PCVR / PSVR2 / Quest Knowledge Base - fixing performance problems and issues with Oculus Rift (s) and Meta Quest 2/3, Oculus troubleshooting, useful things and tips for VR headsets

In this section we store our VR knowledge base, which contains of different tips, tweaks, secrets and tricks to improve the performance and usability of your VR devicdes. We've been collecting this information and building this VR knowledge base together with our community and different external sources for years. If you have something to add, you're always welcome to send us your feedback via email. You can also use our search filter right below this text to quickly find necessary information and share it with your friends.

Almost any VR application might be launched in different modes (some of them, mostily available on STEAM allow you to chose a mode you want to run it. If you have flagship GPU and high-spec configuration, it is not that important in most cases, but for middle and low configurations devices you might face performance problems while running apps in non-native mode. For Oculus devices it is always recommended to launch them in Oculus SDK mode. Some apps (like STEAM version of Beat Saber) need to be configured with additional launch arguments to get working in Oculus SDK mode. Even if app doesn't have Native Oculus SDK mode, you can use OpenComposite to improve performance instead of launching it in SteamVR mode (with slower performance). Anyway there are exceptions of apps, that do not support Oculus SDK nor OpenSDK.

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There is no specific answer on this question. If you own PC VR Oculus headset, it makes more sense to buy products in Oculus Store due those 2 reasons: 1. Some of them support Cross-buy with Quest platform, so if you own a Quest in a future, you'll automatically be able to play cross-buy games from your library on Quest without PC 2. Games from Oculus store usually pass more serious testing and pre-release analysis. There is a chance that STEAM version of the game won't have Oculus SDK mode and will be working with glitches, but when you buy the same game from Oculus Store, you'll get a OculusSDK-powered version of game with much better performance (such an example is story-rich game Wanderer). We usually add information about game's performance in our reviews so you could find this information for almost all PC VR games we review.

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Yes, you can connect your Quest directly to your PC without using your router as intermediary to decrease delays and lathency. To use it you should use external USB wi-fi adapter or motherboard should have integrated Wi-Fi module supporting faster speeds (perfectly Wi-Fi 6). All this makes sense if at least one of conditions is your case: 1. Your router is quite slow to provide necesary bandwidth and your PC's adapter supports faster speeds. 2. Your router is in another room and you wish to play near your computer, but signal strength is too weak to bring you flawless gaming experience. If you decided to proceed, you need to use Mobile Hotspot feature in Windows 10/11 to create a hotspot from your computer, connect your headset to this hotspot and then use Oculus Airlink. It is VERY important to know about a stupid bug, that isn't being fixed by Microsoft and isn't much known in the community, but is absolutely critical in scenario of using Airlink. The first device, connected to your hotspot isn't getting a full speed, so before connecting your Quest you need to connect with your phone (or any other device) to your windows hotspot. When you connect as second device, you'll get a Full-speed (Wi-Fi 6 if supported) and you'll be able to configure your airlink to maximum quality/bandwidth. 🔗 Generate a link for sharing this answer

Yes, you can improve the pureless of dark colors if you use Oculus PC VR headset. Use this small utility by running it and selecting "Set Full Range" button. After that restart your computer and as a result the range of dark colors on your headset would be extended. You don't need to launch that utility anymore until you updated your GPU drivers. Unfortunately at the moment this utility works only with nVidia GPU drivers.

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Yes it's a common problem if you have limited amount of storage on your system disk. But there's a trick: you can use Windows paging file to reserve some space necessary to Oculus updates (usually it's 12 GB). You need to go to "This PC's" properties and hit "Advanced system settings". Then hit "Settings" button of "Performance" section and go to "Advanced" tab. Then hit "Change" button, select disk where you have your Oculus software installed and choose "Custom size" option. Set amount of space you want to reserve (12 GB) on both "Initial" and "Maximum size" and save the changes by hitting "OK". When Oculus update is out, open this again and select "No paging file". It will ask you to reboot PC and free reserved space so you could install the update. After updating Oculus software don't forget to repeat the first part of instruction to reserve a space for further updates and turn the swap file back on.

