Apparently there is new option in steamvr beta 1.16.1 that allows you to lock fps and still using smart smoothing.
Do we have topic for this to discuss? I didn’t find anything about it here and it’s huge game changer!
Added per-app settings for overriding automatic throttling and prediction behavior. This is useful for applications with particularly poor performance that benefit instead from a fixed lower framerate for an overall smoother experience (e.g. sims). Note: These settings are only available to headsets which use SteamVR’s compositor (e.g. Index, Vive).
Allow motion smoothing to apply up to six frames of extrapolation (was three). Note: This also only applies to SteamVR’s compositor.
People have known about it for a few days now but if you havn’t seen it, the last beta of SteamVR has massively improved motion smoothing when used in conjunction with fixed frame rates, which is another new setting in SteamVR. Massively less artifacts than there used to be. Like the whole world is no longer wiggling around all the time like it was before.
The fixed frame rate setting seems to be very important to this. For example, if you play Microsoft Flight Simulator at fluctuating framerate from around 24-40fps with motion smoothing its entirely unplayable the whole world is constantly wiggling and performs poorly.But if you do fixed frame rate 24FPS motion smoothed to 144HZ, it looks absurdly better, and in some cases depending on the plane its almost hard to tell the difference from native 144 (unless you know what to look for).
When I first read about people talking about this I was looking forward to trying it and I was not dissapointed, its really not an exageration at all, fixed frame rate motion smoothing has become a legitimate way to play games now on SteamVR. I also tried this out on No Mans Sky, everything on Ultra with fixed frame rate somewhere around 50 ( I forget ), motion smoothed to 144 and man almost no artifacts again, definitely worth the improved visuals and frame rate in this case as well.
In fact I would even go so far as to say they should not even allow variable frame rate motion smoothing anymore as its experience is in literally every way worse than fixed frame rate
Be interesting to see if the locked frame rate option is available without Steam’s motion smoothing. If it is might also work well with Smart Smoothing.
Holy Mackerel! This frame limiting thing seems like it could be the holy grail for games like Project Cars 3, ACC
Its amazing that fs2020 can project frames as low as 1/6th, (20 to 120 fps) smoothing is insane.
i wonder if checking compatible with Vive headset setting in pitool could fake being a vive and unlock this option in steamVR.?
Could locking framerate be achieved via Cheat Engine on some games.
I know i did it before with everspace to limit the game speed to 80% speed once to make it playable with a Hotas since it was too twitchy and obviously designed for a gamepad.
Either way the I will be blowing the dust of the Vive to try this myself. It seems that Valve was paying attention the last couple of weeks when Oculus added the ability to something similar
seems we can thank oculus for spurring Valve on
now I will ask @SweViver again if Pimax can step up to the plate here. Last time his response was it wasn’t possible.
The problem is not soap-ish look of the asynchronous space warp (aka motion smoothing). The problem is that it is primarily designed (and limited) to synthesizing the image based on the user movement (i.e. headset or rendering cameras movement). This cannot help with fast speed in-game objects.
True that’s probably why the only game people are raving about with this feature is fs2020. Where for the majority of the gameplay you are in the sky looking at clouds slowly moving towards you.
The only thing that option does is changing the identifier of the headset to “Vive MV” or something like that.
It’s there for games that check for that ID (there are a few).
To begin with it was how any Pimax headset identified itself to OpenVR/SteamVR but when they changed it to reflect the actual Pimax model some games stopped working (no headset detected).
You can see the ID somewhere on the SteamVR settings (“headset” tab? Not sure. On the phone now).
Enabling that option doesn’t change the rendering pipeline…
I think @TheIronWolf might have said he worked on Opencomposite. However I believe that is different as it is just 1 platform to another vs making a headset use it’s render.
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