I had trouble running some VR performance tests on my computer, and I want to show how strange this behavior is.
First, my PC has a good setup, so its poor performance in simple games immediately made me suspect that something was wrong.
My Specs:
OS: Windows 11 24H2
Driver: Adrenalin 24.2.1
HD: SSD 2TB NVME M2 PCI-3
CPU: Ryzen 9 7950X3D
GPU: Sapphire Radeon 7900XTX Nitro+
RAM: 32GB (2x16) 5200mhz
My thoughts:
With the given specs, theoretically, it should handle simple games without any trouble, right?
So, let me show you some screenshots. Originally, in my VR view, I was able to see the frametime history, but in these screenshots, a portion of the vertical FOV was cut off, making it completely invisible. However, the frametime usually increases to 16–20ms when you notice frame drops and decreases to 3–4ms when the FPS is stable.
All three games are unity games made for SteamVR and the headset is a Quest 3 with Virtual Desktop
First test
In this game, I will show a comparison of the game running normally and with the SteamVR menu open.
You can open the image in new tab to see more details.
In this particular game, I observed performance consistent with the rendering resolution. Notably, when the game is set to 157% resolution, the frame rate is 106 FPS, but with an 8ms delay.
However, when opening the Steam menu, the rendering resolution drops to 142%, the FPS stabilizes at 120, and the delay decreases to 3ms.
Although this delay seems unusual to me, frame drops might be the cause. Therefore, I believe the game's performance is not problematic.
With all that said, keep in mind that this game is running in high quality. This is a Virtual Desktop setting that affects the game's rendering quality.
Second test
Now is when things get weird.
In this game, when the SteamVR menu is closed, the framerate drops to 60 FPS (half of the target 120 FPS).
The game delay is 17 ms on its own. Also, unlike the first game, this test was conducted with the 'Potato' Virtual Desktop setting.
In this game's case, when we open the SteamVR menu, the rendering resolution increases to 150%. However, instead of decreasing performance, the game delay drops to 1 ms, and the FPS increases to nearly 120 FPS (it reaches 120 FPS but with minor drops, as seen in the screenshot).
This is the weirdest thing I have found. First, the hardware should be powerful enough to run this game just fine.
Second, when the SteamVR menu opens, the rendering resolution increases, and the performance improves as well.
This made me suspect that something is wrong. It could be a SteamVR issue, an AMD driver issue, or a game issue.
Third test
So, we are finally here—the third and final test. This game is very popular and is known to have issues due to the massive amount of unoptimized user-generated content. To ensure fair testing, I conducted it without any players online, using the same avatar and an official home world (map).
In the case of VRChat, the screenshot shows a bit—just a bit—of the frametime history.
The orange and green section at the bottom of the performance overlay is where it should be.
In this case, VRChat is running with a rendering scale of 100% and a framerate of 60 FPS, with a game delay of 17 ms.
When I open the SteamVR menu, the game delay decreases to 2 ms, and the framerate increases to 117 FPS—all while using a rendering scale of 150%.
This screenshot also shows how much more stable it becomes when the SteamVR menu is open. (that green line)
Final notes
I tried reducing the game graphics to a minimum. I also tried using Ryzen Master to disable my CPU's CCD 1 to ensure it was running on X3D cores.
I tried using Steam Link instead of Virtual Desktop, but nothing changed.
So, I wanted to share my tests, and if this is an AMD issue, I would love to see it fixed one day.
