Booted up the other day and was faced with a "use it or lose it" ultimatum from Microsoft regarding the free upgrade to Windows 11. Upgrading was on my list of things to do anyway, so I went through with the upgrade. I liked everything about Win11, except the performance in VR. An Aces High, with the graphic settings I use, I am usually pegged in VR at 89-90 fps. This upgrade made my frame rate bounce all over, often below 60 fps and into the 40s while low near the trees of the Mindnao map. This is with a machine that can get 300+ fps in flat screen AH @1440p, with high graphic settings.
I spent a lot of time the past couple of days trying different fixes but to no avail, so I rolled back to Win10 yesterday. For the record, I really wanted Win11 and expected to use it without issues - I find the look and behavior superior to Win10. I was ready to love it. But the VR performance earned it a hard pass from me. Some of the things I tried:
- checked for further Windows updates - I'd heard Win11 22H2 had VR performance issues. There were already several updates to D/L and install, which I let Windows do.
- upgraded to the latest nVidia Game Ready graphics drivers
- upgraded to StreamVR Beta 1.25.3, from the Release version of 1.24.7
- in AH3 Graphics settings, disabled Shadows, Ground Clutter, POST Lighting effects, Bump Mapping, Detail, and Reflections, in addition to the two items I already had disabled, Pilot Mesh & Clutter in Flight. I set all the object detail sliders to the far left minimum value.
- in AH3 Video Settings, reduced video resolution setting to 640x480
I researched online and found a link with several ideas.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ob568c/vr_performance_in_windows_11/The suggestion in this comment was completely unworkable:
Yaaaa VR performance for 11 is bad. Im on Release build of 11 and no improvements. The issue lies in Win 11s Renderer as i learned that if you move the window of your VR game to another screen it "Fixs" the issue a bit. but get this, if you minimize the game entirely the issue completely goes away. pretty much until the issue with the Win 11 Renderer is shorted VR DOES RUN, BUT ONLY IF YOU MINIMIZE THE GAME SO ITS NOT RENDERING ON A MONITOR!
I found if I minimized AH on my monitor, it also took the game away from VR and I'm left looking at the Windows Mixed Reality VR landscape which is entirely blank.
I also found another comment somewhere that suggested STOP of the HolographicShell process under "Computer Management/System Tools/Performance/Data Collector Sets/Event Trace Sessions" fixes the problem like magic, but it made no difference to my VR performance.
I also tried out IL-2 in VR, and also found a significant drop in performance, though not as severe as the drop in AH. So, regretfully I rolled back to Win10, and I think whole experience was a waste of my time and I am disappointed in Microsoft.
I expect at some point in the future, MS will resolve this performance issues, but I think I've lost my free upgrade opportunity.
