I’d almost pay someone to fix it for me at this point. My hardware:
HP Omen 15 laptop i7 10750
16 GB 2933 Mhz ram
RTX 2060
1 TB SSD
Oculus Quest
Oculus debug tool FOV .7 .7
I’ve tried all manner of supersampling
I’ve tried turning off hyperthreading in bios, which makes it worse.
I’ve tried just about every combination of settings in the nVidia control panel, OXR toolkit, TAA 100, LOD’s at 75, almost all settings medium. When I am watching the FPS panel in developer mode it is clear the sim gets CPU bound as the mainthread bounces between 25 ms and as high as 50 - 60 ms. When I am not in VR I can set pancake mode settings to mostly high and ultra, CPU keeps up just fine and no stutters. GPU becomes the limiting factor, which is what I would expect with a 2060.
So why in VR is a 10th gen i7 getting overloaded trying to keep up with a 2060 GPU and a first gen quest?
Perhaps your CPU is thermal throttling. What does Windows Task Manager performance tab show when you are in VR? If possible, can you post a screen shot showing CPU speed under load, CPU load per core and GPU load and temp like the following:
It’s really odd to me that you would be CPU bound, I would totally think that a 2060 would struggle in VR however maybe even lower LOD is worth a shot … if you would consider trying your CPU with hyperthreading off it may help also?
Oh and 16gb isnt a ton of ram either .. is it even in dual channel in the laptop?
Curious, the i7-10750H has a base frequency of 2.60Ghz. At 43% utilisation in the sim your CPU is displaying a speed of 2.64Ghz. Your CPU is capable of up to 4.8Ghz with turbo boost, and 5.0Ghz with thermal velocity boost (both values obviously being subject to available overheads and relevant thermal considerations).
I have an i7-10700K in my PC. It has a base frequency of 3.8Ghz (and turbo boost up to 5.0Ghz). When I run the sim, I notice it often maintains around 4.5GHz CPU speed.
Obviously you’re using a laptop, but it would be interesting to see whether your CPU speed increases much above 2.64GHz whilst flying in VR and without. If the CPU speed does go higher, how often, and what’s the average?
You mentioned hyperthreading in the bios, so it sounds like you’re familiar with settings etc. I know it’s obvious, but just confirming you’ve definitely got turbo boost enabled in the bios?
Two other things, just quickly:
what version are you running for your graphics driver?
You mentioned you’re using link so I assume that’s the cable (I use one as well). I take it that you’re happy with how everything is going with the USB port? Have you tried Air-Link and noticed any differences?
That’s not true at all because the 43% is usually aggregated across all cores including those that MSFS doesn’t use, anyhow it’s not his boost speed. A big problem with laptops is by default they are continually trying to save resources however it is usually possible to change this behaviour in power settings.
According to Meta the current processor requirements for Oculus link are: Intel i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or greater.
Both of these CPUs have a base frequency of 3.3GHz and 3.5GHz respectively.
If his CPU is only maintaining a speed of 2.64GHz (and I can’t tell whether it is or isn’t), then it may mean that his CPU doesn’t meet Meta’s specs and may (or may not) impact the VR experience.
All power settings are high performance. While my BIOS doesn’t give me an option for that, I have configured windows, the proprietary HP omen app, and Nvidia control panel for high performance. Not sure what else I could be missing.
Your render resolution seems extremely low. Dr Google tells me the native resolution of the Oculus Quest is 1440 × 1600 per eye, and render resolution settings normally should feed it higher than that, but you are only running it at 1012x1126, which is roughly 1080p resolution for both eyes. At such low resolution, regardless of whether 2D or VR, MSFS becomes CPU bound as you are experiencing. I would be cranking render resolution much higher to the point where you start to become GPU limited. This will not only look significantly better but will lighten the load on your CPU and help it run cooler.
As others have stated, despite having a 10th gen CPU, your CPU clock speed of 2.6GHz is quite low and is actually the CPU base frequency, suggesting you do not have any turbo boost enabled or thermal throttling is taking place. That CPU should be able to sustain at least 4.5GHz under full load and with temperatures in check. Make sure turbo boost is enabled in your BIOS and check CPU temperatures under load using a tool like CoreTemp to see if your CPU is being thermally throttled, usually at around 100C.
Just saw this and it seems to confirm that your CPU is being thermally throttled, which would also explain the stutters and erratic main thread frame times. Your laptop either is full of dust bunnies and needs internal cleaning or is just in need of better ventilation or a cooling pad to keep temperatures under control.
very interesting comments. So you are saying the lower I go with resolution the harder it works the CPU? Can’t say I understand how that works, but I will try increasing rendering to see what happens.
Turbo boost does not exist in my bios. The last screen shot I posted suggests the cores do run higher than 2.6, and I’m posting a couple of additional screenshots of CPU speed while I was doing CPU undervolting testing. I am sure the CPU is exceeding 2.6 Ghz, but I know it will not sustain 4.5 and is always close to 100 degrees Celsius under heavy load. I had the thermal pack out of the laptop recently and used brand new thermal paste when I put it back together, but now I am questioning whether or not that thermal paste was worth anything. I might buy one that is highly rated and try replacing the thermal paste again, as much of a pain as that is. Also, since I’ve recently had the laptop apart I am sure there are no dust bunnies clogging up the fans or thermal unit.
Again, thank you all for the help and keep the suggestions coming!