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Yes, you can install it to different disk if you launch the installer with argument drive=DISK_NAME, for example: OculusSetup.exe -drive=d.

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Yes, actually there is a way to turn of your Oculus PC headset without plugging out the USB cables. The most simple way is executing two commands using command prompt with admin rights:
net stop "OVRService"
taskkill /f /im "vrmonitor.exe" /t
It will disable the service and software and also turn off the power on your headset while you don't use it. To make this happening by default you need to disable two services automatic startup, using administrator-priviledged command prompt's command sc config OVRService start= demand. But you need to turn the service on every time you use your headset. This is being made by executing these commands command prompt with admin rights:
net start "OVRService"
Start "" "C:\Program Files\Oculus\Support\oculus-client\OculusClient.exe"
If you have different set ups for different rooms, you might crate pseudo-profiles (using cmd's mklink /d command) and keep different set ups of Oculus sensors/Guardian for different sets of sensors

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You can set up the quality of streaming to your quest headset in Oculus software settings by turning off Automatic settings and picking up the values manually. You can also use Oculus Debug Tools to reach some extended settings and monitor specs to make sure your hardware is able to work with the selected performance. We recommend these settings for the most middle-range systems: scale factor: 1.0х, frame rate 72-90 (depending on your hardware). Bitrate setting is very depending on your hardware: with value of 350-420 you should get a fine quality of image and it shouldn't cause sound or video issues, frame skipping etc. Encode image height value is recommended to set somewhere between 2736 and 3664 depending on your hardware. Distortion curvature value sat as High (and even Low) would add a bit of clarity, if your system is good enough to handle it. The last step would be picking up the render resolution (supersampling) that might be a bit different for every individual game. You just need to find a balance so you could get at least 72fps and some performance reserve 10-20%.

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This is a software problem, which happens very rarely. To fix this you need to open Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and set "UseSpud"=dword:00000000 in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Oculus]. After rebooting your computer problem should be gone.

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If we talk about Touch sticks, you are able to set up a dead zone for each axis usingOculus Touch Calibration Tool. If your issue is related to grip/trigger buttons or any other axis, you need to manually edit LTOUCH/RTOUCH files inе %AppData%/Local/Oculus/TouchCalibration folder. The task is to pick up values (Max/Mid/Min) for the axis you need. If you want to configure Grip you need to edit Middle(Max/Mid/Min)Range, if you need to configure Trigger, edit Trigger(Max/Min/Mid)Range. After any changes you have to restart Oculus service to apply changes. For example it is possible to fix even physical defects of Grip/Trigger and make it fully-functional again. Use Oculus Monitor to monitor how it currently works and check the corrections you made in the file. You can also find some useful information in this reddit

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There are two types of different problems with Oculus Rift CV1 audio: internal and external. External is more frequent and very easy to fix. You just need to use a screwdriver to tight the connection between earpiece and it's contact on the headset. When the contact goes weaker with time one of the ear pieces might stop working. More serious problem is internal damage of sound cable (usually it affects on right earpiece). To prevent this you need to fix the whole headset's right strap. You can use insulating tape to do it.

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Yes, you need to use Revive utility, that will allow you to run Oculus software (including Oculus Home and Oculus Store) on headsets of other manufacturers. Unfortunately not every game supports Revive and you might have some performance issues on demanding games. 🔗 Generate a link for sharing this answer

Early versions of Oculus Quest software did not had a feature to select Aspect Ratio, Quality, Resolution and other parameters of recordable footage. Since summer 2022 Oculus implemented this feature in their Firwmare Update, so now you can select the aspect ratio and quality in your Oculus menu | Settings | Camera. If you still use old firmware, you can use Sidequest to enable it.

