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Frequent micro stuttering in Meta Quest 3

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
December 13, 2023
25 replies
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Hello,

I've owned a Meta Quest 3 for a few days now. Since yesterday, I've noticed a "micro stuterring" problem that appears when I use the headset in standalone mode.

This is the same problem described by pan.c.kaplanis and Renegade_R in this topic (see page 2 and following) : https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/VR-Experiences/Some-Quest-3-standalone-games-are-lagging-stuttering/td-p/1100483/highlight/true/page/2

Nevertheless, I'm making a new topic because the previous one was initially about Beat Saber (but it's been diverted to Home), and because the problem is marked "Solved" whereas it's not solved at all in my case.

Problem description:

In the Home application and standalone games, at certain moments, for example when I crouch or strafe from right to left, "micro stutters" appear. This is very visible on the Home application interface, but you can see it by looking at the background too. It's as if for a very short moment (1 frame) the position of the headset shifts, giving the impression that the image is hopping, before returning to its initial position. It happens very quickly, and the shift is not huge. Nevertheless, the repetition of the phenomenon makes it noticeable.

The problem appears when I crouch or strafe to the sides. It doesn't appear every time I do these movements, but it happens regularly. I have the impression that micro stutters appear more often when I'm pointing at something with the controller, and/or when the boundary walls are displayed. The problem is extremely noticeable on nearby objects, but it also affects distant scenery. Unfortunately, when recording video, the problem simply doesn't appear, or appears too subtly. In any case, I'm not able to perceive it on video.

I'm convinced that this problem wasn't present 3 days ago when I unpacked my helmet. I think it appeared with upgrade v59 as I found other reports of stuterring appearing at that time. I'm now on upgrade v60 but the problem persists. It's annoying because using the headset is generally smooth, but these micro stutters are so recurrent that they're ruining my life in Quest 3.

Incidentally, I have the impression that the problem is also present in PCVR with the Link cable. I have the impression of seeing these micro stutters when I crouch in Half Life Alyx. But here I'm less sure, because I know that in PCVR, problems can come from many places.

I really hope that an origin for this problem can be found, as all the posts I see on the net suggest that the problem appeared with update v59 and hasn't been fixed since. I can hardly use the headset at the moment, as this problem is really getting on my nerves.

Best answer by Angelina72200

Hello,

It's been a while since I posted an update on this topic.

It's been a long time coming, but I've managed to get rid of my micro stuttering problem completely.

I'll describe how I did it.

First of all, you have to understand that in my initial message, I thought I was dealing with a single problem, whereas technically I had two:

- Stuttering when the Meta Quest 3 headset is used standalone;

- stuttering when I use it in "PCVR" mode (connected to the PC via wifi).

About the stuttering on the standalone headset: the problem simply solved itself with the arrival of the V60 update. With this update, all the stuttering I was seeing in the headset menu is gone.

That left stuttering in PC-connected mode ("PCVR"). This stuttering had nothing to do with the other one, even if the symptoms were exactly the same.

To fix the PC stuttering, I had to buy a new Wifi router corresponding to the "Wifi 6" standard. I'm now using an "Asus RT-AX57" router.

With this new router, the situation improved immediately. However, it wasn't enough; I continued to suffer from stuttering, albeit to a lesser extent.

To eliminate the problem once and for all, I had to start using the "Virtual Desktop" software instead of the "Airlink" software included with the headset. My PCVR performance under Virtual Desktop is light years ahead of what I get with Airlink. Even without having set anything up, I immediately noticed that the stuttering was completely gone with Virtual Desktop.

In summary, here's what you should try to do to eliminate stuttering in PCVR mode:

- Update your Meta Quest 3 headset;

- Buy a new Wifi router if your current one doesn't meet the Wifi 6 standard (you need a router running at 5 Ghz, 2.4 Ghz isn't enough);

- Use Virtual Desktop software from your headset, instead of Airlink (you have to buy this software from the Oculus Store).

I hope this message helps some of you.

O

Occupunk

Honored Contributor

I don't have beat saber unfortunately, so can't compare, but my feeling was that the frame dropping was due to other things going on in a game. When the stutter consistently happens at the same time, I would think that there are other things consistently happening at the time as well. I had believed in the past that starting a new sound playing was one of the things that could cause a stutter. So striking an object or shooting pistol, whatever, if it caused a new sound to be played, it could cause stutter. Sound of course is only one example. Reading something from flash could be another. It could be just about anything.

I'm guessing all these apps make use of meta API calls to do most things, so a game might start having issues even though the game itself was not updated. So playing sounds may be fine in a game with one version of the quest OS and cause a stutter in the next version (just guessing, but I'll bet I'm close).

It is a difficult problem because the game developer has little control over it, and meta can't debug every issue with every game on every update they make. Fingers crossed that it is something obvious that they can fix.

