Aces High Bulletin Board

Help and Support Forums => All things VR => Topic started by: N95KF on September 17, 2017, 01:48:55 AM

Title: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 17, 2017, 01:48:55 AM
I made a post about 6 months ago with a list of graphics settings both in-game and through the Nvidia Control Panel. Many thought they were the best possible graphics settings for Aces High and VR, including myself.  I started to read about how certain settings, although look great on 2D monitors, look worse in VR.  Even if you have the hardware, increasing every setting does more harm than good in VR.  I want people to experiment with these settings and tell me what you think.  After tweaking for weeks, I think I finally may have found the best LOOKING AH3 setting for VR.  All without having to tinker with a Tool Tray or supersampling, etc to drive frame rates into the toilet.

I am going to list them below, and attach screenshots of both the in-game settings as well as the Nvidia Control Panel settings.  If you don't already know, make sure you use 'Program Settings' in the control panel, not 'Global Settings'.  Select program to customize:, and pick 'aceshigh11'.

The goal here with these settings is to get as much clarity as possible without blurry distances, shimmering trees, and things out of focus.
This will not hurt performance, but in many cases will give a nice boost!

Better looking game with more FPS?? Yes!

The key here is mostly about eliminating AA entirely.  Every single AA setting in the Nvidia Control Panel as well as the in-game AA option should be disabled.  AA looks nice at a distance, but not when holding a magnifying glass up to a screen (VR).  It just blurs the image.

As you can see in the first screenshot:
Every single AA function is disabled.
Anisotropic Filtering is set at its highest.

In the second screenshot you can see
All texture filtering is off.
The Power Management is set to Maximum Performance.
Texture Filtering is set to High Quality.
Negative LOD Bias is set to Clamp.

The third screenshot shows the in-game settings.
Anti-Aliasing is disabled
Reflection is Disabled (doesn't look proper in VR)
Environment Map Sides Per Frame: Set to None (it looks bad in VR + hurts performance)
Shadows are Disabled (optional, can hurt performance and looks jagged/aliased in VR IMO)
Ignore Gamma Setting (means nothing in VR)

*Important
The Object and Tree Detail sliders are all the way down. 
I have found, specifically in VR, that you lose no noticeable details in objects and trees, but the shimmering vanishes, providing a better looking image when combined with all other settings.

Give these a try, fly around a "good" map (one that is colorful with trees and lots of greens, hills, etc.)
Tell me if you don't believe everything just looks about as clean, crisp, and less blurry as it can get in AH with VR at this stage. I used to hate looking into the distance and all around the plane on long flights, now I sight-see and am in awe.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: 1stpar3 on September 17, 2017, 05:02:49 PM
Pretty much how mine is set up! I have a few changes,think 3. In NVIDIA Anisotropic is at 4. Everything else same. In AH I have all detail sliders EXCEPT, Tree, all at Max Right. Checked boxes side, only Disable clutter in flight and reflections are checked. Under post lighting, identical.  I changed the Color profile in NVIDIA control panel to deal with Brightness and Gamma changes. Some terrains with alot of Yellow/Sandy areas were way too bright for me. Runways looked like White out. These changes are made for the Port that your Headset plugs into. Plug Monitor into headset port, make changes, then plug Headset back in.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 18, 2017, 08:33:09 AM
If you can, crank Anisotropic Filtering up as high as it can go, it doesn't hurt performance in Aces High but makes the terrain look better.

Try lowering the building details like I said, you won't see any difference in the buildings but less shimmering at a distance. 

The clutter I have found does not contribute to any strange anomalies or eyesores in this game so I leave it on, I like foliage on the ground.

Reflections are more personal preference but I have found them to look bad in VR and distracting.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Kanth on September 18, 2017, 09:48:40 AM

i like them normally but sometimes when out completely over sea for a time i find them to be quite disorienting like can't tell if i'm banking or not kinda thing.

haven't tried the rest yet but appreciate you taking the time to post them. i'll try to find time to check these out. thanks!  :aok

Reflections are more personal preference but I have found them to look bad in VR and distracting.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Mister Fork on September 18, 2017, 01:54:16 PM
i like them normally but sometimes when out completely over sea for a time i find them to be quite disorienting like can't tell if i'm banking or not kinda thing.

haven't tried the rest yet but appreciate you taking the time to post them. i'll try to find time to check these out. thanks!  :aok

...and I LOVE the reflections in game and in the cockpit - the canopy...the dial gauges...beautiful.

