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(Not Resolved) Known Issue - Quest PCVR streaming micro lags and stutter esp. when moving head

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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 visible stuttering. The issue is not present on my Quest Pro with otherwise identical settings - see below screenshots to illustrate.

Few more details:
- Issue is not present on Quest Pro with same settings on HMD, router and PC (using same res)
- Issue is worse at higher bitrates, esp. >200mbps, but still present <200mbps
- Issue is unrelated to PC/game latencies (CPU, GPU, Queue each <5ms)
- Stutters/lags are intermittent (every 10-20 seconds) when not moving but happen immediately and reproducibly when moving the head to either side or especially looking downwards (i.e. on any bigger headset movements)
- Wifi 6E router (TP Link AXE75 EU/UK)
- EDIT: exact same issue with Asus RT-AXE7800 (EU/UK) wifi 6e router
- Connection shows as 2,400mbps
- Airlink codec H264 (but same on other codecs)
- I've attempted factory resetting, installing latest drivers
- Updated to v62 and latest Quest Link desktop version (I can see the 120hz option for my Q3)
- EDIT: Ordered a separate Quest 3 for testing: presents the exact same issue

-EDIT: Same issue on 5ghz 802.11ax 160mhz BUT switching to 802.11ac (!) completely fixed the issue. I cant test this on 6ghz but looks like 802.11ax or something related to how q3 implements it is the culprit

As the issue is worse the higher the bitrate and not present on Q Pro with otherwise same settings, I suspect it's related to the below known Wifi issues - but opening a new thread as instructed.
https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/Get-Help/Known-Isssue-Unstable-wifi-coverage-with-Quest-3-on-some-Router/td-p/1090698

Best,
JensQ3QPro

Updates:
- Tried separate router: exact same issue with Asus RT-AXE7800 wifi 6e router
- Ordered a separate Quest 3: exact same issue on both routers

-Same issue on 5ghz 802.11ax 160mhz BUT switching to 802.11ac (!) completely fixed the issue. I cant test this on 6ghz but looks like 802.11ax or something related to how q3 implements it is the culprit

TheAntiSocializerAnswer

Honored Contributor

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for the information you've all provided.

If you have not already done so already, I would suggest reaching out to the support team via email so that they can gather a copy of your logs.

If you have already reached out to support and provided your logs, please PM MetaStoreHelp with your case number.

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!

Sometimes it's okay to be a little Bing Chilling

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Pantofli

New Participant

Hello Guys, I have this problem where I get Micro Lags and Stutters when moving my head. Another Thread also adressed a similar issue but I couldnt really get understand a fix when reading his post. For context, Im using a Link Cable and it says that its compatible, my PC is also above the minimum. Thank you.

MetaStoreHelp

Community Manager

Hey there, Pantofli. We just so happen to be around and see that you are having some issues with your Quest Link and PCVR experience. We would love to assist you in resolving this issue and return you to enjoying the unique and special place known as virtual reality. First, can you answer the following questions so we can fully understand what's happening and the root of the problem?

Have you always experienced this lag, and if not, when did it start?
Does the lag stay present when you are using your Quest device in standalone mode or just PCVR?
Have you tried using the Air Link, and if so, does the stuttering and lag stay present while you play?
Are your PC drivers fully up-to-date, and have you upgraded your PC recently?
Have you tried using another USB cable, and if so, does that help with the situation?
Are you receiving any error messages when you start up your Quest Link, and if so, can you provide a photo of said error?

We appreciate your patience, 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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Pantofli

New Participant

1. It started about 1 week ago before that I didnt play VR for like 3 weeks.

2. Just PCVR

3. Ive tried Airlink and Im not sure if the problem is also there because I dont have 5ghz and then the connection is bad.

4. Yes and no

5. Yes, it didnt help.

6. I sadly dont get any error.

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xSkullzZ

New Participant

Hi, I've purchased a Meta Quest 3 today and I spent the whole day trying to setup it to play with my PC.

As standalone the Quest 3 is working flawlessly and I'm really happy how everything works. But when I tried to setup everything for playing with the PC everything fell down and escalate quickly into a disaster.

I've set up the AirLink with the WiFi (I was not aware that the Link Cable was not included in the box, that already for me sounds a bit cheap as an experience because I read that Quest 2 came with the cable. Thumbs down on that). The Schematic of my setup is desktop PC under the table with the router directly on top of the same table, and I'm playing at 1m from both of them. (LAN connected and WiFi6 compatible).

