A tale of two games
Hey folks! Almost time for a new release :-D
And as you might have guessed, this time I'll be extending VR support to not one, but two new games. Or to be accurate, one new game and one old game.
No actually, to be even more accurate, both are old games. Or maybe I should say they both were once old, but at some point became new again?
Mmm, where was I... Ah yes, the new release.
I'll write two separate posts, one for each game, since there is a lot of information to go over. But first let me give you a changelog of what you will find in the new version, apart from the additional games:
Star Wars Outlaws has been thoroughly checked after the latest official update and fixed where needed;
Atomic Heart has been restored to full functionality after the latest VR-breaking update;
it will now be possible to force DLSS 4 in games directly with the NVIDIA app (or the Profile Inspector for games that the app doesn't recognize), without needing the DLSS swapper anymore;
my DL(S)SS implementation has been revised to compensate for forward/backward camera movement, and the stereo image will now remain correct both with the original game DLLs and when forcing the new DLSS 4, no matter whether the CNN or Transformers model is used;
the mod overlay will now undock automatically when you try to move it around with the gamepad or keyboard, which should make it easier to navigate even in games that cannot rescale the desktop window. [Sidenote: my framework uses Dear ImGui for the user interface, which despite being the undisputed #1 library for this kind of application can be really obscure and counterintuitive at times. As an example of this, by now most of you know that the gamepad gesture for moving an ImGui window around is using the left stick while keeping the 'X' button pressed ('square' button for PS-style controllers), but there's also a little-known keyboard gesture where you press Ctrl+Tab, as though you wanted to cycle tabs, and then you release Tab and while keeping Ctrl pressed you use the cursor keys to move the window around!];
spurious cameras appearing in the Quick Menu presets in some games have been corrected.
Besides the above list (and the two new games of course), in the upcoming release you will find a new mechanism that I call the VRAM Guard, which I hope will be a nice quality-of-life improvement.
AAA games are becoming huge, and lately even the 24 GB onboard the RTX 4090 are no longer enough to guarantee that there will be some free VRAM at all moments while a game is active. The VR runtime on its own can consume several gigabytes (for instance, while writing this I'm seeing OVRServer_x64.exe, the service that powers the Oculus/Meta runtime, gobble up around 4 GB of VRAM just to run Link, without any games open). My mod also needs VRAM to move video data around from the game to the VR headset, and to implement temporal processing like AER v2 or DL(S)SS. Third-party overlays allocate their own chunks of VRAM... the list goes on and on.
Last-gen games usually try to expand their memory pools until all VRAM is utilized, especially when running with high graphics options and best-quality textures. But the games don't know about the VR runtime (because they were not designed to work in VR), and often developers make the wrong assumptions about users not wanting to use anything else on their PCs while a game is open. All of that can result in overallocation, and if at any given moment the total VRAM capacity of the GPU is exceeded the OS will start swapping out the misbehaving application. The end result is that suddenly the game goes from fluid to choppy, and if this VRAM thrashing cannot be corrected immediately, frame rate will plummet to 1-5 fps and the game could even crash to desktop.
One or two years ago we could simply be careful not to have other VRAM-hungry applications running at the same time as the game, and invest some money into buying a card with a larger VRAM size. But games' texture and geometry pools have grown much faster than video cards, so explicit management of the problem in real time is now needed.
The VRAM Guard will try to do just that. It will attempt to prevent the game from greedily expanding its requests until all video memory is used up, so that the OS will never need to come down hard. Operation should be mostly automatic, but you will have some control on it. Navigating to the VRAM Guard section of the R.E.A.L. VR main overlay tab (for games where I implement it), you will of course be able to disable or enable the guard. If enabled, you will see a slider that controls the portion of total VRAM which is made available to the game, and you will get real-time information on video memory pressure and statistics on overallocation.
You can just forget that it's there and let it do its thing, or if you like to squeeze out every drop of performance, you can use the VRAM Guard to monitor more strictly the moments when the game is most likely to overallocate. For example, you might want to give a tight budget to the game when you're changing resolutions, choosing DLSS quality presets, experimenting with graphics options... all operations that can potentially trigger VRAM thrashing. Then when you're happy with your settings and the initial allocations are done, you can drag the slider to the right to give back all the available budget to the game so that you get more fluidity and keep texture pop-in to a minimum. Or you could decide the budget based on the complexity of the level and the choppiness you're experiencing, or you might want to restrict the game usage to give some breathing room to your capture/streaming application.
