WMR Scaling and Dev Tools - Some Explanations

@CptLucky8
For abbreviations, how about “OXR70” for OpenXR Devtools Custom Render Scale at 70% since OpenXR is still involved after changing the registry for SteamVR and Oculus runtimes as well. What I am not understanding is whether that OXR Render Scale setting affects SteamVR and Oculus?

It is not. The OpenXR Dev Tools are meant to adjusting the Windows Mixed Reality OpenXR driver only.

@ CptLucky8
Up and at em early again!! Thanks so much - I hope you appreciate how we are “hanging” on every word from you. I do wish the moderator could provide a “sticky” for just you - no responses - that simply provides your most current summary list of directions and settings.
So you are saying that once you change the registry to SteamVR or Oculus( I really would prefer that we use an approved powershell script to do that - I copied one but I had to change the execute settings for it to work) , NONE of the OpenXR Dev Tools settings have any effect (even ASW/Reprojection). If that is the case then your “WMR OXR” is the proper abbreviation. The important relationship for WMR users of WMR OXR Render Scale and the MSFS TAA render scale is a mysterious one. Move one up and the other down?? It is also important (yet another detail ) to state that the Windows Headset Display settings should be 1080p and Experience=Best visual quality or optimize for performance ? Do those settings have any real impact?
I think you have an Index as well in addition to the G2, so you could provide the same “best of show” for SteamVR. Now if someone could lend you an Oculus Quest2 (I have a G1 and a Q2), you could analyze for Oculus Link (would apply to all hardwired Oculus headsets) and then Oculus Wireless through Virtual Desktop and SteamVR. Wow!!! So many combinations.
Personally, I would prefer it if the MSFS2020 quality optimizations (setting higher values for better realism imagery - clouds, terrain, trees, objects, traffic, etc) be a separate analysis so that those with lesser powerful systems (CPU and GPU) would have a base level to setup and know that they would have a reasonably smooth, reasonably clear result to then later improve the realism quality.
Again, the world awaits your findings and we appreciate it! Apparently that “Vsync=fast” tip really made a difference. Your A320 banking test video is what we all want.

Thank you for your kind words! I honestly didn’t think there would be so much interrogations and I feel sometime overwhelmed with all this, but I have fun, let alone my personal enjoyment necessity, to finding the best settings for the most enjoyable experience.

Unfortunately I’m really not interested in anything around Oculus since they’ve been brought back a few years ago… but overall most I’m documenting applies the same regardless because all HMD drivers are nearly all working really good at the lowest level and it is a mater of adjusting the hardware and software components the best way for them working together, more than optimizing a single HMD specific setting.

For example like you’re saying, VSync FAST is important but in fact, like I’ve written in “My VR Settings”, it is “The combination of Low Latency Mode, Threaded Optimization and Vertical Sync settings, is the one which is giving me the smoothest stutter free experience.”

In addition I’ve lately validated another important setting is Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames where anything other than 1 is giving me more stutters and hiccups.

Nevertheless, my recommendations are always meant to be good with the most demanding conditions. I usually validate doing some flight tests patterns and measures in a known dense environment with similar conditions (location, weather, MP traffic - a lot where I test, etc…). The FS2020 settings are adjusted to “fit” inside the frame time budget so that they are not impairing performance so much and gives room for people running better hardware (video cards mostly). This way I minimize the chance to get bad fps in some areas, and I get much better fps in most spare places, which allows raising some settings if I want like clouds.

I just added an edit to my TL;DR entry above - could you answer that question?

1080p is only for popup 3D windows (it is documented as such in the WMR Settings). Other settings should be affecting only WMR Portal and applications using WMR API natively (HoloLens stuff).

I set these the lowest so that I try reducing VRam use every time WMR portal opens, just because it has to open even if you don’t really use the WMR Portal “home”.

I am looking forward to your guide. But I’ve tried reprojection on and off. Without it the buildings are super stuttering and blurry when you fly close to them.

This is called “juddering” and there is no way to get rid of this unless you’re natively rendering at your headset refresh rate (for example 90Hz)

But everything is clear when I set Motion Reprojection to Auto. And the game is only running at 30 FPS.

Edit: OK, when I click it I see it is a longer post with full explanation. Thanks!

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Thanks for this tip. Just wanted to elaborate: you download "Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR, then go to its Properties (in Steam app via gear icon, not in SteamVR) and in Betas tab opt into “public beta”, then you can update to beta.

This is important, because it’s off by default and I did not know about that option, which is indeed separate from SteamVR beta that many guides mention.

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Sorry, but could you please explain what I should do to up my fps step by step? I’m run a 2070 SUPER with a G2 and get between 30-40 fps on medium-low settings with 80-90 rendering resolution. I already have “use latest OpenXR” in developer settings on.

Thank you!!

Hi CptLucly8,I cannot say thank you enough for sharing the fruits of all your testing with us. It has helped me immensely and I share the info as much as I can + redirect folks here. Question, is the fish eye view we get at WMR 50 with motion smoothing a openXR bug or an MSFS bug? It goes away if we force motion smoothing off.

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CptLucky’s directions are the best, but I’d say that 30-40 fps is as good as you’ll reasonably get fps wise.

It might actually be impossible to do better. I have a 3080 and am at the same FPS, pretty much no matter how low or high my settings are (within reason).

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@FSAdventures @CurdledTree18 Thank you for your kind words!

The pincushion distortion (it looks more like this to me than fisheye, which is a barrel distortion) is I believe a bug in WMR OpenXR driver only. Most likely they’re projecting the render frame onto this distorted surface maybe as an optimization for “blending” or “motion projecting” the pixels but they might just have forgotten to un-distort it back at the end.

Do you know why, even with a high end GPU like the 3080, it is not possible to improve VR performance. What is the constraint, CPU or is there another factor.

I’m in the same boat, with 3080/3700X/64Gb/2Tb SSD on Reverb G2. From the dev counter, I’m definitely “limited by GPU”, never by CPU. It’s just the amount of pixels it has to churn on a crazy resolution that needs to be rendered for the G2.

I’m afraid we’re stuck with a subpar VR experience on high-end PCs until both the drivers and most importantly MFS will be optimized better for VR. And ergonomically too - I’m so annoyed by the mouse controls in VR… Let’s hope they work on that and it will get better. VR is not what I expected, after seeing what G2 is capable of in Alyx, where it’s so sharp it hurts :slight_smile: You can’t see pixels, and everything is crystal clear. Not so in MFSm unless you want 10FPS like I had before all the tweaks and many hours of experimenting with settings… Now I get 45FPS in Sedona lessons on Cessna 152. I’m afraid to try the airliner in a dense area :slight_smile:

I’ve great results with the A320, my settings, and a less powerful system:

details: WMR Scaling and Dev Tools - Some Explanations - #63 by CptLucky8

Very nice. I do see some microfreezes every few seconds - is that the video or is it real? I do have something similar on my system too. Even when it’s smooth it does jitter a bit every 5-10 seconds…

I’m not sure it was actually the Nvidia stutter. I believe it is the photogrammetry loading instead (this was taken at Miramar KNKX).

@CptLucky8, did you try running the G2 with the Steam WMR driver? Is it worth a try? One of the things I am thinking is putting it at SS 50% with reprojection ON since we have the WMR pincushion bug at 50%.