I'll try those setting tonight and see what the performance changes are. Might want to make this a sticky!
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: 1stpar3 on September 18, 2017, 04:55:29 PM
Found something interesting with the anisotropic settings maxed at 16x....it lowered the "USED" memory number?. I remember NOW why I had Object Details at max. With on Minimum the shadows created some Ghosting(double vision almost) with the cast shadows. Mainly on field guns. Not sure how to describe it but looked off. Since you run with Shadows off though, TRUE the slider can be set at Minimum with no obvious changes to the way it looks. The Clutter in flight on/off doesnt seem to matter. Now in a gun or vehicle it may be diffrent, but I dont do that enough to have a preference. The other Clutter I leave on,like the row crops and flowers :x
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 19, 2017, 12:17:32 AM
...and I LOVE the reflections in game and in the cockpit - the canopy...the dial gauges...beautiful.

I'll try those setting tonight and see what the performance changes are. Might want to make this a sticky!

I love the reflections too, but only on 2D monitors.  It just doesn't look right to me in VR.  Good luck and I hope you have success, but remember, all off the settings I posted have nothing to do with performance and are all about visual clarity.  If we're using VR, chances are that we all have similar builds, and we all have the ability to run this game at max graphical settings.  But that actually makes it look WORSE in VR. 

That is why the tweaks I posted above mostly revolve around turning things off that we would normally max out on a 2D screen. Less is more in this case.

Good luck! :salute
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 19, 2017, 12:34:18 AM
For those of you who don't feel like downloading images and lining up your settings next to the screenshots, I am going to just list the setting changes in order from top to bottom, from control panel settings to in-game settings.

Graphics Control Panel:
*bold is very important

Anisotropic Filtering: 16x or highest
Antialiasing FXAA: Off
Antialiasing Gamma Correction: Off
Antialiasing Mode: Off
Antialiasing Setting: Off/None
Antialiasing Transparency: Off

CUDA GPUs - Use Global Setting (All)
Maximum pre-rendered frames: Use Global Setting (Use the 3D app setting)
Multi-Frame Sampld AA (MFAA): Off
OpenGL rendering GPU: Use global setting(auto)
Power Management Mode: Prefer Maximum Performance
Shader Cache: Use global setting (on)
Texture Filtering Anisotropic sample opt: Off
Texture Filtering Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture filtering Quality: High Quality
Texture filtering Trilinear optimization: Off

Threaded optimization: Use global setting (Auto)
Triple buffering: Use global setting (Off)
Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting
Virtual Reality Pre-rendered frames: 1



In-Game Settings:

Enable Anti-Alias - Uncheck
Disable Bump Mapping - Uncheck
Disable Detail - Uncheck

Disable Shadow - Check
Disable Reflection - Check
Object Detail - All the way to the left
Tree Detail - All the way to the left

Ground Detail Range - All the way to the right
Terrain Detail - Hi Detail

Environment Map Sides per Frame: None
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Mister Fork on September 19, 2017, 09:27:38 AM
Graphics Control Panel:
*bold is very important

Anisotropic Filtering: 16x or highest
Antialiasing FXAA: Off
Antialiasing Gamma Correction: Off
Antialiasing Mode: Off
Antialiasing Setting: Off/None
Antialiasing Transparency: Off

<snip>
Superb! By far the best settings - my Rift is working great -

So - we should also mention the Oculus Tray Tool - (here (https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/47247/oculus-traytool-supersampling-profiles-hmd-disconnect-fixes-hopefully/p1). For those with 1080 power cards,  you can set your sampling to 2.0 (I've got a 970 - set to 1.2).

Alpha - can you repost this and I'll have Skuzzy make it a sticky for this forum.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Randy1 on September 19, 2017, 12:33:09 PM
Superb! By far the best settings - my Rift is working great -

So - we should also mention the Oculus Tray Tool - (here (https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/47247/oculus-traytool-supersampling-profiles-hmd-disconnect-fixes-hopefully/p1). For those with 1080 power cards,  you can set your sampling to 2.0 (I've got a 970 - set to 1.2).

Alpha - can you repost this and I'll have Skuzzy make it a sticky for this forum.

In iracing, they have an INI file, you can set the sampling for VR so you do not have to use the oculus tray tool.  That would be nice in VR-AH.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 19, 2017, 12:36:19 PM
I purposely avoided mentioning the Oculus tray and super-sampling because I felt many users would run into trouble, and I don't think it looks better than the settings I posted above.

