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Rift S - Hands hovering in front of your face - Tracking fixed but not in all areas.

SkScotchegg
Expert Trustee
Hi everybody, so recently Oculus released 1.39 patch and since installing I noticed a massive improvement in FPS sims with two handed weapons and now these games are playable again for me and many others. This is fantastic news and I have enjoyed the past week playing these games such as Onward/Pavlov etc.

But there is still one last glaring problem with the tracking which is when you have your hands at your sides - which you do in many games like puzzle games, story games etc and even the new Defector game which I was playing last night had this problem also. My hands would often freeze after 5-10 seconds out of view of the cameras and they would teleport and hover in front of my face. So when I'm looking forward in Defector listening to what the characters are telling me to do I can see my hands stuck and frozen in front of my face which is obviously very immersion breaking.

I have reached out to John Carmack on Twitter today with a tweet and this is what I asked him:
Thank you so much for fixing Rift S tracking issues with your latest 1.39 patch. Please can you program your hands to stick to your side when out of view. At the moment after 5-10 seconds of being at your side your hands teleport and hover in front of your face.

If he responds to my tweet I will post back and let you know what he says.

I really hope Oculus fix this issue as for these types of games it's really annoying. What's weird is most of the time it's mainly my left hand which teleports in front of my face. I just see my left hand hovering slightly above my head in front of my face. My batteries are on full power for both Touch controllers, my software is all up to date for windows and Oculus. 

I think this is a software issue and I think this could be easily fixed by them programming the software to stick your hands to your sides when out of view, that way they don't teleport in front of your face or hover above your face.

Questions for the community:
  • Has anybody else had this issues with frozen hands dangling in front of your face?
  • What do you think is causing the issue?
  • How do you think this could be fixed?
  • What games have you experienced this issue in?
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!
14 REPLIES 14

This was my problem with the Quest, as well as cartoony, cheap textures.

"I hate losing tracking though.  Even when i'm just standing still, waiting for something, with my hands by my side - of course, i lose tracking of the hands so when i look, or move i might see them for a millisecond in the wrong place and then they pop back.  Unfortunately, the very name "virtual reality" is completely trashed - you are dragged out kicking and screaming from any feelings of immersion and presence."

Doesn't sound as bad as them drifting in front of your face but as you can see by what i said at the time, it kills the experience.

Will be ordering an S this weekend though!!   🙂
Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3

SkScotchegg
Expert Trustee


This was my problem with the Quest, as well as cartoony, cheap textures.

"I hate losing tracking though.  Even when i'm just standing still, waiting for something, with my hands by my side - of course, i lose tracking of the hands so when i look, or move i might see them for a millisecond in the wrong place and then they pop back.  Unfortunately, the very name "virtual reality" is completely trashed - you are dragged out kicking and screaming from any feelings of immersion and presence."

Doesn't sound as bad as them drifting in front of your face but as you can see by what i said at the time, it kills the experience.

Will be ordering an S this weekend though!!   🙂



Thanks for your reply, well the Rift S is a great headset in many ways, I am very happy with it over all, especially since patch 1.39 fixed the tracking for FPS when holding and aiming down two handed rifles.

Oculus restored my confidence in them with that patch and so now I believe this issue with floating hands can be easily fixed with software. We just need another patch. Once this problem has been fixed then Rift S will be perfect in my eyes for current tech.

If your getting a Rift S this weekend I'm sure you'll be very happy with your purchase, weather your playing car games, or shooting games etc.

The screen is lovely, the optics are lovely, the headset build quality is lovely and very easy to put on your head.

With the old Rift CV1 I would be left with pressure marks all over my face and hair. But with Rift S the way it sits on your head is so much better, the halo design is fantastic.

I thought the audio would bother me before I bought Rift S but it honestly doesn't bother me, the build in headphones are too quiet so I just plug in my own headphones and it works great.
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!

saami81
Rising Star
I never got this particular problem in Defector yesterday. Played first two levels. I just tried to do it in Oculus home in front of mirror, but everything worked fine. Tracking was ofc loss behind back, but gyros still worked and hands stuck where i left them. I got another issue with Defector tho. I kept losing tracking in 2nd level and i had to put asw on in Oculus tray tool. I guess that game was too demanding for my puny hardware.

