Experience Matching and Quality Settings
Tool Validation – Experience Matching
Though matching the software capture data to the hardware capture data is a significant and crucial piece of the validation process for FCAT VR as a tool we can depend on, matching what the interval plots say and what the actual in-headset gaming experience FEELS like is just as important. In the above example, I can state that it does. In cases where the data is exceptionally poor in appearance, we see a dramatic degradation in gameplay experience.
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In Obduction on the Fury X, frametimes are erratic and result in consistent and persistent jumps between a 90 FPS and 45 FPS state. I can assure you that play the game at this quality setting was a very bad experience and the choppiness of the graph well represents what we saw in the headset while gaming.
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In cases like this the interval plot is even more important as it shows the frequency and severity of any frame drops and animation issues. An interesting data point we get from this specific run is that Oculus was not engaging the ASW (asynchronous space warp) functionality on the Fury X. That could be because the Fury X doesn’t support it or because the delivered frametimes were too inconsistent to enter that state.
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Zooming in on the data that looks compressed and difficult to read allows us to see the oscillation effect more clearly.
In-Game Quality Settings Impact
One of the major benefits to having a tool like FCAT VR is that we can now compare in-game settings and GPU-to-GPU as it were any other game or ecosystem. Let’s look at the GeForce GTX 1060 running at two different quality presets in Chronos.
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This very busy graph shows the hardware and software capture data for Chronos on the GTX 1060 running at the Epic quality preset and the High preset. Pay attention to those legends – they become more important here. Two things stand out. First, the hardware captures (dark green for Epic and tan for High) show that we run consistently at 90 FPS on the less stressful settings but ratchetting that up to Epic brings us to a 45 FPS steady state (nearly). While that might seem obvious to us now, having a reliable metrics system allows us to SHOW it to people that don’t have the ability to try it themselves. This allows us to now make statements like “owners of the GTX 1060 should run Chronos at the High preset for the best balance of image quality and performance.”
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Removing the Vsync-locked hardware capture simplifies the data. By just looking at frame times, we see a significant delta between the two runs.
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Finally, when we add in the interval plots, the information becomes even more straight forward. At the Epic preset we are running Chronos at 45 FPS of “real” frames and 45 FPS of “synthesized” frames for the clear majority of the time. Dropping settings to High results in a very consistent 90 FPS experience without requiring Oculus to fake any images for us.
Great write-up! Your
Great write-up! Your GeForce.com link for FCATVR in the last sentence of the article is pointing to a file location on your C drive instead of Nvidia’s site though. This tool looks really interesting and I look forward to playing with it at some point myself 🙂
What, you can access my hard
What, you can access my hard drive? Huh… 😉
Thanks!
Better than it was, but now
Better than it was, but now it takes me to the first page of the article instead of the download page on Nvidia’s site.
Fixed… Again!
Fixed… Again!
“Gentlemen, we can correct
“Gentlemen, we can correct this link; we have the technology…” 😉
Thanks Ken!
Thanks for all your hard work
Thanks for all your hard work guys!
Tests I’d like to see:
Higher
Tests I’d like to see:
Higher performing GPUs (Fury, 1070)
SLI/CF
7700K-based build (better for games than 5960X)
Interesting that the RX 480
Interesting that the RX 480 loses in all Unreal Engine 4 games (and Dirt Rally, don’t know about Codemasters Engine), an engine that is heavily tailored to Nvidia cards. Look at the only game using Unity, Edge Of Nowhere and, surprise, surprise, the RX 480 magically catches up to the GTX 1060. *rolleyes*
I wish more VR devs would use Unity or the UE devs build in better support for AMD Hardware.
It’s clear that amd is in
It’s clear that amd is in just stay alive mode in the gpu space, similar to where they were against Intel for the last four years with Bulldozer. I really don’t expect Vega to be competitive for more than a month or two as Volta is right around the corner. It’s a bad time to a gpu enthusiast from a competition perspective.
You could ignore AMD and just
You could ignore AMD and just buy nVidia for GPU and Intel for CPU like any other normal person. You’re not poor are you?
By definition, ‘normal’
By definition, ‘normal’ people are not ‘rich’, as they are considered ‘average’ in wealth, hence the concept of the ‘rich’, ie. above average in wealth, having more money than the average person.
Just a tip. You’re not going to win any friends on here spouting elitist cr@p like that. Nobody here cares how much money you think you have or actually have. It’s utterly irrelevant. What matters is whether you are a person of substance, rather than a shallow, materialistic looser.
How can the delivered fps be
How can the delivered fps be higher than the unconstrained fps? See the “Dirt Rally – High Preset” result on the “GTX 1060 vs RX 480” page
Check the last paragraph on
Check the last paragraph on the “GPU Performance Scaling” page. It explains that phenomenon.
