Quest + LWRP/URP: MSAA not working

Pretty much as the title says, I'm using Unity 2019.2.14f1, Oculus Integration 1.43, LWRP 6.9.1.
Setting MSAA in the LWRP settings to any value (2x, 4x, 8x) does nothing. All cameras have MSAA set to Use Pipeline Settings. OVRManager has Use Recommended MSAA set to false. I'm not using any PostProcessing package. What am I missing?

EDIT: not totally working either on 2019.3.0f3 + URP, see later replies.

 

MSAA is currently unsupported in LWRP in VR.

 

So there is no way of having antialiasing with LWRP and VR? MSAA is the only antialiasing option available as far as I can tell, when using LWRP.

 

Strange, I've used it with LWRP and now with URP in exactly that way, camera set to use pipeline, ovrmanager to false, URP asset set to 8x, works fine. Check that the camera you're rendering from is tagged Main Camera, make sure your render pipeline asset is also set in Quality project settings under Rendering (not just Graphics Settings) although I doubt it should matter.

 

I used this trick for a bit then it stopped working on some update. It's hard to know which versions are compatible with each other... out of interest which LWRP / Unity / OVR version mix are you getting this to work with?

 

I had set everything exactly like that, it just won’t work. Actually not even Post Processing antialiasing is working... I’m left with no choice to revert to default pipeline then? It escapes me why we should even use LWRP in VR if no form of antialiasing is working.
Unless this depends on the stereo rendering mode? I’m using Single Pass now.
EDIT sorry, I'm using Multiview. Single Pass renders the right eye deformed, and Multi Pass doesn't render the right eye at all (still in both cases AA didn't work).

 

My current setup with MSAA working:
Unity 2019.3.0f1
URP 7.1.6
Relevant URP settings:
Depth texture on
HDR off
MSAA 4x
Render Scale 1
Main Light per pixel, Cast shadows on, 1024 res with no additional lights.

Not using OVRManager:
Tracked Pose Driver on a camera with settings:
Renderer set to URP_Renderer in the dropdown
Opaque + Depth texture "Use Pipeline"
HDR, MSAA "Use Pipeline"

If using OVRManager:
Use Recommended MSAA off.
Same camera settings as above.

 

Thanks a lot. I'd like to avoid updating to 2019.3 and to URP in this moment because I've already spent a lot of time trying to get things working rather than working on the actual game... I guess I'll do it later. I had all sorts of issues with Quest and 2019.3 beta previously, might need to check again what changed for the final release.

 

I wouldn't recommend it yet, both multiview and multipass are broken, but MSAA is definitely working. I was using exactly the same setup in 19.2.12 LWRP before porting to URP, and it worked then too.

 

ahh... must be a 2019.1 problem

 

Oh god, I've just noticed I mistyped the very first post and didn't precisely specify what version I was using... Fixed it now. My version, where AA is not working, is 2019.2.14f.

 

I am running into this bug with URP 7.1.6 and Unity 2019.3.0f1 as well. MSAA was working for me in previous versions of the LWRP on 2019.2. Submitted it as bug 1204783.

I noticed that after upgrading to the current URP and Unity versions, the camera was creating a depth texture in builds even though we had depth texture turned off in the URP settings. I edited ForwardRenderer.cs to force it to skip the depth and intermediate textures, and found that XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureDesc.msaaSamples is always "1" even after changing antialiasing settings, forcing QualitySettings.antiAliasing to higher values and calling XR.XRDevice.UpdateEyeTextureMSAASetting, etc.

 

Still no sign of working in 2019.2.16f. Really isnt' there any solution to this? It was working properly with early 2019.2 versions. Can we at least have a sign from the Unity team?

 

Well, managed to update and get my game working on 2019.3.0f3, with the same identical settings as below, and antialiasing is still not working on Quest. There must be some other undocumented options that influence this, it can't randomly decide to just not work anymore.

 

It's possible that you need this to trigger, but it isn't? https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...nes.universal/Runtime/ForwardRenderer.cs#L353

And that is possibly because you need to get that scripting define symbol set in the package? (VR_ENABLED).

It's very confusing. I've asked about it over here. I don't know where URP stands anymore, honestly. Maybe it's not meant to be ready for use in VR yet.

 

I managed to get some results.
- Added VR_ENABLED flag in Scripting Define Symbols as suggested by Claytonious.
- Enabled XR Plugin Management from Project Settings.
- Installed the Oculus XR Plugin from the dedicated panel under XR Plugin Management.
- Installed Input Helper 1.3.8, always from there.
- Set Stereo Rendering Mode to Multiview (Multi Pass makes the right eye render all black).
If I Build and Run the game, antialiasing works perfectly. If I close the game and launch it from the Oculus dashboard, antialiasing is no more.

