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45 FPS Problem in some games

RedLeader42
Protege
I initially chimed in on another thread regarding FPS problems in Robo Recall but I am realizing it isn't just that game. I'm having this in other games as well such as The Climb and Bending the Light. I'm using Oculus Tray Tool to confirm the FPS and performance headroom. In-game there is visible stuttering while moving around or even just watching moving objects. FPS is reported steady at 45 with negative headroom. Windows reports the process using around 32% GPU usage and 20% CPU. The system is a new MSI GE63VR-7RF Raider with GTX 1070 and Windows 10. I've tried some suggestions like turning off ASW Mode to no effect, updating drivers, etc. I'm running GeForce drivers v390.65. The only thing I've found that helps (tested in Robo Recall) is if the game can be windowed and then minimized on the computer screen, the FPS immediately camps out at 90 FPS with 30-50% headroom.Other games or environments such as the new Oculus Home, Job Simulator, Echo Arena and Star Trek Bridge Crew all run steadily at 90 FPS with no less than 20% headroom. I'm unsure what changed but I can say when I first got the system all the games seemed to run flawlessly.

Is this a known issue, as I've seen other people reporting similar problems? Is there any resolution? Not only for myself, but I want to have some friends over to blow their minds and would like the experience to be excellent like it was previously.
MSI GE63VR-7RF Raider | GTX 1070 8 GB | Core i7-7700HQ 2.80 - 3.80 GHz | 32 GB RAM
108 REPLIES 108

Sharkster-NVR
Protege
Thx for the feedback...
ERAZER X7849 Notebook - CPU: Intel Core i7 6820HK - GPU: GTX 1070, 8 GB GDDR5 RAM - RAM: 32 GB (4x 8 GB DDR4 HYNIX PC4 17000 DUAL CHANNEL) - MAINBOARD: INTEL HM170

JJcourage
Explorer
Hello RedLeader42, Sharkster-NVR, also Oculus Support/cybereality if this proves useful. I've found your replies above the closest to my experience of micro-stuttering.

TL;DR -> I agree, it is not a hardware issue (in my case) but a driver upgrade issue, which somehow introduces code into Win 10 that even DDU does not remove. At the exact moment I upgraded Nvidia 385.14 to 388.xx, micro-stutters began (early Dec. 2017). Before was perfect (Dell R3 13, 1060 6Gb, OLED). Going from Oculus Client 1.19 to 1.20+ was not the problem. Downgrading from 388.xx, even to original drivers, does _not_ fix anything (as others have said on the internet). I haven't had the time to do a complete Win 10 reinstall, but after 2 months of reading around, today I have: installed Oculus Client 1.23 Beta 2.0 and latest 390.65 drivers (it still had bad microstutters, but...), then downgraded back to (non-Beta) Oculus Classic Home 1.22 _and_ crucially, switched off Unknown Apps (thus stopping access to SteamVR). I thus only see in my Oculus Library Robo Recall (nothing else installed). For the first time in two months I have had a stutter-free Robo Recall mission. (I was surprised!). My testing continues tonight, but so far, no stutters in Classic Oculus Home or Robo. Another really bad stutterer has been Tomb Raider (worse than Robo, low graphics settings or high/maxed-out graphics, exactly the same level of stuttering), in fact I've never used this in the Rift for more than 10-20 sec ever due to this stuttering), but I will try that after this post - TR is launched via SteamVR (another issue).

Details -> I'm posting to add something to this amazingly complex issue - I've been trying for 2 months to sort out the micro-stutters myself, but I hope this info will help from my specific perspective:

Last Black Friday, after reading abou the Rift since its launch - and waiting (hopefully) for the technology to mature - I acquired:
Dell Alienware R3 13 / 16Gb / 512Gb / GTX1060 6Gb (+Intel HD 630) / OLED model (NB, on the OLED model, the F7 I/D GFX button is intentionally non-functional (no idea, ask Dell, but it is worth mentioning for those that have the LCD models, where it does function - in any case, I believe this is irrelevant here).
+
Oculus Rift + Touch + 2 sensor bundle.
NOTE: I bought this Dell laptop setup _only_ for the Rift (to move between rooms/work/home), and it has never had any other programs installed on it. None. Just an Oculus Client and (after a week, SteamVR, more on that later). Thus, I have never had Corsair/RGB/Power/Afterburner, and such programs, but, of course, all the Dell pre-installed drivers and so on. I de-installed McAfee on first boot.

