Does this Oculus setup make sense?

[Mut1ny]

Just posted this in another thread here but based on what I'm reading, and when I really think about it, I think I have magic going on...or maybe I'm not the only one?

Anyways, I have my Oculus on the following setup:

I have a Asus Z170i Pro Gaming ITX motherboard.

I have my setup just on one USB 2.0 port and one USB 3.0 port using two USB 2.0 repeater cables?

On the USB 3.0 port I have it going to one 16ft USB 2.0 repeater cable to a USB 3.0 4-port hub (non-powered) for the left and rear sensors.

Then on the USB 3.0 port I have a 16ft USB 2.0 repeater going to a 4-port USB 3.0 hub (powered) for the Oculus USB, right front sensor, adapter for wireless KB/M, and the cable for my racing wheel/pedals.

Have the Oculus HDMI hooked up through a "4K" passive repeater (like this one) on a 15ft HDMI cable straight out of my Zotac GTX 1080 FE. 15ft for sure, just the repeater, no external power or anything else.

So basically I'm using USB 2.0 for all USB connections because 3.0 port is on a 2.0 repeater cable. Yes I'm sure, they say so and aren't blue, etc...for sure USB 2.0.

I have no issues with latency or lag or anything like that. Picture works fine, controllers work fine, sensors, the whole shabang!

I'm pretty sure this breaks all rules of Oculus logic, no?

 

[harsaphes]

Many of us use USB 2.0 for our setups with no problem. There is an official Oculus thread.

 

[Mut1ny]

Oh really? Everything I've ever read makes it out like it's some insane thing though. People needing separate USB cards and multiple USB ports, etc.

Have the controllers on newer motherboards after Z170 gotten that much better or something? It seemed as though my setup was a little unique with me using 2 ports for everything all on USB 2.0. Is yours setup the same?

 

[Nenu]

When using USB 2.0 it compresses the raw camera image to equivalent of jpg.
USB 3.0 sends the raw image.
It appears there is no loss in fidelity (that we detect) of movement tracking using the compressed images so USB 2.0 works fine.

 

[kalston]

When using USB 2.0 it compresses the raw camera image to equivalent of jpg.
USB 3.0 sends the raw image.
It appears there is no loss in fidelity (that we detect) of movement tracking using the compressed images so USB 2.0 works fine.

Really? I have enough USB 3 ports but I would love to use my USB 2 cable extenders for a better setup. Also in USB2 mode the sensors use way less power. No that this has proven to be a problem but it's always less stress on the motherboard etc.

 

[Mut1ny]

When using USB 2.0 it compresses the raw camera image to equivalent of jpg.
USB 3.0 sends the raw image.
It appears there is no loss in fidelity (that we detect) of movement tracking using the compressed images so USB 2.0 works fine.

So is this where the bandwidth and controller issues come from then? Is using USB 2.0 and it compressing the sensor data enough to make it work the way it's supposed too?

 

[RazorWind]

Oh really? Everything I've ever read makes it out like it's some insane thing though. People needing separate USB cards and multiple USB ports, etc.

Have the controllers on newer motherboards after Z170 gotten that much better or something? It seemed as though my setup was a little unique with me using 2 ports for everything all on USB 2.0. Is yours setup the same?

Originally, you really did need to plug them all into USB 3 ports. At some point, I think around April of 2017, Oculus put out an update that mostly fixed the USB issues. They still recommend that you plug as many of the cameras into USB 3 ports as you can, but it apparently now works if you plug one or two of them into USB 2.

As Nenu said, it appears that what's happening is that it's using compression to reduce the needed bandwidth, where it presumably wasn't before.

 

[Nenu]

So is this where the bandwidth and controller issues come from then? Is using USB 2.0 and it compressing the sensor data enough to make it work the way it's supposed too?

It worked fine for me, with one caveat.

For a while I was running USB 2.0 on one cable because that was the only extension I had, plugged into a USB 2.0 port on my PC.
I replaced it with a USB 3.0 cable plugged to a USB 3.0 port and all sorts of problems started.
The camera would disconnect/reconnect and it would barely operate and actually caused a PC crash (BSD) during testing.
Testing the cable with a USB 3.0 hard drive brought up the typical this can work faster message. It operated only a little faster than USB 2.0 so it appears that it was connecting as USB 3.0 but with dismal transfer speed.

The short of this is the quality of the USB 3.0 cable can really screw up the camera.
Replacing that crap cable with an active one (self powered repeater) fixed everything.
I relegated the crap cable to USB 2.0 device only use.

Why does this matter for USB 2.0 though you ask?
If you use a USB 2.0 extension on a USB 3.0 port and plug the camera on that, you could end up with the same problem.
The camera sends uncompressed data thinking it is not USB 2.0.
If you get problems like this, either get a decent USB 3.0 extension cable or only use USB 2.0 ports on the PC.

 

[bobzdar]

I'm not sure what a repeater cable is, but I'm using extension cables without issue for the 2 cameras and headset (both usb and hdmi, 10'). I have a 4 port usb 3.0 card added to my system (I already had it and wanted more ports so used it instead of a hub), but it worked fine with just the internal usb ports.

It also worked fine on my old phenomII system (that's what I need the usb 3.0 card for as it only had 2.0 ports). I'm not sure where the usb issues come from as I haven't see any at all. I was a little worried when I first got it that I'd have trouble with the old phenomII system but it had zero issues.

 

[Virtual_Bomber]

One time during setup (using 3 sensors) it told me to make the 3rd camera use USB 2.0. The other two are on superspeed ports though.

Very odd but I guess if you aren't having any problems then you are good.

But I will say this, the motion tracking is more....."snappy"....with 3.0/superspeed port in my experience, there is slight lag when I use USB 2.0.

OH! and something I came across while looking around and something I tweaked myself was plug in your headset and put it in the middle of your play area THEN plug in your sensors. Apparently, if the sensors don't see the headset right when you plug them in it will throw a "poor tracking quality" error and other messages as well.
Ever since I started setting it up this way I never had any more problems...but I have to put my setup away everytime I use it because I use the living room and I have a one year old running around so it may not apply to everyone. lol

 

[kalston]

I tried with 2 x USB2 - it was terrible. View kept "jumping", shifting a little for no reason. I tried everything to fix it but no luck.

1xUSB3 + 1xUSB2 however is flawless (just like 2xUSB3 but I really wanted to free 1 USB3 port).

I don't have any extension card btw, everything's plugged straight into my good old z97 mobo.