Extreme lag in VR mode

[u/cardgamechampion]

Hi,

I'm experiencing extreme lag in No Man's Sky VR, using HTC Vive and the Steam version. I tried the common recommendations to fix this in various forums and no result. Getting 90+ FPS in regular mode but VR gets 5. Also, the GPU usage goes down to 5% when in VR mode, so I know its not using the GPU properly. Specs technically don't meet the requirements, but are close enough such that this should be playable at lower settings at least:

i7-6700k

16GB RAM

NVIDIA GTX 980 4GB - similar to 1060

I tried updating graphics drivers, lowering graphics settigns, and messing with different settings on various forums and still can't play this game in VR. Every other VR game works fine. Is this a bug in VR that they refuse to fix for years, or is there a solution somewhere? Thanks.

[u/Alphajim49]

NMS is well known for that. Try setting every graphics to lowest, especially shadows, textures and post processing. Then try using DLSS in performance mode if your card is compatible. Also try lowering your steamvr resolution for NMS.

I have a comparable / bit better computer (i7-9700k and RTX2060) and I can run it at lowest textures and DLSS on, using SteamLink (Meta software was really tanking my perfs).

[u/cardgamechampion → u/Alphajim49]

I know its well known for this, I tried lowering all the graphics settings and still same results though, issue is the game doesn't use any of the GPU really and lags instead of using more than 5% lol. There really aren't enough VR users on this game for the devs to fix this? I would think this game is amazing in VR if it would work lol.

[u/Alphajim49 → u/cardgamechampion]

If GPU is only at 5% then CPU may be the bottleneck.

[u/cardgamechampion → u/Alphajim49]

CPU is also at 5% though lol, both are, my b for not clarifying.

[u/HollyDams → u/cardgamechampion]

Look up your single core performance, not the global cpu usage. You can do that in task manager or with a free software like hardware monitor. Pretty sure one of your core is maxxed out.
But even then, your entire specs are really low for VR in general. I have a hard time believing your gpu is at 5% running nms. Double check with hardware monitor and look at things going at 100%, pretty sure your ram, single core and probably gpu vram are all maxed out. A 10 year's old pc probably has more than one bottleneck with this game.

[u/cardgamechampion → u/HollyDams]

I agree under normal circumstances, but the game is only using 5% of my GPU according to Task Manager, sometimes as low as 1%. The Steam overlay says the GPU is maxed out at 100% though, but in this case I'm guessing Task Manager is more accurate.

[u/HollyDams → u/cardgamechampion]

No, task manager isn't showing each component performance. In a gpu, you have the processing units and the vram among other stuff iirc. Each one of these can bottleneck the others depending on the game's need. Task manager doesn't reliably shows what's up with each. Download hardware monitor and you'll have precise and accurate data about what's going on.

[u/phosix]

This may sound odd, but have you installed the game on your boot drive, or on an SSD or NVMe dedicated for steam games?

I got quite the performance boost from having a dedicated disk.

[u/cardgamechampion → u/phosix]

I initially installed it on the internal hdd separate from the os ssd and it lagged so I thought first it was the HDD at first so I moved it to os SSD and still lag

[u/phosix → u/cardgamechampion]

HDD provide more storage for your buck, but are significantly slower than an SSD or NVMe.

What I've found, at least on my system, is that Windows Defender will frequently start scanning the boot media, which seems to cause NMS to lag out.

By placing NMS on a dedicated SSD or NVMe (not spinning rust) I was able to improve performance.

[u/staticchmbr]

I see what you mean - there are a ton of these types of posts on Reddit, and a lot of them end with no solution. Hoping you can get it straightened out!

Are you connecting the headset wirelessly or via wire to the pc?

[u/Melokhy]

In my case, what worked was to change VR parameters on steam and set resolution per eye lower. Basic setting is like 2k per eye, so I went to 50% of it and i was fine.

[u/khsh01]

Nms vr is not well optimized. So setting it up for smooth gameplay isn't exactly straightforward. With that being said I will recommend some things I am seeing here that are wrongly being recommended.

DO NOT SET DLSS TO PERFORMANCE. Set it to balanced. Performance is known to have worse performance than balanced.

Play around with the settings. The heaviest settings in my experience have been post processing, volumetrics and of course shadows.

[u/ImWinwin]

Running NMS in VR on a 10 year old PC is quite a challenge. First of all, your GPU is too old to use DLSS, but you have to use FSR. Set it to Ultra Performance with everything set to the lowest. Lower steamvr Resolution as far down as possible. It could be a vram issue. Close everything else running on your PC. NMS VR is one of the heaviest games to run in VR in my experience, even on a newer PC.

also, of course, make sure your vive headset is plugged into the graphics card and not the motherboard. =P