PSA: NVidia has found the root cause of stuttering and VR performance in their drivers!

nVidia driver was the latest 461.09 then I added the 461.33 HOTFIX. I also added the SteamVR BETA Update. Interesting thought here is that even tho I just switched back to the 457.30 nVidia driver, the sim still crashes now and the frame rate are well below 1FPS! Maybe it is the SteamVR Hotfix that hosed everything.

System Specs:
Power Supply: Corsair RM850X
MB: MSI Gaming Pro Carbon
DUAL 2GB NVMe Drives. One in TURBO M.2 slot.
CPU: Intel i9-9900KF 3.60
RAM: 32GB Corsair RGB RAM (No O/C of RAM)
Windows 10 64
GRAPHICS: nVidia GeFORCE RTX 2080 TI
Res: 2560X1040 (144Hx)
Dual DELL S2716DG Monitors.
Onboard Audio.

SteamVR 1.16.2 was running fine for me yesterday.

However I’ve noticed something similar a few days ago when trying out 461.09:

  • I install 461.09.
  • I try the new setting limiting background apps to 30fps (saves the GPU when FS2020 window is not active)
  • Do some flights, make observations, decide to revert to 457.30
  • I install 457.30 over and loose the background apps limit setting in the NVidia CPL
  • But FS2020 is still limited to 30fps if the window is not active!

Of course, when changing settings, you leave the setting value in the NVidia profile and it is just the driver using it or not. But in this case, it shows the feature is already implemented in 457.30 even though it is not exposed to the UI. In the end, this little quirk forced me to reinstall 461.09 just to be able to disable the limiter and then reinstall 457.30.

Having said this it makes me wondering what other settings or value could have been left over using a newer driver, which could still be in use with an older driver and affecting the experience in the end.

I never considered using DDU because it is a 3rd party app I don’t trust blindly on a production system, and I’m guessing if the problem only lies in a value left over, just deleting the game profile should reset these left over items for the game itself. However these profiles must be saved in a file or registry somewhere and deleting this only should be sufficient with no need for DDU whatsoever.

Anyone having any thought on this?

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Do you perform a clean install when you change drivers? I think I recall one of your posts saying that you do not. I would recommend that, especially when reverting to an older driver.

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Thanks for this link. Just a question - are we sure it’s the right updated hot fix/driver? I don’t see MSFS actually listed on there like the other games are. It says SteamVR, but no word on the actual game.

Maybe they will release another MSFS updated driver soon…?

Just my thoughts!

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This is not what this hotfix is about:

My 2070 SUPER VR settings and suggestions (Index - SteamVR) 🟢 - #40 by CptLucky8

No I never do because NVidia is documenting you can install any driver version over any other (they fixed this installer problem about 2 or 3 years ago IIRC). Isn’t a clean install wiping out all your custom profiles like I’m suggesting doing manually above, or is there anything else with it?

The thing is that they’re introducing a new feature (background fps limiter) in a driver version officially, but this feature was already working and implemented in code in a previous version. It could have been there left over from a “work in progress” piece of code, or it was already there but only added the UI for it (and the official announcement) in a later driver after more internal tests. All this is indicating to me there are probably much more code running but not adjustable in the UI and this might be one of the many reasons there is some variability sometimes on the same system from day to day, or among different user’s similar systems.

It wipes out the custom profiles & shared settings. Call me cynical, but when NVidia says they fixed the problem with the installer, I take that with a grain of salt. As a software developer myself I’ve seen too many statements like that which were later proved to be wrong to simply trust that, and what you are saying you encountered seems to prove that they didn’t fix the installer in all possible scenarios. I just take screenshots of all my custom profiles and recreate them by hand after a clean driver install.

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Ok specs as follows
Intel Core i9 10900K Overclocked to 5.3Ghz All core
32GB DDR4 4000Mhz Ram
Nvidia RTX 3090 FE
NVME M.2 2TB for FS2020 dedicated
Valve Index

I was running on the Linux SteamVR with Nvidia driver version 457.30.
Have just installed the newest 461.33 hotfix driver AND Latest SteamVR beta 1.16.2

I have the following settings for SteamVR
SteamVR 130% Resolution per eye giving me 2296 x 2552, Motion Smoothing OFF, 90Hz
Have SteamVR MS2020 per application setting set to lock FPS at 30fps

I have been able to set everything in the in game graphics to 100 with all sliders set to high with the exception of Rendering textures set to ultra

Im getting smooth flights now in everything in all locations where as before I had turned down my settings to medium and was running 100% in steamVR resolution per eye and 80% in game resolution.