As always your feedback will be super important in deciding whether this works or not, and if it does, in which direction it should go for future improvements!
See you soon ;-)
Comments (87)
ok merci
Vaut mode sont il compatible pimax super?
You have to have the Meta app installed on your system and then it should use Oculus compatibility mode. But it should work in general with Pimax headsets. There will be issues here and there but I haven't run into anything major. There are some minor HUD and UI issues, like the camera HUD not showing up properly in Spiderman 2 but you can usually get around them.
Just a general note, maybe this is super obvious but I can't find a list of games included (and versions supported) with your current version of the mod? For example if I join now, will the latest cyberpunk update work?
I thought this post was referring too last of us 1 and 2. Lol
I'm interested to know what gpus you would recommend? I have a quest pro and a 3070 and while I can get the REAL mod to run, they do not run well enough to be played.
That is a mighty hard question with the GPU market being what it is right now :( Go with Nvidia for sure, as you can use AER V2 and DLSSS only with Nvidia GPUs. I would say aim for 16GB of VRAM if possible, at this point because modern games are eating up a lot of VRAM and optimization seems to be dying artform. It really depends on what you can find at your price range. 4080 should be a very big upgrade over a 3070 but if you can find a 3090 for cheaper that would also be a substantial upgrade and have more VRAM. 5090 looks to be pretty good for VR as it performs well at higher resolutions because of the improved VRAM, plus having 32GB of it. Of course, getting one is a problem right now. I plan on sticking with my 4090 as it performs plenty well. I'd try to aim for something like a 4080 or 5080 if possible, at least. Just depends on your budget though. 50 series is having issues with burning connectors and missing ROPs though, so I'd be wary of that too :) The 5080 does not beat out the 4090 in performance which is usually not the case in past generations. Just shop around carefully because the market is a real mess and even though you should be able to find a 4080 for much cheaper than a 5080, that doesn't seem to be the case. Since Nvidia stopped making cards from the last couple gens, they are considered scarce, and the prices are much higher. Not like the good old days where you could pick up a used card from last gen for a good deal :( It is almost like they are forcing artificial scarcity to try and get people to just buy the newer cards. But the boom of AI probably has something to do with lowered production. Not sure how that all works. It just sucks for gamers.
As there are no Nvidia cards on the market now, would VR mod work with AMD GPUs? Let's say with incomming 9070 XT? It has more VRAM as well than RTX 5070 ti or 5080.
Yes, but you will not be able to use DLSSS or AER V2. So, you will be stuck with Legacy AER, which is what I use anyways but it is less fluid. Also has motion jitter/judder when things move past you. DLSSS is a biggie though in terms of visuals and performance for some games. DLSSS eliminates the shimmering around objects and stabilizes the overall image more. The new FSR version may help but I have no idea.
Ok. So I was just getting around to installing the Cyberpunk mod then got caught up with work and then my 3090 RTX gpu bricked and I'm not even powering up my PC rn. Just before it crashed i was having a good time with STAR WARS SQUADRONS VR which is Dope AF. Once I get a new GPU I'll start installing some of these mods and supporting the channel. My [1] humble request of 2025 is a throwback TITANFALL 2 [3D-VR] MOD Just TITANFALL 2 How hard would that be to do? I'll give you a Hundo - myself for a TITANFALL 2 immersive 360° 3D-VR mod
Have you tried VorpX with it? I remember it working decently well long ago but not sure anymore. I don't know that it would be difficult but there are other games that are far more requested so probably pretty unlikely to happen.
Luke love your work, I'd love it if you do dark souls 3 to finish off the trilogy. Please and thank you! Keep it up ❤️
Yup, he said he will at some point :)
Hi, don't know where to ask, but everything is really great on your mods, except for Spider-Man games, i can't manage to adjst PPD/resolution neither with the slider and clicking adapt resolution, nor inside the RealVR.ini files, it just does not take changes into account. I'm stuck with the maximum resolution i'm using with windows, so my screen is a 4K monitor then i'm stuck at 3840x2160 equivalent to a 74% render resolution inside Virtual Desktop, only games doing this are spider-man ones, is the problem well known and is there any solution to increase the resolution somehow ? I'm using VDXR (openXR or Occulus runtime with the mods) Thanks for your help guys.
