Valve adds asynchronous reprojection to SteamVR

November 17, 2016 | 10:49

Tags: #geforce #htc-vive #radeon #steamvr #vr

Companies: #amd #nvidia #steam #valve #vive

Valve has released an update to its SteamVR software which brings early support for asynchronous reprojection, but initially only if you have an Nvidia GeForce GPU in your system.

Similar in concept to Oculus VR's asynchronous timewarp, Valve has been testing asynchronous reprojection in beta since late October. Designed to replace the company's current interleaved reprojection technology, which compensates for frame rate drops by rendering at 45 frames per second then generating intermediate frames, asynchronous reprojection is more subtle: occasional dips below the target frame rate do not trigger an immediate lock to 45 frames per second, resulting in improved smoothness and fewer positional issues alongside boosted performance on lower-end hardware.

For Oculus Rift users, asynchronous timewarp will still be the default mode; for HTC Vive users, updating Steam VR adds asynchronous reprojection support. In its initial public release, however, the feature is limited to those running Nvidia GeForce graphics processors and the Nvidia GeForce driver 372.54 or newer. Those with AMD Radeon graphics processors are left out in this release, with Valve not yet offering a date when support is likely to be added.

Other improvements in the latest SteamVR release include a night mode feature, less blue fringing in peripheral vision, Bluetooth driver fixes, dome projection controls, and a fix for a bug in OpenGL rendering whereby the right eye display would occasionally show an image meant for the left eye.

The update is available to download now via Steam.
Discuss this in the forums

Posted by Stelph - Thu Nov 17 2016 11:13

Out of curiosity, what is the cheapest VR device that can be used with SteamVR currently? Is it still the Razer OSVR?

http://www.razerzone.com/osvr

Posted by Stanley Tweedle - Thu Nov 17 2016 11:50

Valve Async is ok. It helps a little but nowhere near as good as ASW on Octopus.

I own Vive and I've tried ASW on Octopus CV1. ASW wins.

Posted by edzieba - Fri Nov 18 2016 07:40

There is little technical detail on what Valve have implemented, but this section of the release notes:
Frame timing graph has been updated to show the number of times each frame has been presented (white line in the stacked cpu graph) and the number of times each frame has been reprojected to a different vsync than originally rendered for (red line on the stacked gpu graph).
Indicates that their reprojection variant does NOT operate on every frame (as ATW does with Oculus' implementation) but only occurs reactively if a frame is missed. This is superior to their previous 'interleaved reprojection' mode (which would drop the render rate to 45FPS and would always have stutter from missing that first dropped frame), but does not have the total orientation motion-photons latency reduction of ATW, where EVERY frame has - for orientation - a motion-photons latency equivalent to the hardware scanout and display latency.

Posted by Gareth Halfacree - Fri Nov 18 2016 09:47

edzieba
[...] but does not have the total orientation motion-photons latency reduction of ATW, where EVERY frame has - for orientation - a motion-photons latency equivalent to the hardware scanout and display latency.
I'm willing to be wrong, here, but isn't what you're describing asynchronous space warp, rather than asychronous time warp? Oculus had ATW, Valve worked on asynchronous reprojection as its own device-agnostic equivalent, then Oculus launched ASW which is superior to both ATW and Valve's AR. Presumably Valve is also working on its own version of ASW, which will bring it back to parity with Oculus - unless, of course, Oculus launches something else in the meantime.
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