cpt is pretty brave running a G2 on a 2070S. If you have a 2080, 2080S, 2080Ti, 3070, 3080, or 3090, then you may be overoptimizing, meaning that your GPU is NOT the bottleneck and you could potentially crank settings up more. Maybe a lot more, without losing a single frame. In VR, it’s super easy to be limited by the MainThread or RdrThread. Most of the FS2020 graphics options are going to affect GPU time more than the other 2 threads, so feel free to crank up those options UNTIL the performance overlay shows that you’re actually “Limited by GPU”
Next, having thrashed on this since the day of release of the patch, I’d argue that reprojection is a personal taste thing. You trade smoothness for some visual artifacts, and to be honest, I still go back and forth depending on the day. Often the visual artifacts are barely noticeable and the motion smoothing is a godsend to the brain.
Also, (someone please correct me if I’m wrong) I believe VR headsets are ALWAYS going to be v-synced, regardless of how much you tweak your graphical settings. Sure, it’s good to have v-sync turned off to prevent weird anomalies, but if you’re running a G2, you are going to be seeing 15, 30, 45, 60, or 90 frames per second in your HMD, period.
I’m running a 5950X and a 3090, and even turning the graphics settings to absurdly low settings (thus removing the GPU from the equation), my 5950X still can NOT hit a reliable 45 fps at all times in FS2020. It can in non-VR, but not VR. To be honest, this is kind of garbage, and I’d argue that the developers need to look at this, even if it means adding options to sacrifice flight model accuracy. 30 fps in VR is rough, there’s just no way around it.
Again Cpt, thanks for this post. I will go do some further experimentation. I’m still not totally sold that motion reprojection is just plain bad. I also haven’t seen any negative effects from HAGS and/or Game Mode. I will turn them off again and play some more.
Like all 3000-series GPU owners, I eagerly await a driver resolution to the well-documented VR issues. That said, I’ve done excruciating testing on my end and seem to be mostly unaffected by the issue in question. I’m seeing a dropped frame every 2-3 minutes in fpsVR in HL:A, which is not really worth writing home about.