1. The whole Rift setup worked _perfectly_ for about 5 days. Dell UK has a page showing how to setup the Rift, and this helped me buy in the first instance. The hardware is more than capable, and I experienced this to be the case, on many Rift programs and games (15), both in Oculus Library and Steam VR.
Flawless: Robo Recall, max settings, buttery smooth.This was before any Windows updates or Nvidia driver updates, etc. So, in the first week of December 2017, I suffered _no_ Rift micro-sttutering issues. None. It was an excellent experience (but I do not use for very long) and I was very happy and enjoyed showing colleagues/friends (mostly). For other reasons, I usually have time for no more than 20 minutes in each session, so I can't comment on those reports where stutters occur over 30 min+. I hadn't looked at any forums and had no idea what 'micro-stuttering' was or even existed. Now I do of course, for 2 months of trouble-shooting.

Power management was on Dell's recommended OLED profile (NB changing this between High Performance, makes no difference to micro-stutters AFAIK, for me).

Start/baseline:
Dell pre-installed A09 drivers for the laptop GTX 1060 offering (which is, when viewing the Nvidia Control Panel: Nvidia 385.14 (yes, 14, not 41, these are 385.14) drivers. At this stage, I was not bothered with what the Intel HD 630 igfx drivers were (and I also think this is never relevant).
Oculus Client was 1.19, which on Dec. 5th received an auto update to 1.20.
Still no problems using _just_ the Oculus Client and software one can use with it (including SteamVR, installed after 2-3 days of first boot).

Let me choose Robo Recall, as the worst offender for micro-stutter: every second, many times, totally broken. Even Oculus Classic Home or Google Earth VR (perhaps once every 1-2 secs).

But, when did this happen, exactly at which point, for me? I can tell you:

At the end of the first week of the Rift, I decided to try Rift 2.0 Beta. This also required an update, at that time, to 388.xx. It installed OK, but immediately I saw the micro-stutter for the first time. Now I realised, at that point in time, I had a problem. Ok, it's a Beta. I calmed down. I rolled back the driver from the Win 10 (64 bit) control panel, back to 385.14. I then had to, of course, go back to Oculus Home 1.20 (at that time). By this method, all seemed fixed. I breathed a sigh of relief. I left some customer feedback to Oculus about this, and did say I was worried that they were forcing an upgrade to 388.xx, which clearly 'broke' the whole Rift experience for me at that point. Still, it's a Beta.

So, I thought I was fixed, back to Stable channel, 385.14 and Client 1.20. My whole Rift experience was back to perfect, no stutters, just the limitations of a 2 sensor (360) setup (which aren't that bad of a set of limitations actually) - the touch controllers are great, no jump with them, very stable.

This is when the fun began.
On the next system boot, Windows forced an Update, for whatever reason, an update to 388.xx (I can't quite recall whether this was 388.13) and... I couldn't roll back the driver in the Device Manager either! Argh! [yes, micro-stutters were back, but now even in Classic Oculus Home 1.20). I discovered the DDU driver deinstall program, ran that, rebooted, and re-installed the Dell A09 original (385.14) package from Dell support. Still microstutters! Oh no. I have since tried pretty much every Nvidia package from 384.xx to 388.xx, even the 382.xx. No change. I removed all graphics drivers, even the Intel HD 630, downloaded both Intel and Nvidia packages afresh and installed them, dumped Oculus Home, together with CCleaner registry cleaning, all that stuff, everything. I even delved into the registry and tidied it up manually AFAIC. The last possibility would be a complete Win 10 reinstall. But I like to go down fighting and (I still) have not done this... read on:

The last two months have come and gone and all the Win 10 updates, too. No change, still microstutters (I don't _believe_ any new Win updates since early Dec 2017 have added to the problems).

