Are There Issues With RDNA3 and VR?

[thesnowdog1971]

Someone has replied to one of my comments on YouTube where I said that I was planning on getting either a 6950XT, 7800XT or 7900XT when I build my new PC VR rig.

I'm guessing that these issues were soon after the 7900XT and 7900XTX were released because AMD is AMD and they're still a bit pants regarding drivers?

Have these issues been fixed?

Many thanks in advance for any help!

I'm probably not getting the GPU until around May next year, and I'll be building the main rig between October and December, but if these RDNA3 GPUs are a bit pants I might just switch those purchases around and get a 6950XT this year (whilst they're still available and the rest of the rig in April or May next year.

I'd rather not go for an NVidea card because I'm boycotting them after their dodgy shenanigans this generation.

 

[Ravenger]

Depends on your headset. Those which use compressed video over USB work better on Nvidia due to better encoding, though if the Quest 3 supports AV1 then that situation may improve on AMD GPUs.

 

[drakulton]

 

[thesnowdog1971]

Thanks everyone, going by that video I should be okay using Virtual Desktop, which is handy cos I need to use Virtual Desktop for the motion cancellation to work for the motion simulator that I'll be getting delivered during these next few months

 

[danlightbulb]

I'm currently making a video of my 7900xt with quest 2 to try and help with troubleshooting some MS flight sim issues.

I'm thinking it's not the card but MSFS tbh.

Btw I've experimented with bitrate and encoding and above 200 you can't see a difference anyway, so I don't think this 'AMD poor at encoding' common belief is irrelevant anyway. I'm not getting an encoding problem, I'm getting a game problem.

 

[thesnowdog1971]

I'm currently making a video of my 7900xt with quest 2 to try and help with troubleshooting some MS flight sim issues.

I'm thinking it's not the card but MSFS tbh.

Btw I've experimented with bitrate and encoding and above 200 you can't see a difference anyway, so I don't think this 'AMD poor at encoding' common belief is relevant anyway. I'm not getting an encoding problem, I'm getting a game problem.

That sounds good. I won't be using MSFS myself though, my flight sim of choice is going to be War Thunder cos it has enemies to shoot

Will be very handy for those that use that flight sim though!

I'm also going to be using Elite Dangerous, Star Wars Squadrons and No Man's Sky with my motion sim, too.

And of course the likes of Planet CARS, DiRT Rally, Assetto Corsa and GTA V as well.

I'm also hoping that the GTA Trilogy will be playable in VR using Praydog's Unreal Engine VR Injector when it releases.

This is the motion sim I'm getting, but unfortunately I don't have room in my place for 360° play (volume warning for this video, this guy screams A LOT lololol ):

yaw 2 with first timer in the device. meta quest 2.

epic rollercoaster and microsoft flight for a first timer in the device.

youtu.be

I can't wait to get this thing, it's going to be a BLAST!

 

[melmac]

Btw I've experimented with bitrate and encoding and above 200 you can't see a difference anyway, so I don't think this 'AMD poor at encoding' common belief is relevant anyway. I'm not getting an encoding problem, I'm getting a game problem.

It's not a common belief, it's fact. The reason you can't see a difference over 200 is because AMD's GPUs can't handle anything over 200. For a long time AMD GPUs were capped at 100.

And how are you so sure you aren't having an encoder/decoder problem? Your description in the other thread sounded exactly like an encoder problem. You tested out Aircar, but that's a pretty old demo now and runs easily on a 1080. And 1.2 render resolution is pretty low.

For reference I was able to max out that game on a 2070 Super. At just one under max render resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate. So a 7900XT should easily be able to run at max render resolution.

All I am saying is that using an old tech demo like Aircar to test your card isn't really representative of todays games, especially games like MS flight Simulator.

What you should do is run the various Overlays in the debug tool to see exactly where the problem is when using H.265. If I was you, I would even consider using Virtual Desktop. It's overlay is much better at showing where the problems are. Also, it works much better with AMD GPUs than Link/Air Link. It also removes the Oculus Software out of the equation. So if it's a problem of some bugs/incompatibility between Oculus and the 7900, Virtual desktop will work better for you.

And if you try it out and there are the same issues, then you know it's something on the AMD side of things. Just remember to refund Virtual desktop before you use if for two hours!!

