Low framerate in SteamVR mirror display only

[Deceptive Pastry]

Using an Odyssey+ on the current SteamVR stable version. Trying to use the SteamVR mirror so a friend can watch me play Skyrim as the game's own mirror window is small. However ONLY in the SteamVR display the framerate is very low, looks like 20-25 fps. In-game full 90, the game's mirror is fine, no actual performance issues, but SteamVR mirror is choppy. I'm pretty sure it wasn't always like this as I have used it before.

[Darkest Dragon]

Thanks to Deceptive Pastry's help, I rolled back and confirmed that it works. The OpenVR for OBS plugin delivers the best frame rate with SteamVR mirror working almost as close for me for the game I play (H3VR).

But for an objective test in Unity, I used BOLL's spinner app and recorded some videos where you can see the huge differences in syncing using all 4 current available mirrors (WMR, Native, OpenVR OBS plugin and SteamVR Plugin).

First is the current version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ3Xlgs2J4g
It's obvious esp. at 30/60 revolutions per second it only captures half the output frames.

Now is the rolled back to 1.10.20:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juUsKrBKRaU
Notice the OpenVR is almost in sync with the native app (albeit not 100%) while the Steam VR View mirror is lagging behind but not by too much.

In H3VR (Unity) game it is about the same between the two, not too much of a difference IMO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lb8HMEbZLo

Also avoid the WMR mirror like the plague. It's clearly offers the worst performance of the lot and doesn't even seem to sync at a s practical solid integer frame rate.

[UrbanGRIT]

I just tried this and it worked... Thank you guys for the info and work.. hopefully there will be a update to fix this

[Tiger Johnson]

Downgrading worked for me. Interesting to note that the OpenVR input OBS plugin is back to a nice 60fps or so. SteamVR VRview has gone from 30fps to 45fps according to when the framerate spinners sync up. Thank you for the writeup on how to downgrade. Perhaps a kind Valve employee will enable that version as an option in the Betas tab for others that are affected by the issue.

[Deceptive Pastry]

Yea I noticed that the SteamVR mirror is a little smoother than before too. I was getting I'd guess ~25 frames before, didn't even look like 30 to me but I didn't run a true test. Now it seems more like 45 which is more accurate to what I have read as far as SteamVR mirror showing half of what you get in the HMD. I think something is definitely broken with SteamVR in the recent versions and it isn't just the OpenVR plugin. Almost like it is halving the framerate twice perhaps?

[Darkest Dragon]

Yeah SteamVR VR Mirror should get 45 fps in the roll back version. Mine will sync with half the dials visible at exactly 45 revolutions instead of 30/60 revolutions with the current beta.

I know the OpenVR plugin isn't a supported native way for Valve to allow video capture but whatever they did to updating that mirror surface in the VRCompositor for performance reasons, it also broke that tool's capacity to show the true native recording.

Please revert back to the original system or at least have a way to toggle it back!

[Adm1ral Snackbar]

Thanks everybody for investigating this issue. I will probably wait until Valve releases an update or it becomes easier to downgrade. I usually stream the native window and the only reason I want to stream my steamVR mirror is so that I can show the right eye view instead of the left which is locked in the H3VR window. Never figured out how to get OpenVR plugin to work in OBS with my WMR though.

[Deceptive Pastry]

They likely aren't going to make the downgrade process any easier. The only thing they may do is fix their depot downloader so it will eliminate the first Cheat Engine step, but otherwise the rest will remain the same.

Not really sure what issues you're having with the OpenVR plugin. It was pretty much just drop the plugin files into the OBS folder, start OBS, add source OpenVR and it worked for me.

[Darkest Dragon]

@Adm1ral Snackbar Doesn't H3VR show the left eye in the native window by default? I am cross dominant and noticed it always show the left eye view instead of the right. The only thing I am missing is the overlays for streaming and the the fact that it offers quite a different "zoomed in" perspective vs your actual HMD view or what you can get with the OpenVR plugin (see my H3VR shooting video).

But yeah try the roll back procedure. It is honestly just a one time pain and once you downloaded that entire 5 GB folder and the that one edited config file you can keep it somewhere on your computer and roll back to it anytime even if you launch SteamVR through your steam launcher by mistake.

I must admit I'm also tempted to try other intermediate versions between beyond 1.10.20 to find the specific version in early March that breaks just to isolate this problem once and for all.

