Intermittent frame dropping w/1, 2, or 3 sensors

[P-Rock]

I recently received my 3rd sensor so I could do a proper roomscale setup, and as soon as I hooked it up, I noticed my hands seemed to jump around more frequently than with the 2 sensor setup. I loaded up the performance overlay using Oculus Tray Tools, and sure enough, I was dropping frames every couple of seconds. Removing the third sensor seemed to make the issue better, but it didn't make the frame skipping disappear. With the two sensor setup, I'll get frame stuttering every 15-30 seconds in Oculus home (and every other VR app), even though my performance headroom is hovering around a steady 40-50%. Even with just one sensor, I'm seeing dropped frames in games like Lucky's Tale. I'm guessing the issue was there all along and I just wasn't looking for it until I had issues with the third sensor. I've submitted a support ticket for the issue, but so far nobody has been able to figure out a fix. 

I posted about the issue on Reddit, and multiple users confirmed to me that this shouldn't be happening. Using the task manager or process explorer, I don't see anything particularly interesting happening when they stutters happen--my CPU, memory, GPU, hard drive usage doesn't spike to 100% when I see in-game stuttering. Should it be silky smooth all the time, or is a small amount of stuttering like this normal? Here are my specs:

Hardware:

• Intel i5 3570k overclocked to 4.4Ghz (also saw the issue without an overclock)

• ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 Mobo

• 8GB DDR3 1600 memory (wondering if maybe I should upgrade to 16GB)

• 480GB SSD

• Gigabyte Nvidia Founder's Edition GTX1070

• Inateck 4 Port USB Hub

• 2 IR sensors connected to various combinations of the Inateck and intel USB ports

Software:

• Oculus Home v. 1.17 (the problem also occurred using the 1.16 software)

• Nvidia 384.94 drivers

• Windows 10 w/latest updates

• Inateck 3.8.33709.0 drivers (running with selective USB suspend disable and -fresco registry tweaks enabled in the tray tool.

• Latest Intel USB 3.0 Drivers

• Latest ASMedia USB driver

Here's a non-exhaustive list of troubleshooting steps I've tried:

1. All sorts of different combinations of USB ports (including USB 2.0 only for the sensors, using only Inateck ports, only Intel ports, etc.).
2. Disabling power management for all my USB controllers in the device manager
3. Disabling the ASMedia 3.0 ports in my BIOS, disabling legacy USB support, 
4. Disabling speedstep
5. Preferring maximum performance power profile in the nvidia control panel
6. Manually pumping up my video card power slightly (using MSI afterburner),
7. Shutting down all non-essential background software

So far, none of these actions have affected the issue in any noticeable way. About the only thing that does is switching around the USB ports I'm plugged into, and I'm not even sure that's meaningful, because sometimes I have trouble replicating better/worse stuttering behavior even if I'm going back to a supposedly "better" USB port configuration. 

Short of completely reinstalling Windows--which I'm contemplating--and upgrading to 16GB of memory--which I don't think should do anything considering I'm not maxing out my memory usage in Oculus home anyway--I'm running out of ideas about how to fix this. Poking around reddit, it seems like I'm not the only person who's experiencing this issue, but nobody has suggested a fix that's actually worked for me yet. 

[AlienMudcake]

A shot in the dark, try to make sure that the sensors face eachother. I can see with my own setup that if they cant see eachother, the skipping happens, if i move away from their line of sight, it works great.

I only use two, but they are a bit far from eachother on different hight levels. They are not meant to be placed like i have them, but it works great with full roomscale for me. The sudden lag in tracking is worth it for me for that setup.

It also seems to skip when one sensor take over the others tracking.

Also, try to run the room setup again?

Hope it can give you some more ideas:)

[Mawiel]

I posted this on your reddit post, but going to post it here as well to add to the conversation.

I have exactly the same issue as you and have tried for hours to fix it as well. I see stuttering with two, three and four sensors, the more sensors I test, the more stuttering I experience. I can run all my non-VR games at max quality without any performance issues. When playing non Oculus Touch games I do not experience any tracking issues with the HMD. The frequency of my stuttering is exactly the same as yours. I bought the $80 Startech card which did not help at all. I see some of you write here that RAM might be the issue, well.. I have 32GB of DDR4 ram and still have issues. My CPU and GPU does not reach 100% and I still see stuttering. From my point, this seems more like a software issue rather than hardware. 

My hardware:

CPU: Intel Core i5 6600 (Skylake)

Motherboard: MSI Z170A PC MATE, Socket-1151 

RAM: HyperX Fury DDR4 2400MHz 32GB (2x16GB)

SSD: Crucial BX100 250GB SSD

GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X

USB-card: Startech 4 Port PCI Express USB 3.0 Card ($80 dollar one)

Sensors: 4 x Oculus sensors, mounted to ceiling in four opposite corners of room

Extra cable: Deltaco Active USB 3.0 Extension cable - 3 meter (I use this on one of my front sensors, maybe this is causing issues?) 

My software:

Oculus App version: 1.17 (had the same issue with 1.16)

Windows 10 (latest update)

nVidia 384.94 drivers

[Morgrum]

Are you useing active usb extension cables or standard?
You need active.
Make sure your third sensor is on 2.0 and your main two and Hmd on 3.0.
A powered USB hub helps also.

[P-Rock]

Mawiel I'm not entirely sure we're having the same problem. You said you're not getting any stuttering with just the HMD--I am still getting stuttering with just the HMD, although it might be slightly less compared to a 2 or 3 sensor setup, but it's hard to tell. It's definitely there though. 

I'm waiting on another 8GB of memory from Amazon. If that doesn't fix it, I think I'm going to try a fresh windows installation. And if that doesn't work...then I'm out of ideas. 

[Mawiel]

I did some further testing, I used the Oculus Avatar Editor and noticed that my hands and head in the mirror stuttered at the same time.

[Mawiel]

My issues are gone after a clean Windows 10 reinstall. Works butter smooth with 4 sensors.

[Morgrum]

Morgrum said:

Are you useing active usb extension cables or standard?
You need active.
Make sure your third sensor is on 2.0 and your main two and Hmd on 3.0.
A powered USB hub helps also.

This is what I get when posting half asleep lol.
Glad you got it fixed.

[Deathcrimson]

Morgrum said:

Are you useing active usb extension cables or standard?
You need active.
Make sure your third sensor is on 2.0 and your main two and Hmd on 3.0.
A powered USB hub helps also.

My motherboard/ tower has 6 USB 3.0 ports and my 3 sensors are all 3 USB 3.0 ports. I have no issues

[P-Rock]

Did a fresh Windows 10 installation this afternoon. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have made a noticeable difference. I'm still getting frame skipping with 2 or 3 sensors. 

I'm not really sure what to try in terms of troubleshooting at this point--I've exhausted pretty much every idea and suggestion that's been thrown at me.