(Not Resolved) Known Issue - Quest PCVR streaming micro lags and stutter esp. when moving head
Hi team,
I'm getting micro lags and stutter in Airlink on my Quest 3 (EU/UK), esp. when moving my head. In the Oculus debug overlay this causes brief spikes in transmit/decode, fps drops and visibl...
Hey everyone! Thank you so much for the information you've all provided.
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EDIT 8/5: Hey everyone! Just wanted to reach out and thank you all for your continued patience. If you're still having some issues, the best thing I can recommend at the time would be to submit a bug report. That way it can go straight to our engineers for them to further review everything provided. Thanks again!
* On a dedicated Tenda TX9 Pro router, any AC or AX connection, at 80 or 160mhz, I get one frame reported as dropped every 15 seconds or so, but massive overwhelming frame drops specifically and only when the headset is moved side to side or up and down.
* Quest 3
* No issues on cable (Kiwi USB3 cable), tested up to 100s of mb a second encode rate in VD and Oculus Debug Tool.
* Meta Horizon 287.3.0.33.109, quest 3 software 50151600073800510, version 69.0.0.576.352.641228209, runtime 69.0.0.570.355.641203395
Troubleshooting:
Enabled/disabled beamforming. Connected router directly via ethernet cable with only one device connected wirelessly and on ethernet. Used wifi scanner to check there were no conflicting wifi systems on the same channels. Disabled headset tracking. Tested every width and channel available 40 to 160 at 36 to 163. Set up a dummy clean windows 11 pro install on a spare SSD just to isolate it for Quest 3 testing. Upgraded router firmware. Tested to make sure it's nothing to do with the router itself being unable to handle moving transmitters by a series of file copy tests and streams over a laptop and wifi bunny ears on a PC moved around the router at the same rate. Eventually hit upon testing Wireless 4/N/40mhz on the problematic Tenda router and it works perfectly with the Quest 3 - no drops, no stutters, nothing. But it can only handle about ~50mpbs sent maximum before starving for throughput.
Eventually tried another two different routers entirely, which are only 5ghz/AC/80mhz and 866mbps max, but both work fine without stutter during movement. It's specifically to do with how the Quest 3 interacts with the Tenda TX9 Pro router in AC and AX modes, and only in particular when the Quest 3 is moved rapidly. The negotiated rate of the wifi connection itself does not budge at all in the headset's wifi panel when the headset is moved. But in Oculus Debug Tools, you can watch the data sent over it over the airlink stutter, gets a few intermittent frames, then drops down to zero, stays there for a few milliseconds, then slowly climbs back up to the set rate.
Here's what it looks like if I shake my head left to right about 2 metres of clear air away from the router in ODT:
and here's what any sustained movement does after a few goes:
This is strange. I have a more expensive and high quality router ASUS RT-AX82U and the quest works very poorly with wifi 6. With wifi 5 it works more or less normally.
Is this a dedicated access point for your quest 3? , if not then this can cause issues, Wifi 6 uses both the 2.4ghz & 5ghz bands at the same time to achieve it's speed, so anything else using those bands will cause stutters in my experience. Also check to see if your router is broadcasting on a spare frequency and not clashing with other wifi routers, might not be yours but could be neighbours.
I think it's simply a matter of idiosyncrasies of handling a drooping, but not actually dead/decaying link, between the headset and router and it's nothing to do with how expensive it is or how powerful it is.
Moving any wifi antenna around can sharply change the maximum theoretical transmission - for instance, with this MR90x router, just changing my main PC's flexible bunny ears orientation 90 degrees can change the maximum theoretical speed from 2305bps to 3843mpbs without changing anything else at all, as displayed in Wifi scanner. Wifi works just like any other transmitter that has lobes where it's going to produce a stronger or weaker signal. It's totally normal that tilting the headset will do -something- to the signal, but ideally it will gracefully transition between orientations without causing the link speed to crash down to nothing.
With the MR90x, you can see the effects of tilting the headset in the OTT diagnostic traces, and it visibly drops the attainable bandwidth by about 20-30mpbs as you transition from level to 90 degrees tilt. If you set OTT to use a >200mpbs actual transfer rate, it may drop a frame or two. However, what it does NOT do is drop it instantly almost to zero, stutter, retry, stutter, etc, in a recurring loop that takes multiple seconds to re-attain the initial sync speed. That's the big bad stutter that makes the headset sickmakingly unusable with some wifi combinations.
