4090 Poor performance?

[[PL] Flux]

I've been having pretty poor performance with my oculus quest 2.

I've been experiencing constant frame drops I have been trying to look around but I just don't know what's causing it. No issues in other games.

Specs:
RTX 4090
i7 13700k
32gb ddr5 ram

[Likon]

Switch to DirectX11 if you using Vulkan for some reason. Vulkan in Alyx made for Linux.

[Kako]

Go to the SteamVR settings. either on the small window on your desktop, that shows headset/controllers. there, it's the little sandwich menu in the top left, OR inside the headset, there is a button on your controller that opens it.
Either way, once you are in there, make sure to go into the "video" settings, and to DISABLE "motion smoothing" if that is on, and set the "resolution" to "custom". then you will see a "resolution slider" appearing below it. turn that slider down to like 100 or 80 percent.
After you are done with this, hit the button below that says "per resolution application". You will find yourself with another 2 sliders. Keep the lower slider (APD adjustment) at max, and just focus on the top slider, once again a "resolution" slider, this time for the game you are playing. make sure to also turn it down, to the same as the other slider.
that only for resolution.

I also recommend validating the game files: right click on the game in the game in the steam library, then on "properties, then go to "files" and hit the "validate files" button

it is also important to note that alyx HEAVILY benefits from being installed on an SSD as opposed to an external drive

[Gus Fring Gaming]

If you are using AirLink (wireless gameplay) then perhaps I'd check your router or WiFi signal strength. I got a cheap router as access point just for VR, since I was having many issues myself as well.

Hope this helps

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by Flux:

I've been having pretty poor performance with my oculus quest 2.

I've been experiencing constant frame drops I have been trying to look around but I just don't know what's causing it. No issues in other games.

Specs:
RTX 4090
i7 13700k
32gb ddr5 ram

Poor performance? I'd like to know exact numbers. Some people call "bad performance" on sub 90 fps at 4k display, while others call "good performance" on 120fps on 1080p display.

Which "other games" are you talking about, exactly? Are they just cartoony trigger mashers like Beatsaber, or actually heavy games like Bonelab?

Quest 2 has 2kx2k screen PER EYE, making it practically a 4k screen. It is NOT that easy to drive a 4k screen, even for rtx4090, especially for such highly detailed games like HL:A. Since it is VR, it is by no means a simple 4k screen. You have 2 different rendering "flows".

So, my advices would be next:
A) Make sure you follow all the basic optimization tips for this game: turn off spectator mode, reduce your game window size(not the screen size, the window size. Launch the game with -w 16 -h 16).
B) Don't push your hardware to its limits. Don't go full ultra, also reduce your screen size, since your screensize would be hard to drive even in non-VR use case. Don't go all 120hz refresh rate. Settle up with 90.
C) Some areas in the game would perform bad, regardless to how good your hardware is. I now have 4090, but some time ago it was 3070(not Ti), and the area near the Northern Star was an "under 60 fps" lagfest, on my HTC Vive OG(which has around 1kx1k screen size per eye).
D) Since you have "energy effective cores", try disabling them. Some people reported that having them on caused issues some time ago, for certain use cases(fairly sure it wasn't about HL:A, but give it a try anyway.)

[IanL]

Originally posted by SiEgE:

C) Some areas in the game would perform bad, regardless to how good your hardware is. I now have 4090, but some time ago it was 3070(not Ti), and the area near the Northern Star was an "under 60 fps" lagfest, on my HTC Vive OG(which has around 1kx1k screen size per eye).

You make some good points but I would dispute the statement above as I played the game using a HTC OG Vive with an i5 10600K and a 1080 card and got a constant 90fps all through the game with the settings on Ultra as measured by fpsVR. So, I don't feel it's an issue with the game per se

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by IanL:

Originally posted by SiEgE:

C) Some areas in the game would perform bad, regardless to how good your hardware is. I now have 4090, but some time ago it was 3070(not Ti), and the area near the Northern Star was an "under 60 fps" lagfest, on my HTC Vive OG(which has around 1kx1k screen size per eye).

