Oculus Link w the Link cable - Stutters and Framedrops in most games

[PaulRa]

Hi everyone,

I've been having constant stutter and framedrop issues save for rare cases since the launch of the Oculus Link feature. The stutters or FPS drops usually happen every several seconds, them back to very high framerates, and then back to the couple-second performance drops or stutters.
Both Oculus Rift software and Oculus Quest software are ver. 14. I am currently using the official Link cable as I bought it in hopes that it would fix the issue, but it still persists. It is plugged into the Virtual Link port on my RTX 2070, although I've tried other ports.
I do have an external GPU setup, though. I thought it was a Thunderbold bandwidth issue, but I've seen too many reports of the same happening to others with conventional setups.
My setup is a Lenovo Yoga 720-15 with a Core i7 7700HQ, 16 GB RAM, an nVME SSD, a GTX 1050 (disabled), and an external Gigabyte Aorus Box w RTX 2070 connected via a 2-lane Thunderbolt port (enabled). The laptop monitor stays disabled. I run an external monitor instead.
Here is what I've already done:
- reinstalled Windows and all the possible drivers
- tried 3 different versions of Oculus Rift software and Oculus Quest since the Link release, both beta and final
- tried all the other USB 3 ports on my PC
- unplugged other devices, like external drives, hubs etc.
- closed all the processes that could impact performance
- have had my CPU slightly downvolted with TB off to completely eliminate throttling
- disabled v-sync and G-sync in Nvidia drivers

It seems that lighter titles from the Oculus Store run slightly better. Something like Echo VR barely sees any stutters or FPS drops. Something like Skyrim VR in Steam or EVE: Valkrie in Oculus Store often has FPS drops even at lower settings.

This issue happens ONLY in VR via Oculus Link. All other demanding non-VR games are totally fine, e.g. DOOM stabely produces 200 FPS on max at 1080p.

If the issue has nothing to do with Oculus, I guess this is now narrowed down to my system being at fault in some way: either the USB controller or Thunderbold bandwidth. I have even decided to eventually sell my whole setup and build a desktop PC instead to solve this issue.

Has anybody had a similar issue and managed to fix it somehow? If selling my setup and building a new PC just to solve this does not work, I think I will be very sad.

Thanks in advance everyone!

[ReeZ_]

It seems I have the exact same behaviour. However, the frame drops only occur to me when I am entering the guardian. When I am standing still within the guardian the game will run smoothly all day long.

[tjholowaychuk]

I get the same with Alyx, it seems very buggy, every ~10 seconds or so it flashes orange and drops what I'm carrying in my VR-hands, it's pretty jarring. Seems like some kind of reset, since it displays the IPD UI, seems more like an Alpha product than Beta.

[KarstenS80]

PaulRa said:

connected via a 2-lane Thunderbolt port 

2 lanes is not very much. Recomended is a 4 lanes TB port for use with an external GPU. Remember: They use at least 8 lanes when connected to a mainboard slot.

As long the amount of data transfer back and forth is not getting to high, you won't notice much. But VR games transport alot more, as you always have 2 outputs. And Oculus Link is using additional bandwidth as it uses the GPU Encoders to compress the output for the USB transfer. Maybe you can save some bandwith when you use a USB port of the Notebook instead of the one on the GPU (I expect Oculus link is caching the output in the system RAM before senting to the USB port).

[Strongit]

I'm having the same issues since the version 15 update. It also happens on standalone quest games although to a lesser extent.  Not sure what to do at this point.

[RamCelles]

I have an nvidia 1060 6gb, 8 gb ram, oculus link never really worked for me. Even beatsaber was stuttering :neutral:

I think I have to update my desktop sistem

[Umpa_PC]

RamCelles said:

I have an nvidia 1060 6gb, 8 gb ram, oculus link never really worked for me. Even beatsaber was stuttering :neutral:

I think I have to update my desktop sistem

16GB would be better, you won't need any more than that.  In windows 10 search bar type version in that box and copy and paste the first 10 lines of the output in this thread.

This is what mine says:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home

Version 10.0.18362 Build 18362

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name MSI_TRIDENT_3

System Manufacturer Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.

System Model H110 Gaming Trident 3 (MS-B906)

System Type x64-based PC

System SKU B906.A

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz, 3000 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. A.20, 21/12/2017

[josh_mullis]

KarstenS80 said:

PaulRa said:

connected via a 2-lane Thunderbolt port 

2 lanes is not very much. Recomended is a 4 lanes TB port for use with an external GPU. Remember: They use at least 8 lanes when connected to a mainboard slot.

This is a reasonable recommendation, however I'm having the exact same issue with a 2019 razer blade stealth that has a 4 lane thunderbolt port connected to a razer core v1 with an rtx 2060.

Maybe the eGPU route is just not a good choice for oculus link.

I feel like I've tried just about every tweak this forum and reddit has to offer.

[Tobleron]

FIX! I had the same problem, I literally tried everything like you did but the way I fixed it was I went to windows update and install everything. IMPORTANT- I mean everything thats including the OPTIONAL WINDOWS UPDATE AND DRIVER. That fixed my problem, also make sure your gpu is up to date as well. If that doesn't work set  OVRService_x64 to high or real time 

[CrossStitch]

Tobleron said:

FIX! I had the same problem, I literally tried everything like you did but the way I fixed it was I went to windows update and install everything. IMPORTANT- I mean everything thats including the OPTIONAL WINDOWS UPDATE AND DRIVER. That fixed my problem, also make sure your gpu is up to date as well. If that doesn't work set  OVRService_x64 to high or real time 

Logged in just to say that this worked for me too! Thank you. 
Just went to Windows Update > View optional updates > selected everything and updated. Rebooted and boom, works great.