Minimum and Best Headset Resolution required for VR?

[aggies11]

Been out of the VP/VPX game for a while now as RL got busy and my free time evaporated. Finally looking at having some "me" time available and wanted to get back in, and low and behold I discovered Virtual Pinball in VR now.  From just the videos it looks incredible.  But there are a lot of headsets on the market (still have an OG htc Vive that is collecting dust) so I was curious if anyone had any ideas on what sort of headset resolution is required to get a good experience for VPVR?

 

My old Vive had a 1080x1200 per eye resolution which even at the time was considered pretty low (everyone who tried it, always commented how blurry things looked).  But looks like the newly released Quest 3 is pushing 2046x2208 per eye, which is quite the upgrade.  But PC only headsets like the Bigscreen Beyond are up to 2560x2560 per eye.     Anyone have any experience with the higher res sets and do they make a worthwhile improvement for playing? I'm thinking with playfield details and small text on the DMD  it could be useful, but I'm not sure where the sweat spot is in terms of resolution, and where the diminishing returns start?  The price starts to creep up pretty quick with resolution (Bigscreen beyond is double the price of the Quest 3) so don't want to break the bank if I don't need to.  What would be the minimum headset resolution to go with before things start to look too blurry to enjoy?

 

Thanks

[studlygoorite]

On 11/5/2023 at 12:36 AM, aggies11 said:

Been out of the VP/VPX game for a while now as RL got busy and my free time evaporated. Finally looking at having some "me" time available and wanted to get back in, and low and behold I discovered Virtual Pinball in VR now.  From just the videos it looks incredible.  But there are a lot of headsets on the market (still have an OG htc Vive that is collecting dust) so I was curious if anyone had any ideas on what sort of headset resolution is required to get a good experience for VPVR?

 

My old Vive had a 1080x1200 per eye resolution which even at the time was considered pretty low (everyone who tried it, always commented how blurry things looked).  But looks like the newly released Quest 3 is pushing 2046x2208 per eye, which is quite the upgrade.  But PC only headsets like the Bigscreen Beyond are up to 2560x2560 per eye.     Anyone have any experience with the higher res sets and do they make a worthwhile improvement for playing? I'm thinking with playfield details and small text on the DMD  it could be useful, but I'm not sure where the sweat spot is in terms of resolution, and where the diminishing returns start?  The price starts to creep up pretty quick with resolution (Bigscreen beyond is double the price of the Quest 3) so don't want to break the bank if I don't need to.  What would be the minimum headset resolution to go with before things start to look too blurry to enjoy?

 

Thanks

I'm not so sure the headset resolution would be the only deciding factor here, but it definitely helps. The boost in visual clarity between the Quest 2 and the Quest Pro for me was substantial with the Quest Pro having a much clearer image than the Quest 2 and they both have similar resolutions (1800X1920 Pro vs 1832X1920 Quest 2). It was the Pancake lenses that created a much larger sweet spot. Other factors would be the headset's PPD but maybe most importantly is can you push the graphics with your PC?  When I received my Quest 3 and booted her up I thought meh...until I boosted the Render Resolution to max (with my RTX 3080) and then it all came together. I noticed the Quest 3 had a little better clarity at the back of the playfield and backglass than my Pro, but not much. Going from a GTX 1070 to a 1080 (with my Rift, Quest 1 and 2) made me want more and that's when I got the 3080 and everything came into focus. I can only speak for Quest Headsets but have heard that the G2 (at 2160X2160), that you can get at a good price nowadays, is quite good  but you would still need a decent PC to push those pixels.

[Toto022000]

I have the valve index (it's good for sessions of 30-45 minutes...(144hz and 2000x2200pxl) and so after a month of vr on vpx there are things to know:
- the msaa is bad (I set it to 0 because the balls have a drop in framerate and are not smooth on many vpw tables and a few others, yet my gpu is at 50% LOL.
- I increase the resolution by steam vr eye to 200% (I played at 500% but my new GPU does not consume much more, it is the index valve which heats up more and it stings the eyes)
- I add supersampling factor of vpx to 1.50
- so it consumes around 250 watts of the GPU!
- I increase the pinball scaling to 2,000 (it also consumes GPU) or more otherwise there is still a strong flickering effect (perhaps aliasing) on the metal ramps (even at 500% so 4500X5000pxl per eye (at 90hz lol), well it still sparkles a little) (I think that even a vive pro 2 would not be enough to make the aliasing completely disappear) there is a pimax 8k released this year at the same price as the valve index (I would have liked to try it for a few days, but pimax doesn't have an Amazon store so I'm waiting for it to be in their store)
- 2000x2200 pxl it's not much I've had my valve for 3 years..., I have the psvr2 it's not great either!
- the vive pro 2 is already 2 years old and is still very expensive... and the valve index has been at the same price for 3 years.

