Oculus Debug Tool does nothing but Oculus Tray Tool works, help?

[DisposingTen327]

I can use Oculus Tray Tool to adjust some settings, and I’d like to try them in Oculus Debug Tool as well. WIth OTT I can change settings on the fly and they all work, but nothing works in Debug tool. I’ve tried running Debug tool as admin but doesn’t help. Has anyone got a solution, please?

[CodeLoran69]

AFAIK The only thing you cannot change on the fly (read during the same VR session) is the Pixel Density, both in Oculus Debug Tool and in OTT. So you need to leave the VR session (switch on monitor), change settings of PP and switch back. It work perfectly fine for me. I used a lot OTT but now I only use Oculus Debug Tool. In fact, I use it’s command line tools called OculusDebugtoolcli.exe wich I launch with a txt as parameter with my favorite settings, prior to flying in VR.

[SwirlyMaple7]

Behind the scenes, they both work by the same means. They are just graphical ways to send text commands to the runtime, and they are both sending the same commands. So, while it doesn’t make any sense why one would work and the other wouldn’t, it doesn’t really matter because they’re both going to do the same things, the same way. I always get a chuckle when others say one worked better for them, gave them smoother performance, etc…

PS - you didn’t say which headset you’re using, but if it’s the Quest or Quest 2, you need to open the Debug Tool after you’ve connected via Link. If you have it already open from a previous session, it usually won’t work until you close it and re-open it.

[KennyKanada]

So it’s unclear which to open, if at all, especially after the latest Nvidia update?
TrayTool says it’s required it be open to work. Debug needs to be changed every time it’s open.
What’s the consensus??

[CodeLoran69]

OTT make things easy as it run all the time (can be set to launch silently on Windows start) in the tray bar and allow you to make profile for each game. The profile is applied only when it detect the executable launch. If you want to change something, you have to fully exit MSFS, change profile, and relaunch MSFS.

Oculus Debug Tool changes will work for all application launched in VR right after, and need to stay open during gameplay. it have the same caveat, you have to exit VR (but can stay inside MSFS, just switch on monitor view), ALT-TAB and make change in ODT and switch back to VR.

So you don’t need both.

When you know which settings you like, just update the OTT profile, or, like me who don’t use anymore OTT, use ODT before launching the sim or better, launch it command line equivalent Oculusdebugtoolcli.exe with a txt with your settings as parameters.
Old post I wrote about this method:

Oculus Quest 2 settings - RTX3070 OC

Just to let you know you can automate this process using simply a batch file to launch before turning the sim in VR. The OculusDebugToolCLI.exe program in the same directory than the OculusDebugTool.exe allow you to send command through a txt file as parameters. E.g. I have a batch file called “MSFS 45fps 170SS.bat”, but the name don’t matter, for locking ASW at 45 and Pixel Density to 1.7. So I have first a txt file called “MSFS45.txt” with this inside: server:asw.Clock45 service set-pixel…

[ImmersiveVR]

@CodeLoran69

AFAIK The only thing you cannot change on the fly (read during the same VR session) is the Pixel Density, both in Oculus Debug Tool and in OTT. So you need to leave the VR session (switch on monitor), change settings of PP and switch back. It work perfectly fine for me. I used a lot OTT but now I only use Oculus Debug Tool. In fact, I use it’s command line tools called OculusDebugtoolcli.exe wich I launch with a txt as parameter with my favorite settings, prior to flying in VR.

Do you know if simply restarting the Oculus runtime resets the debug tool parameters?
I always do a full system restart just incase things still carry over to another VR game I want to play outside of MSFS settings.

[SwirlyMaple7]

Yes, a restart of the runtime should revert all settings that can be changed by the Debug Tool to their defaults, with the exception of the rendering resolution, distortion curvature, and bitrate overrides specific to Link (they used to persist between restart of the runtime – I don’t know if that’s still the case.)

Note that if you left the Debug Tool GUI open, it might not look like this is the case, because the values shown in the debug tool only update if (1) you change them yourself or (2) you close and reopen the Debug Tool. It’s not receiving active feedback from the runtime to display the current settings, and only polls them when you first launch it. This is also why you can have the Debug Tool and Tray Tool both running, and change a value in the Tray Tool, but not have it show up in the Debug Tool even though it really was changed.

These tools are just pushing commands based on your selection. They aren’t smart enough to know what the current values actually are at any given instant. They only know what they last sent. (The exception here is that closing and re-opening the Debug Tool will show you current values, but again, it only does that check on launch.) That’s really all you need to know to understand how the two tools interact. They’re both just pushing commands to the runtime.

If you’re in doubt as to whether the commands worked, go through the list of all the Overlay HUDs you can show in the headset. You can turn those overlays on via the Debug Tool or the Tray Tool. There are overlays for showing ASW status, framerate, performance headroom, pixel density (aka supersampling), and lots more. Those are way to be absolutely certain your commands did what you expected, and the Performance Overlay specifically is an incredibly valuable tool for tuning performance with real numbers and performance headroom plots, instead of just handwaving and seat-of-the-pants estimates.

[ImmersiveVR]

This was super solid info!
Thanks!