Half-Life: Alyx

Toothy1911 · 12 Jul 2020 at 15:24

Zeeflyboy said:
No it works fine... if you get some grip straps for your touch controllers it does make the gravity gloves just feel a bit more natural in my opinion but it’s not a requirement by any stretch of the imagination.

I’m really looking forward to a second play through in September when I hopefully get my new G2!

Thanks. Never knew grip straps were available. And now you've got me wanting a G2!

Second question. What should I use for audio. Headphones or surround sound. Most my VR is racing, and surround speakers work great. No so sure on FPS.

Toothy1911 · 12 Jul 2020 at 18:10

I gave it a go with speakers, but the immersion wasn't quite the same as headphones.

Zeeflyboy · 13 Jul 2020 at 21:11

I'd say headphones personally, the audio is pretty good.

Sorry for alerting you to the G2 lol.

Vega · 22 Jul 2020 at 10:03

So, I am just going on chapter 6 and I must ask... does it get a little more interesting? The game is cool, but after you've been in the 100th derelict apartment/office building that all look the same, it starts to get old.

kevman · 22 Jul 2020 at 10:25

Vega said:
So, I am just going on chapter 6 and I must ask... does it get a little more interesting? The game is cool, but after you've been in the 100th derelict apartment/office building that all look the same, it starts to get old.

The scenery and enemies do get mixed up a bit after chapter 6. Certainly chapter 7, 10 & 11 were stand out entries for me

kinger8938 · 22 Jul 2020 at 13:45

Finished this last night. Blown away by the ending in particular.

Best VR game I've played so far (limited experience mind)

Zeeflyboy · 22 Jul 2020 at 21:20

kevman said:
The scenery and enemies do get mixed up a bit after chapter 6. Certainly chapter 7, 10 & 11 were stand out entries for me

I forget the chapter now, but towards the end it becomes a bit mind bending and I found that far more powerful in VR than it would have been in any other format. Was a pretty good advert for VR I thought!

It definitely does ramp up in intensity and somewhat in variety. I think they played it safe so players, especially newbies to VR, wouldn’t get overwhelmed at the start and the game seems designed to build you up to increasingly intense experiences as you work through it.

Kangaxx · 4 Oct 2020 at 12:32

Putting this question in here, instead of creating a new thread.

I have played through Alyx a few times and I agree, it is epic.

However, I have noticed that the performance isn't great. I run the Index's at 90hz refresh rates, and at times, the frame rate is struggling to hit 50fps, which is causing a lot of judder and ruins the immersion, as well as making me feel rather ill (My VR legs are not quite there yet)

Specs may be useful...

5930K @ 4.2ghz
16GB 2400Mhz RAM
5700XT
SS is set to 100% and the display res is the "default"
Using DX11, because Vulcan crashed the game constantly

Other less demanding titles, such as beat saber are fine, its just this particular game. I am running on medium settings at the moment.

The odd thing is, the utilization of the GFX card doesn't appear too high (at least according to fpsVR). It seems to bounce up to about 80%, but I never see it pegged at 100% like I would expect if the GFX card was really struggling. I do see my reprojection ratio is at about 30%, sometimes higher, which would indicate the GFX card is struggling (from what I understand)

Any Ideas? Is a beefier GFX card potentially needed?

simo182 · 4 Oct 2020 at 13:12

This post has well and truly convinced me I have absolutely no chance of having a decent experience on my setup up.

Getting a Quest 2 but only rocking:
i7 3770k
8gb RAM
GTX 1650 Super

melmac · 4 Oct 2020 at 14:02

simo182 said:
This post has well and truly convinced me I have absolutely no chance of having a decent experience on my setup up.

Getting a Quest 2 but only rocking:
i7 3770k
8gb RAM
GTX 1650 Super

Your VR experience will be ok. Your GPU is just above the minimum needed.

If you have never tried VR before I reckon you will think it's amazing anyway. And, the good thing is that you know any hardware upgrades you do will only improve your experience.

