Quest 2 / Quest Build 23.0 Release Notes

Lunar_Tick said:

TomCgcmfc said:

Does anyone know if the latest v23 update has fixed the Q2 going into sleep mode every 2 minutes (unless you move your head around a lot)?  This was happening with Prime Video and meditation apps like Tripp.  Thanks.

Try reading the patch notes.

Thanks I already read that in the v23 patch notes.  I was just wondering if anyone with a Q2 can confirm this has actually fixed the problem.  This was one of the reasons I sent my Q2 back to the Oculus store for a refund.  I'm back to my Q1 which after the v23 update seems to be working better than ever.  I still miss the Q2 clarity for watching media though.

• We’ve fixed a bug that caused some headsets to go into sleep mode while actively watching video in media apps.

Awesome! Perhaps I will receive it by Feb 25th 2034.

Is the tracking lost / black screen / screen freeze issue when waking up finally fixed?

TomCgcmfc said:

Bigchief23 said:

This sucks that they didn't make the quest one have the option to make it 90hz. Alot of ppl paid a lot for it and  even if you sell it now. You are losing money because resell is low. Make quest one 90hz damnnn it! 

This has been discussed quite a few times over the last year or so.

Carmack mentioned in his keynote at OC6 Sept1919 that the FCC certification Oculus filed limits the refresh rate to 72 Hz. He said the panel can go higher, but because that would void their FCC certification, they can’t allow it. He also mentioned that had they didn’t want to allow a higher refresh rate when filing because most developers would have too hard a time optimizing or even being able to deliver experiences that could hit a higher frame rate.  I think a lot of this is also due to the weaker Q1 mobile chip.  So, I kinda doubt that we are ever going to see 90hz on the Q1.

Obviously, the more powerful Q2 chip, together with fast lcd panels has raised the bar and Carmack said this year that the Q2 panels were actually capable of 120hz but he did not see this being practical.  This is because higher refresh rates takes more processing power.  With Link now coming out of beta and offering 72/80/90hz options for the Q2, it will be interesting to see what people think.  On a properly controlled Blind Test I doubt that many could tell the difference imho.

If you can tell the difference between 90 and 120 Hz / FPS on a 2D monitor (you'd have to be blind not to), then you can definitely benefit from 120 Hz in VR. Just people people aren't consciously aware doesn't mean it isn't helping them. Especially with regards to flickering due to low persistence. The difference between 90 and 120 Hz is large. Put it this way, 60 Hz AC, invented by Nicola Tesla, was determined to be the minimum frequency at which street lights stop flickering. But if you know anything about how lights work, a 60 Hz AC signal drops below negative voltage for half its period, so they use rectifiers. This makes a 60 Hz AC signal 120 Hz. So you need 120 Hz minimum to have acceptable flickering. Even if you're not consciously aware of the flickering of the backlight, it's there, and it causes ergonomic issues after long periods of watching it. Even on a 2D monitor, anything less than a 240 Hz PWM frequency used to dim the LED backlight is considered non-ergonomic. And while most people don't use VR anywhere near as long as they sit in front of their monitors (all day, basically), in VR the headset encompasses much more of your field of view, especially in the periphery where flicker is more objectionable and noticeable. If you turn your eyes to the side in your headset you will notice flickering, just like you do when you watch low PWM flickering on a 2D monitor. 

There's a reason why ULMB is only activated by monitor makers at a minimum of 120 Hz refresh rate: because anything below that (including 90 Hz) induces eye strain and headaches in lots of people. This has been studied, a lot. In fact the point at which flickering stops being noticeable entirely in your peripheral vision is around 500 Hz. This is why 480 Hz or ahigher PWM backlight dimming frequency in monitors is considered ergonomic. All this stuff has been studied.

There is no reason Oculus can't refile the Quest 1 and 2 to get re-certified for 90 Hz or 120 Hz, they just choose not to. On PC, there is no performance reason to not enable 120 Hz, many graphics cards can manage that even at native resolution in many games. So I suspect the real reason we will never see official 120 Hz on the Quest 2 has nothing to do with the FCC but everything to do with promoting standalone apps instead of Windows-based VR games. Hence they will stay with what the XR2's GPU can manage more easily, 90 Hz. But, that said, most these standalone games focus on gameplay with graphics a (far distant) secondary concern, so I believe many could manage 120 FPS / Hz.

To get 120 Hz on the Quest 2, or 90 Hz on the Quest 1, that will likely only happen if hackers do it.

I'm still stuck on v20 on quest 1 :(

Yup me too. Waiting for an update has never been this hard.

Same here running v20 with quest 1

BattleAxeVR said:

TomCgcmfc said:

Bigchief23 said:

This sucks that they didn't make the quest one have the option to make it 90hz. Alot of ppl paid a lot for it and  even if you sell it now. You are losing money because resell is low. Make quest one 90hz damnnn it! 

This has been discussed quite a few times over the last year or so.