 

[melmac]

I'm probably not getting the GPU until around May next year, and I'll be building the main rig between October and December, but if these RDNA3 GPUs are a bit pants I might just switch those purchases around and get a 6950XT this year (whilst they're still available and the rest of the rig in April or May next year.

IF you are not going to be buying until next May, I wouldn't even be thinking about what GPU to buy right now. The whole landscape might have changed by then. Getting any RDNA 2 card is a bad idea, especially if you are buying the Quest 3. The Quest 3 will support AV1 decoding which should improve the PCVR experience.

It's a bad idea for a couple of other reasons too. You already have an RDNA 2 card, I wouldn't consider changing to another RDNA 2 card, especially since RDNA 2 is only mediocre in VR anyway. And that you are building a brand new system, don't go backwards or sidewards in tech.

Even if the 7900 cards aren't the best in VR, they are still better than the RNDA 2 cards. And AMD will more than likely have most of the bugs out by then.

Come back in May and ask the question again.

 

[thesnowdog1971]

IF you are not going to be buying until next May, I wouldn't even be thinking about what GPU to buy right now. The whole landscape might have changed by then. Getting any RDNA 2 card is a bad idea, especially if you are buying the Quest 3. The Quest 3 will support AV1 decoding which should improve the PCVR experience.

It's a bad idea for a couple of other reasons too. You already have an RDNA 2 card, I wouldn't consider changing to another RDNA 2 card, especially since RDNA 2 is only mediocre in VR anyway. And that you are building a brand new system, don't go backwards or sidewards in tech.

Even if the 7900 cards aren't the best in VR, they are still better than the RNDA 2 cards. And AMD will more than likely have most of the bugs out by then.

Come back in May and ask the question again.

Okay, thanks, I'll do that. The card I'm using right now is a 1080 lol.

So when I build my new rig between October and December it's going to be GPU bottlenecked for a bit unfortunately.

I just wish that I had more money so that I could afford to get it all in one go, but I'm not in a financial position to be able to do that.

And I'll have to spend the money then because if I don't I'll spend it on something else lololol

 

[melmac]

Okay, thanks, I'll do that. The card I'm using right now is a 1080 lol.

So when I build my new rig between October and December it's going to be GPU bottlenecked for a bit unfortunately.

I just wish that I had more money so that I could afford to get it all in one go, but I'm not in a financial position to be able to do that.

And I'll have to spend the money then because if I don't I'll spend it on something else lololol

Ah, a 1080 lol. Sorry I was in a rush out and had taken off my reading glasses. Just took a quick look at your signature and saw a 6700 and presumed that was your GPU.

My advice still stands though. And it's more appropriate now. Since you only upgrade every so often don't buy old tech if at all possible.

Can understand the Financial part. Most of my life has been spent upgrading in bits and pieces.

 

[thesnowdog1971]

Ah, a 1080 lol. Sorry I was in a rush out and had taken off my reading glasses. Just took a quick look at your signature and saw a 6700 and presumed that was your GPU.

My advice still stands though. And it's more appropriate now. Since you only upgrade every so often don't buy old tech if at all possible.

Can understand the Financial part. Most of my life has been spent upgrading in bits and pieces.

I completely forgot about my signature, I'll have to change most of that in a few months lol

 

[danlightbulb]

It's not a common belief, it's fact. The reason you can't see a difference over 200 is because AMD's GPUs can't handle anything over 200. For a long time AMD GPUs were capped at 100.

No that's not the case, I tested it in small increments all the way up. Started really low - 10 - just to see how bad it was so I know what to look for. Then started incrementing. By the time you get to 60-70, a lot of the compression artifacting has already gone, but a bit of smearing/banding left. As you pass 100 that banding gets less and less noticeable until you get to 150 ish where I could see barely any difference. I went up to 200 on the setting, no visual difference, I went up higher -3,4,500 - no visual difference, no stuttering, no loss of smoothness, no extra load on the GPU.

I could put the 3070 back in and would get the same effect, tested it before and couldn't see any difference at higher settings.

However if I switch to h.265, it's not even a case of being able to test it on a low setting - it is completely unplayable stuttering screen tearing mess. Can't even select anything it's so bad and lagged.

And how are you so sure you aren't having an encoder/decoder problem?

Because in both oculus home and steam home environment it is perfect clarity. When I switch to msfs, even without playing the actual SIM but in the initial construct environment, there is poor quality and tearing of the grid. My video later will show this.

