Advanced VR Rendering
Performance
Alex Vlachos, Valve

Alex@ValveSoftware.com

2My Presentation Last Year
● This is part 2 of my presentation from last year “AdvancedVR Rendering”, GDC 2015

● Video and slides from last year are free online:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021771/Advanced-VR● This year’s talk focuses on performance, but increased

visual quality is the goal of what I’m presenting today

3Outline● Multi-GPU for VR● Fixed Foveated Rendering & Radial Density Masking● Reprojection● Adaptive Quality

4

Recap: Hidden Area Mesh

(From “Advanced VR Rendering” GDC 2015)5

Recap: Hidden Area Mesh

(From “Advanced VR Rendering” GDC 2015)

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Recap: Hidden Area Mesh

(From “Advanced VR Rendering” GDC 2015)7

Single GPU
Single GPU does all the work
● Stereo rendering can be accomplisheda number of ways (this example usessequential rendering)● Shadow buffer is shared by both eyes
●GPU 08Multi-GPU Affinity APIs
● AMD and NVIDIA have multi-GPU affinity APIs
● Broadcast draw calls across GPUs using affinity mask
● Set different shader constant buffers per-GPU● Transfer subrects of render targets across GPUs
● Use transfer fences to asynchronously transfer while thedestination GPU is still rendering9Multi-GPU – 2 GPUs
Each GPU renders a single eye● Both GPUs render shadow buffer● “Submit Left” and “App Window”
executes in the transfer bubble● 30-35% performance increase●GPU 0GPU 1

10Multi-GPU – 4 GPUs●

Each GPU renders half of one eye●All GPUs render shadow buffer●

PS cost scales, VS cost does not●

Might have high CPU cost in the driver

GPU 0GPU 1GPU 2GPU 3

114-GPU Transfer Options

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Multi-GPU Performance Summary

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Multi-GPU Resolution Scaling14Outline● Multi-GPU for VR● Fixed Foveated Rendering & Radial Density Masking● Reprojection● Adaptive Quality

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Projection Matrix vs VR Optics● Pixel density distribution from the projection matrix is theopposite of what we want

● Projection matrix: Pixel density per degree increases at theperiphery● VR optics: Pixel density increases at the center● We end up over rendering pixels at the periphery

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Recap: Over Rendering(From “Advanced VR Rendering” GDC 2015)

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Recap: Over Rendering(From “Advanced VR Rendering” GDC 2015)

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Fixed Foveated Rendering●●

Multi-GPU opportunities for 2 and 4 GPUs
Using NVIDIA’s “Multi-Resolution Shading” we gain an additional ~5-10% GPU perf withless CPU overhead (See “GameWorks VR”, Nathan Reed, SIGGRAPH 2015)

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Fixed Foveated Rendering●●

Multi-GPU opportunities for 2 and 4 GPUs
Using NVIDIA’s “Multi-Resolution Shading” we gain an additional ~5-10% GPU perf withless CPU overhead (See “GameWorks VR”, Nathan Reed, SIGGRAPH 2015)

20

Fixed Foveated Rendering●●

Multi-GPU opportunities for 2 and 4 GPUs
Using NVIDIA’s “Multi-Resolution Shading” we gain an additional ~5-10% GPU perf withless CPU overhead (See “GameWorks VR”, Nathan Reed, SIGGRAPH 2015)

21

I’m Bad at Words
Me: “I have this idea to reduce fill rate at the periphery”
Jeep Barnett: “That’s interesting”<Next day I show a demo>
Jeep: “That’s not even close to what I thought you meant”
Me: “What did you think I meant?”
Jeep: “I thought you would skip rendering every other pixel on the outside”
Me: (Laughing) “That’s not how GPUs work”<Later that night>
Me: “Wait a minute…that’s a great idea!”

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Radial Density Masking
Skip rending a checker pattern of 2x2 pixel quads to match current GPU architectures

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Reconstruction Filter+(Average 2 neighbors)=(Average across diagonals)*

Optimized Bilinear Samples

Weights near to far:
0.375, 0.375, 0.125, 0.125=
Weights near to far:
0.5, 0.28125, 0.09375, 0.09375, 0.03125

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Radial Density Masking
1.
2.