[Toto022000]

also, when you play, you move your head... and so there is no problem of flickering or aliasing I play at approximately 3000x3000 pxl per eye (the valve index is better than a psvr2 for example moss 2 is better on pc, than on psvr2).

[Gwyllion]

Pico 4 now is the best option. Smooth and no problem with OpenXR.

 

[Lifewater989]

On 11/6/2023 at 8:11 AM, studlygoorite said:

I'm not so sure the headset resolution would be the only deciding factor here, but it definitely helps. The boost in visual clarity between the Quest 2 and the Quest Pro for me was substantial with the Quest Pro having a much clearer image than the Quest 2 and they both have similar resolutions (1800X1920 Pro vs 1832X1920 Quest 2). It was the Pancake lenses that created a much larger sweet spot. Other factors would be the headset's PPD but maybe most importantly is can you push the graphics with your PC?  When I received my Quest 3 and booted her up I thought meh...until I boosted the Render Resolution to max (with my RTX 3080) and then it all came together. I noticed the Quest 3 had a little better clarity at the back of the playfield and backglass than my Pro, but not much. Going from a GTX 1070 to a 1080 (with my Rift, Quest 1 and 2) made me want more and that's when I got the 3080 and everything came into focus. I can only speak for Quest Headsets but have heard that the G2 (at 2160X2160), that you can get at a good price nowadays, is quite good  but you would still need a decent PC to push those pixels.

 

I have a similar setup.  I have a Q3 with an RTX 3080 and an AMD 5800X.  What resolution and refresh rate do you have set in the Oculus PC app?  Also, what are your VPX and Steam VR settings, if that’s what you use?  I’m trying to squeeze every bit of quality I can while maintaining a consistent frame rate.  I’m playing wired.  Right now I have the Oculus app set to 90hz with 1.0 super sampling.  Steam VR is set to 100% resolution and VPX super sampling is disabled along with additional screen space reflections.  Dynamic AO is on reflections is set to ball only.  
 

I get a pretty good image and the frame rate is consistent but if there’s more to had I’d like to hear it.  Thanks 

[studlygoorite]

18 minutes ago, Lifewater989 said:

 

I have a similar setup.  I have a Q3 with an RTX 3080 and an AMD 5800X.  What resolution and refresh rate do you have set in the Oculus PC app?  Also, what are your VPX and Steam VR settings, if that’s what you use?  I’m trying to squeeze every bit of quality I can while maintaining a consistent frame rate.  I’m playing wired.  Right now I have the Oculus app set to 90hz with 1.0 super sampling.  Steam VR is set to 100% resolution and VPX super sampling is disabled along with additional screen space reflections.  Dynamic AO is on reflections is set to ball only.  
 

I get a pretty good image and the frame rate is consistent but if there’s more to had I’d like to hear it.  Thanks 

I don't go through Steam but use Open Composite, with the link cable. I too have it set to 90Hz but have my Render Resolution set to max. For VPX I use Frame Pacing and all games run at a steady 120FPS, for VR I set it to Adaptive Sync with 90 set in the Maximum Framerate. This has been working well for me and all tables look good. I sometimes go into the Oculus Debug Tool and adjust the "Pixels Per Display Pixel Override" to a 1.3,1.5 or even 1.7 for some tables to squeeze out even more.  

[Lifewater989]

On 2/21/2024 at 7:24 PM, studlygoorite said:

I don't go through Steam but use Open Composite, with the link cable. I too have it set to 90Hz but have my Render Resolution set to max. For VPX I use Frame Pacing and all games run at a steady 120FPS, for VR I set it to Adaptive Sync with 90 set in the Maximum Framerate. This has been working well for me and all tables look good. I sometimes go into the Oculus Debug Tool and adjust the "Pixels Per Display Pixel Override" to a 1.3,1.5 or even 1.7 for some tables to squeeze out even more.  

