VR - experimental support

[goldensaruu]

Hi everyone,

I'm experiencing severe stuttering since the 1.60 update and could use some advice.détections d'arnaques en ligne

Specs: Meta Quest 3 (Link cable) / RTX 4070 / i7-13700K / 32GB RAM
Launch options: -experimental_vr -openxr

The Issue:
Massive micro-stutters and sudden frame drops whenever entering cities or heavy traffic areas, even though overall GPU and CPU usage stay well below 50%.

I'm running a completely clean profile without any mods (no SnowyMoon TAA) and my graphics drivers are up to date. Has anyone run into similar performance hits on 1.60? Thanks!

[jramses]

# American Truck Simulator 1.60 – OpenXR fails to initialize when ReShade OpenXR API Layer is active

**System**

* Windows 11 24H2
* NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti
* Meta Quest 3
* ALVR
* SteamVR OpenXR Runtime (2.16.7)
* ATS 1.60.1
* ETS2 1.60.1

## Problem

After updating to ATS 1.60, the game would no longer start in VR using:

-openxr

Instead, it opened in **SteamVR Cinema Mode** (flat screen inside the headset).

Launching with:

-openvr

worked correctly.

The same PC, same headset and same OpenXR runtime could launch **Euro Truck Simulator 2** in OpenXR without any issues.

## Troubleshooting performed

The following steps were tested:

* Verified Steam game files.
* Completely uninstalled ATS.
* Removed the ATS Documents folder and allowed the game to create a fresh profile.
* Reinstalled ATS from scratch.
* Confirmed SteamVR was the active OpenXR runtime.
* Confirmed both ETS2 and ATS used identical launch options (`-openxr`).
* Tested OpenVR (`-openvr`) successfully.
* Removed all plugins that were no longer required.
* Compared ETS2 and ATS installations.

None of these steps solved the problem.

## Log output

The relevant error in `game.log.txt` was:

[openxr] xrCreateInstance(&create_info, &instance): failed -32

The log also always reported:

XR_APILAYER_reshade v2

## Discovery

The system had a global OpenXR API Layer installed by ReShade.

Registry entry:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Khronos\OpenXR\1\ApiLayers\Implicit

pointing to:

C:\ProgramData\ReShade\ReShade64_XR.json

Configuration file:

C:\ProgramData\ReShade\ReShadeApps.ini

contained:

Apps=...\American Truck Simulator\bin\win_x64\amtrucks.exe,
...\Euro Truck Simulator 2\bin\win_x64\eurotrucks2.exe

## Result

Temporarily disabling the ReShade OpenXR API Layer (by renaming the `C:\ProgramData\ReShade` folder) immediately changed the behaviour.

After doing so:

* ATS launches correctly using **OpenXR**.
* VR works normally.
* SteamVR Cinema Mode no longer appears.
* The OpenXR initialization error disappears.

## Notes

Interestingly, ETS2 continued to work even with the ReShade OpenXR layer enabled, while ATS did not.

This may indicate an interaction between ATS 1.60 and the ReShade OpenXR API Layer rather than a general OpenXR runtime problem.

I'm not reporting this as a confirmed ATS bug, but as reproducible behaviour that may help anyone experiencing:

* `xrCreateInstance failed -32`
* OpenXR launching into SteamVR Cinema Mode
* ATS working only with `-openvr`

Hopefully this information is useful to other users and to the developers if they investigate OpenXR compatibility.


Thanks for sitting through such a long "speech"; I hope it helps someone, given the arduous research involved. Best regards.

[R1jerome]

Hello truckers, i'm searching about some recommandations or some profils for SimHub motion. I just run a new Srt 80 motion plateform. I play in Vr

Anyone ?

[Joris]

Hi everyone,

I'm experiencing severe stuttering since the 1.60 update and could use some advice.détections d'arnaques en ligne

Specs: Meta Quest 3 (Link cable) / RTX 4070 / i7-13700K / 32GB RAM
Launch options: -experimental_vr -openxr

The Issue:
Massive micro-stutters and sudden frame drops whenever entering cities or heavy traffic areas, even though overall GPU and CPU usage stay well below 50%.

I'm running a completely clean profile without any mods (no SnowyMoon TAA) and my graphics drivers are up to date. Has anyone run into similar performance hits on 1.60? Thanks!