Try moving the game window manually with your mouse. Make sure you have the game in windowed as well.
When there are games like God of War ragnorak and Kingdom Come 2, you go for the old Dark Souls? And when Final Fantasy XVI is available, you choose Rebirth, which was made available much earlier and for free thanks to the generosity of Pray Dogs? What else can this be called besides a step backward?
That is a very simplistic view, but you are of course welcome to your opinion :) I have been bugging him for more Dark Souls for years. He has released tons of new stuff lately, Including newer games. So, it is really nice for people like me who love the Souls games that he took a brief step back to give us something older that still runs great on older hardware. Plus, the game did not work well with UEVR on launch, so he started modding it immediately. The UEVR version was still being fixed at the time this version released. So why not put it out there along with DS2? Then you get a game that hasn't been done along with a bonus one for people that like the simplicity of not having to dig through the UEVR channel etc. The rate at which he releases mods for games across different engines is really mind blowing. If you don't like this release, chances are there is another one coming next month. Plus, it gave him a chance to implement and test the VRAM guard which is potentially a big help for modern games going forward.
Also, for my own sanity- what is DLSSS compared to DLSS4? o.O lol
DLSSS is an algorithm that fixes DLSS for AER so you don't have the shimmering around objects and it also stabilizes small objects like barbed wife, foliage etc. You can use DLSS 3 or 4 with it.
My Reverb G2 no longer works due to windows update. I'm trying to setup my quest 3 any tips.
YouTube for best settings 😀 depending on how you are connecting.
Is the new dlsss fixed? the image was very weird whenever i started walking in cyberpunk , i reverted back to no dlsss and using only dlaa , the image is absolute crisp with dlaa , i hope you fix dlsss soon
Should be much improved in terms of your own motion in moving back and forward. Not entirely fixed when it comes to NPC motion but there is only so much, he can do without specific engine fixes. That would take a ton of time per game.
can you please elaborate "it will now be possible to force DLSS 4 in games directly with the NVIDIA app (or the Profile Inspector for games that the app doesn't recognize), without needing the DLSS swapper anymore;" ?? i'm actually using dlss swapper and changing the profile to J with nvidia inspector revamped. i don't want to use nvidia play as it doesn't recognize most games yet. is there a simpler method ?
No, Inspector and Swapper is the best bet overall. The Nvidia App will not work with some games still and the Inspector won't work with some by itself, so swapper is still necessary for some games. I think switching the file with swapper and using inspector is probably the most reliable workflow overall if you just want something that works in every scenario where a game supports DLSS.
If it’s Tale of Two - it could be Tale of Two Brothers Remastered
Switching Path Tracing or ray reconstruction on in CP now causes a black screen for me on the latest version. It didn’t on the previous versions - is this expected? I haven’t updated the latest nvidia driver release - could it be that?
Not sure, I'll have to check it out. If you could put a copy of your RealVR64.log file on pastebin and post a link here that would be helpful.
VRAM Guard sounds really interesting, could not only be interesting for VR, for 4K gaming with a lot of mods and/or some background programs too.
wow, cant wait what it will be - and thanks for the vram explanations
Lol still can't work it out probably stumped 🤣
Great and detailed post on the inner workings of the mod in relation to how the game engines work. I’d figured some of that myself watching how much of the system ram was being shared by the game as my you only has 8gb. It’ll be nice to have a play with vram guard to see if I can optimise to stay within the limitations of my card if you implement it in cyberpunk. 👍🏻
Hey Brandon, in high on life the resolution is grayed on 1280x720, how do I increase it? Also Avatar just had an update and will not open.
I tried Avatar after the update, and it worked fine for me. Can you put a copy of your RealVR64.log file on pastebin and post a link please? Do you have HOL set to the correct window mode? You looked over the release post for settings? I'm reinstalling now and will check it out in case there was an update at some point or something.
The Last of us remastered et The las of us 2?