The Meta App was running good, no errors, no strange banners, nothing strange, I tested the Link connection, all green flags, I paired everything and started the AirLink.

The AirLink started without any kind of problem, but it started to get very laggy and with a lot of delay for both inputs and frame generation. I then reduced the resolution to the minimum (0.9x) and the bitrate to 10Mbps and everything started to work fine, even if the quality was very bad. But I was not caring for that at the moment, I just wanted to start playing and tweak that later.

I started Assetto Corsa (I bought this VR to race mainly), set the video settings and set to OpenVR. In the Meta App set as default for Runtime OpenXR. I start and get "Unable to Initialize VR". I then tried to follow multiple videos online but always getting the same error. I tried with Oculus VR but the game crashed.

Then I thought, maybe it is a problem of the game because it is quite old and something may not work as expected, even though I played with RiftVR using my phone as an headset, but ok. So I went to Automobilista 2, more recent, with a really good VR support (as the community said online). I try to start it and my AirLink shows no thumbnail and no name "Loading ... "without any app name. I stop everything and I see Automobilista 2 in the app list, I try to open it again but still no thumbnail or app name and the game starts as normal on my monitor. The tracking works, I can see my mouse moving around when I move my head.

Then I try with an alternative method, SteamVR. Maybe I was skipping this step and it was required, but I noticed that nobody mentioned it online. I tried and I get that my GPU may be incompatible with their service.

My PC is:

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
64 GB RAM DDR5 6400MHz
Intel ARC A750

Then I started to see that in some old post about one year ago that ARC was not compatible, but that a banner would have appeared in my app immediately, so I want to hope that this is not a compatibility issue still, I would be very disappointed. Also because I saw that if I pay 20€ for Virtual Desktop 3rd party app I can run pretty much everything: how can be possible that a 3rd party can resolve an incompatibility that Meta (META not a startup, one of the biggest companies in the world) can't?

Am I doing something wrong then? How can I play my games?

I'm waiting for the LinkCable for tomorrow, it would change something or I just wasted money again?

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Zombieyoda

Participant

I have tried steam vr & use Virtual desktop not used the oculus software for streaming, but for me hands down for performance & visual quality virtual desktop is so much better than anything else currently available.

Having said that i cant say how well it will perform using your GPU.

One thing you have to consider is you cant have anything connected to the wifi channel you have your quest connected to be it 5ghz or 6ghz, if you have any other wifi devices connected, your quest will stutter, trust me i have researched & tested this myself.

hope you all get things working as i did somehow.

My PC: CPU - Intel 12700k GPU - Nvidia 4070 ti Super Ram 32GB ddr4 @3200MT Network - Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE98 - 2.5Gbps to pc Asus RT-AX88U as dedicated access point Meta Quest 3 128GB connected via dedicated access point

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Babinok

Participant

After the recent update (v66), streaming PC games is completely over.

1) The headset stops detecting the PC via the airlink at least after every reboot of the headset, but now this happens even more often and without a reboot.

2) Switching the router to AC 160MHz mode no longer helps. Tracking lags appear in all modes, with all streamers (airlink, VD, steamlink) and with much greater intensity than before.

3) Before firmware 66, I could play with perfect picture quality and tracking through any of my 4 Type C cables. Now on each of these cables, airlink practically does not work; there are huge lags in image, sound and freezes when moving the head.

Since I don't play standalone games, the device is absolutely useless to me now and I feel cheated, I don't understand what I gave my money for. I strongly demand that you make it possible to roll back to older firmware (at least up to v56)!

erikbaender

Participant

I have the exact same experience, streaming used to work perfectly fine for me up until the v65 update. Now it's completely unusable, upgrading to an expensive WiFi 6E router did not help at all. Already contacted the developers of the Steam Link integration, they can't do anything about this. This up to Meta to fix.

Strongly agree with Babinok , not offering any way of rolling back to working version should be illegal. You have made the product you sold unusable for a purpose that it was advertised for and are not even acknowledging it, even when there is a thread of 26 pages about it in your own forum.