Note that I'm still using the original components from the official Oculus plugin I had in 2019.2 (OVRCameraRig/OVRManager). Head/hand tracking and input are still working, luckily.

EDIT: compiled again, same settings, antialias is not working on launch. It's literally the guessing game.

EDIT2: deleted URP package, reinstalled again without changing anything, clicked build and run, and MSAA works. Closed the game, launched it from Oculus dashboard, MSAA doesn't work anymore once again.
What's the difference between launching the game via Unity and via system dashboard?

EDIT3: submitted ticket number 1206060.

 

Any update on this? I am tired trying to remove the flickering edges on Quest.

 

Not yet unfortunately, waiting for replies to the ticket at the moment. I also asked in a couple of Discord servers, without luck.

 

They have released Beta version of 2020. Maybe we can try that version to see if there are any changes.

 

I really just hope they will fix this in 2019.3.0f4, or at least provide some workaround I can use on the current version. I'd rather not switch to a whole new major release considered the state of things now, and most likely never update again once all things work as I expect.

 

rc4 is out since this morning if you want to try @DanjelRicci

 

Can't find that, neither in the Hub or in the website- it's still 2019.3.0f3. Also, is there a changelog eventually?

 

https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-2019-3-0-release-candidate-4-is-available-for-testing.796359/

 

Thanks. There's no mention at all of the antialiasing issue in the changelog (plus there are some known issues I really don't like) so I'll pass that and wait for an explicit fix.

 

Were you able to solve the antialiasing issue? I'm running into it myself. Currently on 2019.3.0f3.

 

Unfortunately not. Not a single reply yet about the issue but I’d wait after the holidays for that...

 

Well, happy new year I guess. Any news on this?
I'm still in the situation where Build And Run enables antialias, but launching the game from Quest dashboard doesn't enable it.

 

A workaround is available!

I received a mail with an update for the ticked I opened (Issue number 1197958) and as you can see from the link, you can work it around by changing the eye texture resolution. I'm using the script below to achieve that.
Thanks to Dominykas M from the QA team for helping with this!

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using UnityEngine;
3.  
4. public class AAFix : MonoBehaviour{
5.  
6.     void Start() {
7.         StartCoroutine("Fix");
8.     }
9.  
10.     IEnumerator Fix() {
11.  
12.         UnityEngine.XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureResolutionScale = 0.5f; // Any value, just to trigger the refresh
13.         yield return new WaitForEndOfFrame(); // Needed to apply the changes
14.         UnityEngine.XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureResolutionScale = 1f; // Use your target resolution here
15.         Destroy(this);
16.     }
17. }
18.  

 

Is MSAA working with FFR? (Fixed-Foveated Rendering)

 

Increasing eye texture resolution scale to 1.5f or more increases the resolution of the game, hence the flickering of meshes is minimal. However it affects the performance and the game lags. Is there any other way to achieve this without making the game lag?

 

Yes, it is! I just added
OVRPlugin.fixedFoveatedRenderingLevel = OVRPlugin.FixedFoveatedRenderingLevel.Medium; at line 11.
Sorry for the late reply, I intended to write this on the FFR issue thread too but stuff got in the way. Going to do it asap.

Once you use that workaround to make antialiasing work, you shouldn't need to increase texture resolution (unless you want some extremely sharp detail). Antialiasing makes the game a bit blurrier at 1x resolution, but it looks much better than not having it.

 

So is there no performance impact due to doing this? I will try this solution soon thankyou, hoping for an official Unity fix though seeing as this is so simple to workaround and fix..

 

See my other thread here, your fix is not a fix if you have UI or a shadergraph that makes any use of Depth pass in the scene. Having either of those breaks both MSAA and FFR as well as not rendering the shader graph or UI
https://forum.unity.com/threads/fix...-quest-not-working.686662/page-2#post-5364858

 

You can manually change ForwardRenderer.cs in the URP so that it never allows an intermediate render texture, and that should allow FFR and MSAA to work (you have to render directly to the swapchain textures).

 

What did you do to do this?
Hoping that Unity are working on their own fix

 

Force m_ActiveCameraColorAttachment and m_ActiveCameraDepthAttachment to both be the default of RenderTargetHandle.CameraTarget. Then force intermediateRenderTexture to false so that it doesn't create a camera render target.

It's a hack, and you should wrap it in !UNITY_EDITOR tags. Agree we need a proper fix.

 

Can confirm that this works. The URP team has responded about it a little bit in this thread.

 

It is also mentioned by the XR Graphics Lead here: https://forum.unity.com/threads/fix...-quest-not-working.686662/page-2#post-5066567

Where he also says it will be removed if there is no postprocessing, however it also interferes with FFR which they are trying to improve the implementation of so that the blit being there doesn't affect it anyway.

