VRChat Optimization (on Windows and for real)

VRChat always runs terrible, here's what you should and SHOULDN'T ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do to optimize your game.
This guide is designed for the Windows operating system. If you are on anything other than Windows, - good luck.
I only know AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, I don't know Intel's GPUs, sorry.

1. Unnecessary things

- Do not mess with GPU settings: Nvidia Control Panel, Nvidia Profile Inspector, AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, AMD Radeon Software.
- Do not run any extra software that your system doesn't need: Park Control, Process Lasso, VR Performance Toolkit (it adds extra effects, but overall you should stray from post-processing your image until you are satisfied with the unfiltered image), etc.

Why?

- Default GPU settings are already optimised to run games as fast as possible with best possible quality with no compromises to game performance, you can use low latency and other settings for desktop PC use, but for VR performance- nothing will improve the performance substantially, move on.
- Extra software will take away a tiny percentage of your system power which could be used for anything that you'd want to be playing, some software may have no use as all they may add is a screen where you can look at what your system can do with no extra software (aka Park Control).

Process Lasso is useful though

- If you need it, use it, it may or may not improve game performance. There's no definitive software solution that would improve the game performance better than what you can already do with your system.

2. CPU power plans and efficiency

On any Windows operating system, enter the Control Panel and enter the power plan selection, here's how you do it:

- On "View by: Category":
+ System and Security;
+ Power Options.
- On "View by: Small/Large Icons":
+ Power Options

We need our system to run at max power when it needs to, not always at max power- as that's terribly inefficient and may cause you a slight power bill increase for no reason:

+ Select and switch to the power plan that you want to be using (Balanced is recommended) and press Change plan settings next to it;
+ Change advanced power settings;
+ Here, change the Minimum processor state and Maximum processor state under Processor power management:
+ + Set Minimum processor state to any desired minimum amount of % that your processor should use while idle, it should always be 0% to save you some power consumption;
+ + Set Maximum process state to 100%, so your CPU can be utilized to its maximum potential when needed, when it's set to 100% - CPUs can utilize their boost clock speeds which may be an increase that improves performance greatly.

What is "CPU Core Parking"?

You do not need to change anything else. It's a feature to have your CPU cores, aka its parts, rest while they are not needed, to be more efficient and save power. It does not cause any performance issues. When your CPU is needed (even a little bit) - the needed cores will stay unparked, aka working, and in the case of VRChat or any game, - completely unparked for the entire duration of the playtime.

That's it, that's all that was needed to get your CPU working at its max potential.

If your power plan changes seemingly at random, you have extra software or game forcing your system to switch to a different power plan, make it not do that, figure it out. (It may be Process Lasso, it always has a special power plan that it forces you onto when playing a game or almost at random, it annoyed me enough)

3. Windows settings

- Enable Game Mode on your Windows system, it may improve performance. You'd have to try playing with it disabled and enabled, leave it on if there's no perceptible difference.
- Try disabling/enabling Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling by navigating to System > Display > Graphic Settings or within "Change default graphics settings" on Windows 11. This is suggested by a VRChat Help article as one of a few solutions. It is helpful.[help.vrchat.com]
- I personally have connection issues, there's a large delay for any and all downloads, this is caused by DNS poisoning by my ISP, switching to Google's or Cloudflare's public DNS servers helps within network settings. (Cloudflare appears to be the best for me, no more avatar download delay)

There's nothing else that needs changing, can't gather anything else from memory.

4. Streamers and Virtual Desktop

Do not buy Virtual Desktop unless you want great desktop functionality.
There's no difference in performance between Virtual Desktop or any other VR wired/wireless streamer you could be using for free.

If you do want to try something else, try ALVR[github.com], it is decent.

If you want personal test results:
- Virtual Desktop and Pico Connect side by side in the same game of VTOL VR - there were no effective performance differences, they performed about the same, which puts the conclusion in favor of Pico Connect due to it being actually free and performing better with Pico devices;
- ALVR and Pico Connect performed about the same too, ALVR does have no guardrails for when the frames are lost, - where Pico Connect does a good amount of interpolation on the client side, but ALVR has more options which are good and bad.

I have absolutely no idea what is going on on the Quest side of streamers, but it seems to be a bunch of misinformation (aka LIES), try using everything that you can find and get for free, - do not splurge out your money on what you do not need. (do your research)

5. GPU Settings and AMD GPUs

Check if your GPU drivers need updating or changing. Latest drivers are always recommended, I do not recommend changing much, especially drivers, unless you have real problems.

- If you do not use an AMD GPU to play VRChat, there's nothing more for you to change, you can change settings of Nvidia Control Panel and AMD Software, etc, but most or all of it is only applicable for desktop play and use, - VR play may and most likely will neglect your GPU setting changes.