2004typer · 4 Oct 2020 at 16:20

I'm about 2/3 of the way through HLA but I'm going to be building a new system in the new year around a 3080 or AMD's equivalent when they show their cards.

So....gonna start again once I've done the build.

Can't wait to play it with all the details cranked up - only on a Quest, but with a 1070 at the mo. Runs great but settings obviously on the lower end.

Lokken86 · 4 Oct 2020 at 17:13

Kangaxx said:
Putting this question in here, instead of creating a new thread.

I have played through Alyx a few times and I agree, it is epic.

However, I have noticed that the performance isn't great. I run the Index's at 90hz refresh rates, and at times, the frame rate is struggling to hit 50fps, which is causing a lot of judder and ruins the immersion, as well as making me feel rather ill (My VR legs are not quite there yet)

Specs may be useful...

5930K @ 4.2ghz
16GB 2400Mhz RAM
5700XT
SS is set to 100% and the display res is the "default"
Using DX11, because Vulcan crashed the game constantly

Other less demanding titles, such as beat saber are fine, its just this particular game. I am running on medium settings at the moment.

The odd thing is, the utilization of the GFX card doesn't appear too high (at least according to fpsVR). It seems to bounce up to about 80%, but I never see it pegged at 100% like I would expect if the GFX card was really struggling. I do see my reprojection ratio is at about 30%, sometimes higher, which would indicate the GFX card is struggling (from what I understand)

Any Ideas? Is a beefier GFX card potentially needed?

The reason you're not seeing 100% gpu utalisation is because your gpu is aiming only for 90fps. Your gpu is capable of pushing more fps at times but since its capped this will be seen as "performance headroom" only. You want to have as more performance headroom as possible so that any drops you experience will hopefully keep you over 90fps. I did notice that any drops in this game are particularly horrible and cause a fair amount of stutter. Your cpu isn't far off mine in general gaming performance and I've definitely started noticing more stuttering as the game progresses. I think this game needs a super good cpu and that is the culprit and not so much the gpu tbh. Medium setting won't help you because the game will automatically use the extra performance headroom you gained from reducing the settings, to bump up the supersampling. In fact medium actually looks better for this reason. Also you've got the valve Index and it's quite high resolution so you've probably got even less headroom then I do. I'd wager money when I pop a new ryzen 5000 into my system my performance headroom is going to jump up by 20-40% and take care of the stutters.

A friend of mine also has just picked up a cheap 5700xt but he's got a Ryzen 3900xt. He's going to download Half Life Alyx tonight I think so I can comfirm for you, if you like, that the cpu is the problem soon.

simo182 · 4 Oct 2020 at 21:32

melmac said:
Your VR experience will be ok. Your GPU is just above the minimum needed.

If you have never tried VR before I reckon you will think it's amazing anyway. And, the good thing is that you know any hardware upgrades you do will only improve your experience.

Ok that’s a bit more comforting thanks great point re upgrades. I tried a Rift just after they came and used PSVR a couple of times, but only about 40 mins in total.

Kangaxx · 4 Oct 2020 at 21:51

Lokken86 said:
The reason you're not seeing 100% gpu utalisation is because your gpu is aiming only for 90fps. Your gpu is capable of pushing more fps at times but since its capped this will be seen as "performance headroom" only. You want to have as more performance headroom as possible so that any drops you experience will hopefully keep you over 90fps. I did notice that any drops in this game are particularly horrible and cause a fair amount of stutter. Your cpu isn't far off mine in general gaming performance and I've definitely started noticing more stuttering as the game progresses. I think this game needs a super good cpu and that is the culprit and not so much the gpu tbh. Medium setting won't help you because the game will automatically use the extra performance headroom you gained from reducing the settings, to bump up the supersampling. In fact medium actually looks better for this reason. Also you've got the valve Index and it's quite high resolution so you've probably got even less headroom then I do. I'd wager money when I pop a new ryzen 5000 into my system my performance headroom is going to jump up by 20-40% and take care of the stutters.