Carmack mentioned in his keynote at OC6 Sept1919 that the FCC certification Oculus filed limits the refresh rate to 72 Hz. He said the panel can go higher, but because that would void their FCC certification, they can’t allow it. He also mentioned that had they didn’t want to allow a higher refresh rate when filing because most developers would have too hard a time optimizing or even being able to deliver experiences that could hit a higher frame rate.  I think a lot of this is also due to the weaker Q1 mobile chip.  So, I kinda doubt that we are ever going to see 90hz on the Q1.

Obviously, the more powerful Q2 chip, together with fast lcd panels has raised the bar and Carmack said this year that the Q2 panels were actually capable of 120hz but he did not see this being practical.  This is because higher refresh rates takes more processing power.  With Link now coming out of beta and offering 72/80/90hz options for the Q2, it will be interesting to see what people think.  On a properly controlled Blind Test I doubt that many could tell the difference imho.

If you can tell the difference between 90 and 120 Hz / FPS on a 2D monitor (you'd have to be blind not to), then you can definitely benefit from 120 Hz in VR. Just people people aren't consciously aware doesn't mean it isn't helping them. Especially with regards to flickering due to low persistence. The difference between 90 and 120 Hz is large. Put it this way, 60 Hz AC, invented by Nicola Tesla, was determined to be the minimum frequency at which street lights stop flickering. But if you know anything about how lights work, a 60 Hz AC signal drops below negative voltage for half its period, so they use rectifiers. This makes a 60 Hz AC signal 120 Hz. So you need 120 Hz minimum to have acceptable flickering. Even if you're not consciously aware of the flickering of the backlight, it's there, and it causes ergonomic issues after long periods of watching it. Even on a 2D monitor, anything less than a 240 Hz PWM frequency used to dim the LED backlight is considered non-ergonomic. And while most people don't use VR anywhere near as long as they sit in front of their monitors (all day, basically), in VR the headset encompasses much more of your field of view, especially in the periphery where flicker is more objectionable and noticeable. If you turn your eyes to the side in your headset you will notice flickering, just like you do when you watch low PWM flickering on a 2D monitor. 

There's a reason why ULMB is only activated by monitor makers at a minimum of 120 Hz refresh rate: because anything below that (including 90 Hz) induces eye strain and headaches in lots of people. This has been studied, a lot. In fact the point at which flickering stops being noticeable entirely in your peripheral vision is around 500 Hz. This is why 480 Hz or ahigher PWM backlight dimming frequency in monitors is considered ergonomic. All this stuff has been studied.

There is no reason Oculus can't refile the Quest 1 and 2 to get re-certified for 90 Hz or 120 Hz, they just choose not to. On PC, there is no performance reason to not enable 120 Hz, many graphics cards can manage that even at native resolution in many games. So I suspect the real reason we will never see official 120 Hz on the Quest 2 has nothing to do with the FCC but everything to do with promoting standalone apps instead of Windows-based VR games. Hence they will stay with what the XR2's GPU can manage more easily, 90 Hz. But, that said, most these standalone games focus on gameplay with graphics a (far distant) secondary concern, so I believe many could manage 120 FPS / Hz.

To get 120 Hz on the Quest 2, or 90 Hz on the Quest 1, that will likely only happen if hackers do it.

Sorry mate but that all seems a bit fishy to me.  For starters, with my pretty good PC  (i9 9900k water cooled, gtx 1080ti) and with my1080p 144hz gaming monitor, I do not see any difference  in refresh settings above 100Hz. with any 2D games/sims. 

I don't have a problem with my 60Hz Oculus Go or 72Hz Quest 1.  Both look fine to me and I certainly do not get air-sick or suffer eye strain with either of these.  Increasing the refresh rates on either or these is just going to degrade performance imho.  I have already seen this with a few Go apps that let you boost from 60 to 72Hz.  This is also the reason why a 80Hz Rift S gives similar performance with its higher resolution than a 90Hz Rift cv1.

Reddit kiddies might say they notice a big difference between 72Hz and 90Hz with their Q2's but I did not notice this with my Q2 (pre v23 sidequest hacked) compared to my 90Hz Rift cv1 or Vive Pro.

Same goes for IPD.  My properly optician measured IPD is 69.0mm and I have not had any problems or any so-called IPD related eye strain problems with any IPD-limited Oculus headsets, including Go, Rift S, Q2.  Again, many Reddit kiddies seem to think that even 1-1.5mm difference in IPD makes that much difference.

Might be because of my old fart eyes, or maybe because I'm not looking for problems, lol!

Got v23 pushed to my headset (officially) a few hours ago and while 90hz is nice, there is a fair bit of lag that appears while scrolling menus, especially in the settings menus. It also changed my home environment and turned off hand tracking, which I guess is no big deal. Gotta run up some more playtime though... ha

Just got v23 on the Q2 headset . Still waiting for the PC update but tried Link anyway. Wow! what a difference! The desktop is so crisp and smooth now with no compression artifacts :)
Half Life Alyx was a solid 72 fps on 2K resolution, looking sharp and detailed. 
They have worked some magic with this update.