VR Mark and general tweaking

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renesis37
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VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by renesis37 »

Hey ladies, have many of you played with VR mark?

Recently I have been tinkering trying to get everything running as good as possible on the Rift and have learned a few little things that I'd like to share. I'd like to hear any tricks you guys have worked out to eke the most out of your systems too. With how CPU limited iRacing is, especially in the latest build it really puts a lot of stress on the system and small things can matter.

I am hanging out for AMD RyZen, which will at the very least push down socket 2011 setups slightly. VR Mark seems to be pretty CPU limited, then again so does iRacing (my GPU is at 40% in a race?!).

VR Mark Orange Room benchmark (Free demo):
SCORE: 10747
FPS: 234.28 avg

Current setup:
i7 4790K @ 4.7GHz (HT enabled, cache also at 4.7Ghz)
16GB DDR3-2400 CL10
Asus STRIX GTX1070 8GB OC @ 1934/8734 (boosts to ~2.1GHz solid, power limit to 120%)

Little things, big impacts:
If you do a bit of overclocking and if you have a Sandy Bridge to Haswell CPU try and run the cache/uncore at 1:1 with the CPU (add cache/uncore voltage), people say it doesn't make a difference but it makes enough of a difference in CPU limited scenarios depending on the workload. First gen i series only need double the RAM frequency apparently, you get huge gains from those CPUs from extra bclk though. I personally have to sacrifice some CPU clock speed to attain 1:1 cache speed, in my configuration it is worth it. iRacing is very limited by the single core performance even with current i7s so small gains count. I have found overclocking the cache/uncore gets Haswell very very close the the memory and cache performance of the DDR4 6700K which is known to have the best single core performance currently.

Put compatible hardware into MSI instead of the older IRQ mode. I have found latency to be MUCH lower with the GTX1070 in MSI mode (LatencyMon), watch out though because older hardware can cause a BSOD on reboot if its not supported so use system restore or similar (graphics cards always work to my knowledge). In theory lower latency reduces CPU overhead and can improve frame rates and frame times in CPU bound games. Heaven benchmark gains 10 fps in the high end (lows are the same, GPU limited) and the stutters at the dragon are gone http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=378044

If you use Windows 10 disable as much as you can.. disable Cortana and XBOX with a registry tweak, Windows Update in services.msc. Every now and then enable Windows Update when you know you aren't going to game. Windows 10 loves to update at the wrong time.

There are obviously many other things more important like using the latest nvidia driver with a 10 series or having enough RAM but I just thought I would share these less obvious things that might help to make your VR experience slightly better.
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GT VIRUS
Karen
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by GT VIRUS »

I get around 40fps in VR mark! Yet I still run iRacing and AC with no issues on DK2.
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wobblysauce
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by wobblysauce »

Still running my 3570k.. @4.5ghz though.. and the 670.. 2012 is calling :P
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DarrenM
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by DarrenM »

10465, 228fps avg with everything at stock clocks. i7 6600 and Asus Strix 1080.

Overclocking the video card gained me about 0.3 fps. They need to crank up the pixel density or something.
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DarrenM
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by DarrenM »

nvidia have released a tool for benchmarking VR performance. It lets you see if you're dropping below 90 fps and also tells you how much spare performance you have.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/fcat



Here's an in depth discussion on it with the developer
Sarsippius
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by Sarsippius »

I read some discussion on this on the iracing forum but it sounded like it's a bit complicated to set up. I'll probably try and give it a go, the Sebring 12hr prompted me to order a 1080 so it would be good to be able to quantify the gains over my R9 Nano.

I've typically used a few demanding replays to try and hone in on settings that give me a solid 90fps at almost all times so I think this will be a good way to compare. The problem with iracing is it's a constantly moving target and cpu plays such a big role as well.
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renesis37
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by renesis37 »

my 1070 sits at 30-40% utilisation at 150ppd with 8x AA, not sure a 1080 is required for iRacing, quick RAM and CPU is more important in my rig. If I drop my RAM to 1600 I get frame drops, 2400 I get none.

What CPU do you have and what is it running at?
Sarsippius
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by Sarsippius »

I have a 4690k at 4.5GHz. Judging from discussion in the iRacing VR forum I should get a decent increase in performance, I considered a 1070 but didn't think it'd be enough of an upgrade over the nano and I wanted to future proof myself somewhat.
Maybe my ram is an issue, it's 1600 but that's the highest my mobo supports it seems, Asus H87 Pro.
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renesis37
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by renesis37 »

The nano has huge driver overhead in DX11 so in CPU limited scenarios like iRacing nvidia is miles ahead. You will see a benefit for sure.

Ill try my RAM at 1600 again. last corner at Imola used to get drops, you have a good CPU. I actually run HT off in iRacing anyway because it is single thread performance limited and is more consistent with it off. The whole SMT off AMD Ryzen thing is nothing new, people are only just realising it now for some reason.
Sarsippius
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by Sarsippius »

Yeah I was a bit lucky that manufacturers released bios updates to allow overclocking on the H87 chipset. I originally had a 4670 so it worked well that I could put in the 4690k and get it to 4.5GHz but it looks like there is no such luck with ram.

The Nano has served me pretty well but slowly but surely iRacing requirements have gone up and I'm a bit sick of adjusting settings. I know even the 1080 won't solve this 100% but I think I should be able to settle on some pretty high settings and then set and forget for the most part. Do you use ASW, some guys seem to really like that for those times you do get frame drops.

It's been a long time since I've had an Nvidia card, it seems it'll be a bit of a learning curve on what control panel settings etc to use.
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renesis37
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by renesis37 »

The GeForce Experience caused stutters for me so I don't use it, and make sure you select high performance mode in the nvidia control panel. Other settings are trivial and personal preference in my opinion.

I'm going to try the GF experience again sometime this weekend because I want to record rift perspective, they might have fixed it.

I don't use ASW, I press ctrl+numpad 1 every time I get in. My thinking brain tells me it has to add a minimum of one frame input lag, one frame is only 11ms or what ever but still.. Just the thought of it puts me off
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wobblysauce
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Re: VR Mark and general tweaking

Post by wobblysauce »

Just changed a few things on my main system for funzies ran it on the others I have with all the normal background stuff running.

VRMARK ORANGE ROOM BENCHMARK DESKTOP 1.0
159.43 fps, 7 313 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060-6GB(1x) and Intel Core i5-3570K Processor
196.36 fps, 9 007 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080(1x) and Intel Core i7-4771
and the x6 1090T that now has the 670 cannot run it :( Cpu does not support SEE4.1
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