Increased FPS when using openVR

[Jiraiya]

So a friend who introduced me to VaM just told me about a new open source free plugin that dramatically increased your FPS by reducing the render resolution and interpolating back to full resolution. It's been written by AMD and is apparently really good, giving some impressive performance boosts.

GitHub - fholger/openvr_fsr: Add Image Upscaling via AMD FidelityFX SuperResolution or NVIDIA Image Scaling to SteamVR games

Add Image Upscaling via AMD FidelityFX SuperResolution or NVIDIA Image Scaling to SteamVR games - fholger/openvr_fsr

github.com

You can read about it on AMD's page here

AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 1 (FSR 1)

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is our open-source, high-quality, high-performance upscaling solution.

gpuopen.com

It does not appear to be headset or GPU dependant! It's just a free FPS increase.
If people try it can they remember to test a heavy scene and record their FPS before and after installing the mod?
I forgot to do so and don't want to remove it just to check the slower framerates.

 

[DJ]

This is interesting.

Following the links given above, I discovered that:

-this only works for games using Direct3D11. I have no idea if VaM is such a game. @VaMDeV , do you know?

- this only ~~works~~ is officially supported for AMD graphics cards. Specifically: AMD Radeon™ RX 6000, RX 5000, RX 500, RX 480, RX 470, RX 460, RX Vega Series graphics cards & all AMD Ryzen™ Processors with Radeon™ Graphics. AMD does not provide technical or warranty support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution enablement on other vendor's graphics cards.

 

[Jiraiya]

Well, I used it in VaM, it definitely works.
Also, I have an Nvidia 3060. So it definitely doesn't care what GPU you are using.
I went from 24.5fps to 35.6fps in one scene, so it definitely works. I did a careful test making sure that adding this plugin was the only change.
Massive improvement, almost no visual quality loss. I am keeping it in my VaM install full time.

 

[DJ]

Huh. So I guess it does work for NVIDIA cards, it just isn't guaranteed to work for them. Cool!

 

[TToby]

@Jiraiya Hi, could you maybe please add a short description how to enable it for VaM? That would be nice.
I guess I have to download and replace a SteamVR .dll file? I am to lazy to read all through the manual, I confess

 

[Jiraiya]

It's literally so simple as to be one file replacement.
There isn't a "manual" or installation instructions, you just replace one file.
The zip download contains 2 files, the new one to replace the original and a config file to go with it. The instructions tell you where to expect to find that file to replace to make it even easier.

VaM/VaM_Data/plugins/openvr_api.dll

gets renamed to openvr_api.orig.dll and the one in the zip put in it's place. There is also a openvr_api.cfg that goes with it. That's it.

 

[TToby]

Thank you!
I thought I would have to replace an file down there in the endless deeps of the Steam software installation.
My concerns were that I have to constantly search and re-replace it there, if I want to switch it off and on for every game.
Just having it located in the somewhat overseeable VaM folder makes it a bit less complicated. Best solution would be a software switch somewhere in the steamVR overlay or in VaM. Do I have to re-start the entire SteamVR after replacing the file, or only VaM?

 

[Jiraiya]

I believe only VaM, but I closed and restarted SteamVR just in case.
BTW, I don't launch through SteamVR anymore. I use Virtual Desktop on the Quest 2 and launch it direct with that for a much better experience. Not sure what headset you have, but thought I would mention it.

 

[TToby]

Thank you! Valve Index.

 

[Jiraiya]

Ah, Virtual Desktop is not something you need to worry about then.
The FidelityFX plugin should work still however. I would be interested in hearing anybody elses real number results from before/after tests.

 

[HolySchmidt]

I would be interested in hearing anybody elses real number results from before/after tests.

Tried out one scene (scale 0.75): 3 people, 2 lights, 4 clothing items, bed, floor, nothing "special".