Whereas h.265 clearly is an encoder problem, it simply won't play in that mode. I'll try and capture it on record.

 

[danlightbulb]

Sorry haven't completed the video examples yet. Want to include a few more games to see if the problem is more to do with MSFS.

Ive been playing it again tonight trying to tweak settings.

In a nutshell, the 3070 would get 30-40 fps at 0.7 render resolution, with mostly medium settings. The 7900 XT can do 80 fps at around 1.0 render resolution, maybe upto 1.2 in low complexity areas, approximately medium settings.

So clearly the 7900XT is faster. 80 fps in MSFS is pretty smooth and nice.

But, the problem I get is when the complexity shoots up suddenly, the performance headroom vanishes and the framerate drops to 40fps and into reprojection mode, which introduces stutters.

The difference between 0.7 and 1.0-1.2 on the render resolution is noticeable when looking at gauges/cockpit, but its not that noticeable on the terrain scenery, which is where I really wanted to see improvements in quality. Perhaps this is a limitation of MSFS rather than any GPU being able to make it look better on the Q2.

When I take off my headset and look at the mirror display in the monitor, it is way sharper than what I see in the headset. Is this encoding limitation or display of the headset limitation.


So I just don't know. The 7900 XT is clearly faster in raw power than the 3070, but would even a 4090 make MSFS look fantastic on the Q2? Its hard to know whether to be happy with the 7900XT.

Maybe when I post some videos people can tell me whether they think it is about what is expected, or sub par.

 

[melmac]

Sorry haven't completed the video examples yet. Want to include a few more games to see if the problem is more to do with MSFS.

Ive been playing it again tonight trying to tweak settings.

In a nutshell, the 3070 would get 30-40 fps at 0.7 render resolution, with mostly medium settings. The 7900 XT can do 80 fps at around 1.0 render resolution, maybe upto 1.2 in low complexity areas, approximately medium settings.

So clearly the 7900XT is faster. 80 fps in MSFS is pretty smooth and nice.

But, the problem I get is when the complexity shoots up suddenly, the performance headroom vanishes and the framerate drops to 40fps and into reprojection mode, which introduces stutters.

The difference between 0.7 and 1.0-1.2 on the render resolution is noticeable when looking at gauges/cockpit, but its not that noticeable on the terrain scenery, which is where I really wanted to see improvements in quality. Perhaps this is a limitation of MSFS rather than any GPU being able to make it look better on the Q2.

When I take off my headset and look at the mirror display in the monitor, it is way sharper than what I see in the headset. Is this encoding limitation or display of the headset limitation.


So I just don't know. The 7900 XT is clearly faster in raw power than the 3070, but would even a 4090 make MSFS look fantastic on the Q2? Its hard to know whether to be happy with the 7900XT.

Maybe when I post some videos people can tell me whether they think it is about what is expected, or sub par.

Post up the videos. But what you are describing sounds exactly like the problem that the 7900 cards were having in VR.

 

[danlightbulb]

Post up the videos. But what you are describing sounds exactly like the problem that the 7900 cards were having in VR.

Working on the videos. Video editing not my forte. Getting there slowly.

Its hard to describe what I want to articulate to you. The concept is in my mind but I can't describe it very well on paper.

80 fps in MSFS, at render resolution of 1, with generally medium settings, that is good isn't it? Its smooth at that and the Oculus debug overlay shows I have 20-30% performance headroom at this.

But what I can't figure out is how to trade off some quality for an FPS reduction.

In my mind, if MSFS can do 80 fps at render res X and medium settings with 30% performance headroom, then if I drop fps to say 40 fps I should get, say, 60% performance headroom. Then I can use that performance headroom to increase quality, so I would have increased quality at 40fps, instead of lower quality at 80fps.

But I cant figure out how to make this happen. If I increase quality, Oculus debug reports negative performance headroom and it goes into the red. Then the framerate does halve to 40fps but with stuttering.

I just want to lock msfs to 40fps, and have the headset also run at 40fps, and then use that headroom to increase quality settings.

 

[melmac]

Working on the videos. Video editing not my forte. Getting there slowly.

Its hard to describe what I want to articulate to you. The concept is in my mind but I can't describe it very well on paper.

80 fps in MSFS, at render resolution of 1, with generally medium settings, that is good isn't it? Its smooth at that and the Oculus debug overlay shows I have 20-30% performance headroom at this.

