VR Discussions, Questions & Feedback

After a long journey, I discovered the Holy Grail for Madness Engine and VR:

Go for higher pixel density in headset and disable any anti aliasing.

I do not know why, but this engine appears to render in VR in a lower resolution, and If you don't use a lot of post sharpening and massive MSAA, It looks like a mess, and with all these "post workarounds", things flickers like hell with a lot of fidelity degradation.

Higher pixel density solve ALL the problems with even better performance.

 

But what gpu are you using? Supersampling is very taxing on the gpu

 

Just a 3060ti. In a normal game, in VR, yes, it's taxing. But Madness Engine have a lot of strange things in VR. With 1.4 pixel density in Quest 2 Max resolution, I have better performance and MUCH better visuals than using sharpening in AMS2 files with MSAA medium.

Only in Madness Engine this happens. Strange, but works.

Without recording, solid 90 FPS daylight in Daytona.

Give a try.

 

The most strange thing: when I go up pixel density, better mirrors for free FPS.

What the hell runs inside Madness Engine, hope Reiza someday can fully undestand. I give up.

 

So I tried PimaxXR yesterday and managed to reduce much of the jitters (fast moving objects) by reducing refresh to 90/45Hz (using half-rate feature) and reducing most AMS2 graphics settings to medium or lower.

UPDATE: Solved my AMS2 Launch crash issues (OpenComposite mode / PimaxXR).

• Disabled OpenXR toolkit
• Uninstalled SteamVR
• Cleared AMS2 Graphics XML files (all)

OpenXR toolkit doesn't work any longer but, at least AMS2 will launch again.

 

I supect that Madness Engine in default headset pixel density - and I don't know why - render the image in some kind of lower resolution objects far distant. It's like you play with more than one resolution - great in cockpit and crap more than 50m ahead or behind. The workarounds other than more pixel density in headset, like agressive sharpening editing config settings, only apply a post processing filter in this far crap resolution (and near objects too), and this creates more aliasing and degradation in raw visual. Add this to crap MSAA performance, and It is a disaster. And this causes the massive flickering in shadows - that goes away with more pixels density, even in lower shadows settings.

With more pixel density, it's like finally this game is running in the same resolution and quality 1m away from driver to 2 or more kilometers. It's almost a new game in VR.

I believe it's a bug or a coded "feature" to improve VR performance, causing the well know bluriness of Madness Engine in distance in VR.

 

Hello. I'm a newbie to VR. How do I increase pixel density for my Quest 3?

Thank you!

 

Start the game in VR and in the main menu open the "Virtual Reality" submenu, it is there.

 

I found these videos helpful for Meta Quest3, I found quite good settings as a result

and

 

Are you using Oculus Link (USB or WiFi) or Virtual Desktop?

 

Not true at all with my headset(Pimax Crystal). The opposite is true here; MSAA is mandatory to get rid of the shimmering/aliasing, even the difference between 2x and 4x MSAA is very visible and worth the tweaking to get it stable at 90fps.

Without MSAA the aliasing/shimmering is so bad that AMS2 is not even playable to my standards, so you must be doing something completely wrong.

Yes I also tried higher pixel density instead of MSAA, it doesn't fix the shimmering/aliasing at all, only MSAA does. SMAA doesn't fix it, maybe you used that instead of MSAA?

 

what resolution are you running with a Crystal to be able to use MSAA-Medium?

 

3988px x xxxx px per eye, so close to native res(4315px), it looks better than native with 2xMSAA(which also runs 90fps/hz locked). Heavy tweaked settings with OpenXR toolkit, fixed foveated rendering with the first 1/1 res ring somewhere around 50% streched horizontally to 180% with 16th resolution for the rest (when racing it's invisible; the 16th ring because of the big horizontal strech). Only that custom resolution (1 out of ~20 resolutions) works stably with MSAA and foveated rendering, one pixel higher or lower resolution give stripes/artifacts on the 16th resolution ring(and then it becomes visible while driving, because object disappear/look weird). I only race in daytime/morning/evening, not night and rain and by doing that I have 90fps/hz locked. I have a 4090 oced btw.

 

With Ams2 you have to differentiate between day and night AA.

During the day you can smooth things out with msaa. At night almost nothing helps except msaa on high and very high SS. The only thing that helps is an expensive graphics card.

 

Well, the difference is night and day!

 

It´s a trade off. If you hate aliasing, MSAA does the job. Period.

But AMS2 and his "father" Project Cars 2 in VR loves supersampling for details in lower resolution headsets.

If have horsepower, uses supersampling AND MSAA 2X to get rid of any aliasing and keep details.

But, in Crystal, you already have much better pixel density than Quest 2. Ramp up pixel density is a must with lower resolution headsets in AMS2 and weak GPUs, because you can have much better visuals with same performance with 1.2 supersampling in Quest 2 with MSAA LOW than with MSAA MEDIUM with fake filter sharpening, because MSAA works on edges, and always have a side effect to blur textures a little. If you hate aliasing and blurry textures, combine both and have the best of the two.

 

Hi Ernesto, thanks for your settings, I'm giving it a try today after work. Just so I fully understand, you mean 1.4 supersampling in the in game settings? I currently play with the quest2 at max resolution (so in the quest tool settings) and still distant objects look sort of pixelated while nearby objects look perfectly clear.

 

Same experience with Varjo Aero. As a bonus, the ingame supersampling slider (VR PD) doesn't do anything for me.

 

Ahh ok. OpenXR made my Crystal and Aero's rendering look a little weird so I don't use it. (it shifts my IPD or something, things look very off, almost warped?)
Using SteamVR the highest I could get it was around 3800x4300 with MSAA low and the rest on medium settings.

 

Change pixel density in Oculus Debug Tools. Ingame does nothing.

I can see improvements in clarity in Quest 2 max resolution with pixel density up to 1.4. Anything above looks the same with more performance drops. My benchmark is 90Hz locked in day, shadows HIGH, and Hockenhein night in thunderstorm with GT4 cars not going below 45FPS ASW.

After testing, I can achieve this with up to 1.2 pixel density and MSAA LOW, that looks better than MSAA MEDIUM/HIGH with sharpening in config files.

For my rig, these are the "safer" settings for 3060Ti and Quest 2 Max resolution, any weather and time of day, full grid, any cars: