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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

cybereality
Grand Champion
This could be an issue with a defective or incorrectly calibrated tracker.

Is it possible for you to take a video illustrating the problem?

If it is a hardware defect, we may be able to offer a replacement.
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Walky
Explorer
Thanks, I'll try to make a video of it. I hope it's just a conflicting software issue as I don't think I can afford to spend more money on customs for a replacement (another $175 would make a total of $745 spent on this so far, which is more than my paycheck 😞 )

Guspaz
Honored Guest
Warranty replacements are generally exempt from tariffs/brokerage/etc.

Tariffs and taxes and brokerage fees are all based on the value of the item, which for a warranty replacement is $0. At least that's how it works shipping into Canada.

Walky
Explorer
"guspaz" wrote:
Warranty replacements are generally exempt from tariffs/brokerage/etc.

Tariffs and taxes and brokerage fees are all based on the value of the item, which for a warranty replacement is $0. At least that's how it works shipping into Canada.


I really hope that's the case, but knowing how things work in Chile I really doubt it. I don't think they'll let their "handling fees" go that easily 😞

Guspaz
Honored Guest
Yeah, and UPS is known to try tacking on brokerage fees to warranty replacements anyhow even when they're not supposed to.

Walky
Explorer
I tried to make a video but the stuttering is so subtle that my camera can't catch the difference. On the other hand, I'm beginning to think it might partially be a perception issue on my side (perhaps my brain handles the Vireio shader better?), today I felt less sick when trying HL2 so it seems I might eventually get my VR legs after all. I'll look more into it but more calmly as I don't want to force myself (my head still feels funny), nor want to make rushed conclusions. I also found a post by Geekmaster which lead me to change the panel brightness to 0, which actually seems to be helping on the motion sickness side.

Walky
Explorer
I can confirm that it was just a framerate issue, all while wrongly assuming that: a) 50-55 fps shouldn't feel much different than 60, and b) Games on the Rift should never go below 50% of the normal no-Rift framerate. The latter is especially notable with Source games, most specifically HL2, which used to run at 150+ fps at high settings with AA/AF on 1440x900 and surprisingly manages to drop to about 40 fps at many moments while on "Rift stereo" (even when sometimes it goes waaay up), even If I try lowering the graphic settings (this includes disabling all filters and even lowering the resolution to 1280x800). I hope it's just because of Windows XP and non-optimized drivers and it goes better once I go back to dual boot, but I'll sure need to get an upgrade in the future anyway 😛 . At least my VR legs are here to stay so meanwhile I can still easily handle a couple of hours of stroboscopic (~30 fps) TF2 without nausea :lol:, and certain demos manage to stay at 60 fps so there's still lots of stuff to try.

ccgamesceo
Honored Guest
I have the same problem. Even slow head movements are jittery. The tracking is stuttering on my monitor and in the headset. I hope there is a fix. It does give u a headache. It's almost unusable. I can make a video. Where should I send it?

EvilBeaN
Honored Guest
I have a similar issue that I've seen in my trials last night. The games run 50-60+ fps in unity (also TF2 around 80-90) and the mouse movements are always as smooth as can be on the monitor screen. However even the slightest head movement with the headset on the judder/blur is extremely intense.