Clip() 2x2 pixel quads as you render, or fill stencil or depth with a
2x2 checker pattern and render
Reconstruction filter

Saves 5-15% performance in Aperture Robot Repair. You can gethigher gains with different content and different shaders. If theoverhead of reconstruction and skipping pixels doesn’t beat the pixel
shader savings of skipped pixel quads, then it’s a wash.
● Almost always a big savings on low-end GPUs●

25Outline● Multi-GPU for VR● Fixed Foveated Rendering & Radial Density Masking● Reprojection● Adaptive Quality

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Dealing With Missed Frames● If your engine is not hitting framerate, the VR system canreuse last frame’s rendered images and reproject:● Rotation-only reprojection● Position & rotation reprojection● Reprojection to fill in missed frames should be thought ofas a last-resort safety net. Please DO NOT rely on
reprojection to maintain framerate unless your customer
is using a GPU below your application’s min spec.

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Rotation-Only Reprojection●Judder is caused by camera translation, animation, and objects
moved by tracked controllers. Judder appears as two distinct
images averaged together.

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Rotation-Only Reprojection●Rotation reprojection is eye-centered, not headcentered, so reprojecting from wrong location●ICD (inter-camera distance) artificially narrows
during reprojection depending on amount ofrotation●“A leisurely head turn is in the ballpark of 100
degrees/second” – Michael Abrash, Valve blog, 2013

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Rotation-Only Reprojection● The good:● Well-understood algorithm for decades and might improve withmodern research● It works reasonably well for a single missed frame even with theknown side effects● So…there’s a non-trivial set of tradeoffs, but I think it’s

“good enough” to use as a last-resort safety net for missed
frames. It’s better than dropping frames.

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Positional Reprojection●

Still an unsolved problem that we are very interested in●You only get one depth in a traditional renderer, so representing
translucency is a challenge (Particle systems)●

Depth might be stored in an MSAA depth buffer with color alreadyresolved. This can result in color bleeding.

●Hole-filling algorithms for pixels that aren’t represented can cause
retinal rivalry. Even with many frames worth of valid stereo pairs, if
the user moves vertically by crouching down or standing up, there
are gaps that need to be filled.

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Asynchronous Reprojection
Ideal safety net● Requires preemption granularity as good as or better than current
generation GPUs
● Current GPUs can generally preempt at draw call boundaries,
depending on the GPU● Not yet a guarantee to always reproject in time for vsync● Applications need to be aware of preemption granularity:●●“You can split up the screen into tiles and run the post processing on each tile in a
separate draw call. That way, you provide the opportunity for async timewarp to comein and preempt in between those draws if it needs to.” – “VRDirect”, Nathan Reed,GDC 2015

32Interleaved Reprojection Hint
●Older GPUs can’t support asynchronous reprojection, so we need an alternative●OpenVR API has an interleaved reprojection hint where the app can request
every-other-frame rotation-only reprojection if the underlying system doesn’t
support always-on, asynchronous reprojection. App gets ~18ms/frame to render.

●Underlying VR system can also use interleaved reprojection as an auto-enabledsafety net when application is below target framerate●Every-other-frame reprojection is a good tradeoff:●“In our experience, ATW should run at a fixed fraction of the game frame rate. For example, at
90Hz refresh rate, we should either hit 90Hz or fall down to the half-rate of 45Hz with ATW. This
will result in image doubling, but the relative positions of the double images on the retina will bestable. Rendering at an intermediate rate, such as 65Hz, will result in a constantly changing
number and position of the images on the retina, which is a worse artifact.” – “AsynchronousTimewarp Examined”, Michael Antonov, Oculus blog, March, 2015

33Outline● Multi-GPU for VR● Fixed Foveated Rendering & Radial Density Masking● Reprojection● Adaptive Quality

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Maintaining Framerate is Hard●

VR is more challenging than traditional games because:●

The user has fine control over the camera●Many interaction models allow users to reconfigure the world●

I gave up on tuning rendering and content to hit 90 fps since users
can reconfigure content so easily●Last year at GDC, we got Robot Repair to hit framerate by tuning theworst 20% of the experience35

Adaptive Quality●

Stated simply: “Adaptive Quality dynamically changes rendering
settings to maintain framerate while maximizing GPU utilization”
Goal #1: Reduce the chances of dropping frames and reprojecting● Goal #2: Increase quality when there are idle GPU cycles●●