This edit in the config file helped me removing most micro-stutters/rubber banding.
uset t_averaging_window_duration "0"
uset t_averaging_window_length "0"

If the timing information is provided by the VR api, which should happen most of the time, the time averaging cvars are ignored unless you override that using t_ignore_hmd_timing. In general you want to ensure that you run the game at a fixed framerate which you can reach 99.9% of the time. Either relying on vsync, frame limiter or possibly even forcing spacewarp if your system can not keep the native refresh rate reliably (i.e. keeping fixed consistent framerate is much better than trying to have as high framerate as possible if that means that it fluctuates). Any time the framerate starts changing you get stutter (as the image is shown at wrong time) or time stretching (as the game thinks it is running at different speed than what it really is). When the game averaging is used, then the general suggestion is: if the game runs at the fixed framerate all the time and any slowdown is just a temporary hiccup for frame or two, then using longer window minimizes the amount of time stretching around the hiccup. If the framerate changes, then you want much smaller window so the game reacts faster to any change instead of running at wrong speed.

Also install Process Lasso and use the Probalance option. I also use the openXR toolkit for the fixed foveated render with the outer ring resolution at 1/16'th, that alone gave me 8-10 fps extra.

My system: 5800X3D, 64GB DDR4 at 3800MHZ, RTX4090, Pimax Crystal Light at 90Hz, Moza R9/CRP2 pedal.

[dervu]

Is CPU right now bigger bottleneck in ATS/ETS2 than GPU? 7950X3D/4090.
I just wonder if it would be worth upgrading to Zen6 for VR gaming when it releases.
5090 seems like out of question with those ridiculous prices.

[Madkine]

CPU has always been the bigger bottleneck.

[JasnA]

Is CPU right now bigger bottleneck in ATS/ETS2 than GPU? 7950X3D/4090.
I just wonder if it would be worth upgrading to Zen6 for VR gaming when it releases.
5090 seems like out of question with those ridiculous prices.

My opinion is no. Your PC is a beast. The game is the bottleneck. They are incrementally making the game better and when they are finished you will probably be happy with what you have. In the meantime, I would just try the optimizing tips and find a balance in performance and quality that is realistic. I definitely wouldn't be an early adopter on next gen architecture because the diminished returns on hardware is getting pitiful vs cost.

[ancipital]

Is CPU right now bigger bottleneck in ATS/ETS2 than GPU? 7950X3D/4090.
I just wonder if it would be worth upgrading to Zen6 for VR gaming when it releases.
5090 seems like out of question with those ridiculous prices.

Don't do that. The whole thing is bottlenecking like mad on single thread performance due a rather old-fashioned renderer. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at it right now, you won't magically fix the single thread issues. The marginal generational bumps aren't going to help you. It's a trap

Mitigate it as best you can by reducing other sources of frame time irregularity by intelligently tweaking things - find a sweet spot of the quality factors that matter to you- spatial vs temporal resolution, frame time spikes etc.. It will require a certain amount of trial and error on your system to get to a something close to an optimal state. Once you get there, rock and roll deal with it and possess your soul in patience until the new, modern multicore renderer (which is being built and works, but is not yet ready for release).

The wheezing old renderer is doing things that probably aren't reasonable. It's pretty impressive how much they've managed to eke out of it, but it's not magic. For now, make the best of what you have until better is available.

[sikejsudjek3]

The next zen processors might well improve things, as the frequency is rumoured to be over 6ghz with a 10% IPC gain. This should brute force single core performance. However we also need better multiprocessor support and dx12. Both are being worked on. I will be upgrading my processor once the new ones are out and the prices have stabilised.

[ancipital]

The next zen processors might well improve things, as the frequency is rumoured to be over 6ghz with a 10% IPC gain. This should brute force single core performance.

If you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you. You'd need a damn sight more than that to hide the frame time spikes in busy areas in VR- even if those numbers were right.. which they aren't. People always squee about each new gen having magic IPC gainz(tm) across the board, yet it's always the triumph of hope over experience. Somehow the lesson never quite takes.

I mean, I wish you were right, but sadly, nope. Even ignoring the perpetual promise of jam tomorrow IPCs from wildly optimistic rumours, it depends on more than just raw frequency. If you're single core bound, things like pipeline bubbles are disproportionately troublesome too, there are lots of gotchas like that which get conveniently ignored.

Also, even if you were right, which you aren't, there are so many things that current renderer fails at that would never be cured by throwing any amount of imaginary frequency at it. A proper modern renderer which can manage proper texture and geometry streaming and thread across multiple cores is really the only answer. Just as well that those lovely people at SCS get it and are working hard on it for us