VaM 1.x Low FPS in Virt-a-Mate despite high-end PC – looking for optimization tips

[Mikye666]

Hey everyone,
I’m looking for advice on how to improve my FPS in Virt-a-Mate, because I feel like my performance is lower than it should be for my setup.


My specs:

• GPU: RTX 5090
• CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• RAM: 64 GB DDR4
• VR headset: Valve Index
• OS: Windows 10/11
• Running VAM in VR mode

Current settings:

• Render Scale: 2.0
  • What’s odd is that in most scenes I see little to no FPS difference between Render Scale 2.0 vs 1.5 or even 1.0
• Mirrored Surfaces: Enabled
• Generate Texture Depth: Enabled
• Real-Time Reflection Probes: Enabled
• Soft Body Physics: Enabled
• Shader Quality: High
• MSAA Level: 8x
• Pixel Light Count: 4
• Smooth Passes: 4
• Glow Effects: High
• Process Priority: High
• Physics Rate: Auto
• Physics Update CPU: 3
• High Quality Physics: Off
• Desktop V-Sync: Off

Performance behavior:

• FPS varies heavily between scenes (especially with complex characters, hair, clothing, lighting)
• Average CPU and GPU usage is only around ~35–46%
• Neither CPU nor GPU appears to be fully saturated, yet FPS can still drop significantly

This makes me suspect I’m hitting some internal engine bottleneck, physics limitation, or single-threaded constraint rather than raw GPU power.


I’d love to know:

• Which settings actually have the biggest FPS impact in VAM VR?
• Why Render Scale doesn’t seem to meaningfully affect performance in my case?
• Known bottlenecks related to physics, hair, morphs, reflections, or lighting?
• Any Valve Index–specific tweaks or best practices?
• Recommended plugins or workflow tips to stabilize FPS across scenes?

Any advice or shared experience would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks in advance

 

[techwoof]

Hello!

First, download and install this community performance patch https://hub.virtamate.com/resources...to-30-faster-physics-up-to-60-more-fps.43427/
VAM's engine is a little old and not really optimized for multi threading. I suspect that is your bottleneck.The CPU patch should help, apply the settings for your CPU model and test the same scenes again. Your GPU should be fine.

 

[hazmhox]

This (these) question(s) have been answered countless times, I found most answers to what you're asking by doing 2min search:

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[Mikye666]

Hello!

First, download and install this community performance patch https://hub.virtamate.com/resources...to-30-faster-physics-up-to-60-more-fps.43427/
VAM's engine is a little old and not really optimized for multi threading. I suspect that is your bottleneck.The CPU patch should help, apply the settings for your CPU mo

Hello!

First, download and install this community performance patch https://hub.virtamate.com/resources...to-30-faster-physics-up-to-60-more-fps.43427/
VAM's engine is a little old and not really optimized for multi threading. I suspect that is your bottleneck.The CPU patch should help, apply the settings for your CPU model and test the same scenes again. Your GPU should be fine.

Hello!
Thanks a lot for the reply and for the link — I really appreciate it


I just wanted to ask if you could maybe help me a bit with setting this up properly.
I’m asking because last time I tried installing a similar performance/CPU-related plugin, I clearly messed something up After that, VAM itself would launch, but no scenes would load — they were just stuck forever on the loading bar and nothing progressed.


Because of that, I’m a bit scared of breaking my setup again and would really appreciate some guidance:

• where exactly to place the files
• whether anything needs to be enabled/disabled in VAM
• and which preset/settings I should use for my CPU

If you have a quick step-by-step or recommended settings for this patch, that would help me a ton.
Thanks again for taking the time to help — I really appreciate it!

 

[techwoof]

Hello!
Thanks a lot for the reply and for the link — I really appreciate it


I just wanted to ask if you could maybe help me a bit with setting this up properly.
I’m asking because last time I tried installing a similar performance/CPU-related plugin, I clearly messed something up After that, VAM itself would launch, but no scenes would load — they were just stuck forever on the loading bar and nothing progressed.


Because of that, I’m a bit scared of breaking my setup again and would really appreciate some guidance:

• where exactly to place the files
• whether anything needs to be enabled/disabled in VAM
• and which preset/settings I should use for my CPU

If you have a quick step-by-step or recommended settings for this patch, that would help me a ton.
Thanks again for taking the time to help — I really appreciate it!

The plugin page explains everything in detail (there is a step-by-step visual guide with images as well), there's also a 'discussion' tab with comments and observations from other players.

 

[Mikye666]

Got everything working thx for help and advices fps is little better but way more stable