Rift-S framedrops/stutter/micro-stutter in all UE4 content

[reb1rth]

Hi, I've been through Oculus Support with this and they replaced the HMD.  However, the problem exists on the replacement, so I guess the one I sent back was in a working state. 

In every Unreal Engine 4 game or content I am having very poor performance that shouldn't happen on my hardware.  I have tried other PCs and the problem exists on those, too.  Today I cleaned my main nvme drive and installed Windows 10 Pro from fresh.  No other drives are currently connected. 

I recorded some gameplay from the popular UE4 Aircar demo that is found on Oculus store, but I can assure you that it behaves the same (with minor variation, some even worse) in all UE4 content (many games).

Footage:

At first I am in the Aircar menu scene, and here the performance seem mostly OK, but as soon as I am in the Aircar things go a bit crazy.  I suspect there's something more going on than a rendering problem.

Specs:

Ryzen 7 3700x

32GB 3600mhz RAM

Gigabyte Aorus x570 Elite - F35 (tried newer and old bios', none address the issue)

Asus TUF OC 3080 12GB (happened on a 3080ti, too)

Windows 10 Pro 21H2 fully up to date

Nvidia 512.77 drivers (tried them all)

AMD 4.03.03.431 Chipset drivers

Oculus software upto date

The problem also exists on an old i7 PC with a GTX 1080 (same OS version).  It seems like I have ruled everything out other than the Oculus Software.

I also tried it with an Xbox controller (Aircar supports it) and took the batteries out of the Oculus motion controllers to turn them off.  The problem was still there.

[reb1rth]

I disabled all those security options at one point, and no, it never made any difference.  I can only conclude that I cannot fix this issue, because there is nothing wrong with both computers that I have tried.  It has to be the software or a windows update that is conflicting with the software that only Oculus can fix.

[Mazda_Ron]

Done some more testing last night.

Quest 2 with link has no issues which I find absolutely bizarre.

Without fail on cv1 I have to still do the process priority fixes, also, aircar needs it window focused (not alt tabbed out) or it is recording more drops in frame capture tool over same 2 min circle of a building.

I then completely uninstalled afterburner and any software for Logitech, razer, basically anything not needed for VR and restart pc.

At that point, the frame drops I had went from similar to your video without doing priority fixes to pretty much a non issue once I done them, I'd still get a single frame drop going into completely a new area but I could fly around in aircar for ages without issue either with or without security fix.

I then tried batman VR, loaded the manor and used navigating around and going down to suit up as benchmark, even with priority fixes making it alot smoother,  if would drop frames navigating between areas in the manor, then when going down to suit up, considerable drops and when actually suited up was pretty stable but with hand and head movements a stutter would still occur.

Doing the security fix listed above and restating, setting the priorities to high again. Jumping around manor was absolutely solid 90fps and going down to suit up while still dropping some frames as it transitions the animation, it much better, no drops moving around once suited up and again locked 90

So unreal engine itself does have a problem that the security fix can improve but oculus certainly isn't helping things, failing toggling rebar and hags support again last night to test both those too, it's about as good as I can certainly make it without oculus patching themselves.

Long shot, but quest 2 running over a usb hub on my front panel has always gave me issues, I always have to use a powered hub, if you've exhausted all other options maybe see if a powered hub improves things as that's more to do with headset itself than software.

[reb1rth]

Process priorities do nothing, disabling Windows 10 core security features has no effect.  I stripped the OS down before, and recently reinstalled it fresh to rule out any user damage from the process. Using a self-powered USB hub doesn't make a difference with this problem.  There were times when I used my self-powerered hub for the 3080Ti, but it wasn't a solution and was probably a placebo.  This was when I was trying to address the crashes, but after getting the 3080 12GB I concluded that it was the card I returned, because this new one is stable (Asus make some of the best 3000 cards).  The HUB doesn't fix the problem with UE4, and the one I have is quite powerful, but it still goes through the regular motherboard hub so I can't see how it could offer anything more than a stable power draw.  The problem I am having isn't power related.  I have no drop outs, no crashes, and in other non-UE4 titles the performance and tracking is as expected.  My motherboard's USB3 is whitelisted by Oculus.

I never used to have these issues with UE4.  I have even developed on this engine.  I just don't know much about VR coding other than coding some basic HMD integration with OpenVR (SteamVR). This was a couple of years ago and I did it out of curiousity.  I was even using Oculus' instanced stereo opengl extension at the time to help reduce instructions in the graphics API.

It's hard to blame Epic Games.  If it was only specific games then the problem could have been specific engine builds, but from what I know Aircar is quite old and the problem exists across all UE4 games that I have (some worse than others) new and old. 

We have the same or similar problem with UE4 on two Oculus headsets.  Unfortunately, what helps a CV1 isn't helping my Rift-S.  Everything I have tried makes no difference to this sync/spike issue.  It doesn't get better or worse when testing these workarounds.

One possibility, and it's probably more of a baseless theory, is that it may coincide with OpenXR.  From what I know the old Oculus runtimes are being superceded by Oculus OpenXR.  I don't see how this fits in, but it's the only thing I know that may have changed.  However, I did test this in UE4.  The current default template seems to default to using Oculus' OpenXR.  The project I made uses the old Oculus runtime with OpenXR disabled.  Same issue.  However, since the scenes are relatively basic the problem isn't quite as severe.  It's like the moment the engine has to do any work everything goes out of sync.

[fabxs]

Hi, i have the same problem from the beginning with my quest2. No problem with pcars2, fallout, skyrim, alyx,... But on every unreal games i have stutters. 🤬

Did you finally find a fix after all this time? 

[Cookies-N-Scream]

Hey @fabxs! What software version are you on? I know some users were reporting stuttering while using Air Link in v54 and v55 (as seen here) but I hadn't seen anyone mention it was only happening with specific games. Are you playing standalone, or via Link?

[fabxs]

Hi, I 'm on the latest version but as i wrote, i have this issue from the beginning (i bought quest 2 at his launch) and it' s only on the unreal made games. Other games run smoothly, even big game who need more performance. Either i use airlink or the cable. I have no issues on standalone. 

[ThyRuinedKing]

This may just be an issue with Unreal Engine itself, it's possible that Quest software doesn't interactive all too well with that engine. It could be the scripting they use that has some conflict, I know Unreal has a pretty unique one.

Unreal also has a fantastic and well documented Support team, it's possible they could have more information on game tweaks that should improve performance.

[fabxs]

I think it must be something in my specific hardware or software who makes conflict with the unreal engine because not everybody has this issue...

Yes i would ask it to the unreal support, it's a good idea 👍