OVR Toolkit causes Major performance issues when using Steamlink or VD with a Quest 3

[Shino Myth]

Just what the title said. Yesterday my index controllers and FBT setup arrived but after setting everything up, VD started to sometimes randomly freeze no matter what settings im running. So i tried steamlink. Steamlink wasnt freezing but instead just had stutter issues in Beatsaber, swapping then to VRchat i noticed major major fps drops like arond 2-5fps.

I tried playing around with some settings, putting everything to low and jeah beatsaber was playable on low settings but still vrchat had a stroke. Funny enough i opened Task manager and just having Task manager open increased my fps in VRchat from 3 to 30-40.

I figured maybe some overlay plugins are causing the issue. I do use Desktop+, OVR Toolcit and Space Cal.

Disabling Space cal di not increase the performance alot.
Disabling Desktop + also.

Disabling OVR Toolkit however fixed everything. After i have unistalled it i was able to use Steamlink on 150% render resolution i think 3kx3k or something on 350mbps and i had no issues anymore at all.

I think this issues is kind of a weird one since i havent had problems with OVR toolkit before i setup my new Index knuckle Controllers. But since i have set them up, my VD freezes sometimes and SteamLink causes performance issues, but yet it only does because of OVR Toolkit.

Due to the nature of this bu let me run u through my Specs and setup.

PC: CPU -> AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
GPU -> RTX 4070TI
Ram -> 32gb ddr5
Install is on an 1tb samsung 970 Evo plus m.2 ssd

Playing on a Quest 3 connected to a powerband headstrap.
Connected to PC via SteamLink
Im also using 2 Index Controllers with 2 Basestations and 3 Vive Trackers 3.0 Calibrated to the quest headset with Open Space-Cal

*Note: While playing the Quest 3 Controllers dont shut down completely it seems, whenever im in the steam menu they still show up laying in my room, but since Steam recently changed the prio of all non steam controlers to -1 i can normally use the INdex controllers without an issue right away and they are the primary controllers.

My PC is connected to a Wifi 6E capable mesh node vie Ethernet and my headset is connected to the same node via 5ghz and i also made sure that the frequency is running on an unused channel.

If u have any ideas how to fix it, i would appreciate the help. If u need any more info let me know.

Im Sure that its probably not really a hardware issue, since it ran fine before. I do however believe that it has something to do with using mixed vr (quest3 + index knuckles)
I still think its weird that the issue is less persistent when task manager is open.

EDIT: So i encountered the issue again even tho OVR is uninstalled. If u happen to have this problem aswell, it is because you are focused into the game that is running on your pc . Just click out of the window aaaaand it works. Im trying to find a workaround so that i dont have to constantly click out of a game when starting, including steam home

Edit2: I have Fixed it. The problem was Hardware Aceleration on the focused window for some reason. I went to Display > Graphics > Defailt Settings > Disable Accelerated GPU Scheduling. I also opted into the SteamVR Beta version. I yet have to test if OVR doesnt affect performance and that is just was this probkem from the beginning

[CurtisVL]

Hi there!

Thanks for adding your fix, I'll absolutely keep that one in mind!

I'm honestly a little stumped on why that would be an issue though?
I'm running Windows 11 Pro 22H2 with a 7900X3D and 4090, though I am using an Index HMD + Full body which does reduce the overhead drastically.

At first I thought this was maybe a USB issue? Like a bandwidth limit?
Way back the X570/B550 boards had USB stability problems that OVR Toolkit made drastically worse, a BIOS update fixed this thankfully, but I believe the issue was caused by OVR Toolkit's capture method which essentially gets a frame directly from the GPU.

Maybe just some stuff to think about there as the Quest headsets are quite heavy on the USB bandwidth, but who knows, maybe I'm just talking out of my ass. :)

Glad you got it figured out, thanks for being that guy who doesn't simply say 'Fixed' with no info on what they did!

[Dasher125]

I also had similar issues (Quest 2, Virtual Desktop) & ended up uninstalling OVR for the time being; the stutters were happening ~ once every 15s and making rhythm games unplayable. Task manager made no difference for me, neither did actively selecting the game window.
My GPU MHz seemed to briefly drop in sync with the stutter, aligning with a brief write spike of 100% to C: drive (OVR was installed to E:).
Win 10 22H2, Ryzen 5 5600, B450 Mortar Max, 64GB RAM, RX 6950XT

[CurtisVL]

Originally posted by Dasher125:

I also had similar issues (Quest 2, Virtual Desktop) & ended up uninstalling OVR for the time being; the stutters were happening ~ once every 15s and making rhythm games unplayable. Task manager made no difference for me, neither did actively selecting the game window.
My GPU MHz seemed to briefly drop in sync with the stutter, aligning with a brief write spike of 100% to C: drive (OVR was installed to E:).
Win 10 22H2, Ryzen 5 5600, B450 Mortar Max, 64GB RAM, RX 6950XT

The only thing I can think of in regard to this is something OVR Toolkit performs every 10 seconds? This causes a small hitch, but it's not normally noticeable.

This is the updating of the battery values on the wristwatch, maybe it could be garbage collection you're seeing instead? (RAM cleanup basically)
Though I don't know why this would cause a disk write, the battery value stuff will cause a disk write but it's only for a handful of JSON files, maybe 110~ lines per file.

[Eiseneuter]

Same Problem here... (solved)
Quest 3 + VD: OVR VR Window in SteamVR and OVR Cursor stuttters with a frame each in 0,5 sec
You can also see in the main Desktop Window the loading cirle on the mouse cursor flashing in the same frequency. This is just unusable, not able to click anything in VR.

SOLUTION:
iz was due to my SteaVR gave me an Error before (102)
Check out this link to resolve https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamVR/comments/1eum7qb/steamvr_facing_the_error_vrclient_shared_lib_not/

[CurtisVL]

Originally posted by Eiseneuter:

Same Problem here... (solved)
Quest 3 + VD: OVR VR Window in SteamVR and OVR Cursor stuttters with a frame each in 0,5 sec
You can also see in the main Desktop Window the loading cirle on the mouse cursor flashing in the same frequency. This is just unusable, not able to click anything in VR.

SOLUTION:
iz was due to my SteaVR gave me an Error before (102)
Check out this link to resolve https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamVR/comments/1eum7qb/steamvr_facing_the_error_vrclient_shared_lib_not/

Interesting! Thanks for posting what worked for you, I'll keep that in mind!