Guides Improving FPS in VaM.

[ClubJulze]

ClubJulze submitted a new resource:

Improving FPS in VaM. - Just some tricks and tips to improving FPS in VaM. Feel free to join the disccusion to contribute.

Because I create motion capture scenes that rely heavily on keeping in time with the music, ensuring my scenes don't overtax everyone's computers is really important. Unfotunately, this means my scenes suffer in quality when I want to make them more elaborate. The more atoms I add, the more I have to work on lowering the quality of a models hair or dropping iterations on sim clothing. My biggest issue now is lighting. I like using lights for effects; different colors flashing to put some...

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[Spacedog]

With regard to the physics rate and update cap settings I've been in to some depth for the best settings for these. Mainly with a focus on avoiding slowdowns on physics heavy scenes, which most scenes with fps issues will be.

Here's a link to my findings, it may be of some help. One thing in particular is that I don't recommend an update cap of 3. The update cap comes with a performance penalty so 3 I think should be avoided in most circumstances.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VAMscenes/comments/dukd8f

 

[ClubJulze]

This is very good information. I will test it out, review the results and update the guide.

 

[ClubJulze]

With regard to the physics rate and update cap settings I've been in to some depth for the best settings for these. Mainly with a focus on avoiding slowdowns on physics heavy scenes, which most scenes with fps issues will be.

I believe my mocap scenes are awfully physics heavy with all the dancing, especially the ones with multiple dancers. I've tested out switching between Auto (90hz for me) and 2-3 cap and 45hz with 1 cap. From what I experienced, although I was getting better FPS from the lower settings, the quality went down a lot more than the performance. Maybe it's my machine, plus the VRSS settings, but I'd have to say that this must boil down to personal preference more than what is objectively better. Plus the FPS change seemed insignificant vs the loss in quality.

I can confirm that setting the rate to 45hz and cap to 1 that the scene runs without desyncing with the music so the animations are running at the same speed. But with the settings higher, the animation looks more smooth.

If you can suggest a scene for me to review with these different settings that you think shows a significant difference, I'll mention it in the guide. But I will alter the guide so others can test this for themselves.

 

[Spacedog]

Here is my Crack of Dawn scene with 3 animated people. It uses legacy hair and only 1 pixel light so it is a good pure physics test:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VAMscenes/comments/dmqxjr

In the sex scenes using VR I get:

45hz cap 1 - 37fps
60hz cap 2 - 28fps
90hz cap 2 - 29 - 30fps
90hz cap 3 - 23fps
60hz cap 3 - 24fps

So default 90hz cap 2 looks like a good bet from this, but bear in mind you'll be getting game slowdown from going below 45fps all the way to 29 / 30fps on that setting whereas on 60hz Cap 2 you'll only get a little bit of game slowdown from only going down from 30fps to 28.

 

[ClubJulze]

Here is my Crack of Dawn scene with 3 animated people. It uses legacy hair and only 1 pixel light so it is a good pure physics test:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VAMscenes/comments/dmqxjr

In the sex scenes using VR I get:

45hz cap 1 - 37fps
60hz cap 2 - 28fps
90hz cap 2 - 29 - 30fps
90hz cap 3 - 23fps
60hz cap 3 - 24fps

So default 90hz cap 2 looks like a good bet from this, but bear in mind you'll be getting game slowdown from going below 45fps all the way to 29 / 30fps on that setting whereas on 60hz Cap 2 you'll only get a little bit of game slowdown from only going down from 30fps to 28.

Okay, I'll dled it and test it later. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Spacedog]

Just to illustrate this another way, if we look at the percentage of game slowdown for each setting:

45hz cap 1 - 37fps = 17%
60hz cap 2 - 28fps = 6%
90hz cap 2 - 29 - 30fps = 33%
90hz cap 3 - 23fps = 23%
60hz cap 3 - 24fps = 20%

In the end there is no perfect solution, getting good frames in VAM is hard and it depends on what you are after.

 

[Syrinxo]

Great guide, and essential!! One thing that I would add, which is probably generally understood but might be helpful to make 100% clear, is that VaM can bottleneck your performance in two different places - either the CPU or the GPU. (Ignoring RAM, I don't know about that.)

If you turn down a bunch of settings related to one, but the other is causing the bottleneck, it's useless. So if you need an FPS increase, then getting a feel for which side is holding you back at the moment can prevent unnecessary loss of quality on the other side.

The GPU is mostly impacted by the obvious: number of lights, pixel shadows, mirrors (can be huge!), and antialiasing (and VR settings), hair, and clothing is also GPU-bound I believe.
Th CPU drives collisions and physics. My additional tips are turning off tongue collision to give a little boost, if it's just in there rattling around and isn't... uh... being used. Poses that cause "vibration," basically nodes under tension that cause constant collisions, can also have an extra impact.

A note about VR performance - in my experience, "motion smoothing" (SteamVR) can have a really bad effect (though I haven't tested it in a while), and of course increasing your virtual resolution multiplier will have a big impact so I'd keep it at 1.00.
Motion smoothing kicks in if you're getting less than 90 FPS (so most likely, with VaM in VR, almost always) - it functions by setting the FPS cap at 45, "splitting the difference" between frames by anticipating (interpolating) halfway to the next frame, and "filling in" to double the capped framerate from 45 back up to 90. It was suuuper fucky the last time I tried it in VaM (granted, that was like v1.10), and if you're below 45 FPS to start, then the interpolation process will be a performance hit on top of being unable to reach 90 FPS even with doubling.
But I'm eager to hear if anyone's got a more current experience with it, I'll try it out on my Index when I can.

