VIRTUAL REALITY PERFORMANCE.
Technology in today’s VR Gaming.
Virtual reality performance is so important to you having a truly amazing experience in virtual reality gaming. Let’s look at what is available right now to improve our gaming experiences to make it incredible.
Technology has come forward in leaps and bounds for virtual reality performance with the release of the Nvidia RTX Series and AMD 5000 series gpu’s. These introduced tensor cores which are essentially AI (Artificial Intelligence) processors. They are separate from the main GPU processing Graphics core on the chiplet.
These cores are capable of learning and improving your gaming experience across the board. These have simply grown in performance with the release of AMD 6000 and RTX 3000 cards.
Ray Tracing Your Gaming Environment.
These tensor cores can learn and help Virtual reality performance as well as visual clarity in your HMD. Improving the overall visual experience in both as ambient environmental effects with lighting with real time ray tracing. This is now a reality for Nvidia RTX and AMD 5/6000 series cards.
These new cores are used to intelligently introduce lighting effects with 3D real time ray tracing effects. Ray tracing offers enhanced ambient lighting effects that change depending on how the light reflects with individual surfaces. Ray tracing also effects how light interacts with the atmospheric effects such as mist in game.
DLSS and FX SR Super Resolution – Software
The option of using either DLSS or FXSR in VR offers greater quality enhanced resolution for your picture providing the developer has implemented it. It gives higher quality and resolutions. It also delivers improved FPS (frames per second).
These effects from both Nvidia and AMD have to be implemented at a game software developers level which limits the accessibility if game developers as I mentioned previously.
Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR & SR)
Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) is Nvidia’s name for this upscale resolution technique. AMD has their own version called SR (Super Resolution). Both these features increase your native resolution in factors 1.5, 2, 3 and 4 times taking your 1080p monitor to 1440p at 2X upscale and 4k at 4x upscaling.
The advantage with these are they are available to all without any implementation by game developers. It’s possible that with recent advances the FSR and DSR both DLSS as well as FX SR could be left behind. The latest improvements come in at driver level delivery of performance available to all games regardless. DLS & SR can be simply turned on in the UI and enjoyed. But there are some new exciting advancements to these we will discuss in a moment.
DSR is really very good and I have used it personally for a number of years. I have been talking about it in videos on Letsflyvfr YouTube channel. As many people are unaware of it.
It takes a 1080p Picture to 4K quality and is nothing to be sneezed at. It did this with only the cost of a few FPS. It was nothing significant compared to the resultant picture quality improvement.
Early Tech Improvements SR and DSR
These were the early versions of this technique introduced by both AMD and Nvidia. In recent times we have had even newer driver level implementation of these technologies. New variations that also do not rely on game developers implementing in game are here.
NEWER UPSCALING TECHNOLOGY.
Very recently Nvidia implemented a new driver level scaling technique called NIS or Nvidia Intelligent Scaling. It works to at a driver level and does not require software developers to enable it like DLSS (Deep Level Super Sampling) or the AMD FX SR.
These are like the old technique which use a the AI Tensor Cores to up scales the image then uses AI Intelligent super sampling to give you the original quality picture. These have preset screen resolutions set in the control panel giving you a 1440 or 4k picture from 1080p similar to the original DSR but with large FPS improvements. The performance improvement has been astounding to say the least and is available on RTX Nvidia cards.
AMD Virtual Super Resolution.
AMD Virtual Super Resolution also allows image scaling giving you higher resolutions than the native screen resolution then downscaling to native resolution with image scaling enables a a super sampling applied to render the image.
These technologies continue to improve and I am sure there is more to come. Improving quality and especially is a race to out perform the other company in the drive for sales. Let’s hope this continues but there is more available to improve your gaming depending on game.
NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL – ENABLE NIS.
The first selection in the menu is the Image Scaling Option. I have this turned on and left at default for now. I have had some people say it should be off but I find it clears up the picture a lot so I’m sticking with it for now.
Go to your Nvidia Control panel to enable your NIS Scaling option. Scroll down the options in the USE 3D Settings menu and select the DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution option). Select the new downscaling NIS OPTIONS to enable them. There are two in my case as you can see in the picture. These give me 2560 * 1440 as well as 2880 * 1620 resolutions. These are dependent on you monitor resolution so If your on a 1440 or 4K monitor the numbers will vary.
The DSR smoothness slider in the next selection is one to try but I have normally had this at about 10% and found I didn’t need to adjust it. Note the resolutions and select these on your desktop display resolution option. If you tick the box to show enabled you will see a small green NIS in the top left corner of the screen. If you see blue you don’t have a NIS resolution selected.
VR VIRTUAL REALITY TOOLS OPEN XR.
In recent times I have discovered OPEN XR in using my Oculus Rift S playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. This has proven to be a savior for me as I was personally struggling to get anything like a smooth workable VR flying Experience.
