Jittery Rift experience a couple hours gameplay

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Just as the title suggests - after a couple hours' of play, my experience goes from smooth as silk with no drops below 90fps to smooth interspersed with annoying jitters when I move my head. A restart cures it, but only gets me another couple hours before I have to rinse and repeat.

Changing from VR Ultra to VR Low (or any other setting for that matter) has no effect on the jitters.

Not a big deal, but I'm curious what might be causing this.

My specs are as follows:

i5 8600k (@4.4GHz)
Asus ROG STRIX 1080 ti
16GB DDR4 2600 MHz
4TB traditional HDD.

Any ideas?

 

[CaptainCaboose]

I've been having the same issue since I updated my Nvidia drivers yesterday. Thinking about doing a rollback.

i7-3770
EVGA GTX 980ti FTW
32GB DDR3 1600MHz
1TB 7200rpm HD

Taking donations for new MOBO/CPU/Ram if anybody's interested in helping a lost cause ;p

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Thanks but I would have been using the Jan. 8 release (390.65), so I doubt it's a driver-specific problem given the driver you updated to yesterday (presume it's 390.77) is producing the same issue.

I've been having the same issue since I updated my Nvidia drivers yesterday. Thinking about doing a rollback.

i7-3770
EVGA GTX 980ti FTW
32GB DDR3 1600MHz
1TB 7200rpm HD

Taking donations for new MOBO/CPU/Ram if anybody's interested in helping a lost cause ;p

 

[Dielos]

Not sure if it might be the same issue, as due to my specs I never hit 90fps...

I’m getting jitters from time to time as well, but they usually are resolved for me by enabling and disabling ASW again in the oculus debuging tool, which I always keep open, without having to restart.

Try to see if this works, no idea what might be causing it though...

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Dielos,

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll give it a try!

 

[CaptainCaboose]

Something else to consider, are you using the new Rift experience? Since I enabled it(to use their "Dash" feature in-game) and it coincided with the driver update as well. Just an idea

 

[shadow133]

Not sure if it might be the same issue, as due to my specs I never hit 90fps...

I’m getting jitters from time to time as well, but they usually are resolved for me by enabling and disabling ASW again in the oculus debuging tool, which I always keep open, without having to restart.

Try to see if this works, no idea what might be causing it though...

Theres absolutely no need to use oculus debug anymore. You can toggle asw via numpad 1-4 directly in game. Most performance issues I had were caused by nvidia driver. I have not updated my windows 10 in over a year and I am stuck with drivers from months ago and not willing to updade since its running smooth.

 

[Dielos]

Theres absolutely no need to use oculus debug anymore. You can toggle asw via numpad 1-4 directly in game. Most performance issues I had were caused by nvidia driver. I have not updated my windows 10 in over a year and I am stuck with drivers from months ago and not willing to updade since its running smooth.

Well... That explains why ASW was kicking in and out randomly for me! I have those keys mapped in game for something else! Thanks!

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Theres absolutely no need to use oculus debug anymore. You can toggle asw via numpad 1-4 directly in game. Most performance issues I had were caused by nvidia driver. I have not updated my windows 10 in over a year and I am stuck with drivers from months ago and not willing to updade since its running smooth.

Thanks Shadow - I didn't know asw was toggle-able, nevermind that it is hardwired into the game! I will try next time I get the jitters and see what happens.

 

[TheChafing]

Just as the title suggests - after a couple hours' of play, my experience goes from smooth as silk with no drops below 90fps to smooth interspersed with annoying jitters when I move my head. A restart cures it, but only gets me another couple hours before I have to rinse and repeat.

Changing from VR Ultra to VR Low (or any other setting for that matter) has no effect on the jitters.

Not a big deal, but I'm curious what might be causing this.

My specs are as follows:

i5 8600k (@4.4GHz)
Asus ROG STRIX 1080 ti
16GB DDR4 2600 MHz
4TB traditional HDD.

Any ideas?

I recently noticed this if I'd play any VR games after my GPU had been mining with the Nicehash legacy miner all day without rebooting. Obviously, I'd stop the miner before starting the game. Once I'd reboot, the issue went away and everything worked normally.

I switched to the latest non-legacy miner on the VR machine and the issue went away; I can just stop the miner and start the game and all is well. The card in question is a Gigabyte Aorus 1080Ti that came with a water jacket instead of an air cooler.

I don't think it's driver related. At least, it's not a particular version of the driver that does this.

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Thanks for the thoughts TheChafing.

Yeah, I'm thinking this is more resource-related rather than driver-related. Could it have something to do with the fact I have 'only' 16GB of RAM? I would have preferred 32, but that'd have blown my already badly tortured and beaten budget wide open.

 

[Akaradrin]

Could be an overheating issue, maybe from your processor (and this may explain why restarting the game fixes it for a while). It overheats after a while and loses performance.
Check your computer temperature, just in cause.

 

[VR Dextrovix]

As the issue is cumulative, I too think it could be overheating, or a memory leak that consumes resources, over time. So a diagnosis of system temperature, and keeping Task Manager open to check when the system slows down, might be a good start.

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Highly doubt it's temperature-related. Reason being is that after re-booting, I will play the game, then exit and quit the launcher.

I will leave it for a few hours and then re-open the launcher and launch the game and boom - the problem is there almost immediately.

Also, I have 6 case fans which draw air from the front and exhaust to the rear, in addition to a massive CPU air cooler, also pushing air out the back. So, I really don't think the problem is heat (I've also run Furmark at high settings and resolution and it rarely goes much beyond 61 or 62 degrees at 100% load).

I'm thinking something like a memory leak perhaps?

Are there any diagnostic tools anyone can recommend I use?

 

[Durden T.]