 

Using Multi-view rendering makes the game laggy and using Multi-Pass rendering makes the game work smoothly but only renders on Left Eye and Right Eye remains black. Is there a fix for this?

 

Multi-Pass is meant to be less performant than Multiview (quite drastically so), please report this issue with the Unity Bug Reporter and post the bug case number back here, I will try to chase it with you.

https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/bug-reporting

 

A PR for this exact issue and fix has been set up but not merged into the Master of URP/SRP on github, see it here
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/pull/5671

• The issue is that XR inits before URP overwrites MSAA settings.
• The solution is to update XR MSAAA settings once it is changed by URP
• Thoughts: if XR could init after URP constructor we can save this UpdateEyeTextureMSAASetting. Will need to decouple texture creation logic from XR start logic to achieve this.

 

Could you please describe in detail about " update XR MSAAA"?

 

URP 7.2 is available now in Unity 2019.3.0f6.

 

Do you know if 7.2 gets rid of the extra blit, or if MSAA and FFR are working out of the box now?

 

Using Unity.XR.Oculus.Utils.SetFoveationLevel(4); give me this error:
"Utilis" does not contain a definition for "SetFoveationLevel".
Unity 2019.3.0f6, URP 7.2.0, Oculus XR Plugin 1.1.5
I am missing something? Thank you

 

The new version using that isn't out *yet*

 

7.2 Does get rid of the KILL_ALPHA blit as mentioned by a dev on a different post and tested by me. The issue that is still remaining is that using MSAA enforces a blit and thus FFR is broken still when used in combination with MSAA. Thats at least to my understanding of the current situation.

 

I'm trying to get MSAA working on the quest as well without luck.

Unity 2019.3.1f1.

Tried both URP 7.2.1 and 7.1.8.

I'm using the "legacy" (aka the working) XR plugins from the asset store (OVR) and package manager.

Tried both Single Pass and Multi Pass stereo rendering with low overhead mode and V2 Signing.

On the URP asset;
-MSAA: 8x
-Render Scale: 1
-no depth or opaque texture

The OVR Manager;
use recommended MSAA Level: false

Using the CenterEyeAnchor camera;
Object Tagged MainCamera
Renderer set to 0: ForwardRenderer
Post Processing: false
Anti-Aliasing: none
Opaque Texture: Use Pipeline Settings
Depth Texture: Use Pipeline Settings
HDR: Use Pipeline Settings
MSAA: Use Pipeline Settings


I'm doing this in my gamemanager:

Code (CSharp):

1. /// <summary>
2.     /// Setting overrides that doesn't work correctly or is not available in the unity editor GUI.
3.     /// </summary>
4.     private void Start()
5.     {
6.         QualitySettings.vSyncCount = 0;
7.         Application.targetFrameRate = -1;
8.         StartCoroutine("MSAAFix");
9.         QualitySettings.antiAliasing = 4;
10.         UnityEngine.XR.XRDevice.UpdateEyeTextureMSAASetting();
11.         Debug.LogError(UnityEngine.XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureDesc.msaaSamples);
12.     }
13.  
14.     /// <summary>
15.     /// Fixes MSAA not being applied in VR with URP. Taken from; https://forum.unity.com/threads/quest-lwrp-urp-msaa-not-working.786026/
16.     /// </summary>
17.     /// <returns></returns>
18.     IEnumerator MSAAFix()
19.     {
20.  
21.         UnityEngine.XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureResolutionScale = 0.5f; // Any value, just to trigger the refresh
22.         yield return new WaitForEndOfFrame(); // Needed to apply the changes
23.         UnityEngine.XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureResolutionScale = 1f; // Use your target resolution here
24.         Debug.LogError("after: " + UnityEngine.XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureDesc.msaaSamples);
25.         yield return null;
26.     }

Both logs of UnityEngine.XR.XRSettings.eyeTextureDesc.msaaSamples shows 1.

Is this bug acknowledged / worked on? Is there a temporary fix I can apply?

P.S.
I noticed that in URP 7.2 when disabling Post Processing on the camera, the Anti-Aliasing option is not hidden, where in 7.1.8 it hides it.

 

@TheVirtualMunk

I have it working on Quest with the following:

• URP 7.1.8
• 2019.3.0.f3
• Modified ForwardRenderer.cs as recomended in posts above to get rid of extra blit (which also makes MSAA and FFR work)
• Switch of render scale for a single frame in game startup.
• Setting OVRManager's use recommended AA to false via script at startup
• MSAA set to 4x in Render Pipeline asset

See if that specific combo helps

 

As an addendum, make a backup copy of your modified ForwardRenderer because everytime you restart Unity, you'll have to copy the changes over again as Unity overwrites any modified versions of the files in the packages folder.