Thx for pointing that out,
Thx for pointing that out, here’s the quote for the even lazier than me:
“Because the frametimes reported by the Oculus and SteamVR runtimes combine the CPU and GPU, but the unconstrained time is based on GPU alone. In situations where the frametime is very close to the 11ms/90FPS mark we see overlaps of CPU and GPU time (rather than it being purely sequential). The result is that unconstrained FPS will sometimes be lower than delivered FPS.”
However, I still don’t get it, I’m sorry. Perhaps a few more words are in order?
My interpretation of this is
My interpretation of this is that in this scenario, the CPU is getting some work done while the GPU is working; aka the system is performing better/faster simultaneously instead of work having to wait for one to finish before moving to the next compute device for the current operation.
Unconstrained FPS doesn’t take the extra performance-gain into account, so when only looking at the GPU and expectation of frame delivery, it’s presenting a slower/incomplete analysis of performance. It doesn’t pick up that the system is doing some of the work at the same time instead of sequentially, so it’s analysis is that it’s taking longer than reality shows.
The internet will correct me if I’m wrong, but that was my interpretation of the situation.
So, Nvidia wants us to wait
So, Nvidia wants us to wait for AMD Vega for VR? OK, I’ll wait.
What is the shader:ROP ratios
What is the shader:ROP ratios for both the GTX 1060 and the RX 480? And it again looks like time will tell as to what if any gaming software and driver/API tweaks will do for AMD’s polaris based SKUs! The RX 480 and Polaris SKUs are getting some tweaks in the form of the RX 580/other Polaris updates so maybe some retesting should happen then.
There is also maybe some driver/games/other software improvments coming along with any of the Polaris/Refresh RX 500 series SKUs so this very same bemchmark run on the RX 500 series SKUs and maybe some feature support that the RX 480 lacks compared to the GTX 1060.
I also want to see any current CF/SLI VR benchmarking along with any DX12/Vulkan explicit multi-GPU adaptor benchmarking where both CF/SLI are not used and any Dual GPU usage is done through DX12’s/Vulkan”s API multi-GPU load balancing methods.
Vega is still a little ways off so some good looks at the RX 500 series Polaris refresh SKUs like any RX 480/RX 580 to GTX 1060 benchmarking, with some added multi-GPU VR/Non VR setups are in order. The RX 480’s are dropping in price below the $200 dollar price point and if the RX 580s retail at around $199 then the RX 480 pricing will most likely hit the 150 price point at some point in time on any stock of RX 480s that may be remaining in the retail channels! And that bodes well for some affordable RX 480 CF gaming uaseg for VR/Non VR gaming usage with the new Ryzen/AM4 options that are now available and without.
The Rx 480 is $179, correct ?
The Rx 480 is $179, correct ? Isn’t the GTX 1060 40% more ?
They seem to be different class of GPU based on price.
The Radeon Fury seem to be the direct competitor to the 1060, no ?
Exact same price as the 1060.
Would be cool when comparing cards, that the same class or card (based on price) get compared.
Because I’m pretty sure the GTX 1080 ti crush the 1060 at VR…
but then its also pointless the compare them both when they dont cost the same.
depends where you live. in my
depends where you live. in my country the two still pretty much about the same price. sometimes a bit cheaper than 1060. also RX480 with such price still depending on deal. AFAIK AMD has not officially cut RX400 series price.
the thing about geforce is they tend to sell well even without price cut so retailer have no reason to offer big deal on them unlike AMD cards that is much harder to sell.
“the thing about geforce is
“the thing about geforce is they tend to sell well even without price cut so retailer have no reason to offer big deal on them unlike AMD cards that is much harder to sell.”
Sigh. Yes, the legions of the stupid strike again. I’m going to really enjoy watching AMD do to nVidia what they just did to Intel. 🙂
Damn the GTX 1060 is stompin
Damn the GTX 1060 is stompin RX 480. Really want to get into performance testing myself.
Curious what model of the rx
Curious what model of the rx 480 and 1060 was used?
The gap in unconstrained FPS make little sense,
unless the rx480 may have been running at like 1ghz ?
I also found anything below 90fps in VR gives a very poor experience. its not like a game on a monitor going from 60 to 40fps, its noticeable but ok.. in VR dropping below 90fps is headache inducing.
So here the “hardocp” method would be good to use.
in short. what is the game setting to use to reach near rock solid 90fps.
can the gtx 1060 even reach that, and be used for solid VR ?
From this it seem it falls short with the tested settings.
We’re using the standard
We're using the standard RX480 and GTX 1060.
Very interesting paper, but
Very interesting paper, but you should give more technical data on the videocards you tested. parameters like memory or GPU frequency, Oced or not, driver version, etc. are important. Not all 1080, 1060, 480 are born equal.
Standard cards were used, and
Standard cards were used, and drivers were current as of time of testing for the review.