These new drivers have not totally fixed the stutters with SteamVR but they have made a massive improvement to the point where i can now increase the game graphics and resolution and only get the odd stutter

Really happy with this driver and new Steam beta. Keep in mind it fixes SteamVR so not sure about WMR Reverb experiences (Sorry guys)

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Do you get any stutters at low altitude underneath and to the sides or is it totally smooth like higher altitudes?

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Nope smooth in all situations. When I say smooth I mean smooth compared to previous drivers running on lower settings. There is still the odd stutter but nothing like before.

Take off, landing, low ALT, high ALT, Day and night with both Small props and Jet liners

Screens of settings

FS2020_3

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Just finished a quick test flight with the new driver around Los Angeles ending at LAX in a C172, and it was silky smooth for me! I’m also using the SteamVR 1.16.2 beta. I also think the graphics looked a little more crisp, although not sure if that was placebo effect.

I am using a Valve Index on an i7 9700K, RTX 2080 Super. I have my framerate locked to 30 in SteamVR, and although I did not measure framerate I don’t think it dipped too far below that more than a few times.

I want to do some more testing tonight and play around with different settings, but all in all this seems like a winner to me.

@MI6Topboy: I see that you have HAGS enabled. Have you tried without and seen any difference? My experience as well as many others here has been that enabling it makes things worse. I’m wondering if this is no longer the case with the new driver?

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I haven’t tried the hotfix drivers, but I have a slightly less powerful PC (9600K stock, 3080, 32 gigs 2800) but have been running similar settings, and locked at 30. It will dip a bit below while around urban areas but mostly while closer to the ground. Things are generally smooth otherwise so I can live with some hitches near the ground as it hasn’t affected gameplay significantly. I’ll mess with the hotfix this weekend, or maybe just wait for the full patch, as I like to run fpsVR, and apparently the hotfix doesn’t work as well with any GPU monitoring software running. I haven’t really had issues in other VR titles I’ve tried with my new GPU though (iRacing, Automobilista 2, HL Alyx, ATS…) so I guess the stuttering bug may not affect everyone?

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Yes I too had it disabled. I just enabled it for a test and am going to disable it again now to test again

Will report back.

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My understanding is that this fix was to address compositor hitches in SteamVR’s runtime that some people were seeing. This means two things:

  1. The fix is likely to only apply to Index, Vive, etc. - headsets that use SteamVR’s compositor. It’s possible this same issue was also affecting the WMR and/or Oculus compositor if they were using the same nvidia api, but I haven’t seen that called out anywhere, and initial reports on G2 imply that is not the case.

  2. The type of hitches that the compositor has are full screen (i.e. where rotational reprojection fails). These show up as pink (magenta) bars in SteamVR’s mini perf graph.

So if you are using a SteamVR native headset and have been seeing occasional pink bars in the mini perf graph with older drivers, then my expectation is that this newest driver will have eliminated those.

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After reading most of this, and understanding maybe half of what I read (if I’m lucky), I’ve decided to do…

Nothing.

I’m going to stay on the driver that @CptLucky8 recommended until such time as he either changes his recommendation, or Nvidia comes out with something that specifically says it helps MSFS.

Although I am going to experiment with disabling hyperthreading in Nvidia Control Panel to see if I can see any noticeable change. It seems counterintuitive based on what it’s called (I mean, why in the world would you want to turn that off??), but I too have seen a number of people say that it helps.

If it does nothing, or even makes things worse, I can always just change it back.

Same here.

I still have better performance using WMR OXR and 457.30 on my system with the G2.

Oh well, I’m pretty happy with what I have now, I’m pretty much stutter free in all weather ( live weather ) at 65SS and 100TAA, so I’m going to stop chasing windmills for a while and actually do some flyin’.

Best

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My 3080 likes it at 2. Maybe its the vram.

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And is it still good with “App Controlled”? This would be easier this way!

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Yes it is. But that combined with the gauges on high “recovers” from the stutters a lot quicker.