I really hope he gets to these eventually, but TLOU2 isn’t on PC until April so probably not what he’s teasing here
After messing up with DLSS swapper and NVIDIA inspector to force CP2077 to use latest DLSS and preset (J or K) unfortunatelly R.E.A.L VR DLSS(S) doesnt work anymore for me :(((. And i can't take it back to use games original DLL files. I am really sorry for this. I think in this latest post Luke is mentioning this issue.
The original version is 310.1
Please add support to the simulated Room-Scale movement of the viewer, as it is on UEVE! Going around the house freely like this with triple games is beautiful, take a look at this little example of my gameplay test! 🤞🤞🤞 https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxksVAaTRl1SWZjjgoYyocfxlThbOaZK7Y?si=JbYSTk8CYePArJKe
I try to use the mod with psvr2 on pc. I get a warning everytime about openxr/steamvr - is there something I can actually do to get rid of the warning, or will it stay even if setup is correct?
Same, even if I put it to openXR, it still gives the warning
Since I can't get Alien Isolation running in MotherVR for the life of me, I'm hoping Luke might pick it up someday. It's still one of the best Games ever made and just perfect for VR.
What happened to MotherVR ? What HMD are you using ?
Mass Effect & Mass Effect Legendary Edition ? ^^
Oh Yes, That would be amazing and so much Neis contentto enjoy in VR
Hi Luke, I just orderd a 5080 but after reading your comments about vram should I be looking at the 5090 ?. It arrives today so I'll return it if it's a bad investment Thanks
I think the 5090 is unobtainable.
The last of us part 1 & 2 would be nice :)
Yes!!!
Please let it be KCD 1 and 2. Hm...after reading again, two old games that became somewhat new. So no KCD2 :(, cause that's brand new. *sighs* Really had hoped for that game.
Hopefully it will still come.
SpiderMan 2 VR mod ? <3
I am hoping for KCD1&2 so hard. :)
Me too... KCD2 is just amazing!
A welcome reprieve from the front-row view of the world being burned down around us.. Thank you brother.
Luke, the amount of work and attention to detail that you put into this software is astonishing. It puts ALL of the companies to shame, really. They may look line tiny things, but when you add them all up it gives us such an unbelievable experience that is unmatched outside of R.E.A.L. (and I'm a huge fan of UEVR and Praydog, but this is at another level, really). As for feedback for improvements I would personally like to see a 1/4 and 1/5 options and maybe a check that links those to resolution (so if the GPU is at 90% aprox at 1/3 for example and 1/2 is selected it lowers the resolution 33% so that the GPU stays at 90% aprox) and a gamepad shortcut. This would allow for example in Star Wars Outlaws, when we are roaming around use 1/3 and marvel at the scenery with a little bit worse input lag, when we enter combat use 1/2 so improve input lag and lose some graphics quality but you are not focusing so much on graphics in combat, and in cuscenes use 1/4 (or 1/5 if we are in 120hz) and have maximum graphical fidelity. Synchronized Sequential option would be great to have as well. As for Raytracing Vs Resolution I was of the same opinion as you, but we are reaching a point in which we can get such great clarity with R.E.A.L. + transformers (in a 4090) that I'm beginning to switch to the raytracing camp, and I barely appreciate transformers or raytracing in flat games, but in VR they make such a difference!. 5090 will be another game changer for VR (flat testing reviews are not giving the whole picture of the improvement, there are some VR rewiers showing us this). Also 5070s for 550 will be amazing and will lower barriers of entry for a great R.E.A.L. experience. Thanks so much for all the great work Luke!!!
Yes would love to experiment with the 1/4 and 1/5 or 1/6 options. I know it will look like poop, but somehow my rabbit hole isn't deep enough! Put it under a "Tweaker's paradise" tab
I'm having an issue with Farcry 6 and 5; both of them aren't injecting the new resolutions into the video options; I'm set to Borderless, and it defaults to 1920x1080, and the Display Resolution shows that there's another option to the right, but when I click it, it immediately reverts back to the 1920x1080 option after displaying some other resolution for a microsecond. In both games, the resolutions injected from REALVR just aren't selectable, and in Farcry 6, crashes the game after a few attempts at resolution changing. It's been like this for a couple months, but I thought it was just an issue for Farcry 6, but I just bought 5, and it's having the same issue. The red text underneath REALVR's Adapt Resolution parameter says "If that's not enough follow the additional instructions in the game post on patreon.com/realvr," but I've been searching through the various posts and haven't been able to find the instructions mentioned. Is there any known solution to this, or things to try?
