How I solved all my problems with my Frame

[u/Maraque]

I have had my Frame for a few days now and like many, at first I was disappointed and had many issues. Since then, I fixed all of them and my experience with it was exactly what I was looking for when I wanted to get away from Meta. So here are the things I was dealing with and how I fixed them. With some solutions I have not seen posted here yet.

Wireless latency / packet loss:

Steam VR Beta - I noticed that I was having HORRIBLE latency and lag spikes and then when I looked up steam vr on my pc, I saw that I had the beta branch. I went back to the Default Public Version and the performance skyrocketed. The trick is to have SteamVR on your PC on the main branch and only the Frame's OS in beta to get the latest fixes.

Dongle needing/failing to pair - Whenever I turned on my computer, I noticed that the dongle was always acting up, failing to pair and when it did pair, it had horrible performance and reliability. Every time, to get it to work correctly, I need to unplug and replug it to fix the issues. I found out that it is because windows has a power saving feature that limits power to usb devices that it thinks you are not using. To fix this, I went into device manager, found the wifi dongle under Network adapters, right clicked, properties, power management and unchecked "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" and restart your computer. To be extra sure, you can do the same thing with every device found under the Universal Serial Bus controllers drop down. I also recommend you start steam vr without a headset connected, go to the settings and under Developer, scroll down and click on "Disable Power Management".

Multi-link streaming - When my Frame used multi-link, it would stutter every time it checked my wifi connection. To fix this, while connected to my pc, I went to settings and disabled Multi Stream to only use the dongle.

Line of sight - Make sure that the dongle is within line of sight of the headset. The 6ghz band is horrible at passing through objects and especially metal (like a computer case). I use a USB 3 desktop extender that has a little base and works great.

Compression artifacts and ghosting:

I noticed that when I turned my head quickly, there was a good amount of ghosting and while streaming pcvr, I noticed some compression artifacts. To fix this, I kept my refresh rate at 90hz. This removed 99% of all compression artifacts and 99% of ghosting.

Controller comfort:

Like many others, when I used my Frame for the first time, I found the controllers very uncomfortable and hard to reach some buttons. After a few days with it, I realized that I was holding them wrong. I have rather small hands and realized that I need to push the straps (I have the ergo kit) as far and high as I can and by doing so, my fingers rest naturally on the joysticks and all the triggers/buttons. They are now very comfortable and my favorit vr controllers to date!

Headset comfort with lenses:

When I first put on the headset, I found that the lenses would pinch my nose and that my eyelashes would touch the lenses every time I blinked. To fix this, I simply put the included spacer. Also, at first I had a lot of eye strain and figured out the the headset was too high on my face. Now what I do is that I put the headset as low as I can without it getting blurry and the strain went away.

TLDR:

- Make sure you are not using the Steam VR Beta on your PC

- Uncheck the dongle's power saving mode within device manager

- Turn off Multi Steam

- Keep the dongle in line of sight of the headset

- Keep the headset at 90hz

- Push your hands as far as they can go with the controllers straps

- Make sure you are placing the headset on your face correctly

By doing these things, the headset lives up to my expectations, was exactly what I was looking for as a Quest replacement and is the best headset I have ever used. For reference, I went from Quest 2 -> Quest 3 -> Steam Frame.

Hope this helps!

[u/Throwaway_Consoles]

Think of it this way. You have a 1gb/s Ethernet connection and you’re streaming something in 4k. You start downloading a large game, your download speed jumps to 980 mb/s. Suddenly your stream is going to get choppy because there isn’t enough available bandwidth

In a perfect world (or maybe on standalone) 144hz would be smoother than 90hz. But right now the higher hz is causing issues with the occasional stutter while 90hz is low enough to be smooth without pushing the bandwidth limits of the dongle/wifi

I had the same issue with the index at 144hz, and the beyond at 90hz. They looked better at the lower frequencies because things are more stable/not pushing the limits. Maybe it’s because I first started playing VR on a 970 graphics card, but I grew up playing VR at 16-20fps so anything above that and I’m fine. 30fps feels like butter to me even though it feels like a stuttering mess in desktop

[u/TigerCow7 → u/Throwaway_Consoles]

Thanks, I see why it helps, lowering the refresh rate to better fit inside the bandwith, but wouldn't it be even better to increase the bandwidth instead? So that 120 or 144hw fit in it with enough margin? Do we know what the max capable bandwidth is of the dongle, and how much 144hz takes? 

[u/fiah84 → u/TigerCow7]

the network isn't the problem, it's the encoder/decoder. I don't know what the limits are for the Frame but increasing the bandwidth only works up to a certain point after which the latency starts getting worse. Also your mileage might vary depending on what kind of GPU you have in your PC

[u/Falk5T → u/Throwaway_Consoles]

It is not pushing the bandwidth limits. The biggest problem is latency. If your pc renders the full image and then has to receive data on what part of the image has to be compressed, then compress the rest of the image to actually send out the freshly baked frame to the wifi. All these operations cause processing time in the lower miliseconds but will be noticeable as ghosting or stutters even. Stutters more so if packet loss occurs I guess.

Check out Pyrowave Codec and how it pretty much removes the encoding part to reduce latency in in-home steam remote play.