Reverb G2: Native (Microsoft) OpenXR 105.2012.18003 vs. Steam OpenXR - Steam VR 1.15.19 vs. 1.16.3

I would like to bring to my cockpit the maps, nav app etc. using OVR Toolkit. But it depends on Steam’s implementation of OpenXR instead of native (Windows) OpenXR.
The great guide by @CptLucky8 is based on the native OpenXR:

and by following it I have relatively smoth exprience in VR, C172, ca. 30+ FPS, no reprojection, TAA 70%, native OXR SS 100%, RTX 3070, 457.30 nVidia drivers.
So far I was unable to achieve comparable smoothness and FPS using Steam’s OpenXR implementation. When I installed the newest beta version of SteamVR (1.16.3), my entire VR environment (Half Life Alyx etc.) became a stutter show, so I needed to return to non-beta SteamVR (1.15.19)

Do you have any expeirence with Reverb 2 and:

  • Steam OpenXR drivers with SteamVR (non-beta 1.15.19)
  • Steam OpenXR drivers with SteamVR (beta 1.16.3)
  • native (Microsoft) OpenXR drivers (preview runtime 105.2012.18003)

Regarding using OVR Toolkit, it’s author has some concerns when it comes to WMR (e.g. Reverb G2) and MFS2020:
Windows Mixed Reality users may experience decreased performance running SteamVR games due to double rendering. Please try performance with your games running through SteamVR before you purchase OVR Toolkit. (Most noticeable effects with Flight Simulator 2020)

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Are MSopenXR and the Steam one compatible on the same PC, or should I uninstall one of the two?

I have done tests because I also wanted to use OVR Tookit.

The main problem I see with SteamVR is that the visual quality is worse, I don’t know why. With WMR I see the ecam of the a320 very well, but with SteamVR I see them very blurred.

My VRs are HP Reverb G2 and on SteamVR I have SS at 50% which is the closest to native resolution. In WMR I have 70%.

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No wonder it is worse, you’re not using the same resolution to get started. Put both at the same % and validate they’re both rendering the same resolution using the fps window in FS2020 developer mode.

Any chance you revisit this with the latest SteamVR 1.16.6 ?

SteamVR at 50% SS is the same as WMR at 100%, Native resolution. SteamVR does not recognize the native resolution of the G2 well and you have to lower it to 50%.

Tested with the SteamVR Beta and I get the same result.

Don’t think so… This 50% for G2 in SteamVR is an urban legend. Higher than native resolution is required to handle the lens distortion correction, it’s well documented on the web. The default setting in SteamVR should be 100%, to be lowered if your system can’t handle it with enough FPS.

Are you sure about this?

You might want to really compare what FS2020 developer mode fps window is displaying in the Post-Processing Resolution field, for both WMR 100% and SteamVR 100%.

Sorry, I get more and more confused if I read here the native solution of the G2 would be met using 50 SS in SteamVR. I found the following article on the G1

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/53689-hp-reverb-supersampling-100vs188vs300-through-the-lens-pictures/

stating the proper setting for the G1 would be hit using SteamVR with 188% (pretty high), and I think the G1/G2 pixels are the same order of magnitude at least.

Can anyone explain this to me? Thanks a lot.

I’ve explained this here:
WMR Scaling and Dev Tools - Some Explanations

The difference between the G1 and G2 is due to the curvature of the lens most likely.

PS: the article is old too (relatively) because when I had the G1 in June I’m nearly certain 100% SteamVR SS was very close to the native panel resolution, whereas the article is saying at 100% it is about a half of it only.

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I and many others in a G2 fb group had problems with a recent SteamVR beta. I went back to the non-beta version and the problems went away.
Sorry I don’t know the version number or either.

This afternoon I will test with SS 100% on SteamVR. The strange thing is that by default it comes to 150%.

Left to auto steam tries to guess a suitable SS percentage based on your GPU’s performance profile.

It doesn’t work very well on auto for non steam native headsets in my experience and at a guess seems to be set up for Index - eg on a 3090 I think it tries to drive the G2 at 140% SS which is insane by any measure, while 140% SS on the index would be quite a sensible starting point with that GPU.

Best in my opinion to leave it manually at 100% and then set custom per game resolution settings from there as required. Some games will run fine at 100%, others may need to go lower for performance reasons and some may even benefit from going higher (eg RF2 has the headroom and higher res improves aliasing).

There are also peculiarities around various rendering pipelines and how it all interacts that may dictate one method over another. For example in ACC (on a UE4.0 branch) I get a significantly better result by setting steam SS to 50% and upping pixel density in game to 1.6 than by running 100% SS and 1.0 PD)… in other games 50% steam SS looks awful.

Or more relevant to here, as CptLucky points out in some of his posts, there is a significant difference in EFIS clarity when comparing eg 70% render resolution and 100% OXR with 100% render resolution and 70% OXR.

So it’s certainly not an entirely simple subject, but the one thing I can assure you of is that you need to forget the concept of “native resolution” when it comes to VR headsets as they don’t work in the same way as a simple monitor.

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