I am running the GTX 1080 and an i7-6700k.  As good as the higher resolution looks in the headset, it can totally kill frame rates if you don't turn all the eye candy down.  Also, I have found that it makes the screen door effect more noticeable. I had to play at with every single graphic option dialed down with 2.0 Supersampling and still ran into frame rate drops when the skies got busy.  I think the settings I mentioned above actually look better overall than Supersampling does with all the eye candy turned off.  If you have a different experience, please let me know.

As far as re-posting, how would you like me to do it? Should I just start a new topic? 
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Mister Fork on September 19, 2017, 12:55:22 PM
I purposely avoided mentioning the Oculus tray and super-sampling because I felt many users would run into trouble, and I don't think it looks better than the settings I posted above.

I am running the GTX 1080 and an i7-6700k.  As good as the higher resolution looks in the headset, it can totally kill frame rates if you don't turn all the eye candy down.  Also, I have found that it makes the screen door effect more noticeable. I had to play at with every single graphic option dialed down with 2.0 Supersampling and still ran into frame rate drops when the skies got busy.  I think the settings I mentioned above actually look better overall than Supersampling does with all the eye candy turned off.  If you have a different experience, please let me know.

As far as re-posting, how would you like me to do it? Should I just start a new topic? 
Duly noted on the Tray Tool.

As for the rest, yes, just repost in a new topic and call something like "Optimal nVidia Settings for VR"
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 19, 2017, 10:32:30 PM
Duly noted on the Tray Tool.

As for the rest, yes, just repost in a new topic and call something like "Optimal nVidia Settings for VR"

Ok, I posted a new thread.  Maybe it can become stickied
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: 1stpar3 on September 20, 2017, 02:05:10 AM
I purposely avoided mentioning the Oculus tray and super-sampling because I felt many users would run into trouble, and I don't think it looks better than the settings I posted above.

I am running the GTX 1080 and an i7-6700k.  As good as the higher resolution looks in the headset, it can totally kill frame rates if you don't turn all the eye candy down.  Also, I have found that it makes the screen door effect more noticeable. I had to play at with every single graphic option dialed down with 2.0 Supersampling and still ran into frame rate drops when the skies got busy.  I think the settings I mentioned above actually look better overall than Supersampling does with all the eye candy turned off.  If you have a different experience, please let me know.

As far as re-posting, how would you like me to do it? Should I just start a new topic?
I agree! The Tray tool is a potential "what NOT to do" nightmare. We are pretty close to the same settings and I believe these settings are/should be the standard! Starting point anyway!  :rock
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Randy1 on September 20, 2017, 05:55:41 AM
I tried the settings last night.  I do think they are the best setting I have used.

In the nividia panel I used the AH DX11 exe to save the program settings.  Is that right or should you use the AH oculus exe?
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 20, 2017, 08:26:46 AM
I tried the settings last night.  I do think they are the best setting I have used.

In the nividia panel I used the AH DX11 exe to save the program settings.  Is that right or should you use the AH oculus exe?

No, you're absolutely correct.  'aceshigh11' is the one you want to use.  I never launch Aces High through Steam or Oculus anyway.  Glad to hear they are working nicely.  I feel that I can see so much further in the distance now and I don't feel like there is an engine heat blur in front of my face constantly lol.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Kanth on September 20, 2017, 10:19:43 AM
For the Oculus version through the library you'd put the path to the oculus library version into the path in nvidia settings and the file is typically at

C:\Program Files\Oculus\Software\Software\hitech-creations-aces-high\aceshighocr.exe

(http://www.baileyarabians.com/AH3/VR/settings.jpg)