Open XR has been created by Facebook in part and many VR companies can and do use its software development tools (SDK). OPENXR on its own has not been the savior but the road to freedom. Let’s look at what I was using before OPENxr.
Once Installed move to the Developer Settings and make sure the custom Render Scale is at 100%.
You can select your choice of the motion projection. Automatic is fine generally. IF you experience stuttering try turning it off. This feature tries to smooth out lost frames in VR.
OCULUS TRAY TOOL
This tool has a great tool with options like upscaling the super sampling allowing for a such clearer picture inside your headset.
This increase in sampling can really help to improve text readability and general clarity. The Default Super Sampling option is normally recommended at about 1.2 to 1.4. This clears up the display in VR quite a lot. If you have a good system you may be able to go higher if your performance is not hindered. Note 1.0 is essentially no super sampling. It’s good about 1.3 or 1.4 but it’s taxing on the system so experiment.
Default ASW is the rear projection setting and you can use this in a number of settings. It offers you on, off as well as a number of specific hz ranges that may help to smooth your performance in VR. In some cases like MSFS 2020 its better left off I have found so far.
OCULUS MIRROR AND TOOLS.
Oculus has its own software to run the Rift and newer HMD’s simply called Oculus. Included in this are some developers tools like the Oculus Mirror. This allows you to record your VR display from your VR view on a flat screen for YouTube like myself.
It’s good but without full implementation support by some games it does not always work flawlessly. It has a number of tools like stabilization of the recorded image. This is excellent and removes the constant movement of your head. This you don’t notice when in VR but is very evident in screen capture.
It can also broaden your recorded FOV field of view which is quite good but at a performance cost. Overall it’s good but some games like DCS World and MSFS 2020 don’t like it. The stop you clicking in cockpit without disabling the mirror. You just have to have key binds to get around this on your controller and your OK.
OCULUS FOV TOOL.
The FOV (field of view) for the mirror giving a wider field of view on the mirrored display there buy not helping in the headset. There is some performance loss but you can increase the recorded FOV by a considerable amount.
IMAGE STABALIZATION
The best feature in this tool is the stabilization in the mirror. This really helps YouTube creators not make viewers sick with the constant movement. It is not seen when playing in the VR headset yourself.
New OPENXR DEVELOPMENT TOOL.
There are some tools available with Open XR and should you be using a Rift you may wish to give OpenXR a try.
To install OpenXR go to the Microsoft Store and type in OpenXR. It is free and does work happily with the Oculus software and many other brands of VR Headsets. Once you enable the OpenXR in the Oculus UI it works in cooperation with the Oculus software.
To do this currently go to the beta pages and opt in for beta program. Then in system enable the OpenXR option. Your Rift S will now use OpenXR to run. This in itself may bring some FPS.
OPEN XR TOOLKIT – THE MAGIC BEGINS.
The OpenXR tool kit enables you to use NIS in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and just blows me away. I have gone from unusable to very happy with high quality scenery and smooth FPS generally.
No, it’s honestly not perfect but it’s getting incredibly good performance and some tweaking I am sure will give offer better MSFS 2020 experience.
OPENXR CONTROLS
Fire up OpenXR and check you have the slider set to 100%. You can then leave it minimized along with Oculus Software and OpenXR Development tool.
Run MSFS 2020 and get a flight of your choice ready. Jump into VR mode either before or after getting to your aircraft.
TUNING FOR BEST PERFORMANCE.
TOOL KIT ADJUSTMENT
There are only three keys to utilize the toolkit. Note it’s on an automatic timer so will only display for about 30 seconds since your last key press.
F2 ACTIVATES The menu.
CTR PLUS F1 OR F3 will adjust the selected item or cycle through options available.
Pressing L CTR plus F2 will cycle the options.
Try performance differences between NIS & FSR. I actually found the FSR option better but different systems may react differently. I have the factor at 80% and sharpness at 60%. The other settings aren’t generally important.
The Elephant in the Room – PC Specs.
Let me address who needs NIS and this OPENXR Toolkit. If you have a RTX 3080 or AMD 6800 you are probably shaking your head and think why is this so important. I understand why you would be thinking this.
If your one of the bulk of gamers out there there like myself on a 2060/2070 or 5600 etc. then I suspect you will soon be wearing a very large grin as you step into your favorite MSFS 2020 aircraft in VR.
Installing this immediately improved everything. A sky full of clouds can certainly still a strain but mostly your experience will be amazing. Please let me know how you found OpenXR Toolkit.
Author.
Brendon McAliece is a multi lingual expat who brings over three decades of flight simulator/PC building experience as well as over two decades of real world jet fighter experience as a weapons/egress technician. He holds a sport pilot certificate giving him real world flying experience. Hi travels have taken him from Europe to the Middle East, Asia and his home of Australia. He has a passion for travel, languages, flight simulation as well as guitaring and coffee. You can read more in his blogs below.
Learn more @ DreamingGuitar.com – – DreamingCoffee.com – LetsFlyVFR.com
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