Went up from 31fps to 32fps, fonts were very pixelated, graphics remarkable worse. So, no deal for me.
But maybe it's about my settings, very high in average, won't make the effort posting everything. Settings right now are my regular settings, so when there's no advantage it's useless to me.

Different hardware, different settings, I can imagine this could make sense.

 

[Jiraiya]

Tried out one scene (scale 0.75): 3 people, 2 lights, 4 clothing items, bed, floor, nothing "special".

Went up from 31fps to 32fps, fonts were very pixelated, graphics remarkable worse. So, no deal for me.
But maybe it's about my settings, very high in average, won't make the effort posting everything. Settings right now are my regular settings, so when there's no advantage it's useless to me.

Different hardware, different settings, I can imagine this could make sense.

This is exactly why we need figures from different people.

It might be good to find a particular scene and use as a reference. It would need to be one that's free with all free assets and pushes the average computer but not too much.

I guess controlled benchmarking is beyond the scope of this game and forums

 

[DJ]

Tried out one scene (scale 0.75): 3 people, 2 lights, 4 clothing items, bed, floor, nothing "special".

Went up from 31fps to 32fps, fonts were very pixelated, graphics remarkable worse. So, no deal for me.
But maybe it's about my settings, very high in average, won't make the effort posting everything. Settings right now are my regular settings, so when there's no advantage it's useless to me.

Different hardware, different settings, I can imagine this could make sense.

I'm guessing that in this particular scene, the CPU was the bottleneck. So reducing the GPU workload didn't give any benefit.

I'm finding that hair, especially, looks bad with this running. The sharpening algorithm just can't make up for the loss of detail.

 

[Jiraiya]

Well, it's never going to look as good as native rendering. Sadly, with the fps a lot of us are stuck with atm it's better than nothing.
Looking forward to 2.0 and some improved speed.

 

[HolySchmidt]

I'm guessing that in this particular scene, the CPU was the bottleneck. So reducing the GPU workload didn't give any benefit.

I think you are absolutely right. And maybe that will be the main point in general because the bottleneck in the end with VaM is always the CPU. I as well hope that this will be obsolete with 2.0.

 

[Jiraiya]

It shouldn't matter that much that the CPU is the bottleneck as the work is handed off to the GPU. This means in theory the CPU renders less (lower res) and the GPU does more work (interpolation) so you should still see reasonable gains.
Of course this is all "theory" and without a lot of research you couldn't hope to pin down exactly what is going on
All I will say is it's worth a try by everybody to see if it works for them. The worst that can happen is it's no good and you remove it.

 

[Calluhan]

I didn't have much luck either - much better without, which is a shame. Anyone else experiencing issues with the latest Steam VR beta released today? I have trouble switching back to desktop to start OBS - steam VR seems to freeze on me now - but in game there are no issues.

 

[meep79a]

Tried this out with a nvidia 2070 super and I really didnt notice any improvement at all. VAM still preforms terrible. Was worth a try though, the preformance issues of vam get really tiring after a while.

 

[Sammich]

THANK YOU !!!
I'm using a very modest gaming pc, Intel i5 9th gen and a GTX 1660ti, my favourite scene for viewing looks I have created has simple lighting and a nice dance mocap. Before trying this openvr file I was getting about 25fps at high settings, it leaped up by 10fps after installing. By tweaking the setting and dropping soft body physics I'm now getting 45fps, this may not be perfect but its certainly had a dramatic effect .

 

[Jiraiya]

THANK YOU !!!
I'm using a very modest gaming pc, Intel i5 9th gen and a GTX 1660ti, my favourite scene for viewing looks I have created has simple lighting and a nice dance mocap. Before trying this openvr file I was getting about 25fps at high settings, it leaped up by 10fps after installing. By tweaking the setting and dropping soft body physics I'm now getting 45fps, this may not be perfect but its certainly had a dramatic effect .

Yes! That's my experience. I wish I could pin down what it is these other people are doing that results in them not getting a huge increase.
I am wondering if something is making the plugin not work properly for them.