Example is the Aperture Robot Repair VR demo running at target
framerate on an NVIDIA 680 using two different methods

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Adaptive Quality - Benefits●Lower GPU min spec for your application●

Increased art asset limits – Artists can now make the tradeoff
between slightly lower fidelity rendering for higher poly assets ormore complex materials●Don’t need to rely on reprojection to maintain framerate●Unexpected Benefit: Our apps look better on all hardware

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What Settings Are Changed?
● What you can’t adjust:● Can’t toggle visual features like specular● Can’t toggle shadows● What you can adjust:● Rendering resolution/viewport (aka Dynamic Resolution)● MSAA level or anti-aliasing algorithm● Fixed Foveated Rendering● Radial Density Masking● etc.

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Adaptive Quality Example

Default

Quality
Level

MSAA

Resolution
Scale

RadialDensity
Masking

RenderResolution

+68x

1.4-

2116x2352+58x1.3-

1965x2184+48x1.2-

1814x2016

+38x

1.1-

1663x1848

+28x

1.0-

1512x1680

+14x

1.1-

1663x1848

04x

1.0-

1512x1680

-14x

0.9-

1360x1512-24x0.81-

1224x1360-34x0.73-

1102x1224

-44x

0.65

On

992x1102

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Video of Adaptive Quality Visualization

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Measuring GPU Workload
You GPU workload isn’t always solid, might have bubbles● VR system GPU workload is variable: lens distortion, chromaticaberration, chaperone bounds, overlays, etc.
● Get timings from the VR system, not your application. OpenVR, forexample, provides a total GPU timer that accounts for all GPU work●

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GPU Timers - LatencyYour GPU queries are 1 frame old● You also have 1 or 2 frames in the queue that can’t be modified●

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Implementation Details – 3 Rules
Goal: Maintain 70%-90% GPU utilization● High = 90% of frame (10.0ms)●●●

Low = 70% of frame (7.8ms)●●

Decrease aggressively: If the last frame finished rendering after the 90%
threshold of the GPU frame, drop 2 levels, wait 2 frames
Increase conservatively: If the last 3 frames finished below the 70% thresholdof the GPU frame, increase 1 level, wait 2 frames

Prediction = 85% of frame (9.4ms)
Use linear extrapolation from last two frames to predict rapid increases● If last frame is above the 85% threshold and the linearly extrapolated next
frame is above the high threshold (90%), drop 2 levels, wait 2 frames●

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10% Idle Rule
●The high threshold of 90% leaves 10% of the GPU idle for otherprocesses almost every frame. This is a good thing.

●You need to share the GPU with other processes, even Windowsdesktop needs a slice of the GPU every few VR frames.

●My mental model of GPU budget changed from last year’s 11.11ms
to now 10.0ms per frame, so you almost never starve otherprocesses of GPU cycles.

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Adaptive Quality in Aperture Robot Repair
Option A+6: 8xMSAA, 1.4x res (NVIDIA 980Ti renders here for 95% of the experience)+5: 8xMSAA, 1.3x res+4: 8xMSAA, 1.2x res+3: 8xMSAA, 1.1x res+2: 8xMSAA, 1.0x res+1: 4xMSAA, 1.1x res
0: 4xMSAA, 1.0x resolution (Default) (NVIDIA 970 stays at or above this level)-1: 4xMSAA, 0.9x res-2: 4xMSAA, 0.81x res-3: 4xMSAA, 0.73x res-4: 4xMSAA, 0.65x res, Radial Density Masking (NVIDIA 680 stays at or above this level)45

What About Text?
●You don’t actually want to go down to that low resolution scalar of0.65, because in-game text will be very difficult to read●Instead:●●

Raise the low end up to about 0.8 resolution scalar●If GPU can’t maintain framerate at lowest resolution, enable Interleaved
Reprojection Hint (in case asynchronous reprojection isn’t supported)

For Adaptive Quality, we enable the interleaved reprojection hint
when we want to drop below the lowest quality level as the lastresort safety net with rotation-only reprojection