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ethanvergara125

New Participant

I honestly don't know why my Quest 3 is doing this but the only thing I can think of that has changed within 2 days is that when I booted up my headset to play i got the little white outline chip icon with a loading screen under it and suddenly the air link is terrible. I was using it not 2 days ago and it worked perfectly, I played for my two hours and got off, then today I spent about an hour trying to figure out why the thing was giving me the infinite black void with the weird reflection effect and basically being frozen. now granted I have to play in my basement because my room is a bit small and I have hit the walls and broken blinds when swinging my arms and moving around, and like i said this worked fine just a day ago, but even when trying to troubleshoot and test in my room where my Wifi is very strong it was giving me this issue, i was sitting at my computer and it was just frozen at the dash. Now I do also have a Link cable and while it was giving me some trouble still because despite being connected to my PC it wouldn't discover it for a bit, but once i got it connected it worked just fine with no freezing so it seems to be a problem with the Air link itself (Though granted just getting it connected even with the cable was a pain and i had to restart it twice until it worked, i got the "General headset Issue" icon a few times so that may also be part of it). Like I said the only thing I can think of that has changed since i last played it was that the headset seemingly went through an update, but IDK what exactly that chip icon means so it could mean it was going through a hardware check for all i know, it's not very clear.

D

Deviouz94

New Participant

Ive had this same issue for months now. Actually 6ghz band was never stable. Wireless PCVR is stuttering mess when using 6ghz connection. Router is TP-LINK AXE75 (eu). Only way to have a smooth experience is to use 5ghz band which has inteference and my bitrate is limited.

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Zombieyoda

Participant

I have a z690 - a in my system.

~~Quick update, as of today the stuttering is back, nothing changed at my end , sad day.~~

~~Just going to update my display nvidia drivers to 556.12 to see if that fixes it .................~~

~~Apologies, seems the quest was downloading an update as i was playing, it didn't inform me, i only noticed when i went to check if there were any updates & noticed i had to restart to apply them.~~

~~Now working again.~~

Quest streaming is now broken again @72htz, 80htz, 90htz, 120 htz, all have random framerate drops of around 10FPS which induces stutter.

Looking at the VD monitoring tool , my network is solid, no spikes at all, however you can see the frame rate counter drop every so often.

My PC: CPU - Intel 12700k GPU - Nvidia 4070 ti Super Ram 32GB ddr4 @3200MT Network - Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE98 - 2.5Gbps to pc Asus RT-AX88U as dedicated access point Meta Quest 3 128GB connected via dedicated access point

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Panromir

Participant

This is exactly what I'm experiencing.

I am monitoring this on two fronts, using the VD Overlay and the fpsVR Overlay.

Using fpsVR I can definitely say it is not my PC that is dropping the frames at all. It is somewhere in the network.

I bought an ASUS- GT-BE98 just to have the best goddamn machine possible, tried dedicated 6GHZ Networks with 320Mhz width, tried dedicated 5Ghz Networks with 160Mhz wídth, I tried many many options back and forth and nothing works. I can pretty much narrow it down to the headset, because even going down to 50 Mbit/s Bitrate with HEVC-10bit still causes absolutely random stutters in Beat Saber, which makes it basically unplayable (SteamVR).

My Pixel 6 gets rock solid 300 Mbit/s+ on the Wifi 5 Network to my PC using iperf3 (UDP):