Finally today, I have made progress (without a full Win 10 reinstall):

I went all in, one more time and went to the Beta program, Oculus 1.23 and Rift Core 2.0, Nividia 390.65 - all the latest of today. I thought, heck, if it is 'broke' I may as well go bleeding edge and look at the latest offerings, even with the dreadful micro-stutters.

2. With all the latest Oculus Beta / Nvidia 390 drivers in place, still the stuttering, but I did notice, as others have reported, it was indeed a little better in the Oculus Home/Dash 2.0. But still hopeless. Well, I thought before I put it all back in the box... and wait a month or so, let's go back down to non-Beta...

Oculus app version 1.22.0.520720 (122.0.5.520733) is reported at the bottom of the Settings page in Oculus Client, and I kept the Nvidia 390.65 drivers in place (NB to keep 'Win 10 Update' happy, as it keeps asking to upgrade them, and I'd rather keep Win Update fully on for other updating/security reasons). Still the stutters persist, but again, perceptibly better. I rebooted and came back to the option "Use Classic Oculus Home (May be available for a limited time)" setting; I switched this on, and entered Rift. Stutters were almost gone, almost nothing, 1 every ten seconds. What!? Robo Recall, ah, still some stuttering, but not as bad.

3. Then, why, I cannot tell you, I decided to remove (i.e. stop) Unknown Sources and Automatic app updates, these options are under the Settings -> General tab in Classic Oculus Home. I put back on the Rift, no stuttering. None. Wow. I started Robo. In the menu system of Robo, no stuttering. None. Entered a mission, Mission 1. Just a couple of stutters if I turned to look to the rear (I have a two sensor setup) at the beginning of the session, then, none. I completed the mission, no stutters, all graphics maxed out as they were when I first bought the Dell R3 13, and all had been perfect the first week.
Oculus Home with Classic on, 1.22 / Nvidia 390.65, on proven hardware.
More tests tonight. It is nowhere close to a solution for probably more than anyone but me (Dell R3 13 OLED), and likely everything may break in the next session, but, that's my story so far.
Alienware R3 13 OLED notebook | GTX 1060 6 GB (Intel 630 HD igfx) | Core i7-7700HQ | 512 | 16 GB RAM
Rift worked perfectly (no stutters) until early Dec 2017, then stuttered until May 2018 (gave up using it). Since May '18, what worked = use DDU to force remove all Nvidia GPU drivers, reinstall all Dell official ones, followed by (to present) 411.70. On Oculus Home 1.33. All works fine.