I added what you have to my settings, haven't had a chance to try them yet.  :cheers:
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Randy1 on September 20, 2017, 09:05:20 PM
Guys, my Oculus has frozen up twice tonight and once last night.  The screen goes white or black.  Sometimes you can still see some of the boxes like the text buffer.  I alt-tab then restart AH-VR and it works fine.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: FLS on September 20, 2017, 09:47:59 PM
Randy point it at the version you play. I have 3 versions on my PC, I just use global settings.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: 1stpar3 on September 21, 2017, 04:33:41 AM
Randy point it at the version you play. I have 3 versions on my PC, I just use global settings.
Do what? Was he saying this was after setting up VRoptions with NVIDIA Control panel, or something else? Didnt catch that post if that was the cause, I miss stuff all the time lol. If was an assumption, to me it sounds like maybe a power issue? I have been getting minimized to Desktop quite a lot lately and have the Hour Glass stutters but havent seen a White Screen as Randy was describing. The Desk Top minimizing has become frequent enough to really get under my skin. I keep notes and looks like the majority of the time, it happens when using Coms? Its only slightly in the majority of instances. Second was in changing Zoom with third being after bringing up Clip Board? I dont get minimized much in a vehicle, but it has happened 4 times in last few days. Out of 25 minimizes for other situations. That is pretty much why I have been trending towards Wirb use this week. Frustration kicks in, so just Wirb it, practice is paying dividends though, so all good  :devil
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: Randy1 on September 21, 2017, 06:56:01 AM
Randy point it at the version you play. I have 3 versions on my PC, I just use global settings.

FLS, I play other games like iracing that use different settings.  I never launch uses oculus site app.  I always launch using ahdx11 then using the oculus option.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: FLS on September 21, 2017, 07:06:56 AM
FLS, I play other games like iracing that use different settings.  I never launch uses oculus site app.  I always launch using ahdx11 then using the oculus option.

Right, so you specify the DX11 version in Aces High and don't worry about Oculus. I use global settings because I play test all 3 versions.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 21, 2017, 08:38:08 AM
Right, so you specify the DX11 version in Aces High and don't worry about Oculus. I use global settings because I play test all 3 versions.

Yes.  You pick aceshigh11.exe which is the DX11 desktop version.  Then all settings in the control panel will only effect that program.  You can also switch to the Oculus Version and put the same settings in for that, and click apply.  You can set custom graphic profiles for any application you use on your PC.  If you set Global, you are going to have those same settings for every single program your PC uses, including web browsers, etc.  And you don't want the aceshigh settings effecting everything else.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 21, 2017, 08:40:55 AM
Guys, my Oculus has frozen up twice tonight and once last night.  The screen goes white or black.  Sometimes you can still see some of the boxes like the text buffer.  I alt-tab then restart AH-VR and it works fine.

I get the same thing, with the hourglass popup, etc.  I find it only happens after taking the headset off where it automatically switches to desktop mode, and then put the headset back on into VR mode.  After that I start getting the hourglass and freezing issue.  Its from the second to last patch.  I don't know why it happens
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: N95KF on September 21, 2017, 08:42:04 AM
Do what? Was he saying this was after setting up VRoptions with NVIDIA Control panel, or something else? Didnt catch that post if that was the cause, I miss stuff all the time lol. If was an assumption, to me it sounds like maybe a power issue? I have been getting minimized to Desktop quite a lot lately and have the Hour Glass stutters but havent seen a White Screen as Randy was describing. The Desk Top minimizing has become frequent enough to really get under my skin. I keep notes and looks like the majority of the time, it happens when using Coms? Its only slightly in the majority of instances. Second was in changing Zoom with third being after bringing up Clip Board? I dont get minimized much in a vehicle, but it has happened 4 times in last few days. Out of 25 minimizes for other situations. That is pretty much why I have been trending towards Wirb use this week. Frustration kicks in, so just Wirb it, practice is paying dividends though, so all good  :devil

I get the same exact thing.  It does happen when speaking on vox I have noticed too.  Also, if I play a whole match without taking off the headset, I dont get it.  The second I take the headset off and put it back on, thereafter I will start getting the hourglass popup and freeze.  I posted all over the forums about it, haven't really seen a fix yet.
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: FLS on September 21, 2017, 09:53:11 AM
Yes.  You pick aceshigh11.exe which is the DX11 desktop version.  Then all settings in the control panel will only effect that program.  You can also switch to the Oculus Version and put the same settings in for that, and click apply.  You can set custom graphic profiles for any application you use on your PC.  If you set Global, you are going to have those same settings for every single program your PC uses, including web browsers, etc.  And you don't want the aceshigh settings effecting everything else.

Why would the 3D game settings affect my web browser?
Title: Re: Perhaps the king of VR Graphics settings.
Post by: 1stpar3 on September 21, 2017, 03:22:09 PM
It wouldnt, unless the Browser was looking to run something that would use 3D graphics. Think he was talking THEORETICALLY. The COLOR profiles have same settings ,Use global or Nvidia color settings, in that case Web Browser would use Nvidia Color settings.