Performance guide
Thank you for watching volumetric movies with ImmersiX. Viewing our 6 degrees-of-freedom immersive movies requires a lot from a computer and sometimes even a computer that meets all minimum performance specifications may struggle to play back the content smoothly. Luckily, a lot of these cases can be resolved with a simple configuration change. In this document we have gathered all the advice and troubleshooting information that has helped our users enjoy volumetric movies without interruptions and in the quality they were meant to be seen.
General Performance Advice
The following advice may improve overall system performance when playing back volumetric movies.
Close other software and windows
Other software running on the computer may be using valuable resources that could otherwise be used to play the movie. Notable examples include screen recording software and GPU-accelerated web browsers. For an optimal volumetric movie experience please exit any application that you are not currently using and close or minimize as many windows as possible.
Temperature
When the computer's temperature rises through intensive use some components (usually the processor and graphics card) may be slowed down as a protective measure. If you find that volumetric movie playback is not smooth as a result of the system overheating you should try to lower the computer's temperature.
Make sure the cooling vents are free of dust and other obstructions.
(Desktop computer) Take off the computer case's side panel for improved airflow.
(Laptop computer) Use a cooling stand.
Move the computer to a cooler room or lower the room temperature.
Power plan
Make sure that Windows is using the "High performance" power plan (or "Ultimate performance" if it is available) while playing the movie. Other power plans may limit system performance. If the computer is a laptop, make sure that the power adapter is plugged in while playing the movie.
Single channel memory
If a computer contains only a single system memory (RAM) module, the machine is generally insufficient to play back volumetric movies. Adding more memory to the computer to spread the load over two or more modules in a dual channel or quad channel memory setup will result in much better performance. If you are unsure how many memory modules your computer has, please look at the reported value in the ImmersiX application log (prz_applog.txt in the ImmersiX install directory).
Improving File Reading Performance
Playing back volumetric movies requires a large amount of data to be read with little tolerance for delays. Our movies have been carefully tuned to be played back smoothly from a regular SSD, but other factors than the drive's read speed may affect playback. When movie playback is pausing frequently because of file reading issues the advice in this section may help.
Storage drive connection
We expect the SSD to be connected to the motherboard with SATA 3 (also known as 'SATA III', 'SATA 600' or 'SATA 6 Gbit/s') or better (eg. M.2 or PCIe). External enclosures or network drives may also work but if you are unsure whether their performance is sufficient please try installing the movie on an internal drive.
Anti-virus software
On-access threat scanning by anti-virus software may add significant delay to file reading operations. Sometimes when this happens it is enough to let the player play through the entire movie so that all files are accessed at least once, and subsequent playthroughs will be smooth. If the anti-virus software continues to interfere with movie playback it is usually possible to temporarily pause on-access scanning or exclude the folder containing the movie files from scanning through the anti-virus software user interface.
General advice
It is useful to also read the General Performance Advice section as the issues and solutions described there may affect file reading performance.
Improving Movie Decompression Performance
Our volumetric movies make extensive use of compression to keep the storage space and file reading bandwidth requirements reasonable. Decompressing the movie during playback requires a sufficiently fast processor and DDR4 or faster system memory. When movie playback is pausing frequently because of decompression issues the advice in this section may help.
Core parking
Core parking is a power-saving measure available on modern processors. When core parking is enabled you may experience short processor stalls when cores are transitioning from parked to non-parked state. These stalls can be severe enough to disrupt the smooth playback of a volumentric movie. Disabling core parking requires changes to power plan configuration and other settings, or you can use a 3rd party tool to achieve this.
General advice
It is useful to also read the General Performance Advice section as the issues and solutions described there may affect movie decompression performance.
Improving Transfer to GPU Memory
In some cases, moving the volumetric movie data from system memory into the graphics card memory becomes a bottleneck preventing smooth playback of the movie. This usually happens when the graphics card is throttled down to prevent overheating or when the computer's power plan prevents full use of the PCIe lanes for data transfer to the graphics card. In these situations the advice in the General Performance Advice section may help.
Rarely, it also happens that the graphics card does not have access to the full amount of PCIe lanes that it normally would have. Try moving any PCIe or M.2 expansion cards or SSDs to a different slot on the motherboard, or removing them altogether. You may need to change some UEFI (BIOS) settings to resolve this issue.
Improving 3D Rendering Performance
A steady framerate is key to an enjoyable virtual reality experience. When you are experiencing regular hitches or a too low framerate the advice in this section may help.
Too many VR runtimes
Since the immersiX player is a native OpenXR application, it can interact directly with any VR runtime that supports OpenXR. A situation that arises often is users with Meta Quest headsets launching the immersiX player through SteamVR. The SteamVR runtime will then act as an intermediary between the player and the Meta Quest runtime, adding an unnecessary layer of indirection. To resolve this, open the Meta Quest Link application settings and set the active OpenXR runtime to Meta Quest Link.
Disconnect secondary displays
Having multiple displays connected to the computer means that the graphics card has to spend some effort to keep all of them updated. Disconnecting any displays that you are not using while watching the movie is an easy way to free up some rendering resources.
NVIDIA power setting
Your NVIDIA graphics card can be set to use 'Normal' or 'Maximum performance' power management mode. This setting can be changed in the NVIDIA Control Panel under 'Manage 3D settings'.
Lower VR rendering resolution
Most VR runtimes allow you to change the VR rendering resolution in their settings, making it possible to lower the load on the graphics card at the cost of visual quality. This trade-off is often worth it to achieve a stable framerate, so adjust this setting to your personal preference.
General advice
It is useful to also read the General Performance Advice section as the issues and solutions described there may affect rendering performance.
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