IMO. I think the biggest culprit is likely 1.10.22 on 4th March especially since it had this in the patch log: "Possible fix for crashes on Desktop View shutdown." https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/250820/view/1707366223117016953

[Adm1ral Snackbar]

Originally posted by Darkest Dragon:

@Adm1ral Snackbar Doesn't H3VR show the left eye in the native window by default? I am cross dominant and noticed it always show the left eye view instead of the right. The only thing I am missing is the overlays for streaming and the the fact that it offers quite a different "zoomed in" perspective vs your actual HMD view or what you can get with the OpenVR plugin (see my H3VR shooting video).

But yeah try the roll back procedure. It is honestly just a one time pain and once you downloaded that entire 5 GB folder and the that one edited config file you can keep it somewhere on your computer and roll back to it anytime even if you launch SteamVR through your steam launcher by mistake.

I must admit I'm also tempted to try other intermediate versions between beyond 1.10.20 to find the specific version in early March that breaks just to isolate this problem once and for all.

IMO. I think the biggest culprit is likely 1.10.22 on 4th March especially since it had this in the patch log: "Possible fix for crashes on Desktop View shutdown." https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/250820/view/1707366223117016953

You're correct. I meant to say I want to stream the right eye, because that is the eye I aim down sights with. I think I am just afraid of downloading something with the name "cheatengine" ... Could I get VAC banned or something? It just seems like a complicated procedure that I will have to undo when steamVR updates itself and breaks something later down the line...

But I reaalllly want to stream my right eye..

I'll have to sort out my OBS. I thought I installed it correctly but when I tried to add the OpenVR source it didn't show on my list.

[Deceptive Pastry]

It's called Cheat Engine as it's usually used to cheat in games (ie godmode, noclip, etc) but it's basically just a memory scanner/injector. You can google it to learn more. Don't believe you will get VAC banned as long as you aren't running a VAC enabled game while CE is running. So make sure it isn't running in the background before you decide to start up an online VAC enabled game to be safe.

Beyond that the CE changes only apply during that instance of Steam, once you exit and restart Steam everything reverts to normal. Just make sure you follow the instructions and uncheck the "writeable" box. There's not much to undo as far as the downgrade itself, once you get word that Valve has fixed the issue you can just go to your downloads and update SteamVR, it will download any files necessary to bring it up to current version and then you can return to using it normally.

[Adm1ral Snackbar]

Originally posted by Deceptive Pastry:

It's called Cheat Engine as it's usually used to cheat in games (ie godmode, noclip, etc) but it's basically just a memory scanner/injector. You can google it to learn more. Don't believe you will get VAC banned as long as you aren't running a VAC enabled game while CE is running. So make sure it isn't running in the background before you decide to start up an online VAC enabled game to be safe.

Beyond that the CE changes only apply during that instance of Steam, once you exit and restart Steam everything reverts to normal. Just make sure you follow the instructions and uncheck the "writeable" box. There's not much to undo as far as the downgrade itself, once you get word that Valve has fixed the issue you can just go to your downloads and update SteamVR, it will download any files necessary to bring it up to current version and then you can return to using it normally.

I just got the openVR capture working so I think I'm going to go for it. Thanks a lot!

UPDATE: All your instructions worked perfectly, and it is running smoothly in stream from the right eye. Thanks again.

[Springman]

Why not just share the steamVr files we all need on some platform?

[Amanugai]

05/31/2020 And they still haven't fixed this, trying the fix now. I also made a ticket to bring awareness to it

[Kurai Shidosha]

It REALLY makes me disgustingly angry that Valve blocked downloading old versions of applications on Steam, especially with the number of times a new update comes out that definitively breaks things and people can confirm that by doing workarounds to downgrade to older builds, and the issues are 100% resolved.

These scumbag developers would rather you suffer along on the latest build for weeks, months or even eternity as apps and games are often left abandoned in broken states, rather than offer you the ability to pick and choose which version of a program you run. You know, like how things used to be back in the days of physical media? You buy a CD version of a game, v1.00, and then any future patches can be downloaded and installed at your discretion.

I knew it back when Steam came out in 2003 and I know it all the same today: forced patching and only having access to the latest version of software is a plague that should not be tolerated. What a disaster.

[Tiger Johnson]

Originally posted by Springman:

Why not just share the steamVr files we all need on some platform?

Where would you recommend I upload this 6gb SteamVR folder?