- If you use an AMD GPU, there's a launch option you should pay attention to:[docs.vrchat.com]
--disable-hw-video-decoding, --enable-hw-video-decoding
Forces video decoding to be done in software or hardware.
On AMD graphics cards, the default is "software" because there have been issues in the past. You can use the "enable" variant to force hardware decoding. [...]
Warning: Using the "software" option will utilize your CPU to decode video, which can impact your performance. [...]
- Try using the launch option --enable-hw-video-decoding on your game for VR play, it may improve performance, test yourself for stutters. (Which it helps a lot and actually reduces stutters on my machine)

6. VRChat Settings

This is here just to remind you that VRChat settings exist, and so do you.
The VRChat quality settings are very simple and self-explanatory, they all have a performance, accuracy and quality effect on the world and avatars. Here are the basic recommendations and observations from me:
- Antialiasing: atleast X2 gives a very pleasant image for avatars and their edges, although playing without antialiasing with streamer-included post-processing anti-aliasing effects works too, playing on even higher resolution also negates aliasing
- Pixel Light Count: atleast Low (else there'll be no lights by avatars and worlds)
When Shadows are set below High, shadows from avatars cast on the world may not exist for some reason.
The Particle Limiter setting apparently disables particle interactions with avatars, is this true?[docs.vrchat.com] - "Please note that the limiter will prevent any particles from colliding with PlayerLocal. There is no setting to disable this without disabling the limiter."

You should pay attention to the Avatars settings, where you'll find sections titled Avatar Optimizations and Avatar Culling, use them!
- Avatar Optimiszations: An average, well-made avatar with sounds and music is almost always going to be of a Maximum Download Size under 50MB. (overdetailed-for-no-reason and average furry avatars, begone!)
- Avatar Culling: All up to you, personally I got ~25m and around ~15, for Hide Avatars Beyond and Maximum Shown Avatars respectively. You should test how many various avatars your PC can handle at disabled (infinite) maximum distance and change the Maximum Shown Avatars value until you are comfortable.
Overall your experience varies with the avatars and world on screen. You can hide avatars or have them appear as way more optimised impostor/fallback avatars.

7. It didn't improve, even a bit

Congratulations, either your system is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ (by you or the manufacturer) or your system is already at its maximum potential and there's nothing that can be done.
- If your system is ♥♥♥♥♥♥, you will have to figure all of this out yourself, this goes way beyond the scope of this guide, which is just a ♥♥♥♥-talk on all the other guides that recommend you to do the same ♥♥♥♥, over and over, even though all of this is either placebo or makes your games run worse.
- If your system is maxed out, there's nothing else to do, enjoy it as it is! If you don't enjoy it, you have to upgrade, either in parts or completely, there's nothing else that can be done.

Conclusion

The basic details of my computer are:
- CPU: i3-12100F
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6600
- RAM: 24GB (16+8GB)

I do not plan on upgrading, VRChat runs awful (all the way down to around 20fps?) in VR in slightly detailed worlds and more than 15 avatars. It is the truth of playing on what is essentially 2 4K screens strapped to your face and being forced to render up to or over 1 million(!) polygons at a time.

Thank you for reading my awful guide.

If there are any specific solutions to problems and other cool things that may help or be useful, put them into comments, I will add them and link your profile.
If I am wrong and I am a big amateur and dumb, leave a comment.

Overclocking? - No.

[X0men0X]

if anyone wants to donate me anything, direct message me, or leave a comment here from which onward i will be contacting you, i am actually terribly poor and the country sucks mega balls

[X0men0X]

- created a 4. Streamers and Virtual Desktop section, helpful for Pico users, unhelpful for Quest users but should give general pointers

[X0men0X]

- updated 5. VRChat Settings by copying the direct quote from the wiki docs site where it cites "Please note that the limiter will prevent any particles from colliding with PlayerLocal. There is no setting to disable this without disabling the limiter."
- updated Conclusion to have "Overclocking? - No."

[X0men0X]

disabling Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is said to improve performance for a decent amount of people for VR play
i cannot be sure if it's placebo or really the case, a lot of things people experience is just trying it and experiencing the placebo with no real performant difference, not testing atleast 2 times for a direct side by side comparison, a lot of things can change at once that are irrelevant to any change, it is hard

[X0men0X]

aaaaaaand updated 1. Unnecessary things to edit the basically bracketed "don't use post-processing effects on your image"

[X0men0X]

updated 5. VRChat Settings to include my observations on antialiasing, overall there's a balance of quality/performance

[X0men0X]

the –disable-amd-stutter-workaround launch option seems to have a negative effect on performance still, i also discovered that antialiasing has an increasing performance impact per avatars and triangles on screen - which makes sense, so i am now ending up playing without any antialiasing and overall everything looks fine with post-processing effects, i actually got used to them and overall the image quality is better than without

[X0men0X]

i have stumbled onto a japanese blog https://blog-pikegadge-com.translate.goog/radeon-24-7-1-vrc-lowfps/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en#toc1
it detailed that –disable-amd-stutter-workaround launch option may actually help with bad fps, since the reason for it, which was bad AMD drivers, has been fixed, i'll be trying it

[X0men0X]

removed a bracketed mean comment in the 6. It didn't improve, even a bit section, it's unnecessary and overall the GPU market and companies are giving themselves swirlies with AI AI AI AI AI AI AI AI, it's stupid and wow they do not help VR at all!

[X0men0X]

changed the 4. GPU Settings and AMD GPUs section to just recommend you to get most latest GPU drivers, there's no point in messing with things when you have no reason to