JJcourage
Explorer
OK - follow up tests to the post above: I have to write this complexity up asap; it is freakin' bizarre.
I rebooted, and entered Classic Oculus Home 1.22 immediately (still on 390.65 Nvidia latest). No stutters in the main Home pages. Great. That's a good start. Entered into the Edit Avatar pages (never bothered before) - again, no stutters. Started Robo Recall, no stutters in the menu/office area. Picked Mission 1 again (now, in hindsight - please note, it was Daytime (not Night-time) for this Mission - the default is Random at the Mission start page) - no stutters! Yes! Enjoyed for a minute this revelation after 2 months of unplayability.
So, to Tomb Raider... I had to accept Unknown Sources to allow Steam VR... ah... now the stutters begin, everywhere... even in Oculus Home Classic... as expected, Tomb Raider starts... to complete stutters, the worst I've experienced. Quit.
Reboot, start to Oculus (no Steam VR, I uncheck allow Unknown sources), no stutters, Robo Recall... but this time it Random starts in Night-time (Mission 1) and I have what I would call 'medium' stuttering - rubbish. I try again, realising it was not  "Day time" in the game... and it starts in Day time - no stutters! So I repeat, and then I realise I can force the Mission 1 start page to not be Random, but either Day time (no stutters) or Night time (stutters). Now, on one occasion, the Day time starts with stutters. I pause the game, and restart the level. No stutters. Wow, fascinating... I try this on Night time - no dice; even on a "restart level" command, this always has stuttering.
Before I gave up tonight - I tried Robo Recall with the Steam window (not VR, just the Steam client window) just being open (Big Screen or Steam Home, didn't matter), behind the Oculus Classic Home window (on top), and... then going into the Rift just via Oculus Home Client... ok, ok... there's slight stuttering even in Oculus Home (looking up at my Avatar, you can see the slight stutters sometimes). And Robo Recall _always_ has stuttering in game, doing anything at all... but not in the menus or office (?). Wow. So, there is some kind of deeply embedded code, related to some kind of highly demanding API graphics call (reflections? e.g. night time Robo, or Steam just being open, but clearly when in Tomb Raider's VR level), that once triggered, doesn't clear, and causes micro-stuttering, until a reboot.
That's all I can manage folks - the logic is too complex; but basically all the best parts are broken for me. It's all going back in the box for a while. The way it is. YMMV!
Alienware R3 13 OLED notebook | GTX 1060 6 GB (Intel 630 HD igfx) | Core i7-7700HQ | 512 | 16 GB RAM
Rift worked perfectly (no stutters) until early Dec 2017, then stuttered until May 2018 (gave up using it). Since May '18, what worked = use DDU to force remove all Nvidia GPU drivers, reinstall all Dell official ones, followed by (to present) 411.70. On Oculus Home 1.33. All works fine.

RedLeader42
Protege
JJcourage, one thing I can confirm 100% at this point is that much of the stuttering I am seeing in games is associated with other application windows being open on the computer screen. The Oculus Client software is the worst offender I've found, but they can even be open "behind" the game window, whether the game is full screen or not, and still have a huge negative affect on in-game fps.

Example: I start up Star Trek Bridge Crew and notice lots of stuttering and poor fps just sitting at the main menu, which usually doesn't happen. I go to the computer and make sure all other applications are minimized - immediately have great results and solid 90 fps performance. 

I believe a lot of my "mixed" testing results is due to sometimes having other application windows open and not realizing it. My understanding is "whatever is on the computer screen shouldn't have an affect on game performance" but that is NOT proving correct in my case.

I'm going to go try disabling unknown sources and see if I see a correlation.

[EDIT]

I tested switching to Home Classic and disabling unknown Sources, neither seemed to have a direct affect. I confirmed that having the app open "behind" the game window still affected performance and caused lower fps and stuttering, despite classic home being enabled.
MSI GE63VR-7RF Raider | GTX 1070 8 GB | Core i7-7700HQ 2.80 - 3.80 GHz | 32 GB RAM

LZoltowski
Champion


JJcourage, one thing I can confirm 100% at this point is that much of the stuttering I am seeing in games is associated with other application windows being open on the computer screen. The Oculus Client software is the worst offender I've found, but they can even be open "behind" the game window, whether the game is full screen or not, and still have a huge negative affect on in-game fps.

Example: I start up Star Trek Bridge Crew and notice lots of stuttering and poor fps just sitting at the main menu, which usually doesn't happen. I go to the computer and make sure all other applications are minimized - immediately have great results and solid 90 fps performance. 

I believe a lot of my "mixed" testing results is due to sometimes having other application windows open and not realizing it. My understanding is "whatever is on the computer screen shouldn't have an affect on game performance" but that is NOT proving correct in my case.

I'm going to go try disabling unknown sources and see if I see a correlation.