Things I found out while configuring my Rift:

- Seems that, despite the amount of free ram on your system, Elite+VR uses a huge amount of page file space, something like +12 Gb. Make sure you're system is able to allocate said space, and that it does it in a rather fast disk, an SSD is the best bet, but certainly not mandatory.

- If you don't use Windows 10, you probably should. If you use it, make sure the new feature "game mode" is de-activated both for the Home and Elite Dangerous. For reasons I don't know, it deeply affects performance when using the rift with ED. Mine was freezing and crashing to desktop until I unchecked it. Then, mermelade...

- If you are overclocking your graphic card and/or processor, make sure the OC is stable enough. An unstable OC can cause problems and eventually cause CTDs, or worst.

- If non of this helps (which is hardly likely), a rift software and Elite reinstall won't hurt, and maybe the graphic card drivers too, but hopefully that won't be necessary.

With your hardware, you should be getting a pretty good performance, so my bet is that something with your software is causing the issues...

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Things I found out while configuring my Rift:

- Seems that, despite the amount of free ram on your system, Elite+VR uses a huge amount of page file space, something like +12 Gb. Make sure you're system is able to allocate said space, and that it does it in a rather fast disk, an SSD is the best bet, but certainly not mandatory.

- If you don't use Windows 10, you probably should. If you use it, make sure the new feature "game mode" is de-activated both for the Home and Elite Dangerous. For reasons I don't know, it deeply affects performance when using the rift with ED. Mine was freezing and crashing to desktop until I unchecked it. Then, mermelade...

- If you are overclocking your graphic card and/or processor, make sure the OC is stable enough. An unstable OC can cause problems and eventually cause CTDs, or worst.

- If non of this helps (which is hardly likely), a rift software and Elite reinstall won't hurt, and maybe the graphic card drivers too, but hopefully that won't be necessary.

With your hardware, you should be getting a pretty good performance, so my bet is that something with your software is causing the issues...

Durden, Repped. Thank you.

I had no idea that running from an HDD as opposed to an SSD could have such an impact on performance. I might buy a good SSD and try with a reinstall of Elite there.

And goes without saying, I'll check the "Game mode" feature is de-activated although I know for certain I did not activate it (just did a fresh Windows 10 install less than a month ago).

I am O/C'ing my CPU, but it is a mild CPU for the 8600k (4.3GHz), and has been very stable.

I have a feeling it might be the HDD though - when I did my reinstall, I installed to the HDD for the first time since I've owned Elite.

 

[A D]

Before taking any drastic steps, just check the game settings. Jitter (lag) is often a sign that the graphics settings are a bit high. Know it was smooth before, but the load could have ramped up once you started doing stuff in the game that was graphics intensive. Notice you have a 1080ti which has plenty of grunt (have one too), but even this card will struggle to run ED VR smoothly at max/ultra settings.

Wind back to medium, then take the settings up slowly. Test each change in the start screen by moving your head quickly left and right. If the settings are too high you will notice some jitter doing this. The settings to watch (which are process/resource hungry) are:

- SSMA (try FXAA instead - just to reduce jaggies which FXAA is good at. Use HMD for clarity)
- Shadows (try medium)
- Ambient occlusion (keep low)
- SS (leave at 1 - I find SS better in the Oculus debug tool, but HMD gives clarity so use SS sparingly - 1.2 in the debug maybe)
- HMD (start at 1.75 and prefer to SS - I can hit 2.0 in HMD no problem when the other settings are right)

Also may need to turn down model draw distance and terrain detail (start half way for each - go up with terrain detail if you have the overhead). The other settings can probably be as high as you want without much impact.

As an aside, I have Win 10, Geforce Experience 12 (overlay off) and the latest Nvidia 1080ti driver. No problems with any. Also only have a CPU at 3.6 MHz and DDR4 in the 'puter, so not that fast. Agree that an SSD could be good (have a 1TB SSD Evo), but this mainly affects initial loading times. You have 16gb ram in your rig and 12gb DDR5 video ram in the 1080ti, so there shouldn't be much I/O from the HD when ED is running and, generally speaking, not the reason for slow game play. Obviously, all this assumes you're not getting lag though your internet connection (probably not).

Should hit a sweet spot which hopefully will also be visually acceptable to you. If this doesn't work, then can look at more drastic steps suggested in this thread.

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Thanks AD. I'll fiddle over the weekend and see if the in-game settings changes affects things at all.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Did you try the ASW toggle as mentioned by Dielos? I doubt if graphics settings have any bearing on this unless it's a memory leak in which case you would assume higher settings would make it happen sooner. I remember a bug about a year or so ago, thought to be a memory leak, where players in RES sites would start to get stuttering after 90 mins or so and it seemed to affect VR players worse (or at least they made more noise about it). I never experienced it myself so not sure what the outcome was.

Another theory...temperature of the HMD causing lag...have a read...
https://www.vrheads.com/how-fix-oculus-rift-calibrations-problems

 

[Magnusvermagnussen]

Did you try the ASW toggle as mentioned by Dielos? I doubt if graphics settings have any bearing on this unless it's a memory leak in which case you would assume higher settings would make it happen sooner. I remember a bug about a year or so ago, thought to be a memory leak, where players in RES sites would start to get stuttering after 90 mins or so and it seemed to affect VR players worse (or at least they made more noise about it). I never experienced it myself so not sure what the outcome was.

Another theory...temperature of the HMD causing lag...have a read...
https://www.vrheads.com/how-fix-oculus-rift-calibrations-problems

Not yet - Due to RL, I can really only game on weekends unfortunately. Planning on implementing all of the changes (one at a time of course) suggested here this weekend, save for buying a new SSD, which I'll put off as a last-resort thing.