But what I can't figure out is how to trade off some quality for an FPS reduction.

In my mind, if MSFS can do 80 fps at render res X and medium settings with 30% performance headroom, then if I drop fps to say 40 fps I should get, say, 60% performance headroom. Then I can use that performance headroom to increase quality, so I would have increased quality at 40fps, instead of lower quality at 80fps.

But I cant figure out how to make this happen. If I increase quality, Oculus debug reports negative performance headroom and it goes into the red. Then the framerate does halve to 40fps but with stuttering.

I just want to lock msfs to 40fps, and have the headset also run at 40fps, and then use that headroom to increase quality settings.

Turn off AWS in the debug tool before you play the game. I think you can use Oculus Tray tool to turn if off permanently. Think there is a keyboard shortcut to turn it off in game. Can't remember off the top of my head.

 

[danlightbulb]

Turn off AWS in the debug tool before you play the game. I think you can use Oculus Tray tool to turn if off permanently. Think there is a keyboard shortcut to turn it off in game. Can't remember off the top of my head.

Ok so I have been trying these settings and it isn't doing what I want still.

The game still halves the framerate when things get tough, so I cant test different settings to try and trade off performance.


I'll try to explain what is happening.

Forget VR for the moment. You're playing on PC and lets say getting 80fps on medium. You up a few settings to high, and you now get 70 fps. Up a few more settings to high, a couple to ultra, and now you get 50fps. You might play about for a while and decide that 60fps is a nice experience and enables a mix of settings that you find just right.

Now go to VR. You start on the 80 fps again. Up a few settings to high, and instead of the game now running at 70 fps, or 60 fps (whatever), it immediately halves the framerate to 40fps. The performance overlay now shows the application dropping frames continually.


I might be quite happy in VR with 60fps, but I can't get to it. How do I get the game/device to stop automatically halving the framerate, and just render whatever fps the game is performing at?

 

[melmac]

Ok so I have been trying these settings and it isn't doing what I want still.

The game still halves the framerate when things get tough, so I cant test different settings to try and trade off performance.


I'll try to explain what is happening.

Forget VR for the moment. You're playing on PC and lets say getting 80fps on medium. You up a few settings to high, and you now get 70 fps. Up a few more settings to high, a couple to ultra, and now you get 50fps. You might play about for a while and decide that 60fps is a nice experience and enables a mix of settings that you find just right.

Now go to VR. You start on the 80 fps again. Up a few settings to high, and instead of the game now running at 70 fps, or 60 fps (whatever), it immediately halves the framerate to 40fps. The performance overlay now shows the application dropping frames continually.


I might be quite happy in VR with 60fps, but I can't get to it. How do I get the game/device to stop automatically halving the framerate, and just render whatever fps the game is performing at?

If you read my last post, it has the solution to this. It's called ASW. You have to turn it off. It renders at half the refresh rate and generates fake frames to make it look smooth. So if you set the Quest 2 to 80Hz refresh rate but you can't maintain 80fps, it will drop to 40fps.

EDIT: Just read my last post, I called mistyped and called it AWS instead of ASW.

 

[danlightbulb]

If you read my last post, it has the solution to this. It's called ASW. You have to turn it off. It renders at half the refresh rate and generates fake frames to make it look smooth. So if you set the Quest 2 to 80Hz refresh rate but you can't maintain 80fps, it will drop to 40fps.

Ok I figured it out.

I DID follow your instructions and turn off ASW. In that, Oculus debug tool was showing it as disabled. Or so I thought.

What I have found is that even though OTT is showing disabled, it isn't. You have to click on the setting and click disabled again, even though its already showing it as disabled.

But yeah, now ive done this its working as intended and I can change settings and see the framerate change as would be expected.

So thanks for the help, I didn't (and I don't know if you did) realise that even if OTT is showing as disabled you still have to click it again.


So doing this, I can ramp the render scaling all the way up to 150 and still get 50-60fps, this is with several settings on high. The MSFS framerate display is bordering on limited by GPU at this setting.

At 100 render scaling Im getting 80fps, limited by mainthread (and obviously capped by the Quest2 drivers).


Now I can experiment properly and see if I can notice any difference on various settings.

 

[danlightbulb]

Maybe spoke too soon. Now I can't seem to disable ASW - get an error message from OTT saying "Failed to change serviceasyncronousspacewarp to 1".

Does Oculus force ASW to on if framerate drops too low?