Question PC upgrade advice please

[L_WOOD]

Hello everyone! I'm interested in upgrading my PC for VAM. I currently have a AMD 5800x, 64gb ram and a RTX 3070ti, I play in VR on the Quest 2 via Virtual Desktop.
I was hoping to get some information form the benchmark thread, but the results vary greatly, and sometimes people with similar machines achieve very different results.
So perhaps someone more experienced could answer my question:

If I can get only one, will a 5950x processor or a RTX 3090 be a better upgrade for me? Or is only a new Intel 13000/ AMD 7000 series processor able to make any significant fps increase?

 

[cermebaatsisvye]

My guess is that the GPU upgrade would be more significant. I'm mostly here to follow this thread too, since I was considering getting a new GPU for VAM on VR, but I'm curious if anyone thinks your CPU is underpowered. (FWIW, I'm rockin an AMD 3700x, nvidia 3070, and 32gb of ram. VR is sometimes playable for very light scenes, but most of the stuff in my folder either crashes VAM or it runs <10 FPS. Zero issues on desktop.)

 

[fishgamescamp]

Get an app like MSI afterburner, turn on the charts and add GPU usage and CPU usage percent. Run the game and see which one is used more. I already kind of know the answer though. You should upgrade your GPU. And not to a 3090, which is expensive and not all that faster, but wait for a deal then jump to a 4080 or so.

 

[atani]

Before you get on shopping mode see first the resources you use are not the culprits for low FPS. Lights in scenes, hairs and clothing are the usual suspects.
Do you have appearance presets with hairs using Curves or Amount over 20? Yeah, that shit costs a lot. Don't trust the looks creators presets, they usually pump that to the maximum to make the looks nicer.
Clothes is the same thing, the more you have the more costly.
Lights in scenes can destroy your HW if abused, no matter what you have.

See first how you can optimise your VaM stuff, only after should you consider HW changes. Having tons of stuff will also impact your performance overall.

 

[keycode]

My guess is that the GPU upgrade would be more significant. I'm mostly here to follow this thread too, since I was considering getting a new GPU for VAM on VR, but I'm curious if anyone thinks your CPU is underpowered. (FWIW, I'm rockin an AMD 3700x, nvidia 3070, and 32gb of ram. VR is sometimes playable for very light scenes, but most of the stuff in my folder either crashes VAM or it runs <10 FPS. Zero issues on desktop.)

I could play vam VR with rift-s and i7 7700+gtx1070 (ram 32GB) quite good for a very long period. At each upgrade after that period, my best performance improvement was when I got a better (intel) cpu. https://hub.virtamate.com/threads/hardware-performance-comparison-tables.20436/post-53846

 

[josharkness]

I have a 5600x with 3070 and 32ram and plan to upgrade to 7950x3d 4090, but just wait for prices to drop a little and the x3d cpus to get released ofc. Also I use a Quest 2 with VD. Until then there are a couple of plugins which really made a huge difference for me in terms of speed without costing visuals: SPQR Performance (this is a huge one. I set the physics update rate to 40 and my framerate doubled even tripled in some scenes. Only caveat is that physics might explode on some scenes but not many and I tested a lot), GiveMeFPS (reduced the hair quality a bit but it still looks great) and last but not least is my favorite: VAR browser (it made my VAM install with 8000 vars load like a newly installed VAM with 0 vars). In VAM i have set resolution to 1x with 8x antialising, everything maxed with high quality physics on and I get between 30 and 50 fps with 2-3 characters. Hope this helps you guys too. I am very happy with the results.

 

[void]

Pimax 8KX here, i12700, 64GB and 3080. Runs fine in "high" settings in VAM, but I degraded the HMD quality by setting FOV to normal and rendering the outer screen in lower resolution. Complex scenes with lots of decals and high res skin hit me hard, however. Plan to switch to 4090 in a few months. Resolution is 1.0 in PiTools and SteamVR at 40%.

 

[Kniffo]

I have a 5600x with 3070 and 32ram and plan to upgrade to 7950x3d 4090, but just wait for prices to drop a little and the x3d cpus to get released ofc. Also I use a Quest 2 with VD. Until then there are a couple of plugins which really made a huge difference for me in terms of speed without costing visuals: SPQR Performance (this is a huge one. I set the physics update rate to 40 and my framerate doubled even tripled in some scenes. Only caveat is that physics might explode on some scenes but not many and I tested a lot), GiveMeFPS (reduced the hair quality a bit but it still looks great) and last but not least is my favorite: VAR browser (it made my VAM install with 8000 vars load like a newly installed VAM with 0 vars). In VAM i have set resolution to 1x with 8x antialising, everything maxed with high quality physics on and I get between 30 and 50 fps with 2-3 characters. Hope this helps you guys too. I am very happy with the results.

