Help! Smart Smoothing limits my game to 45fps but it's not inserting synthezized frames

[OptionalJoystick]

Hello Guys

I would love to hear your suggestion with this weird problem. I have noticed that in Euro Truck Simulator 2 for example, if i look to the left and right out of the Truck window while driving, the fast moving part of the game looks doubled. In fpsvr i can see the game runs@45fps but it doesn’t going higher (except in main menu) or lower most of the time, means that smart smoothing is somehow active, but it produces this said ghosting(double Image) on fast movements, even if i move my head sideway to the left and right i can see ghosting of the cockpit. So i come to the conclusion that the synthezing between the real frames is not working, only the fps limiter is working. I also tried the 72Hz mode but this produces even heavier ghosting. Please help me.

I’m currently running Pitool V1.0.1.121 (Headset Firmware v 2.1.255.211) with Smart Smoothing turned on and Parallel Projection turned on and Fixed foveated rendering turned off. I have NVidia Driver Version 425.31, Windows 10 64Bit Version 1809.

My hardware is a GeForce RTX 2080ti, intel 4790k, 32GB DDR3 2400Mhz.

[jankes]

Agree, smart smoothing does not work as it should. The .121 version works the worst. It works better on the version .112 but also ghosting only smaller. You have to wait for the new Pitool version with the improved SM function.

[Davebobman]

@OptionalJoystick

In fpsvr i can see the game runs@45fps but it doesn’t going higher (except in main menu) or lower most of the time, means that smart smoothing is somehow active

IIRC fpsVR shows you the rendered FPS before Brainwarp produces extra frames.

• <45 fps: fpsVR shows correctly
• 45-90 fps: fpsVR shows 45 because that is what was rendered, the actual fps is 90
• 90< fps: fpsVR shows correctly

So BW is working as intended, even if it doesn’t look pretty. BW is just guessing based off the previous frame and head movements, so it is bound to have some issues.

I would say that the ghosting/doubling is being caused by rubber-banding on the quick moving objects. Every other frame is being guessed incorrectly (BW frame) and then rendered properly (rendered frame), so you end up with things jumping back and forth between the two constantly.

Not an expert but that is my hypothesis.

[Century]

Yes, I completely agree, BrainWarp is not very convincing, there are nuances.

I noticed this on the very first day when I tried my 8K in Assetto Corsa. The picture was not smooth. Then I turned off BrainWarp and set up the game for 80 native FPS, everything became very smooth.
After that, I do not turn on BrainWarp (“smart anti-aliasing”) at all. Better to reduce supersampling than turn on BrainWarp. He only makes the picture worse.
I mentioned this in my review:

@Century

At first, when I turned on the first game (AssettoCorsa), I didn’t really like the picture in the helmet. One thing is that there was a small SDE on the horizon (but it was a little easier to forget about it than in Lenovo Explorer, the difference between them is really small in terms of SDE. Lenovo has a specific pixel pattern in the form of bricks, which sometimes torments my eyes. But 8K has quite a normal diagonal pattern, which is less noticeable, this is a plus for me).
It’s another thing that I didn’t have any smoothness. I compared it to Lenovo Explorer, everything was very smooth at 90Hz, the feeling of speed was felt right there. And it was like there were missing frames here. Then I realized that smart smoothing worked (or BrainWarp differently). I looked to the side when driving slowly on the track, and noticed that all the objects slightly double. But that’s how BrainWarp works, so there’s nothing you can do about it (although in other games it’s a good way to help, but not in games where speed is important).
When I turned off BrainWarp and tuned in the native 80 FPS, I finally felt the smoothness and sense of speed. At the same time the picture became much more pleasant, there were less stairs and jags, the game just changed. And what is the most important thing - it became obvious that SDE is really lower by 8K than Lenovo Explorer. (but initially it was difficult to understand the difference between them because of the poor quality of the picture, lack of smoothness.)

[SweViver]

How do you start ATC or ETS2 having Smart Smoothing enabled? For me it just doesnt kick in and Im stuck around 70fps on High Settings

[anton_Chez]

Do you need to force settings higher so that smoothing kicks in permanently? I had this issue tonight in Assetto Corsa. Since there is no ‘force ASW on’ option for Brainwarp, I have to jam the SS slider so high that it can’t possibly hit 90 and disable smoothing.

That said, if you’re getting 70fps, it should be smoothing to 45 regardless. So maybe there is an issue with smoothing lately? Can’t see how, it worked fine over the weekend and there has been no update.

[SweViver]

@anton_Chez thanks! Thats a problem in simulators like IL-2 where framerate many times is around 75-79 but in ETS2 and ATC i tried to kill the GPU with highest settings and got framerates around 50-60 and still no smoothing kicking in.

How are you starting the game, in SteamVR I assume?
Do you run any of the betas with Oculus SDK?
Do you start with -openvr command?

[anton_Chez]

I haven’t launched the Truck Simulators for the longest time. But it’s weird that you mention issues with the smoothing because tonight after having just raced on Monday night in rFactor 2 and everything feeling normal, I raced in AC tonight and everything just felt ‘off’. Smoothing wasn’t kicking in properly but I think it was related to me actually hitting 90hz at most parts of the track which is weird. Because i had the SS at like 300% with something like 20M pixels per eye yet still giving me 90hz tells me something isn’t right. Either we got like a 10x performance increase overnight for free, or the SS wasn’t actually at the resolution that it said it was.

Either way, I’ve spent the last hour messing with settings and smoothing trying to work out if something is wrong. I’ve got SteamVR SS at 400% and I am still getting 90hz. I have NO idea.