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[Frame] Foveated streaming and rendering not working well? (lemmy.secnd.me)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
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I assume not that many here got their Frame yet but here it goes:

Does anybody else experience issues with foveated streaming and rendering?

Two issues:

  • I can very clearly see the blurriness in my peripheral vision, especially on shadows and sharp corners
  • The response time is way too slow, when blinking or moving fast from left to right I can clearly see it needs a few milliseconds to catch up

Both of these surprise me considering most reviewers said that it is unnoticeable. Makes me wonder if something is wrong with my unit/setup or if my eyes are built different.

If I disable eye tracking in the settings, everything looks good. Of course, that should probably not be the correct solution?

This happens both with native titles (e.g. Half-Life Alyx on device) and streamed titles (e.g. Half-Life Alyx on Linux and Lone Echo).

I already tried playing around with the Steam Link settings (increasing resolution, bandwidth and foveated area) but it still looks just as bad. For streaming it happens both over wifi and the dongle as well.

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[–] 13 points 3 days ago (6 children)

It might be that you have very keen peripheral vision awareness. I did not notice it and was not even sure eye tracking worked until I tested it in some games supporting foveated rendering where the foveated area is configurable (MSFS 2024 PC, Dungeons of Eternity native).

Afterwards I found out there is an handy option to visualize eye tracking. I suggest you toggle it on to see if your eye tracking is lagging behind in some way.

  1. Connect to your PC over Steam Link without a game
  2. Go to the PC Steam VR settings Steam Link Tab
  3. Enable Advanced Settings
  4. All the way to the bottom toggle "Debug Region Coloring" on

This will show exactly where the headset thinks you're looking, which I suppose is the relevant info for foveated streaming & rendering. On my setup, I do not perceive any latency there.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 3 days ago (5 children)

    Now that seems to be a useful option to look into.

    From the first quick test, the debug region does follow my vision pretty well, but it's not what I would call "instantaneously". For small eye movements it works but for flicking left/right it takes a tiny moment to get there.

    Is there a way to get this overlay without streaming? Would be useful to test without any network delay, just to rule one component out. I might have to pick up some standalone games with foveated rendering to do some more testing.

    For the blinking issue, it might be the VROptician comfort lenses. With the lenses installed, the debug region flicks to the bottom right for a moment after opening my eyes again. I sent them a mail asking about it.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 days ago* (2 children)

    One lens maker already admitted to not even testing the eye tracking and their lenses filtering out too much IR light or so. This could very well be the culprit.

    I think Blunty on YouTube reported on that. He's on his second pair of lenses now and those seem to be much better.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Looked it up and his video title is fairly self-explanatory : Steam Frame Lenses: AMVR Failed, But VR ROCK DELIVERS!.

    I stuck with VR Optician because I was quite satisfied with the Valve Index inserts I bought from them a few years ago. Also they are based in Germany so basically a short hop away from me. And like last time, they bundled a small bag of gummy bears goldbären for whatever reason.

    They are fairly transparent on their product and gave us a choice mid-production to switch to an alternate design. Their lenses are a bit more expensive than the others though.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 child)

    It just so happens I very recently received vroptician comfort prescription lenses. I did some testing with both inserts, no inserts, and only one lens and forcing steamvr to track only one eye. As far as I can tell they do not hinder eye tracking. In my case I did not notice the foveation area flick to bottom when blinking you mentioned.

    It's a bit too soon to say for sure, I need to spend some more time with it. In any case, nothing egregious out of the box.

    Update: I forgot to mention I still use the spacer because I could feel my eyebrows pressing on the top of the lenses when I removed it. Might be a factor or not at all.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 days ago

    I use the spacer as well to fit my neanderthal eyebrows in the headset.

    I played around with the left/right only setting a little bit and it appears the right eye causes the jump to the bottom right when blinking.

    The left eye appears to mostly work but it has trouble reaching the bottom, I need to look a little bit into the dark area before the eye tracking goes further down. Which would explain why I sometimes can see the foveated streaming.

    Not sure what causes these issues with my lenses but I wrote them a mail about it and maybe they can swap me to the eye-tracking variant since they promised working eye tracking on the Frame.

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