Not having a Valve Index like CptLucky8 to be able to run under the great supersampling settings available in Steam VR or being able to find an RTX 3090 at a reasonable price (and fit it in my computer!), I took a riff off CptLucky8’s Steam VR settings and found some Windows Mixed Reality settings with the OpenXR Developer’s Tools that work amazingly well (in my limited experience with VR) with my HP Reverb G2 for lollygagging sightseeing out in the country.
I use most of the very high graphics settings that CptLucky8 uses for his Index in SteamVR but with the following critical differences (described in the terminology he uses). 100% TAA in MSFS but only 60% SS in OpenXR with motion reprojection always enabled. HAGS ON (game mode off) but only 60 Hz frame rate in Windows Mixed Reality headset settings. To maximize the sweet spot size, it pays to carefully adjust the G2 both horizontally and vertically on your head, as many have pointed out before.
I find the settings stupendous in GA aircraft flying about 1,000 ft off the ground at less than 100 knots or so. I have tested the performance of the ICON A5, the ZLIN Ultrashock, and the TBM 930 in just few “boonie” locales and am satisfied with the scenery visuals. I’m climbing, descending, and banking only relatively slowly. Lewis’s Ready-To-Fly Theorem is that you can almost tell from the performance of your mouse in VR when you try to click Ready-To-Fly how good or bad any choice of settings is going to be from how well or poorly the mouse responds to your efforts … Flying in drone camera view behind the plane is usually smoother than being in the cockpit and if there are blackouts with head movement on first loading (Monument Valley, AZ), they may go away completely if you give a plane some flying time (happened with ICON A5 there).
The detailed settings below are by no means optimized. They undoubtedly could be improved but they’re good enough for me for now. Suggestions for improvements or criticisms are both most welcome. The settings are rather terrible in flying over Manhattan and my surmise is that it’s all the photogrammetry involved there. Am looking into alternative settings for NYC and the like.
I adjusted the physical IPD on my G2 in-flight in VR by the sharpness of distant scenery and came up with 64.4 mm whereas Costco Optical says the distance IPD for my eyes by their precise instrument is 62.4 mm. YMMV.
Places Tested
Mann Gulch, MT Icon A5, TBM 930 @ Latitude=N 46° 53’ 30.11" Longitude=W 111° 53’ 28.46"
TBM 930 works pretty well in Mann Gulch, cockpit little blurry, jittery but side-to-side head movements in cockpit fine. FWIW, FPS in developer mode higher for TBM than for Icon A5??? FPS monitor says limited by GPU (is all yellow, no red)
Monument Valley, AZ Icon A5 @ Latitude=N 37° 2’ 12.20" Longitude=W 110° 6’ 1.26"
Icon A5 starting in Monument Valley, lot of blackouts (more photogrammetry?), give it a chance, fly in drone camera mode, much better, can switch back to cockpit view without initial problems. Then no blackouts with side to side head movement.
Machu Pichu, Peru ZLIN Ultrashock @ Latitude=S 13° 9’ 46.56" Longitude=W 72° 32’ 41.91"
GREAT– cockpit glare, reflections, etc. in ZLIN Ultrashock. Turn windshield effects off for this plane? Scenery stupendous.
Gory details …
Computer: Dell XPS 8930 SE, i9-9900K, 4.7 GHz, 32 Gb 2666 MHz RAM, RTX 2070 Super 8 Gb VRAM, sim installed on non-system Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 603 Gb free, 100 Gb rolling cache (probably a waste).
Windows Power Options: High Performance Settings -if you don’t see, click “Show Additional Plans” and use at your own risk only if you have adequate thermal cooling.
Windows Graphics and Gaming Settings: HAGS ON, Game Mode OFF
Windows Mixed Reality Settings
Visual Quality of My Home: Low, 720p
Experience Options: Best Visual Quality
Resolution: 4320 x 2160
Frame Rate: 60 Hz
Calibration: 64.40 mm IPD set in SIM by best sharpness of distant scenery with G2 slider. YMMV
OXR settings
Latest Preview OXR Runtime: ON
Custom Render Scale: 60%
Motion Reprojection: ALWAYS ON
Advanced Settings: All UNCHECKED
Nvidia Settings
Nvidia 466.11 Driver
Nvidia Control Panel MSFS Program Settings in Manage 3D Settings (~same as CptLucky8 Index)
| Feature | Setting |
|---|---|
| Image Sharpening | Use global setting (Off) |
| Ambient Occlusion | Not supported for this application |
| Anisotropic filtering | Use global setting (Application-controlled) |
| Antialiasing - FXAA | Use global setting (Off) |
| Antialiasing - Gamma correction | Use global setting (On) |
| Antialiasing - Mode | Use global setting (Application-controlled) |
| Antialiasing - Setting | Use global setting (Application-controlled) |
| Antialiasing - Transparency | Use global setting (Off) |
| Background Application Max Frame Rate | Use global setting (Off) |
| CUDA - GPUs | Use global setting (All) |
| Low Latency Mode | On |
| Max Frame Rate | Use global setting (Off) |
| Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA) | Not supported for this application |
| OpenGL rendering GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2010 SUPER |
| Power management mode | Use global setting (Optimal power) |
| Shader Cache | Use global setting (On) |
| Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample opti… | On |
| Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias | Allow |
| Texture filtering - Quality’ | Performance |
| Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization | On |
| Threaded optimization | On |
| Triple buffering | Off |
| Vertical sync | Fast |
| Virtual Reality’ pre-rendered frames | 1 |
| Virtual Reality’ — Variable Rate Super Sampling… | Not supported for this application |
On Texture Filtering Quality, going from Quality to Performance to High Performance gives increasing levels of performance for me (less judder) but also decreasing levels of scenery sharpness
MSFS 2020 Settings
I run the SIM FULL SCREEN
VR Graphics Settings ~same as CptLucky8’s with some lowered, e.g. Buildings
| FS2020 | . | |
|---|---|---|
| Render Scaling | 100 | |
| Anti-Aliasing | TAA | |
| Terrain LOD | 100 | |
| Terrain Vector Data | ULTRA | |
| Buildings | MEDIUM | Might want to increase |
| Trees | ULTRA | |
| Grass and Bush | MEDIUM | |
| Object LOD | 100 | |
| Clouds | LOW | Might want to increase |
| Texture Res. | ULTRA | |
| Anisotropic Filter. | 8x | |
| Texture SS | 4x4 | |
| Texture Synth. | ULTRA | |
| Water Waves | MEDIUM | Might want to increase |
| Shadow Maps | 768 | |
| Terrain Shadows | 256 | |
| Contact Shadows | LOW | |
| Windshield | MEDIUM | |
| Ambient Occlusion | LOW | |
| Reflections | HIGH | Could turn down or off |
| Light Shafts | HIGH | Could turn down or off |
| BLOOM | OFF | |
| Glass Cockpit Rate | MEDIUM | Might want to increase |
