Oculus Rift choppy/disconnects when Elite is the focused application - works fine when it's not?

[SgtBaxter]

Long story short - when Elite is the focused app (i.e. on the 2D monitor it's window is selected), it gets choppy/stutters and even blacks out (Rift actually disconnects).

When I hit windows key and select either Oculus home or just the desktop, suddenly it works perfectly fine. No stutter, no chop, etc.

Of course - if Elite isn't the focused application then the controllers don't work so you can't play the game.

I've tried all I can think of - turning off game overlays, etc. Changing USB ports stuff is plugged into. I even have a PCI USB 3 card on the way (which I wanted anyway) It's like Elite and Oculus fight each other for control of the computer if that makes sense?

Any ideas out there I might not have thought of? The first night I had the rift the game played flawlessly. Second night - not so much, and I can't figure out what changed.

 

[gary.brain]

Hi, just got back into playing and I see the exact same thing.

Never had this about 6 months ago so doing some digging.

There have been lots of update, nvidia/windows so its going to be a pain pinpointing, I played a few other VR games and it seems to be isolated to ED.

 

[TheoJones]

Couple of things - if it worked one night, not the next, issue is likely to have been updates being applied.

When it blacks out/disconnects, do you get the USB "ba dunk" sound? I had the symptoms you describe, bought the Oculus recommended USB3 card, and they went away... until the last nVidia driver update, when the judder/chop came back.

Two things help a lot - firstly, set the Resolution for the Desktop as low as possible. Your GPU ha to render 3 view VR left, VR right, and desktop. Give the desktop on as little work as possible. I dropped mine to 1280x768. Second, drop the VR quality to VR High, rather than VR Ultra.

If you are using an MSI GPU, run Afterburner, if not, get your vendors tool to show GPU load/temps etc. and monitor them. If the GPU is pegging at 100% when you judder... there's your problem.

I am running a 980GTX and had to use VR high.

good luck.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Most obvious thing to try is different graphics drivers, some of the nvidia drivers recently have caused stutter/judder in VR. Also, I have found with the recent drivers that when switching between 2D and VR I need to shutdown the PC first otherwise I get the symptoms you describe.

 

[Strangepork]

Long story short - when Elite is the focused app (i.e. on the 2D monitor it's window is selected), it gets choppy/stutters and even blacks out (Rift actually disconnects).

When I hit windows key and select either Oculus home or just the desktop, suddenly it works perfectly fine. No stutter, no chop, etc.

Of course - if Elite isn't the focused application then the controllers don't work so you can't play the game.

I've tried all I can think of - turning off game overlays, etc. Changing USB ports stuff is plugged into. I even have a PCI USB 3 card on the way (which I wanted anyway) It's like Elite and Oculus fight each other for control of the computer if that makes sense?

Any ideas out there I might not have thought of? The first night I had the rift the game played flawlessly. Second night - not so much, and I can't figure out what changed.

The new drivers from NVidia brought on the chopps for me.

 

[SgtBaxter]

When it blacks out/disconnects, do you get the USB "ba dunk" sound?

Two things help a lot - firstly, set the Resolution for the Desktop as low as possible. Your GPU ha to render 3 view VR left, VR right, and desktop. Give the desktop on as little work as possible. I dropped mine to 1280x768. Second, drop the VR quality to VR High, rather than VR Ultra

Thanks for the reply. No, there is no disconnect chime, the Oculus application simply says "disconnected". Most of the time is says tracking error though.

I've set the desktop window to whatever the lowest res available is. I do have 2 monitors, and tonight plan to try disconnecting one to see if there is a change.

It's just strange that it tracks butter smooth when Elite isn't the focus app. The GPU and rift are still doing the same work.

Hmmm... I'll have to try playing with process priorities and see if that has any effect. It's almost like Elite is hogging all resources as the focused application and the Oculus software isn't getting enough CPU time.

 

[SgtBaxter]

The new drivers from NVidia brought on the chopps for me.

What was the last version you used that didn't?

 

[Kaltern]

Sounds a lot like Dash causing problems - I had that exact same issue, and I had to disable Dash to get it to work... I ended up reinstalling the Oculus software and that somehow cleared it up.

 

[gary.brain]

Sounds a lot like Dash causing problems - I had that exact same issue, and I had to disable Dash to get it to work... I ended up reinstalling the Oculus software and that somehow cleared it up.

yeah did that, it does seem to make it slightly better. Also found with the Dash is when its running no other program runs if it required the "admin ui consent" box. It was sitting in the processor list. As soon as I quick Dash the box appeared. So another reason not to use it.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

What was the last version you used that didn't?

For me, 388.43 was fine. YMMV.

 

[Yololo69]

Does you guys have the Game mode of Windows 10 Fall Creator update activeted? I'm wondering as having a game on focus and this Windows feature turned ON should prioritize the game on processes list to speed up it. In case of VR the Oculus driver process run less often as the game is first on the list and you get such behavior. Be sure the GameBar is completely OFF on Windows 10 options, and don't use software which make ED using more priority as it cost to the Oculus Driver trying to run in parallel. I could be wrong but it's a possible candidate if ED run better in the background. In my case I had sluttering in VR games until I turned off this Game Mode of Win10...

 

[SgtBaxter]

Does you guys have the Game mode of Windows 10 Fall Creator update activeted? I'm wondering as having a game on focus and this Windows feature turned ON should prioritize the game on processes list to speed up it. In case of VR the Oculus driver process run less often as the game is first on the list and you get such behavior. Be sure the GameBar is completely OFF on Windows 10 options, and don't use software which make ED using more priority as it cost to the Oculus Driver trying to run in parallel. I could be wrong but it's a possible candidate if ED run better in the background. In my case I had sluttering in VR games until I turned off this Game Mode of Win10...

HOLY I MAY JUST KISS YOU.

I had GAME BAR turned off. GAME DVR turned off. Turns out - this doesn't affect game mode at all. You have to have the game bar turned on to turn game mode on and off.

Turn GAME BAR back on - hit winkey + G to bring it up - GAME MODE is running. Click that, suddenly Elite in VR is buttery smooth. Somehow, game mode must have turned on with a windows update or something.

Anyone else that's having this issue - turn on game bar, and hit winkey+G (prop your oculus up on your head because it only shows on your 2D monitor). Click the game mode button, and it should have a circle with slash icon on it if game mode is off.

 

[SgtBaxter]

Hi, just got back into playing and I see the exact same thing.

Never had this about 6 months ago so doing some digging.

There have been lots of update, nvidia/windows so its going to be a pain pinpointing, I played a few other VR games and it seems to be isolated to ED.

So for me if you read the responses below - some update turned on Game Mode. I enabled the game bar, hit winkey+G when the game launched, and sure enough game mode was enabled. I clicked the button to turn it off, and bam - buttery smooth again. Give that a try!

It's really stupid you can't disable game mode universally in the control panel but have to do it through the game bar.