You make some good points but I would dispute the statement above as I played the game using a HTC OG Vive with an i5 10600K and a 1080 card and got a constant 90fps all through the game with the settings on Ultra as measured by fpsVR. So, I don't feel it's an issue with the game per se

I'm fairly sure you've just waltzed past those points in the game. Game is performing fairly well EXCEPT those points in the game. Like the open areas. For example - the elevator sequence, leaving the Northern Star. It drops below 90 fps for me. 3070 is around 3-50% better than 1080, yet I still felt pretty uncomfortable at that point. I do believe I was playing on either Medium or High quality settings, with all the possible optimizations(small window screen, no spectator cam and etc.).
I brought that up because I was suspecting OP might be at that exact spot, complaining about the poor performance.

Btw, 1080 was my previous GPU before 3070, and I've played Alyx on it as well, and I can confidently say that it is simply not enough for HL:A. It is enough to have a comfortable playthrough, but you'll not get butter smooth experience with it. Es-effin-specially on full render resolution of Quest 2.

As an optimization freak, I make double sure my PC doesn't have any "extra" features that I don't need, so my GPU always have some slack to provide me with best input latency. My wrath also reaches all the bloatware, "hidden apps" and "Win10 extras" that drain performance. My GPU, RAM, Disk and CPU usages were near 0 everytime I launch a game. No "hidden updates", "failing disks" or anything. My disks are split, so I have some extra peformance to deal with sudden, hidden updates. My SteamVR and VR games are on a NVMe SSD drive, while everything else is on few SATA SSDs.
I even delved into the dark deeps of several generations of my mb's BIOS to meddle with their settings. Not just XMP, but trying all kinds of CPU stuff as well, with settings learned, and tried on and off.

I wouldn't even dare trying to play HL:A in its full resolution on Quest 2 full Ultra. My current setup is just enough to play "with no restrictions" on my HTC Vive.

[Giacomo]

I also play on a 4090 with all gfx settings maxed and it runs flawlessly at 90hz and 120hz and I have a 5800x cpu which is weaker than yours and not capable of pushing my 4090 to 100% load. I run at 90hz as the quest battery lasts much longer than at 120hz.

Sounds like something is wrong with your system. Apart from the res being maxed in the oculus windows app I run at 100% resolution in steam and use a link cable. I don't care what anyone says, wireless with or without virtual desktop is trash and kills graphics quality so use a cable if you aren't already. Wireless just doesn't have the bandwidth needed to stream it to the headset without compression killing the quality.

Have you used display driver uninstaller to completely remove your graphics driver for a fresh install?

Also remove any background software that you don't need. There's also a lot of settings to try in your NVIDIA control panel that can make a difference.

[IanL]

Originally posted by SiEgE:

Originally posted by IanL:

You make some good points but I would dispute the statement above as I played the game using a HTC OG Vive with an i5 10600K and a 1080 card and got a constant 90fps all through the game with the settings on Ultra as measured by fpsVR. So, I don't feel it's an issue with the game per se

I'm fairly sure you've just waltzed past those points in the game. Game is performing fairly well EXCEPT those points in the game. Like the open areas. For example - the elevator sequence, leaving the Northern Star. It drops below 90 fps for me. 3070 is around 3-50% better than 1080, yet I still felt pretty uncomfortable at that point. I do believe I was playing on either Medium or High quality settings, with all the possible optimizations(small window screen, no spectator cam and etc.).
...

Not from my recollection. I can't swear that the frame rate didn't dip below 90 at moments, but not that I ever noticed. I don't recall ever feeling uncomfortable at any point in the game.

I was disabling dynamic resolution scaling and setting the in game rendering resolution to the headset's native screen resolution (100%) by using the following startup parameters:

-console -vconsole +vr_fidelity_level_auto 0 +vr_fidelity_level 3

I recently upgraded my card to a 4070 and am now running with a 300% multiplier in SteamVR and getting a consistent 90 fps at least into Chapter 3 with motion smoothing disabled, I haven't had a chance to play any further as yet with the new card. Looks absolutely beautiful on the Vive.