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Head tracking stuttering/lag

Walky
Explorer
I've been pleasantly surprised by my recently arrived Rift, and believed my first adaptation problems to be because of a lack of VR legs, but somehow I felt there was something wrong. I've been feeling some sort of stuttering/lag when moving my head around, even with really slow movement, as if the image "jumps" frames unevenly. This also translates to increased perceived motion blur and lag when looking around. It feels very unnatural and is really disorienting. This happens with every single demo/game I've tried (Unity/UDK/HL2, even those that run at 60 fps) and it's progressively making me more sick each time I try, as I'm now more aware of this. My brain struggles trying to compensate for the stuttering/lag, and it not only causes motion sickness but also eye strain. About an hour ago I downloaded the Vireio drivers and tried Dear Esther with them (mouse emulation)... the head movement is WAY smoother, no stuttering at all, and the perceived blur is greatly reduced. It feels much better than anything else I've tried (the caves are amazing). I don't have any other gaming PC to try the Rift on. I'm on a fresh Windows XP install about a week old (correctly updated) so there's not really much that could possibly be conflicting, but who knows (no Logitech software here)...

Any ideas?

Another problem I have is that I can't run the Oculus SDK IPD Utility, it tells me that I'm missing dxgi.dll (which seems to belong to DX10 and higher). Is the utility not compatible with DX9? The same happens with the Oculus World and Tiny Room demos.
31 REPLIES 31

Walky
Explorer
It's normal for the monitor to look smoother than the Rift (we see it at a different scale, after all, and distances between objects on different frames is extended, like looking at objects move 5cm by frame instead of 5mm). The blur is normal on the current model, the problem is the "stroboscopic" effect (I think that's what some people call judder) which is what I mentioned above and is excessive at framerates lower than 60. Judder will be there at 60+ fps, but it will be greatly reduced. Sometimes blur can eventually help make things look less choppy depending on the situation, not the ideal fix though. There's a nice writeup from Michael Abrash that explains the issue very clearly: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hole-fixing-judder/

There's also a chance that you are experiencing a computer-side problem that is making you lose frames for some reason. There's a mention of an issue like this near the end of the first post on the following thread: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1758

shellfr
Protege
Same issue here!

apps with no stutter:

vr Desktop (the one includes in OR software)
Tuscany
Radial G
PolyWorld
Cyberspace
Chilling Space
World of Diving
Ocean Rift

Apps with tracking stutter
Kokiri Forest
Virtual Desktop
Red of Paws Big...
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Project Cars 😞

Sli < no Sli ; low or high fps ; vsync or not ; low persistence or not; all of that don't change anything.

I insist, this is only a "tracking stuttering". When i move in game whith mouse or pad, it is really smooth, no stutter at all. Stutter appears only when i move my head.
And i dont think it is a hardware defect, cause it work great in some apps.

shellfr
Protege
Here is a video:



As you can see, even static menu is jumping when i move my head.

rtweed
Honored Guest
There are another couple of threads about this (search "judder" or "stutter") so it seems to be a common issue. It affects me too.

The fix that seems to work most of the time is to set the Rift to extend desktop mode in the control panel, but still run the direct-to-rift version of the game/demo. Sometimes that doesn't work, in which case setting the rift as the primary monitor and running the game/demo on that desktop might work. I've avoided this solution because it tends to mess up my desktop and takes ages to get everything back where I need it.

I also found that, as I have 2 monitors, turning one of them off also fixed the problem.

The most likely explanation I have seen is that games/demos are artificially limiting their frame rate below 75fps even though they are capable of achieving that rate. This may be because instead of currently syncing to the Rift's vertical refresh at 75Hz, they are syncing to one of the other displays at around 60Hz.

BTW, like most people with this problem, I am not getting it in either of the two Oculus demos (room / Tuscany). If you are getting the same problem in those demos, you most likely have a different problem to everyone else. You can still try the same fixes and report back on whether it made any difference, but you should indicate whether or not the Oculus demos are working, and which GPU you have.

MatuX
Honored Guest
Exact same issue with DK2. Haven't been able to solve it with anything.

FPS seems to be fine. Its just the head tracking.

mreligioso
Honored Guest
I too am having some head tracking stuttering in the Tuscany demo.
I'm using a GTX260 gpu on 64 bit Windows 7.

FPS is smooth, but turning my head causes the stuttering.

MatuX
Honored Guest
I have the same problem with HL2. I get the feeling this is all because of the damned "Extend Desktop to the HMD" option.

soggoth
Honored Guest
Same thing here, running on 21.5" iMac with GF 650M.
I'm getting a noticeable jitter in both Room demo scene and Tuscany.
FPS in Tuscany is 60-62, moving camera with mouse is ok, but head tracking is jittery in the headset. Picture on the monitor always moves smooth, so jitter is a headset-only issue. Fiddling with frequency and resolution does not help.

I have also tried DK2 on my other laptop (17" MacBook Pro with Radeon HD6750M) - it looks better there, room demo was smooth, but Tuscany still jittery. Interesting thing - head tracking in Tuscany works more or less fine until I touch the mouse. If I move camera with the mouse even once - head tracking starts to jitter.

Both Macs running the same version of MacOS and both GF650M and HD6750M cards are definitely powerful enough to run room demo. The most obvious difference is that iMac has USB 3.0 while MacBook is USB 2.0, not sure if it might be the case.

I'll keep trying on other hardware I can get my hands on.

soggoth
Honored Guest
OK, looks like I should read the manual from the beginning 🙂

""Oculus Unity Integration Guide"" wrote:
As with Windows, it is possible to mirror the same image on all of your displays. Oculus recommends against mirroring. Click Arrangement and ensure Mirror Displays is not enabled.


Disabling mirroring and setting Oculus as primary display fixed the problem

Anonymous
Honored Guest
"soggoth" wrote:

FPS in Tuscany is 60-62, moving camera with mouse is ok, but head tracking is jittery in the headset.


These low frame rates are where you're seeing judder. On traditional monitors getting consistent 60fps is a perfectly acceptable experience. In the Rift we humans happen to be very sensitive to dropped/incomplete frames when the display is covering our entire vision. To completely eliminate judder you're going to have to consistently get the same 75fps that the Rift is outputting. Any less and you'll see judder.