Performance: FSR/NIS vs MSFS on a 3080ti

I don’t hardly see any performance increase using either FSR or NIS as provided by the OpenXR toolkit, over the scaling and TAA built into MSFS for me to justify using FSR or NIS. Also, I find that if I use the same render scale value (85) for any of these, both FSR and NIS introduce a slight noticeable blur regardless of the sharpening setting used, further reinforcing my decision not to use FSR or NIS. Note that when using FSR or NIS, the MSFS render scale is set to 100. Sure, I can get better performance by lowering the render scale value, but I’m not willing to sacrifice the image quality. This is using a evga 3080ti ftw3 in overclock mode driving an HP Reverb G2 revised. I’m not here to dis the OpenXR toolkit for I find it an excellent tool with other features that i use, but more or less I’m only curious if others are experiencing the same performance situation. I don’t see my situation as “something is broken”, in fact I’ve been enjoying lots of flying lately by not worrying about needing to tweak settings anymore. I don’t use motion reprojection, and I driver limit my frame rate at 40 which I usually maintain using these settings. Thanks for reading.

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I agree that the visual quality drop with setting NIS or FSR to less than 100% is not worth the slight performance increase you may get. However, I find that if I leave FSR at 100% and set sharpening to 50%, I can lower Open XR render resolution to 70% and still get good clarity with the better performance that a lower render resolution enables. IMO the sharpening is the secret sauce of NIS and FSR, not their super sampling abilities.

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Where do you do that -

  1. MSFS Render Scale
  2. OpenXR Tools for WMR (not the toolkit)
    OR
  3. OpenXR Toolkit override resolution

That one, custom render scale. 70% OXR and 100% FSR with 50% sharpening looks heaps better than the other way around of 100% OXR and 70% FSR.

HHmmmm … what’s your opinion on nVidia DLDSR effect … ?

I haven’t tried DLDSR sorry.

I don’t think DLDSR is much use for VR, if you’re already GPU limited and scavenging for more FPS.

DLDSR is more useful when there is GPU headroom (Low GPU usage).

I agree. Fantastic work on the tool and a blessing for many users. But with my 5950x and 3080Ti, I see no benefit at all and get great results running with no additional SW.

I tried your suggestion using the OpenXR custom render scale at 70%. It’s image quality is comparable, but I’m still giving it a close evaluation. It also tosses in an extra 4-5 fps boost in some situations, which may make it worth using in the long run, being able to now frame limit at 44 fps. Thanks for the heads up!

Edit: it’s really surprising that in this case the OpenXR upscaling does a better job at preserving/enhancing the upscaled image quality of MSFS than does FSR, which BTW is supposedly what FSR is suppose to be doing…hmmm…go figure.

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AFAIK DLDSR is not generally available for VR, nor would it be much use if it was. Its purpose is to downscale (essentially supersample) an image to fit a smaller screen resolution. Its “big deal” over the existing nvidia DSR feature (which serves about the same purpose) is that like DLSS it uses tensor cores though in this case for downscaling processing, plus it allows more flexibility in the resolutions to use. Unless you got a really powerful gcard and use a 2K res or less monitor, it’s pretty much rather useless IMO.

It seems to have helped my image quality, with an RTX 2070 Super and a 1080 27 inch display …

That’s what it’s supposed to do, but just so you know, this topic is in the VR section.

Oh, thanks, didn’t know …

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Interesting how your settings pretty much contradict every recommendation I’ve read by youtube “experts” about the OpenXR Tools resolution setting. They all universally suggest 100%.

I’ve tried it your way and did notice a frame rate increase with no noticeable degradation of clarity, however I must admit that I’m still not certain while experimenting if any one setting looks better than another. I’m still reconciling how unclear VR looks as compared to pancake mode.

VR in MSFS is indeed a strange beast and experience varies greatly between users with similar hardware and the same settings. eg. I have one guy I fly online with who swears by using Motion Reprojection because he needs the smoothness of 90Hz but everytime I’ve tried it I can’t stand the wobbly artifacts everywhere and I am completely fine with down to 25 FPS in VR. Another I tried giving my sharpness settings and he reckoned that it introduced massive shimmering whereas for me it did the opposite in taking away what shimmering there was.

As such, I find the best thing to do is to keep details of settings that work for you, but not be shy to try out other’s suggestions in the hope of VR utopia. Worst case, you just switch back to the setting you had before that you were happy with.

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ResetXPDR, words right of my mouth as well. I’m stoked/shocked/flabbergasted/etc. that using 70% OpenXR custom render scale produces such great results as you’ve found and presented. It’s now my setup for MSFS, and definitely a whiskey-tango-foxtrot in regards to the info found online about using FSR with MSFS, at least for my hardware. :beers:

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That same sentiment goes for all of these magic tweaks. Maybe they work, maybe not. None of them have done anything on my system but make it terrible to play. Performance is right at its limit and great with my hardware. Sure, you can try them, just remember what you did, and change it back. And… and… only do one change at a time. Not 30 and really muss things up then blame Asobo because you dont remember what you did.

Have you read the OpenXR Toolkit guide? Here’s a lnk to the section on “finding the best visuals”.

I point this out because it explains how you can prioritize your settings for getting the best clarity for closer objects or distant objects. Basically lower OpenXR and higher Toolkit settings produce better clarity for close objects while high OpenXR/lower Toolkit settings are best for distant objects.

There’s no secret here as it’s all exlained in the Toolkit’s manual. The manual has been available since day 1. I know most people watch the youtube videos but I doubt they’ve read the manual either. :disappointed_relieved:

So your settings are optimized for closer objects. I actually prefer the opposite. I set the render scale of OpenXR to 130 and run the toolkit at 75% (100% in game) and the clarity of the scenery is great. That’s my preference.

Anyway, good luck.

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Or in my case, since i dont have the openxr dev tool,i reduced msfs rendering to 80%, and turned off FSR in the toolkit. it looks the same and gained 4 fps.

Thanks for the heads up on that manual, didn’t know it existed (but then again I haven’t been looking for one). Good to know that it’s now well known as to how to fine tune the toolkit and OpenXR settings towards your preferences, and that what I use as a GA flier, where for me the realism of the virtual cockpit is everything, fits what’s needed as you pointed out. Must admit I’m somewhat humbled here but grateful for your post, thanks again.

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