EDIT: FIxed to say clothes are GPU-taxing.

 

[DarkFantasy]

ClubJulze submitted a new resource:

Improving FPS in VaM. - Just some tricks and tips to improving FPS in VaM. Feel free to join the disccusion to contribute.



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Nice, thank you!!
By the way, two high end rigs???!!! I am jealous!

 

[Lumsculpt]

I feel really foolish for not being able to figure this UI out. I just got VAM, and the interface is a bit confusing. I cannot work out how you get to those settings you say to go to. Would you mind adding a short UI path to each section of the guide so that newbies who just got the app and are struggling with performance can follow it fairly frustration-free?

Also, do you know why I'd get 150fps outside of VR, but 35fps inside it? That seems like too big of a drop, even for VR. Using the Oculus Quest 2 with link. Physics is the main bottleneck by far, and I guess the drop is due to physics being active once I put on the headset? Or maybe it's a vsync issue, and it's dipping slightly below 72fps, which would result in 36. That's just a guess though.

Thank you.

 

[Syrinxo]

I feel really foolish for not being able to figure this UI out. I just got VAM, and the interface is a bit confusing. I cannot work out how you get to those settings you say to go to. Would you mind adding a short UI path to each section of the guide so that newbies who just got the app and are struggling with performance can follow it fairly frustration-free?

Also, do you know why I'd get 150fps outside of VR, but 35fps inside it? That seems like too big of a drop, even for VR. Using the Oculus Quest 2 with link. Physics is the main bottleneck by far, and I guess the drop is due to physics being active once I put on the headset? Or maybe it's a vsync issue, and it's dipping slightly below 72fps, which would result in 36. That's just a guess though.

Thank you.

Which parts are you trying to get to? Below are graphics for how to get to the main performance UI and to hair physics UI. All the other advices are scene changes, which are creation choices and don't really have a setting.

why I'd get 150fps outside of VR, but 35fps inside it? That seems like too big of a drop, even for VR

Are you sure it wasnt' 45fps in VR? The way VR smoothing works, as I understand it, is that 90FPS is required to avoid nausea; if your PC isn't making 90 FPS, then the VR software limits it to 45 and then doubles the frames. Either way, that could be a factor. Try playing with your VR settings, turning off or on smoothing.
Also, VR > x2 desktop, so there is that.

Physics is the main bottleneck by far

Not in my experience, CPU only comes into play if you're adding 3+ people with no hair, depending on your CPU's single-threading performance. But if you have only one or two characters and poor FPS, then the lighting, hair, clothes, reflections, etc. are probably adding up faster to impact your FPS before the physics does.

 

[Lumsculpt]

Which parts are you trying to get to? Below are graphics for how to get to the main performance UI and to hair physics UI. All the other advices are scene changes, which are creation choices and don't really have a setting.

Thank you! This is very helpful. It has taken a while for me to wrap my head around how the UI thinks.

Are you sure it wasnt' 45fps in VR? The way VR smoothing works, as I understand it, is that 90FPS is required to avoid nausea; if your PC isn't making 90 FPS, then the VR software limits it to 45 and then doubles the frames.

Yes I'm certain. I'm using the Oculus Quest 2. It used 72 as a standard from launch (likely due to it running games on a mobile processor), and only recently got 90fps unlocked in the latest update. The Oculus options let you force one or the other. I use 72 to reduce the number of frames it needs to render to stay perfectly smooth, but perhaps I should raise it to 90 if I'm getting 36 in VAM, as that would at least give me around 10fps more. There are rumors that they could unlock 120hz mode in the future, but they're easing into 90 as the standard now.

Not in my experience, CPU only comes into play if you're adding 3+ people with no hair, depending on your CPU's single-threading performance. But if you have only one or two characters and poor FPS, then the lighting, hair, clothes, reflections, etc. are probably adding up faster to impact your FPS before the physics does.

In my setup (Ryzen 7 2700X CPU and RTX 2070 GPU), according to the stats in VAM, the GPU finishes all its work quickly, and the CPU takes 3 to 10 times as long to finish the frame using only a single character, but only in VR, or only when rotating the screen on Desktop. I'm guessing because it activates more physics when the character has to turn their head and stuff. I don't know. I've tried multiple characters by different creators with the same results. I'm going by those stats. It could be that I'm reading them wrong, or the UI isn't reporting correctly, but that's where I'm at as far as I can tell.

Thanks again for your help! I'm hoping to port some of my models to this, so I have a lot to figure out here. It's overwhelming jumping into it initially.

 

[chorbagenda]

ClubJulze submitted a new resource:

Improving FPS in VaM. - Just some tricks and tips to improving FPS in VaM. Feel free to join the disccusion to contribute.



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For me also works to scale down the wood wall presented in many scenes. Usually comes huge, even further than light reaches. So scaling down the person or the wood wall do miracles too. Good job with your tutorial and have a nice day

 

[VamTimbo]

Why have we never talked before? I’ve been Mocapping in vam since 2019. Are you on Discord?

 

[QuestionableReality]

ClubJulze submitted a new resource:

Improving FPS in VaM. - Just some tricks and tips to improving FPS in VaM. Feel free to join the disccusion to contribute.



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Would you mind resubmitting the images from the spoilers?
Just noticed them missing, guide was handy!

 

[Burs]

A bit too late to the party, but another vote for filling in missing images from the spoilers!
It's very hard to find the settings just from the written text itself, especially for VaM newcomers.
If it ever happens, thanks!