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth Jitter Lost/Total Datagrams
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 42.4 MBytes 356 Mbits/sec 0.020 ms 0/30709 (0%)
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 45.7 MBytes 383 Mbits/sec 0.011 ms 98/33200 (0.3%)
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 41.7 MBytes 350 Mbits/sec 0.016 ms 0/30230 (0%)
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 43.2 MBytes 362 Mbits/sec 0.040 ms 0/31255 (0%)
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 41.5 MBytes 348 Mbits/sec 0.013 ms 0/30042 (0%)
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 41.5 MBytes 348 Mbits/sec 0.021 ms 0/30037 (0%)
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 43.8 MBytes 367 Mbits/sec 0.021 ms 0/31712 (0%)
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 43.1 MBytes 362 Mbits/sec 0.014 ms 0/31220 (0%)
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 43.7 MBytes 367 Mbits/sec 0.021 ms 0/31645 (0%)
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 44.4 MBytes 372 Mbits/sec 0.042 ms 3/32149 (0.0093%)
[ 5] 10.00-11.00 sec 42.6 MBytes 357 Mbits/sec 0.031 ms 0/30837 (0%)
[ 5] 11.00-12.00 sec 40.6 MBytes 340 Mbits/sec 0.016 ms 0/29378 (0%)
[ 5] 12.00-13.00 sec 44.8 MBytes 376 Mbits/sec 0.222 ms 0/32471 (0%)
[ 5] 13.00-14.00 sec 39.9 MBytes 335 Mbits/sec 0.067 ms 0/28898 (0%)
[ 5] 14.00-15.00 sec 37.5 MBytes 314 Mbits/sec 0.082 ms 0/27161 (0%)
[ 5] 15.00-16.00 sec 38.6 MBytes 325 Mbits/sec 0.021 ms 0/27972 (0%)
[ 5] 16.00-17.00 sec 43.5 MBytes 365 Mbits/sec 0.024 ms 9/31508 (0.029%)
[ 5] 17.00-18.00 sec 44.2 MBytes 371 Mbits/sec 0.016 ms 0/32028 (0%)
[ 5] 18.00-19.00 sec 43.5 MBytes 365 Mbits/sec 0.017 ms 0/31528 (0%)
[ 5] 19.00-20.00 sec 46.6 MBytes 391 Mbits/sec 0.030 ms 0/33727 (0%)
[ 5] 20.00-21.00 sec 45.0 MBytes 378 Mbits/sec 0.016 ms 0/32603 (0%)
[ 5] 21.00-22.00 sec 43.7 MBytes 366 Mbits/sec 0.011 ms 0/31618 (0%)
[ 5] 22.00-23.00 sec 44.5 MBytes 373 Mbits/sec 0.022 ms 0/32221 (0%)
[ 5] 23.00-24.00 sec 43.3 MBytes 364 Mbits/sec 0.019 ms 0/31381 (0%)
[ 5] 24.00-25.00 sec 41.5 MBytes 349 Mbits/sec 0.027 ms 0/30088 (0%)
[ 5] 25.00-26.00 sec 45.0 MBytes 377 Mbits/sec 0.017 ms 0/32574 (0%)
[ 5] 26.00-27.00 sec 45.4 MBytes 381 Mbits/sec 0.019 ms 0/32874 (0%)
[ 5] 27.00-28.00 sec 43.1 MBytes 361 Mbits/sec 0.017 ms 0/31202 (0%)
[ 5] 28.00-29.00 sec 44.8 MBytes 376 Mbits/sec 0.022 ms 0/32420 (0%)
[ 5] 29.00-30.00 sec 44.5 MBytes 373 Mbits/sec 0.019 ms 0/32216 (0%)
[ 5] 30.00-30.05 sec 2.30 MBytes 389 Mbits/sec 0.017 ms 0/1667 (0%)

I suppose that's plenty. I could go higher, but then I'd get more dropped packets I guess.

This in on v67 by the way, and I believe this is getting worse with every update, but that I can't prove.

I'd love to test network stability using a tool like iperf3, but since the Android version on the Quest 3 is pretty locked down (I can't use the play store 🙂 ) I can't install any useful apps (I could adb sideload them I guess?).

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Gimpen

Participant

I am having the same problems with Quest 3 128gb and the axe75 router, both bought and used in Europe with a PC using a 4090 and 13900k.

Everything worked perfectly on v62, now the connection speed drops when I move and even worse if I dont look at the router.

I do not know if this is related but also standalone games lag now (tried Vail and Asgards Wrath 2).

I cant use my device and it is getting really frustrating after this much time.

Quest is on v66 and router is on latest firmware.

T

TG1984

Participant

Ok, got back from out of town and got the V66 update. Here is the state of things.

6k ghz band still will not display no matter what I do.

Wifi speed still fluctuates, but not as drastically as before. When I play beatsabe for example I get less stuttering and more moments of the quality turning to trash.. turn off dynamic though and you get some random slide show moments.

Noticed when running speed tests that if I am still I can pull 600-650mbps down/up. The moment I start to shake my head left to right that speed will plummet into the 200s. This occurs on 3 different routers ranging from wifi 6, to 6e, and then 7. You will also notice things get weird if you stream a high bitrate movie/video. While sitting down things are pretty good, start moving and the quality changes.

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minh1987

New Participant

I have been testing if shaking other devices affects WiFi speed. I shook and tested download speed with my Galaxy S20 FE, and the transfer speed drops like a rock from 900mbps to 300mbps (5ghz WiFi 6 at 160mhz). I think it's not just a Quest 3 problem. Now I wonder what could be the cause of the problem? Is it a limitation of WiFi 6, the router, or WiFi chip? To me, I don't get any stutter if I keep bitrate at 200mbps H265 even if I shake my head. Anything above that is out of the question because of the speed drop.

Additional information: My router is Netgear RAX43. Tested using an iperf3 server on my PC and client on S20 FE and Quest 3.

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