Image Freeze within VR headset with Virtual Desktop and Quest 3

[j.sabo12]

Hello guys,

Lately I have switched from air link and the link cable to using Vitrual desktop. I find that the image quality is much higher and everything seems to be smoother and less jittery than using the link cable, which I was pretty surprised about. 

However: 

I find it that pretty often, sometimes after around 30-45 minutes, at other times within a few seconds, the image inside the VR goggles completely freezes. What is funny is that DCS itself continues flawlessly. If I remove the headset and 'look around', the image and the sim continue on my monitor. Also, the audio continues within the VR headset. Everything seems to continue perfectly, except for the frozen image within the VR headset. 

In my VD Streamer software, I have AVI 10-bit Quest 3, and the runtime I use is VDXR, according to a tutorial I found on youtube. 

Honestly, it is a little bit annoying to have this problem, and if it could be avoided, I would prefer to have it fixed rather than go back to the link cable, where the image quality was inferior, especially if it's a quick fix. 

 

Thanks for any help or heads up guys. 

[lens]

I have the same thing when I have QV and XRNS on. I'll look back and I'll stop and on the monitor it's ok. Disabling qv helped at the expense of fps 

[sleighzy]

4 hours ago, lens said:

I have the same thing when I have QV and XRNS on. I'll look back and I'll stop and on the monitor it's ok. Disabling qv helped at the expense of fps 

Do you have the "eye-tracked" tick box enabled in the DCS settings (under the VR tab)? Numerous people have had issues with Necksafer and this. If so then untick this, restart DCS, and try again.

Edited October 1, 2024 by sleighzy

[lens]

 I got my eye tracking on. This is necessary to use in QV. For now I disabled QV and ET

[DCoffey]

On 10/1/2024 at 5:56 AM, j.sabo12 said:

Hello guys,

Lately I have switched from air link and the link cable to using Vitrual desktop. I find that the image quality is much higher and everything seems to be smoother and less jittery than using the link cable, which I was pretty surprised about. 

However: 

I find it that pretty often, sometimes after around 30-45 minutes, at other times within a few seconds, the image inside the VR goggles completely freezes. What is funny is that DCS itself continues flawlessly. If I remove the headset and 'look around', the image and the sim continue on my monitor. Also, the audio continues within the VR headset. Everything seems to continue perfectly, except for the frozen image within the VR headset. 

In my VD Streamer software, I have AVI 10-bit Quest 3, and the runtime I use is VDXR, according to a tutorial I found on youtube. 

Honestly, it is a little bit annoying to have this problem, and if it could be avoided, I would prefer to have it fixed rather than go back to the link cable, where the image quality was inferior, especially if it's a quick fix. 

 

Thanks for any help or heads up guys. 

I agree. I just recently started using virtual desktop instead of the cable. The images are way better and I doubled my FPS, makes no sense to me that wireless would be so much better. 
my sessions are normally 2 hours per campaign mission . At first mine was doing what yours is. I changed codec and the problem went away. 
 

funny thing is I changed back to AV1 codec and the problem I was having went away there as well. So who knows

[Maddaawg]

On 10/1/2024 at 3:56 AM, j.sabo12 said:

In my VD Streamer software, I have AVI 10-bit Quest 3, and the runtime I use is VDXR, according to a tutorial I found on youtube. 

Are you on a 4000 series Nvidia GPU or a AMD(don't follow AMD GPU's) that supports 10-bit? If your on a 3000 or earlier, switch to HVEC but not 10bit.

[Thomas_GER]

I am suffering exactly the same issue. Are you guys using Virtual Desktop with OpenXR or with SteamVR?

I saw posts somewhere else where it was assumed that OpenXR might be a root cause for the freeze.

[sleighzy]

2 minutes ago, Thomas_GER said:

I am suffering exactly the same issue. Are you guys using Virtual Desktop with OpenXR or with SteamVR?

I saw posts somewhere else where it was assumed that OpenXR might be a root cause for the freeze.

OpenXR won’t be the root cause as this is the API used by the game for VR (which is used by all runtimes / headsets).  When using Virtual Desktop you should use its VDXR runtime vs. the Steam OpenXR runtime. 

[Thomas_GER]

So my takeaway is to set the codec to NOT av1. 
 

will test this and give feedback here. 

[Lee Dove]

I have found the freeze due to having graphics settings slightly too high. Drop rate to 72hz , reduce from Godlike to Ultra, reduce PD in DCS in steps until you don't get the problem. I get the same issue in MSFS if I try and run higher settings associated with data transfer to the headset. It can be worse in some maps like afganistan.

[Scendore]

6 minutes ago, Lee Dove said:

I have found the freeze due to having graphics settings slightly too high. Drop rate to 72hz , reduce from Godlike to Ultra, reduce PD in DCS in steps until you don't get the problem. I get the same issue in MSFS if I try and run higher settings associated with data transfer to the headset. It can be worse in some maps like afganistan.

I've had very similar results when reducing the refresh rate down to 72hz.  I noticed the sweet spot seems to be for my rig is 72hz in game FPS setting to 75.  I basically get 72 FPS in game with almost zero stutter.  Of course your mileage may very.  I tried upping the game to 100 FPS and it added stutters and forced ASW which I turned off.  Give it a try

[Thomas_GER]

Sound good. I can clearly produce massive stutters in the Apache when I look down right. This is really crazy as I get nowhere else those stutters. Seems to be the case that there is something (MFD with the Map on it?) that drags a lot of performance. So reducing Hz should help. 

Edited November 7, 2024 by Thomas_GER

[Phantom711]

Am 7.11.2024 um 19:15 schrieb Scendore:

I tried upping the game to 100 FPS

Why? What for? 
If your headset runs at 72Hz you won‘t effectively see more that 72FPS anyways…

[Thomas_GER]

I got an update on this topic here.

Did several tests and could narrow the issue down to 2 possible root causes:

 

1.) AV1 Codec

I had a stable performance lately but I used mainly the HEVC 10-bit Codec. As soon as I switched to AV1 I got immediately a headset freeze - so there seems to be something causing the issue in combination with AV1

 

2.) Resolution and Frame Rate

I got the impression that with too high graphics AND frame rates settings I get also a freeze. Therefore I had to realize that the labels of the graphics settings (High, Ultra, Godlike) in combination with the mentioned graphics cards in Virtual Desktop is misleading.

In the VD discord I read that the graphic setting of "High" equals to 1.2 of the Quest3-Resolution, "Ultra" is 1.3 times the resolution and "Godlike" is 1.5

In the Quest Link app I never used more than 1.2 - so this is something to keep in mind when playing around with the graphic. And it is something that explains how much data has to be processed and streamed to the headset.

 

This is the resolution per eye (!) produced by VD with the given graphic modes:

 

Quest 2/Pico Neo 3/Quest Pro/Quest 3

Potato: 1440x1536

Low: 1728x1824

Medium: 2016x2112

High: 2496x2592

Ultra: 2688x2784

Godlike: 3072x3216 (Quest Pro/Quest 3)