Thanks I will try some of those settings.  I’ve been using SteamVR with VPXGL added as a non Steam game.  I then launch it from within SteamVR, select a table with the desktop window that loads and play.  Is there a guide for OpenComposite?  I tried it but am unsure how to get anything to launch.  I opened the program, pressed the button and it downloaded the DLL files.   Where do you go from there?  Do you just launch VPXGL and a table is supposed to appear in your headset?

[studlygoorite]

8 hours ago, Lifewater989 said:

Thanks I will try some of those settings.  I’ve been using SteamVR with VPXGL added as a non Steam game.  I then launch it from within SteamVR, select a table with the desktop window that loads and play.  Is there a guide for OpenComposite?  I tried it but am unsure how to get anything to launch.  I opened the program, pressed the button and it downloaded the DLL files.   Where do you go from there?  Do you just launch VPXGL and a table is supposed to appear in your headset?

If you want to try with Open Composite to bypass Steam......

To Switch To Using Open Composite From/Instead Of Steam VR With Oculus/Meta Headsets

To change to Open Composite from Steam you would need to download the two files for Open Composite here for "64bit" https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AH5QqBX_Js-w6dhawZ5c18Cc3DW18DGW?usp=sharing (replacing the one you have that is used with SteamVR) . Then you would need to go into your Oculus/Meta PC App and change from SteamVR as your OpenXR Runtime to Oculus, found under "Settings/General". Shut Steam down and then this from the tutorials channel...
You are now ready to play, look into your headset and connect to your PC by selecting "Link Connect" and then go back to the PC, double click your VPinballX_GL.exe and choose a VR Table, put your headset back on and the table should load for you. Press "0", "5", "2" and "8" on your numberpad on your keyboard to center, raise and lower the table.

Also, many are very happy running Virtual Desktop while setting the Runtime in VD to VDXR and using the current Open Composite dll (without that .ini I posted) then you can bypass Steam and the Oculus stuff.

If you want, join our VR Pinball Discord, all of this info is found in the tutorial section https://discord.gg/VjyCvrxJH8
 

[Lifewater989]

On 2/23/2024 at 8:13 AM, studlygoorite said:

If you want to try with Open Composite to bypass Steam......

To Switch To Using Open Composite From/Instead Of Steam VR With Oculus/Meta Headsets

To change to Open Composite from Steam you would need to download the two files for Open Composite here for "64bit" https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AH5QqBX_Js-w6dhawZ5c18Cc3DW18DGW?usp=sharing (replacing the one you have that is used with SteamVR) . Then you would need to go into your Oculus/Meta PC App and change from SteamVR as your OpenXR Runtime to Oculus, found under "Settings/General". Shut Steam down and then this from the tutorials channel...
You are now ready to play, look into your headset and connect to your PC by selecting "Link Connect" and then go back to the PC, double click your VPinballX_GL.exe and choose a VR Table, put your headset back on and the table should load for you. Press "0", "5", "2" and "8" on your numberpad on your keyboard to center, raise and lower the table.

Also, many are very happy running Virtual Desktop while setting the Runtime in VD to VDXR and using the current Open Composite dll (without that .ini I posted) then you can bypass Steam and the Oculus stuff.

If you want, join our VR Pinball Discord, all of this info is found in the tutorial section https://discord.gg/VjyCvrxJH8
 

 

Thank you for all your help.  I now have the Quest 3 running OpenComposite with VPX VR Launcher as my frontend all through Quest Link with no Steam involved.  Damn, I wish I had known this earlier because the performance is considerably better.  I can now bump the resolution to the max 1.5 and the tables look and play fantastic.  I'm a Quest newbie as I was using an HP Reverb G2 prior.  While VPX was playable and looked good with that headset, the performance was never how I wanted it to be.  Lots of crashing when I tried to use VPX VR Launcher with it.  I'm going to build a pinsim this summer and was always questioning how I was going to go about launching tables while never removing the headset.  Looks like a finally have that sorted.  Cheers, sir.  Thanks again.