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Adaptive Quality in Aperture Robot Repair
Option AOption B – Text-friendly+6: 8xMSAA, 1.4x res+5: 8xMSAA, 1.3x res+4: 8xMSAA, 1.2x res+3: 8xMSAA, 1.1x res+2: 8xMSAA, 1.0x res+1: 4xMSAA, 1.1x res
0: 4xMSAA, 1.0x resolution (Default)-1: 4xMSAA, 0.9x res-2: 4xMSAA, 0.81x res-3: 4xMSAA, 0.73x res-4: 4xMSAA, 0.65x res, Radial Density Masking+6: 8xMSAA, 1.4x res+5: 8xMSAA, 1.3x res+4: 8xMSAA, 1.2x res+3: 8xMSAA, 1.1x res+2: 8xMSAA, 1.0x res+1: 4xMSAA, 1.1x res
0: 4xMSAA, 1.0x resolution (Default)-1: 4xMSAA, 0.9x res-2: 4xMSAA, 0.81x res-3: 4xMSAA, 0.81x res, Interleaved Reprojection Hint

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Why Max Out at 1.4x Resolution?
Aperture
Aperture

ScalarMSAA

Resolution

GPU Memory
1 Eye = Color +Depth + Resolve

GPU Memory
2 Eyes = Color +Depth + Resolve

2.08x

3024x3360

698 MB

1,396 MB

2.04x

3024x3360

388 MB776 MB

1.48x

2116x2352

342 MB684 MB

1.28x

1814x2016

251 MB

502 MB

1.08x

1512x1680

174 MB348 MB

1.14x

1663x1848

117 MB

234 MB

1.04x

1512x1680

97 MB

194 MB

0.814x

1224x1360

64 MB

128 MBAperture allocates both a 1.4 8xMSAA and a 1.1 4xMSAA render target per eye for a
total of 342 MB + 117 MB = 459 MB per eye (918 MB 2 eyes)! So we use sequential
rendering to share the render target and limit resolution to 1.4x for 4 GB GPUs.

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What About 2.0 Resolution Scalar?
Aperture

Aperture

ScalarMSAA

Resolution

GPU Memory
1 Eye = Color +Depth + Resolve

GPU Memory
2 Eyes = Color +Depth + Resolve

2.08x

3024x3360

698 MB

1,396 MB

2.04x

3024x3360

388 MB776 MB

1.48x

2116x2352

342 MB684 MB

1.28x

1814x2016

251 MB

502 MB

1.08x

1512x1680

174 MB348 MB

1.14x

1663x1848

117 MB

234 MB

1.04x

1512x1680

97 MB

194 MB

0.814x

1224x1360

64 MB

128 MBFor a 2.0 resolution scalar, we require 698 MB + 117 MB = 815 MB per eye.

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Valve’s Unity Rendering Plugin●

Valve is using a custom rendering plugin in Unity for The Lab●

The Valve VR Rendering Plugin will be free on the Unity Asset Storesoon with full source code

●The plugin is a single-pass forward renderer (because we want
4xMSAA and 8xMSAA) supporting up to 18 dynamic shadowing lights
and Adaptive Quality●Special thanks to Unity devs Peter Kuhn, Scott Flynn, Joachim Ante,and Rich Geldreich for adding Adaptive Quality hooks to Unity
5.4.0b9 that shipped one week ago!

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Decoupling CPU and GPU Performance●

Make your render thread autonomous●

If CPU isn’t ready with a new frame, don’t reproject! Instead, renderthread resubmits last frame’s GPU workload with updated HMD
poses and minimal Adaptive Quality support of dynamic resolution●To solve animation judder, feed your render thread two animation
frames you can interpolate between to keep animation updating●

But, non-trivial animation prediction is a hard problem●

Then you can plan to run your CPU at 1/2 or 1/3 GPU framerate todo more complex simulation or run on lower end CPUs

51Summary●

Multi-GPU support should be in all VR engines (at least 2-GPUs)●

Fixed Foveated Rendering and Radial Density Masking are solutions
that help counteract the optics vs projection matrix battle●

Adaptive Quality scales fidelity up and down while leaving 10% of
the GPU available for other processes. Do not rely on reprojection tohit framerate on your min spec!

●Valve VR Rendering Plugin for Unity will ship free soon●

Think about how your engine can decouple CPU and GPU
performance with resubmission on your render thread

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Thank You!
Alex Vlachos, Valve
Alex@ValveSoftware.com