For the record, I was really surprised by the quest 3. I thought I was going to see a marked quality increase to things like frames dropping in games when compared to the quest 2, but when I first fired up the 3, I instead found that it stuttered just as much in the same games as the quest 2 did. I wonder where all the extra processor power is going ...

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Angelina72200Author

New Participant

To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I think it might not even be stuttering.

I used this word, but I believe that stuttering implies that the image freezes for a very short time.

Here, in my case, I have the impression that technically the image doesn't freeze. It just seems that for one or two frames, the position of objects changes and they seem to "jump".

Here's an animation made by pan.c.kaplanis on the other topic that illustrates what I'm seeing on Home.

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/61275iEF4DD2ECB01ACF3C/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999&whitelist-exif-data=Copyright

You just have to realize that the hopping frequency is less strong and seems to be triggered by specific movements (turning around the menu while looking at it closely, crouching ...).

Is it possible to tell whether this is really stuttering? On other topics I see that people have access to tools to monitor the performance of their headset, but I don't know any more.

P

PsycVB

New Participant

This is exactly what I am facing. It's been 3 days since I've had q3 now. The first day there was no such sudden moments of screens and objects placed in 3d space. From the second day it has become very apparent. I started noticing it first in Half life alyx as well which was not present 3 days ago. Did you manage to solve this?

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AfricanDuck

New Participant

Hey, did you ever figure out the source of your problem? I too started noticing objects kind of jittering around when turning my head. A few of the scenarios I've noticed are:

The universal menu or anything in a high contrast scenario. When I was facing a really bright direct sunlight window. Some thin sheer curtains were drawn and the blinds were closed but it still left really bright diffused light. The curtains would glow white and would surely be clipping in a camera. In this scenario the universal menu (among other things) would jump around a lot when turning my head. Facing away from the window fixed that particular issue.
I had a room setup with furniture, wall art, etc. Later when I came back the boundary was all off and I redid the boundary. The room stuff was still there but all out of place now. It seems like clearing the room data reduced a lot of stuttering.
I still get some jitters/stutters/micro jumping around here and there. It doesn't happen every time but usually happens when the universal menu loads for the first time and I move my head around, when I have "Glanceable Boundary" turned on and I glance down to illuminate it, and during games when "things happen" scene change, lots of sudden movements of things, etc.

MetaStoreHelp

Community Manager

Hi there, African_Duck. We certainly don't want microstutters or lagging to stop you from enjoying all that the VR world has to offer. Could you please make sure that you are using the latest version of Quest software available? We have shared the steps to make sure your device is up-to-date HERE. Additionally, you can find out what the latest version is by going to the link shared HERE.

If you are still having the issue, please let us know, and we would be more than happy to continue working with you to find a resolution. Please keep us posted on your progress! Thank you for your time, and we hope to hear from you soon.

If you're the author of a thread, remember to mark a reply as the Accepted Solution to help others find answers!

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ballhead4

New Participant

I am also experiencing this exact issue using version 60.0 on my Quest 3. It is most noticeable on the universal menu but is also slightly noticeable on the virtual environment and in some standalone games. It is extremely noticeable on close-up objects when I stream PCVR games wirelessly, through any of the PCVR streaming apps (Steam Link, Air Link, or Virtual Desktop).

It is like a kind of rubber band effect on 3D objects in the game space. The objects seem to skip a frame when moving the headset side to side, and then instantly snap back in place. I tried recording the phenomenon, but it doesn't appear at all in the recording for some reason.

MetaStoreHelp

Community Manager

Hello, ballhead4, we see you are having the same issues with stuttering. High quality visuals are pretty important for VR both on PC VR and standalone. We would love to see how we can help!

Please try turning off the Wi-Fi on your Quest 3, and playing a game offline. If the stuttering continues, please enable Wi-Fi, Clear your guardian history, and then restart your Quest 3 headset before checking once more.

Let us know how that goes, and if anything changes! We would love to review further, and we have a few more ideas to look at. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

If you're the author of a thread, remember to mark a reply as the Accepted Solution to help others find answers!

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AfricanDuck

New Participant

I've been updated to the latest the whole time. Mine kind of stopped doing it though. A little jitter/stutter here and there but nothing like the height of the issue. I'm not really sure why.

MetaStoreHelp

Community Manager

Hi African_Duck! We certainly don't want this to continue pulling our users away from the virtual world, so we appreciate you bringing that to our attention! Due to a high amount of case volume at the moment, it may take a bit of time for our support to get in back contact with you. But no worries, as you are not forgotten and taking care of this issue is a top priority for our teams. We do see that PM you sent us, and we're happy to continue there with you to get to the bottom of that issue. We look forward to getting things figured out for you.

If you're the author of a thread, remember to mark a reply as the Accepted Solution to help others find answers!

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Angelina72200AuthorAnswer