Finally made VR run smoothly and good graphics - Valve index

[AwesomeChicken]

Hi Everyone, just in case you haven't already knew these tweaks, I wanted to gather all the steps I did to make the game run smoothly.

The very first try was miserable. Stuttering, very low fps, weird graphical glitches, and running on a good, up to date, pc.
Changing the in game settings didn't help at all... initially.

I only have steps for Nvidia cards, not sure about AMD.

1. Nvidia control panel
3D settings - choose msfs as specific program and change the following options, leave everything else as is:

Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample - ON
Texture filtering - Negative lod bias - ALLOW
Texture filtering - Quality - Performance
Texture filtering - Trillinear optimization - ON
Thread optimization - ON
Vertical sync - FAST
Virtual reality Pre-rendered frames - 1

2. Steam VR settings - Video
Motion smoothing - OFF
Refresh rate - 90 (must me 90 at first, you can change this if you want AFTER you are in vr mode)
Go to "Per-Application specific" and select msfs.
Render resolution - 78% - this is important. I wont' go into technical details why
Motion smoothing - DISABLED
Legacy reprojection mode - OFF


3. MSFS Settings
Note that your PC video settings take away resources. Set this to a very low resolution, everything at minimum and most importantly Vsync - OFF

VR settings are at your control, and you can tweak as you like.
I recommend starting off at the baseline of:
Render scale 80-100%
Level of detail for objects and other things at 50 (that have sliders)
any cloud options - low

Anti-aliasing - TAA - A MUST.
Anisotropic filtering - 8x
texture supersampling 2x2

Make sure it's stable and working, then increase gradually to see what your PC can handle.

I'm currently running terrain level of detail and objects level of detail at 70 + buildings trees on high
All other options can be adjusted, some have more impact then others. I have a combination of low/medium, some high. It doesn't really make a big difference though.


I hope I got everything. Hope it helps.


In case someone asks, my setup is:
i9 10900k
1080ti (I know, waiting to upgrade)
64Gb ram (again.. I know.. overkill :D)

Enjoy!

Update: For non Valve index headsets, add this step https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018555179-How-to-install-OpenXR- (Thanks @bob)

[rich100211]

Thank you!

[Buktu]

Just curious: if you switch between VR and monitor now and then, do you have to adjust all these settings again and again? Say on monitor you play in Ultra settings and VR low?

[Malkuth]

You forgot one important thing. Setting the refresh rate for the glass instruments to high and not low in game settings.

[AwesomeChicken]

Originally posted by Buktu:

Just curious: if you switch between VR and monitor now and then, do you have to adjust all these settings again and again? Say on monitor you play in Ultra settings and VR low?

The Video settings are separated in the sim, so you don't have to redo the vr settings, but you do have to redo the 2d version, if you're planning to not play in vr.

You can still leave everything as is for the 2d version. I just noticed that it affects performence, so I have it at an abismal 400/600 resolution haha

[AwesomeChicken]

Originally posted by Malkuth:

You forgot one important thing. Setting the refresh rate for the glass instruments to high and not low in game settings.

Very good point! that's another thing I did

[sparc]

I as well as several others are experiencing terrible visual graphics. Things look distorted and kinda wobbly and makes you dizzy. I'm wondering if this will help. I'm gonna give it a try. We are oculus users, quest, cv1, etc.

[AwesomeChicken]

Originally posted by sparc:

I as well as several others are experiencing terrible visual graphics. Things look distorted and kinda wobbly and makes you dizzy. I'm wondering if this will help. I'm gonna give it a try. We are oculus users, quest, cv1, etc.

I think I saw some oculus specific steps regarding OpenX, in the VR FAQ

[Bob]

Originally posted by sparc:

I as well as several others are experiencing terrible visual graphics. Things look distorted and kinda wobbly and makes you dizzy. I'm wondering if this will help. I'm gonna give it a try. We are oculus users, quest, cv1, etc.

Im on the old oculus cv1 and can confirm Ive made it look incredible good in the headset. Well, cv1 got its obvious low resolution but still. Runs smooth, looks good, looks stabil.
My first go in vr with cv1 was terrible and I am surprised I could make it look this good with some testing and reading.

rtx2070super

[sparc]

I followed except for the registry editor part. I dont under what values I'm looking for. I know about pc coding as much as a tea leaf knows its destiny. I'm learning though and its frustrating yet exciting kinda like a marriage.

[Bob]

Originally posted by sparc:

I followed except for the registry editor part. I dont under what values I'm looking for. I know about pc coding as much as a tea leaf knows its destiny. I'm learning though and its frustrating yet exciting kinda like a marriage.

The registry editor is the main thing to get it running good in oculus. Follow that guide again and try. You got to get that key to point to your openxr in your oculus files and not in steam vr as it is by default. In that guide he has posted the path if you got oculus software in C:program files/oculus etc. If you have it there just copy his path and paste it in that key path that points to steam vr.

[FreddieForever#1]

Originally posted by Bob:

Originally posted by sparc:

I followed except for the registry editor part. I dont under what values I'm looking for. I know about pc coding as much as a tea leaf knows its destiny. I'm learning though and its frustrating yet exciting kinda like a marriage.

The registry editor is the main thing to get it running good in oculus. Follow that guide again and try. You got to get that key to point to your openxr in your oculus files and not in steam vr as it is by default.

What is the registry editor and what guide?

[Bob]

Originally posted by FreddieForever#1:

Originally posted by Bob:

The registry editor is the main thing to get it running good in oculus. Follow that guide again and try. You got to get that key to point to your openxr in your oculus files and not in steam vr as it is by default.

What is the registry editor and what guide?

https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018555179-How-to-install-OpenXR-

[[NG]Icenor]

This helped a little. I went from 27 to 35 average fps on a nVidia 1080 FF. It's flyable but I guess I'll have to upgrade to get any more.

[Malkuth]

Just curious what your FPS are.

My PC.
RTX 3800.
32 Gigs Ram
8700K Intel CPU.

Only getting 30-40 FPS.. Mostly in middle at 35..

really not good, I know it might seem like it.. But trust me.. If you magically could jump to 60 FPS, you would see how bad it actually is. Even 60FPS is not that great... But nobody can get past 40-45 even with a top of the line pc.. And that is terrible.

A stable 35 FPS is only acceptable because it has to be. But it really is not. I feel bad for the people that can't take that and get sick.

And to make matters worse if your actually tracking whats going on in game with a program like FPSVR (it tracks everything you need to know) Your getting CPU Usage at like 50%... And GPU 70%... ITs not good man.

[john'o]

how do you get into vr settings on steam