Where to find SPQR Performance?

 

[Kniffo]

I have a 5600x with 3070 and 32ram and plan to upgrade to 7950x3d 4090, but just wait for prices to drop a little and the x3d cpus to get released ofc. Also I use a Quest 2 with VD. Until then there are a couple of plugins which really made a huge difference for me in terms of speed without costing visuals: SPQR Performance (this is a huge one. I set the physics update rate to 40 and my framerate doubled even tripled in some scenes. Only caveat is that physics might explode on some scenes but not many and I tested a lot), GiveMeFPS (reduced the hair quality a bit but it still looks great) and last but not least is my favorite: VAR browser (it made my VAM install with 8000 vars load like a newly installed VAM with 0 vars). In VAM i have set resolution to 1x with 8x antialising, everything maxed with high quality physics on and I get between 30 and 50 fps with 2-3 characters. Hope this helps you guys too. I am very happy with the results.

Can You help with VAR Browser?I think I'm just too stupid...I have no idea how to get all this stuff installed and running without an install file. The problem is that I should install this BepInEx but there is no installation file anywhere. Then you should put the .dll in a BepInEx/Plugin directory. But there is no such thing either. Can you please explain step by step HOW to install it and how get running?And what I have to do to keep all my Scenes and Looks but the VAR Browser speeds up loading...

 

[void]

same here, check this thread https://hub.virtamate.com/threads/var-browser.31108/page-3#post-91547

 

[keycode]

Can You help with VAR Browser?I think I'm just too stupid...I have no idea how to get all this stuff installed and running without an install file. The problem is that I should install this BepInEx but there is no installation file anywhere. Then you should put the .dll in a BepInEx/Plugin directory. But there is no such thing either. Can you please explain step by step HOW to install it and how get running?And what I have to do to keep all my Scenes and Looks but the VAR Browser speeds up loading...

I have a 150GB vam install folder, cache files included in default dir. My loading times are practically the same as with a nude fresh vam install.
Remember that even creating a new fresh vam install it means that you get a lot of files: skins files, scenes, morphs, environment assets etc.
Elements impacting loading times (but indispensable if you want to begin playing).
I tell you this because in my (humble) opinion the best way to save a "fast" time loading is to keep clean the best you can your vam folder, deleting old crap files you never use (mostly morphs, morphs duplicated, looks and banal scenes with lot of dependencies.
My method is to select all crap-files by (crap) creator name and "exterminate" each related infective crap-element.
Yes 150GB for an application like vam, with an oceanic possibility to download crap-free and often even more crapped crap-pirate stuff, it seems a nothing... but even with this (relatively) limited collection in my (nvme) drive, if I check my list of .vars I can see a lot of files without importance, files that I keep mostly because to detect wich files are still needed as dependencies it is a frustrating pain in the ass, definitively not worth for my actual igienic situation.
And I keep them without much regret because as I was saying, there is not such a miracle relevant difference between a fresh install and a true reasonable number of different personal elements installed. But of course a lot of experienced esoteric vam crap-experts can say the contrary, and they delightfully always insist on this theoretical miracle difference. Men of faith with universal great self-opinion, indeed.

ps: no rational need to waste time with any vamized bepinex... but you should try it (as I deed, once) if really you have the blind curiosity to test.

 

[josharkness]

Where to find SPQR Performance?

Here: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/spqr-performance.16000/ Just load it as a session plugin and set the slider to 40 or 50 (i use 50 now)

 

[josharkness]

Can You help with VAR Browser?I think I'm just too stupid...I have no idea how to get all this stuff installed and running without an install file. The problem is that I should install this BepInEx but there is no installation file anywhere. Then you should put the .dll in a BepInEx/Plugin directory. But there is no such thing either. Can you please explain step by step HOW to install it and how get running?And what I have to do to keep all my Scenes and Looks but the VAR Browser speeds up loading...

Check the link Void sent. There is a download link. Just unzip Bepinex in your vam folder and create a BepInEx/Plugin directory and put the .dll inside. Also you have to move all your vars in a Allpackages folder inside the vam folder.

 

[void]

Just unzip Bepinex in your vam folder and create a BepInEx/Plugin directory and put the .dll inside. Also you have to move all your vars in a Allpackages folder inside the vam folder.

Bold style be me. That's the important part, no installation, just unzup and create. The tutorial is wrong on this. You saved my day.

 

[fishgamescamp]

GivemeFPS, SPQR Performance, VAR Browser did wonders for my FPS (3080)