You need to run these commands using SideQuest app:
adb shell setprop debug.oculus.capture.width 1920
adb shell setprop debug.oculus.capture.height 1080
adb shell setprop

You can also improve a recorded video's bitrate for some loss in performance:

debug.oculus.capture.bitrate 10000000
adb shell setprop debug.oculus.foveation.level 0
adb shell setprop debug.oculus.capture.fps 60

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Please reach our topic in STEAM curator group and post it there, we will move the information to our knowledge base.

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There are 3 ways to play PC VR games on your Quest headset: 1. Through official Oculus Airlink app (using Oculus software), you need to enable it in your Oculus PC app and pair your Quest headset with the app using Oculus Link in Settings menu inside Quest. This way is perfect for Oculus SDK apps and games purchased through Oculus Rift store. 2. Through recently released STEAM Link app. This option is a perfect solution for games in your STEAM library, that do not support Oculus SDK, because in this mode you get better performance in SteamVR environment, than if you use first option. To get it working you need to download STEAM LINK app on your headset and pair it with your PC 3. Through third-party apps like Virtual Desktop or alternatives. It might give you more flexibility in configuration, better Refresh Rate and more smooth usage in some scenarios. There are other alternative third-party apps available on store, but VD is the most popular one. 🔗 Generate a link for sharing this answer
Echo VR is one of the most popular free-to-play multiplayer games, shut down by Facebook in 2023 with the 30k+ active player base at the time it has been shut down by Facebook. Fortunately the community had a strong wish to continue playing, that some individuals have developed a third-party mods, allowing you to continue playing the game.
1. Playing VS bots: if you wish to play single-player matches versus PC controlled bots, you'll need a previous version of Echo VR installed. You need to put 2 DLL files downloaded from Offline Echo project's page and put them in game's directory to enable matches vs bots.
2. Playing with other players on Quest and PC VR using Echo Navigator mod. You need to patch your game with Echo Navigator Quest APK or Echo Navigator Installer for PC (usually blocked by antiviruses as potentially unsafe) to enable ability to play and host your own games on custom servers. You can also use PC version through Airlink to play on your Quest, if you own gaming PC. To use PC VR version you must have owned the game prior to the game's shutdown in August 2023. This method uses Echo Relay but also offers an easy server browser to make the process more user-friendly.
3. Playing with other players on PC VR using Echo Relay. This component is used in method 2, but you can do it without a server browser. Only PC version of Echo VR is supported for this method, you need to follow instructions of Echo Relay project to enable ability to host/connect to third-party servers with the matches. 🔗 Generate a link for sharing this answer
Yes, starting 7th of August you'll be able to use Sony PS VR2 headset with your PC (if it meet system requirements) to play games from your STEAM library. If you have VirtualLink output on your Display Adapter (it looks like USB Type-C output) you can connect your PS VR2 directly to your PC, otherwise you will need to buy PS VR 2 PC Adapter (around 60 EUR/USD) or any other VirtualLink Adapter. Also you will need a real good bluetooth to pair your controllers. Then you need to install "SteamVR" and "Playstation VR2 App" in your STEAM (both are free) and follow the instructions to install the drivers and pair controllers. Games will be working in SteamVR environment and it's one of the best PC VR headsets at the day. People report issues and lags with some Bluetooth modules, but we had a perfect tracking with Intel's integrated Bluetooth v5.2 module (under B660M motherboard) and Sony's adapter used with 3070Ti GPU. 🔗 Generate a link for sharing this answer
Yes, you need to install Revive Tool, a compatibility layer between the Oculus SDK and OpenVR/OpenXR. It allows you to play Oculus-exclusive games on your PS VR2, HTC Vive, Valve Index and other PC VR headsets. 🔗 Generate a link for sharing this answer

Vendetta Forever

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An excellent remaster for one of the first AAA VR shooters, a legendary story-rich post-apocalyptic experience infused with dark humor and an unparalleled level of immersion.