Once the resolution is set have you tried exiting back to the main menu then going back into the graphics options to see if the new resolution is actually now selectable?
Luke we please need a mod for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, if you do that it will EXPLODE in popularity!
I second this, dont want to start KCD2 until i can do so in VR.
Thanks Luke and Brandon! I didn't understand the DLSS4 "forwards and backwards camera movement" comment about DLSS4. Was DLSSS not working perfectly with DLSS4? I mean: there was sometimes a small shimmer (hair as always), but mostly when objects were moving - so small that it could be less than AERv2 interframe artifacting. Would love to hear more about that. I also wasn't following not having to use DLSS swapper for transformer DLSS. I thought we had to have the 310.x.x swapped in order for the transformer library (presets J or K) to be available to be enforceable through inspector. Did you simply include them in your libraries or something? I didn't quite understand what that implied under the hood. I also am looking forward to the VRAM guard to see if it fixes some crashes that I'd have in certain scenes of various games (on 4090 even). Also to be able to see just how things are allocated. (Tweaker's paradise) In any case, this is wonderful news. And again more than I expected. I did stop playing KCD2 in hopes - but I also know there are many many (many) other titles that also deserve attention, so regardless of what they are: Thanks!
Yeah, you would still need to swap the dll file for the DLSS version, so I think maybe he misspoke??? Or I am not understanding correctly myself either. It looks like all you can do in the Nvidia app is change the DLSS preset and not the actual version. This is only an option in some games, so I think doing it with swapper and inspector is the best workflow overall. No reason to include the Nvidia app in the process as it will only allow you to change the preset in some games and not others. Again, unless there is something I don't know or am misunderstanding somehow. It is really good that the Nvidia app won't break DLSSS now though!
the witcher 2 and 3
GTAIV & GTAV would have been so good.... without rockin the star iykwim
6 XD
hope its both GOD OF WARS
Hello , i am new to this website. I tried zero dawn yesterday and I am having a blast. I am very happy to have found this website . It really open new horizon for me. I love to play vr games. I have a question , is there any plan for the future to create a mod for God of war 2018 and God of war Ragnarock. I think that would be fantastic to play those games in Vr
I’m guessing those are the two games he’s teasing in this post. But we’ll see
I'm hoping like crazy that its KCD 1 and 2. Since they both use the same game engine I could see them both coming out at the same time. I could see Luke working with KCD1 earlier in preparation for KCD2 coming out. One of them is old and one of them is new. They are both also old games because of the time period that they occur in. But at the same time they both became new again because they were released in modern times. Its a stretch on the word play but I'm crossing my fingers anyway!
fingers firmly crossed for this.
HZD Remaster and FF7R
I was half right
I seriously wish there was a VR mod/port for Prey (2017)! To me this is literally the best game ever made and would be absolutely amazing in VR. Also In Sound Mind would be an amazing VR game as well. It is now in my top 5 all time. This one might be more possible!
Pretty sure Prey is a thing. Sidequest has it I believe. https://sidequestvr.com/app/23478/prey-vr
Does dlss 4.0 work on cyberpunk VR?
Yup. Just choose transformer version in the game settings.
God of war 1/2? KCD 1/2? Hoping we get another Brandon reveal video!
No, no reveal video this time. I can try to do one for the next release 😀
Wait Tale of Dead Space remake? 🤩 Plague Tale: Requiem more likely 😏
DLSS 4 has been fantastic for REAL mods, visually its just so much better on just about every headset I've tried it with. It does not save us frames though, since we can't partake in the FG magic. 4090 has been feeling completely maxed for a while now, and the 5090 is vaporware. all to say, super glad to see more performance tools get built into the framework, kudos!
The Last of Us part I & II? Both "old" games, both remastered... makes sense I think ;)
Part 2 isnt releasing on PC until April
KCD, 1 and 2 ? :-) but the discription " both were once old " wouldn't fit
Doubt these are it, but would be amazing. Playing KCD2 in flat right now. So good.
I know one… trying to figure out the second. Thanks for the atomic heart update!
DLSS4 is amazing guess I don’t need to use dlss swapper anymore 😅 If only somehow we could get some of the frames from frame gen too.