Hey do your setting match these? (obviously, your monitor can be different res)

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Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂

LZoltowski
Champion
Also, two quick questions is Your XBOX DVR feature on, AND how are you installing Nvidia drivers? By just installing over them or actually doing a complete removal using DDU? https://www.wagnardsoft.com/
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂

RedLeader42
Protege
LZoltowski, maybe this is something? I don't have the Display, Mobile, or Video options available in my GeForce control panel. It seems at some point the rift being detected as a second "monitor" was removed (maybe with the manual uninstall and reinstall support asked me to do?) and now neither Windows nor the control panel are detecting it. I only have a "Built-in Display" now. The system has an Intel HD 630 display adapter and I've confirmed those drivers are up to date, so I do see a "maintain aspect ratio" option under the Intel control panel, which I selected, but it made no noticeable difference in performance. If I need to have the Rift detected as a second monitor I'm not sure how to go about that.

To answer your other question, every single time I switch drivers am rebooting into Safe Mode, running DDU, rebooting, and reinstalling the GeForce drivers.

[EDIT] 
Oh and I don't have Xbox anything installed on this system, so no to that. 
MSI GE63VR-7RF Raider | GTX 1070 8 GB | Core i7-7700HQ 2.80 - 3.80 GHz | 32 GB RAM

LZoltowski
Champion


LZoltowski, maybe this is something? I don't have the Display, Mobile, or Video options available in my GeForce control panel. It seems at some point the rift being detected as a second "monitor" was removed (maybe with the manual uninstall and reinstall support asked me to do?) and now neither Windows nor the control panel are detecting it. I only have a "Built-in Display" now. The system has an Intel HD 630 display adapter and I've confirmed those drivers are up to date, so I do see a "maintain aspect ratio" option under the Intel control panel, which I selected, but it made no noticeable difference in performance. If I need to have the Rift detected as a second monitor I'm not sure how to go about that.

To answer your other question, every single time I switch drivers am rebooting into Safe Mode, running DDU, rebooting, and reinstalling the GeForce drivers.

[EDIT] 
Oh and I don't have Xbox anything installed on this system, so no to that. 

In windows 10 search bar, type in settings, when the window pops up, select gaming, click on game bar .. and disable the first option. In Game DVR, make sure its set to off too.


Can you send me the screenshot of your Nvidia Panel like above? While your Rift is plugged in via HDMI .. and actually use the latest 390 drivers this time (I know but work with me here lol) ..



Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂

RedLeader42
Protege

In windows 10 search bar, type in settings, when the window pops up, select gaming, click on game bar .. and disable the first option. In Game DVR, make sure its set to off too.

GOT IT. Okay, I did find that and disable those settings.

Can you send me the screenshot of your Nvidia Panel like above? While your Rift is plugged in via HDMI .. and actually use the latest 390 drivers this time (I know but work with me here lol) ..


I can and will do that, but first for something different. I started thinking about the Intel adapter and my HDMI connection and noticed I have a mini-display port as well. (New laptop as of a few weeks ago bought just for VR; I haven't explored it much.) Because why not at this point, I hooked up a external monitor and found out this port is also on the GTX 1070! So I made this my primary monitor and disabled my laptop monitor completely. I can clearly see in Windows Task Manager that now every process is now forced to use GPU 1 (the GTX 1070) and I've effectively bypassed the onboard Intel. Previously, system processes like Desktop Window Manager and the like were using GPU 0, the Intel HD 630. 

Any guesses on Robo Recall performance?? BETTER THAN ANYTHING YET! Smoking fast, smooth, almost no hiccups except once in a while drops to about 87 fps, and my performance headroom is improved yet still close to the floor.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say some software isn't optimized to use the differing GPUs properly or at least separate them so one isn't holding the other back. I'll grab some screen shots of these different configurations I've just discovered. Will also try the 390 driver now that I feel like I've got a handle on the root cause.
MSI GE63VR-7RF Raider | GTX 1070 8 GB | Core i7-7700HQ 2.80 - 3.80 GHz | 32 GB RAM

LZoltowski
Champion
Excellent news! That pesky Intel!

I think I read like a bazillion articles trying to help you solve this.
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