 

[stylesi]

Yo, thanks for posting this fholger's OpenVR mod here. I myself have been already using the same mod for week or two without noticing your post. Note that VAM uses OpenVr already, but this is a great modification enabling VSR support and has actually two different use cases.

The difference is that I use it with other 'upscaling mode' instead: i.e. putting reverse multiplier 1.5 to increase VAM fidelity. Then in SteamVR's VAM specific video setting I have for VAM specific resolution of 2440x2440, which is the native res of Vive Pro 2, which I have. So VRSS mod boosts that by 50%. These are my settings for VRSS with Nvidia 3090:

"renderScale": 1.50,
"sharpness": 0.01,
"radius": 0.3,
"applyMIPBias": true

I've applied minimum amount of sharpening above.

Most importantly, then in addition to this, I apply this another Reshade-based great mod as well to apply sharpening in VR:
https://vrtoolkit.retrolux.de/

It is important to use this one as other Reshade mods ( e.g. fholger) WILL CRASH VAM. Howerer, this mod does not. This means you can apply this with (like I have) or standalone without the VRSS mod. I think vrtoolkit mod alone could work for you fine by making VAM really sharp and also not harming your fps that much at all!

For vrtoolkit, in its RehadePreset.ini I have put and modified myself settings like this:

PreprocessorDefinitions=VRT_SHARPENING_MODE=2,VRT_USE_CENTER_MASK=1,VRT_DITHERING=0,VRT_COLOR_CORRECTION_MODE=0,VRT_ANTIALIASING_MODE=1
Techniques=VRToolkit@VRToolkit.fx
TechniqueSorting=VRToolkit@VRToolkit.fx

[VRToolkit.fx]
CircularMaskHelp=0
Clamp=0.525000
Contrast=0.700000
EdgeThreshold=0.500000
EdgeThresholdMin=0.000000
Exposure=0.0
fLUT_AmountChroma=1.000000
fLUT_AmountLuma=1.000000
Gamma=1
iCircularMaskHorizontalOffset=0.300000
iCircularMaskPreview=0
iCircularMaskSize=0.300000
iCircularMaskSmoothness=5.000000
iDitheringStrength=0.375000
Offset=0.100000
Preview=0
Saturation=0.0
Sharpening=1.000000
Strength=300.000000
Subpix=0.500000
VRT_Advanced_help=0
VRT_AntialiasingMode1=1
VRT_ColorCorrectionMode1=0
VRT_SharpeningMaskHelp=0
VRT_SharpeningMode1=1
VRT_SharpeningMode2=0

You can also modify this to change to AMD Fidelity FX CAS based sharpening (VRT_SharpeningMode2), disable FXAA and enable dithering for example if you want. Press CTRL+Home to get to configuration OSD of Reshade after VAM has started.

These two mods in combination are kinda nice indeed. Now forget blurry VAM Mucho props to the original authors of both of these mods for making VR great!

 

[KameronFox]

Does it matter if i put 0.99 which is below 1?

 

[Jiraiya]

Does it matter if i put 0.99 which is below 1?

For renderscale a number lower than 1 will render BELOW the set resolution and upscale to meet it. For numbers above 1 it will render at that res and then upscale further for higher res.
To get better FPS you want a <1 number probably.
I was using 0.7 and got a >30% improvement in fps.

 

[KameronFox]

For renderscale a number lower than 1 will render BELOW the set resolution and upscale to meet it. For numbers above 1 it will render at that res and then upscale further for higher res.
To get better FPS you want a <1 number probably.
I was using 0.7 and got a >30% improvement in fps.

But what will happen if i change it to 0.99? Do i get higher resolution but lower fps?

 

[urukyay]

But what will happen if i change it to 0.99? Do i get higher resolution but lower fps?

I think so, yes, but the resolution would be only technically higher.
It would rescale from say 1901x1069 to 1920x1080. You'd be adding whatever overhead such a scale might have for the visual gain of practically nothing.