Mr. Scott! We need more power!
Added 2022-03-16 18:12:09 +0000 UTCThe new release is almost ready :-)
As promised, a brief introductory video to some of the most important new features:
- fine control over the rendering quality (pixels per degree)
- full support for raw/canted projections
- automatically finding the best custom resolution for your HMD.
Another video will follow soon, demonstrating all of the additional improvements during an actual gameplay session.
The footage was captured in real time on a Core i9-9900K, RTX 3090 system.
In the beginning of the video, I show the Valve Index rendering in traditional mode (so-called "parallel projections") using a square resolution of 2736x2736, running at about 71 fps. The rendering quality as shown by my in-game HUD is 15.5 pixels per degree, which is enough to read even the fine print.
I then quit out of SteamVR to edit my "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config\steamvr.vrsettings" file, adding the line
"renderCameraMode" : "raw",
to the "steamvr" section. That enables the original canted (raw) projections mode on the Index.
After returning to the game, the mod recognizes and displays the new Index behavior, with the images now being aligned with the HMD displays which are canted outwards by 5 degrees. Despite the rendering quality being higher than before (16.8 pixels per degree or PPD) the frame rate has slightly increased.
Finally, I use the new "Target pixels per degree" slider to tell the mod to go back to the initial rendering quality, and push the magic "Adapt resolution" button which does the rest :-) After the resolution change, the target PPD is met perfectly, and frame rate has increased to about 80 fps!
That translates to 13% more performance for the same quality. In the same scene but when not recording, on my system I get a 17% increase. YMMV of course. Headsets that have a more "round" field of view will still get some gains, although probably lower, while headsets with very wide FOV like the Pimax models will get even higher performance boosts!
