Forum Discussion
5.1.2p2 -> 5.2.1f1 - Large Performance Loss
Long post short (i.e. tl;dr;): Avoid 5.2.1 for now. Major performance loss. I'm sure nobody will read the rest of this since Oculus Connect is happening now, but if you want more details, read on! ...
Thanks for the numbers, css! They echo my own experience precisely and your efforts are most appreciated. :D
5.1.3p2 is the version I'm working with because it performs the best, but it does still need some work. (The move to v0.7 in 5.1.3p3 does seem to be the culprit for recent performance loss, but I'm confident there's still something else going on with the way the driver is integrated into Unity.)
I spent 18 hours optimizing my project yesterday and am unfortunately still frustrated by the occasional judder. It seems that as soon as you drop to what would be ~68 FPS for a single frame, that frame is delayed until the next pass: the dreaded "OculusWaitForGPU". It would be great if there was a way for this to degrade gracefully instead of causing the jarring stutter for the user. I suspect this also is what causes Unity to lose sync with the Rift's positional information, thus requiring a "recenter" after a few too many of them occur.
I realize maintaining 75+ FPS (and soon 90+) at all times is essential, but it's very difficult to build a rich experience that never stalls below ~68 FPS, for even an instant, while loading resources. (Remember, this is the equivalent of sustaining 200+ FPS @1080p with the Rift turned-off. No small feat!)
@vrdaveb, thanks for the response. I'm glad you're looking into a better performance QA process, but we're getting so short on time it's probably worth embedding an engineer at Unity's office for a week.
5.1.3p2 is the version I'm working with because it performs the best, but it does still need some work. (The move to v0.7 in 5.1.3p3 does seem to be the culprit for recent performance loss, but I'm confident there's still something else going on with the way the driver is integrated into Unity.)
I spent 18 hours optimizing my project yesterday and am unfortunately still frustrated by the occasional judder. It seems that as soon as you drop to what would be ~68 FPS for a single frame, that frame is delayed until the next pass: the dreaded "OculusWaitForGPU". It would be great if there was a way for this to degrade gracefully instead of causing the jarring stutter for the user. I suspect this also is what causes Unity to lose sync with the Rift's positional information, thus requiring a "recenter" after a few too many of them occur.
I realize maintaining 75+ FPS (and soon 90+) at all times is essential, but it's very difficult to build a rich experience that never stalls below ~68 FPS, for even an instant, while loading resources. (Remember, this is the equivalent of sustaining 200+ FPS @1080p with the Rift turned-off. No small feat!)
@vrdaveb, thanks for the response. I'm glad you're looking into a better performance QA process, but we're getting so short on time it's probably worth embedding an engineer at Unity's office for a week.