A friend of mine also has just picked up a cheap 5700xt but he's got a Ryzen 3900xt. He's going to download Half Life Alyx tonight I think so I can comfirm for you, if you like, that the cpu is the problem soon.

I do have a 3700x in my other machine, with a 1080 in it, so if needed, I could test with this, as the 1080 and 5700xt are about level pegging performance wise, so it would be interesting if it is the CPU causing the problem. I'd also be interested in your friends performance stats aswell. Add more data to the pile!

melmac · 5 Oct 2020 at 11:53

Kangaxx said:
I do have a 3700x in my other machine, with a 1080 in it, so if needed, I could test with this, as the 1080 and 5700xt are about level pegging performance wise, so it would be interesting if it is the CPU causing the problem. I'd also be interested in your friends performance stats aswell. Add more data to the pile!

The 5700XT should be much faster than the 1080!! Or are you talking about a 1080Ti?

A 5700XT should be on par with a 1080Ti.

Kangaxx · 5 Oct 2020 at 14:14

melmac said:
The 5700XT should be much faster than the 1080!! Or are you talking about a 1080Ti?

A 5700XT should be on par with a 1080Ti.

Just a standard 1080, currently under water and slightly OC'd but nothing special.

I thought they were evenly matched, performance wise. Using my 5700XT in non-VR games, it certainly doesn't feel much faster than my 1080, but who know?

melmac · 5 Oct 2020 at 16:44

Kangaxx said:
Just a standard 1080, currently under water and slightly OC'd but nothing special.

I thought they were evenly matched, performance wise. Using my 5700XT in non-VR games, it certainly doesn't feel much faster than my 1080, but who know?

What Resolution is your monitor? A 5700XT is almost the same performance as a 1080Ti, you certainly should notice a difference.

If you are gaming at 1080P, your CPU is probably holding your performance back.

Lokken86 · 8 Oct 2020 at 00:29

Kangaxx said:
I do have a 3700x in my other machine, with a 1080 in it, so if needed, I could test with this, as the 1080 and 5700xt are about level pegging performance wise, so it would be interesting if it is the CPU causing the problem. I'd also be interested in your friends performance stats aswell. Add more data to the pile!

He finally got it installed and we were able to do a quick test at the start of the game on the balcony. Where I'm getting about 15-25% performance headroom he's up at 40-60%. Quite a big improvement.

Kangaxx · 8 Oct 2020 at 10:01

melmac said:
What Resolution is your monitor? A 5700XT is almost the same performance as a 1080Ti, you certainly should notice a difference.

If you are gaming at 1080P, your CPU is probably holding your performance back.

I am using it on my 4k C9 OLED. In all honesty, I haven't really played much Non-VR stuff on it. I may need to run through some benchmarks on it, to get a better idea of the performance. Satisfactory performance on it was not great, but I think that's more CPU related than GPU.

WRT resolution, its usually at 1440p. However, the vast majority of gaming is done on the Index, so resolution shouldn't be an issue?

I may well be upgrading the system later on in the year (it was assembled from my old PC and a few other scavenged bits and bobs), so I guess time will tell.

Kangaxx · 10 Oct 2020 at 14:26

Ok, so I am building a PC for a friend, however, I am waiting on a 3080, so have the base of a decent machine, with no GFX card.

This has a Ryzen 3800XT, 32GB 3200Mhz Ram and the 5700XT from my VR machine.

I installed everything onto it, and ran Alyx and the performance was much better. I even managed to get the Index onto 120hz, with only a few drops into the 110+ fps range, on medium settings. At 90hz, there were no perceptible frame drops and the reprojection ratio was about 1%, compared to over 30% on my original machine.

Based on this, it looks like I have found the culprit. Looks like another upgrade is needed :rolleyes: