Introducing SteamVR Motion Smoothing

redrevis · 19 Oct 2018 at 09:10

Today we are introducing a new feature in SteamVR called Motion Smoothing. This feature enables more players on more PCs to play high-fidelity VR games and experiences.

Motion Smoothing is currently available in SteamVR Beta. To opt in, right-click on SteamVR in ‘Library > Tools’, select the Betas tab, and choose ‘beta’ from the dropdown.

How it works
If you have a flatscreen TV, you may be familiar with the term Motion Smoothing. TVs apply Motion Smoothing by interpolating between two existing frames to create a new in-between frame. This smooths out the frames and increases framerate, but it also adds latency – providing passable results for TV but definitely not the right way to go in VR.

The way we are applying Motion Smoothing in SteamVR is a bit different. When SteamVR sees that an application isn’t going to make framerate (i.e. start dropping frames), Motion Smoothing kicks in. It looks at the last two delivered frames, estimates motion and animation, and extrapolates a new frame. Synthesizing new frames keeps the current application at full framerate, advances motion forward, and avoids judder.

This means that the player is still experiencing full framerate (90 Hz for the Vive and Vive Pro), but the application only needs to render 1 out of every 2 frames, dramatically lowering the performance requirements. Even better, if synthesizing a new frame for every frame delivered by the application still leads to performance issues, Motion Smoothing is designed to scale further down to synthesize 2 frames or even 3 frames for every 1 frame delivered.

What it means for you
From the player’s perspective, what was previously a game that would hitch and drop frames producing judder is now a game that constantly runs smoothly at 90 Hz. SteamVR Motion Smoothing improves upon the previously released Asynchronous Reprojection to enhance the overall experience for customers across a wide variety of VR systems. Not only can lower-end GPUs now produce smooth frames in applications that were previously too expensive, higher-end GPUs can now render at an even higher resolution increasing the fidelity of all experiences on all VR systems.

This feature is ready to kick in the moment an application starts dropping frames and shuts off when no longer needed. Of course, if you prefer to run without this feature, just look under ‘Settings > Video’ or ‘Settings > Applications’ to control when it is enabled. Motion Smoothing is not enabled when using Oculus Rift or Windows Mixed Reality headsets with SteamVR, because their underlying display drivers use different techniques when applications miss framerate.

Motion Smoothing is in beta and currently only enabled for systems running Windows 10 with an NVIDIA GPU.

From what I've seen so far, this is an amazing update that's improving the VR experience for a lot of peoples. Valve are working on getting it working with AMD GPUs but they're not quite there yet. It currently doesn't work properly with OpenVR Advanced Settings. It does support the wireless adapter also.

hyperseven · 19 Oct 2018 at 14:31

Is this like space warp or totally different? As prefer to buy my games on Steam rather than the Oculus store.

redrevis · 20 Oct 2018 at 10:34

I suppose the easiest way to look at it, is it's like ASW, but it's Valves version which is similar but their own way to achieve a similar thing. As the article says though, this new smoothing technique can't be used on the Rift.

lokiss · 20 Oct 2018 at 11:26

Opinion seems to be all over the place. Seems to be the usual levels of tolerance mixed with system configurations and individual game performance and expectations. Mixed opinion of F4VR, mostly positive about Pcars2 which id take as it gives Competitzone a chance to shine once they sort it out.

We'll see... as much as I don't wish to swap over to the beta, temptation will probably call come the end of the weekend.

ThePainBarrier · 21 Oct 2018 at 18:02

Tried it today.
Horrible. Not for me.
Playing Sports Bar VR. Before, it looked quite nice minor slow down occasionally but nothing major. With it on, the images kept going blurry when you look around.

Then again, the first thing I do with a new TV is turn this off. For me, it makes the TV picture look way too "plasticy".

lokiss · 21 Oct 2018 at 19:26

What hardware you running?

Result have been hit and miss for me. For some reason a few weeks ago performance took a hit and what previously had been fine started to struggle, games like Xrebirth, Assetto, even Pinball FX took a hit. All of which was quite noticeable given the 1000+ hours I've had in those games. Could have been a driver update, steamVR, Windows, all of which have updated recently and have had significant changes. Tbh the number one reason I was looking at the 2xxx series or atleast a 1080ti.

I tried a few games: Assetto Corsa works fantastic, smooth and doesn't start to tear with no loss of visuals. Rebirth got my smooth frames back to how they were (mostly) but at an extreme loss of visual quality, it was like downgrading to -super sampling, a strange shimmering effect and less readable text. Previously it ran fantastically well, and still performed better without the motion smoothing imo.

Pinball FX was the strangest of all. No loss of visuals, but some tables that ran well previously are jerk fests now, and the one I was struggling with 'epic quest' glides like a dream. Not too sure how the works out!!

I know it's beta and I get the feeling there's a lot to work out yet. That said I see people saying cpu bottlenecks cause issues, I can Imagine it's an absolute minefield of configuration, engines and custom code, it seems as a laymen an impossible task to have a one glove fits all approach given my initial experiences.

ThePainBarrier · 21 Oct 2018 at 21:55

lokiss said:
What hardware you running?

Machine is a few years old. Intel i7 4770 OC to 4ghz I think (not on PC at moment) with a 1080.
Runs everything I want to on max. VR is, on average, acceptable (plays Elite with no issues).

Probably look at upgrading in another year or so.

Certainly will try Motion Smoothing in a few other games before I turn it off.

bigmike20vt · 21 Oct 2018 at 23:01

Took em long enough. It isn't needed on the rift as that has ASW.... Which is due to be replaced in a few months with a new version.

ASW or what ever is one of those things, ideally you never need to use it bit it's nice to have it in an emergency for the odd drop. I know some put up their detail so high as to over rely on it however and have a less than ideal experience

Having not used the valve version I can't be certain but I would suggest you set up your rig such that you don't need itost of the time and it will just kick in for those rare times.... If that makes sense

lokiss · 21 Oct 2018 at 23:03

Fairly much in same config, i7 4790 1070. As it is Ill be experimenting on a game basis.

Pcars2 checks out I ran a full load, smooth and no ghosts. Euro truck seemed slightly down on aliasing/visuals, but ghosting repo traffic has gone west. Ground up graphical tour de force Primordian ran and looked no different, Assetto Competizione ran ok but looked like cack when compared to Pcars.