SkScotchegg
Expert Trustee

saami81 said:

I never got this particular problem in Defector yesterday. Played first two levels. I just tried to do it in Oculus home in front of mirror, but everything worked fine. Tracking was ofc loss behind back, but gyros still worked and hands stuck where i left them. I got another issue with Defector tho. I kept losing tracking in 2nd level and i had to put asw on in Oculus tray tool. I guess that game was too demanding for my puny hardware.



Have you had floating hands in any game?

I'm just wanting to know how many people have this problem with their Rift S, just curious to know?
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!

saami81
Rising Star



saami81 said:

I never got this particular problem in Defector yesterday. Played first two levels. I just tried to do it in Oculus home in front of mirror, but everything worked fine. Tracking was ofc loss behind back, but gyros still worked and hands stuck where i left them. I got another issue with Defector tho. I kept losing tracking in 2nd level and i had to put asw on in Oculus tray tool. I guess that game was too demanding for my puny hardware.



Have you had floating hands in any game?

I'm just wanting to know how many people have this problem with their Rift S, just curious to know?


Not after 1.39 patch. Before that i got exact same problem when tracking was lost. Hands "drifted away" and then stuck for short time in front of me. Now i can purposely lost tracking behind my back, but drifting is gone.

ElusiveMarlin
Rising Star
I did have this problem prior to the latest patches being released this week.

Not had it since. it has actually been a pleasure to use this week, really enjoying my Rift S now.

Even showed a new family member it, and they were "blown away" by the experience 🙂


I play lots of Bow games, and "in Death" is a lot better than 2 weeks ago, but still looses tracking every now and then.
Not been back in Skyrim yet though, so looking forward to that this weekend, if I can tear myself away from Sairento! 🙂
RIFT CV1
RIFT S
Leeds, UK.

Intel Core i7 7700K 3.7GHz | RAM 32GB DDR4 2666MHz | GeForce GTX 1080 8GB |

"Behind every mask there is a face, and behind that a story...."

SkScotchegg
Expert Trustee


I did have this problem prior to the latest patches being released this week.

Not had it since. it has actually been a pleasure to use this week, really enjoying my Rift S now.

Even showed a new family member it, and they were "blown away" by the experience 🙂


I play lots of Bow games, and "in Death" is a lot better than 2 weeks ago, but still looses tracking every now and then.
Not been back in Skyrim yet though, so looking forward to that this weekend, if I can tear myself away from Sairento! 🙂



That's strange as the tracking has been fixed for me too apart from this one issue.

One thing I did notice tonight when I click on Device and Rift S in Oculus software it says "we recommend you update your USB drivers". Can anyone please tell me how to do this? It doesn't explain to me how to do it.



I did have this problem prior to the latest patches being released this week.

Not had it since. it has actually been a pleasure to use this week, really enjoying my Rift S now.

Even showed a new family member it, and they were "blown away" by the experience 🙂


I play lots of Bow games, and "in Death" is a lot better than 2 weeks ago, but still looses tracking every now and then.
Not been back in Skyrim yet though, so looking forward to that this weekend, if I can tear myself away from Sairento! 🙂



Yeah it's been great for me too, I was only mainly playing Audica/Onward/Pavlov over past week though and everything was great but then started playing Defector last night and I got frozen hand in front of my face again.

EDIT: Just as I was writing this it said my Oculus software requires an update so will check this update out and report back.
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!

SkScotchegg
Expert Trustee
Just a quick update guys. For some reason the last few days my tracking in Rift S seems worse, I'm not sure why.

  • In Audica the tracking seems quite bad and you can't shoot some of the targets.
  • In Beat Saber it feels like the tracking is lagging behind.
  • And in Defector and Sairento I was getting floating hands above my face/head when my hands were idle at their sides and the cameras/sensors on the Rift S headset couldn't see my hands for more then 5 seconds which is really annoying.
I've not tried other games but I seem to get slight issues with tracking in most games to some degree.

Onward/Pavlov still seem ok though.

I now have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Rift S. It's like I want to love it, I game with it and have a good time, but soon as I see a hand floating in front of my face it just pisses me off.

Sweet Jesus, I guess I'll just have to wait for more updates!!!!  😞

EDIT: I've just seen this post here where this guy has the same issue on Quest:

https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/discussion/78489/my-oculus-quest-controller-stuck-in-air#lates...

EDIT 2: Still not had a response back yet from John Carmack on Twitter.
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!

Well, i ordered Saturday, hoping to have it on Wednesday.  I blame you if it doesn't work SkS!    😄
Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3