Half Life ALYX constant stuttering on Quest 2 using link cable...

[Capt. Crunche]

So, for some reason, Alyx and ONLY Alyx do I get constant stuttering. Every other game I've played runs buttery smooth. I just got done playing HL2VR and the mod ran perfectly the whole time. I do get a warning message when I start up ALYX saying I don't have enough GPU ram, but I'm running 12 GB of VRAM. How much more could it need? Also, I've read it's a false reading that the game gives on that.



Below are my PC stats:

Quest 2 is wired using an Official link cable
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz
16gb ram
Geforce rtx 3080 12gb



Things I have tried:

Lowered the settings in-game to low
Lowered the resolution to 20% in steamvr and default resolution in the oculus app
Lowered frame rate to 72 Hz
Shut off Google Chrome
Set priority of HL Alyx to high
Launched Alyx from desktop instead of steamvr home
Turned off auto-scaling using launch options of game
disabled window through launch options of game
Set the game to high performance in the Nvidia console
Lowered encode bitrate to 100 in debug tool
Enabled console in debug tool

I'm honestly at my wit's end here. If anyone could give me an idea of what could be causing this I would be very grateful for the help.


I also have a post on Reddit about this in case you wanted to look:

https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamVR/comments/zt5m1b/half_life_alyx_constant_stuttering_on_quest_2/

[bekawe2016]

Try: shut down all not necessary apps on PC, in HLA deselect all other games except the HLA chapter you're playing. Just before a game session, press Ctrl+Shift+Win+B (reloads graphic driver).

[chrisraven4321]

From the looks of your system attributes you have way more than the minimum to play Alyx. Just out of curiosity have you tried any of the mods and if so how has that worked out for you. If it is just the original game that is reacting like this then there may be an inherent problem with compatibility of the Quest unit itself. I see most of the problems on here are with people with the Quest units. The few that are otherwise usually have only the bare minimum and once that is fixed up the problem is usually fixed. In case you are not familiar with loading a mod, it is done via the Workshop tab under the game title in your library.

[Capt. Crunche]

Originally posted by chrisraven4321:

From the looks of your system attributes you have way more than the minimum to play Alyx. Just out of curiosity have you tried any of the mods and if so how has that worked out for you. If it is just the original game that is reacting like this then there may be an inherent problem with compatibility of the Quest unit itself. I see most of the problems on here are with people with the Quest units. The few that are otherwise usually have only the bare minimum and once that is fixed up the problem is usually fixed. In case you are not familiar with loading a mod, it is done via the Workshop tab under the game title in your library.

Nope. I haven't tried the mods. Just trying to play the game itself. I'm really just interested in getting the game working properly. Gonna try it on air bridge next just to see if it plays better...

[Shrimps]

Most noticeable improvement came from switching my virtual memory to 8gb. Never had to do it before for any game. My default in Windows 10 was always 4gb. That helped it stop crashing. The following options below helped smooth it out to an almost constant 90fps. I've only got 16gb RAM and an RTX 2070.

Launch options:
-novid -console -vconsole +vr_fidelity_level_auto 0 +vr_fidelity_level 3 +vr_render_scale 1.0

In game graphic settings all set to minimum. Honestly on a Quest 2 it wasn't that much of a difference and really helped FPS rates and latency studders playing wireless with Virtual Desktop. For some reason Air Link isn't as smooth for me with this game, and I usually use Air Link. Switched over to a stand alone router (old ASUS ac 3band) set to exclusive 5ghz which helped a lot as well (but worked fine using primary router where other 2 in house connections are hooked up and its not a wifi 6, however there are the occasional studders).

[Shazoo]

I answered on the other thread with the same issue, I have similar specs (double the ram) w/o any issues so far.

[Shrimps]

Answered other thread too. All I remember is for some its flawless for others lots of issues. No one has a straight answer. But for me the fixes I mentioned above fixed it all. Only thing holding back the game now is my hardware but hitting between 60 to 90fps with my hardware on a game like this, I am happy.

[Maniac Bran]

Hey, I have the exact same situation! Alyx runs very well, but has a 100% cpu spike every few seconds, and ruins the experience. RTX 3070, 5600x here

[Alternity]

1st question that comes to mind is do you see the same stuttering happening on the desktop monitor? Gotta remember that the quest link sends data to the headset to be decrypted in real time, it does not work like a proper PC headset, so what you see in the headset might differ from what your computer is actually doing.

Also, for that same reason I'd give Virtual Desktop a go, as long as your PC's Ethernet is wired and your WiFi router is fast enough.

[Shrimps]

Virtual Desktop is the way to go for this game. Air Link just has too many issues from my experience even though I prefer it on basically every other VR game.

[tsacrey]

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. My very generous friend gave me his old gaming laptop. Yes it meets the minimum and he played HLA with a Rift and link cable. He had no issues.

I’ve tried Virtual Desktop, Air Link, and now a Link Cable, and while the graphics look much better on the last two, they all suffer freezing and frame drops when there is a lot happening in the game. In addition sometimes the sides of the graphics kind of cave in showing black as well.

I’ve watched so many videos about tweaking settings, using the oculus debug tool, and so on and so on. Why can’t this just work?! I am still enjoying the game, don’t get me wrong but, it’s so frustrating. No matter what I do, the performance headroom from the debut tool shows almost zero as soon as HLA starts to run.

[REG]

Try to disable Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling and game mode in Windows

[DarrenJames00]

Mine runs great with the quest, you may have some open runtime or advance ovr/ ovr toolkit that is not working well with steam vr.

[Kuzmi4]

Try turning off the Internet. Everything went well for me after the Internet was turned off. I'm playing on quest 2 with a link cable

[Likon]

Use DierctX 11 API. Solved all stuters for me.

[CunkFeatures]

Originally posted by Inseino:

Virtual Desktop is the way to go for this game. Air Link just has too many issues from my experience even though I prefer it on basically every other VR game.

Thats not VR though.