PC Drivers & Software

[RidgeXR]

Hello everyone!

I recently acquired a Radeon 7900 XTX through a friend, and upon trying to use SteamVR with my Bigscreen Beyond, found that an absurdly high amount of latency had been added to the HMD view, such that the whole scene wobbles upon any minor head movement.

The Issue:

SteamVR, while in Direct Mode, exhibits an extremely strange bug wherein motion-to-photon latency is far higher (2 or even 3 frames higher) than it should be. This occurs at all framerates, and at all times, and is nauseating enough as to make VR entirely unusable.

System Information: (Although I will note that this doesn't really matter, as the issue can be replicated across any and all 7000-Series systems)

GPU: Radeon RX 7900 XTX - Reference Design
CPU: Ryzen 7 5700X3D

RAM: 8GB 3000Mhz Teamgroup T-Force Delta RGB, Two sticks, Dual Channel
Motherboard: Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming 4

VR Headset(s): Bigscreen Beyond, Valve Index, Vive Pro 1, PSVR2 (With PC Adapter)

Current "Fixes":
1. Putting the device in Extended Display mode (Not viable due to far worse performance)
2. Clicking the VSync_Photon_Increment option in SteamVR Debug settings 8 - 10 times, or running the script created by user PiMaker on these forums. (Not viable due to motion sickness, the delay only becomes slightly less noticeable)
3. Using a non-7000-Series GPU. (This issue does not persist on my NVIDIA RTX 3060, Nor on any 6000-Series AMD GPU, ruling out most if not all GPU settings)

What doesn't fix the issue:
1. Updating/Downgrading GPU Drivers. No driver version solves this issue.
2. Updating/Downgrading SteamVR versions. No available version of SteamVR solves this issue.

3. DDU Reinstalling the drivers.
4. Switching CPUs multiple times, between multiple generations. This issue is unrelated to the CPU.
5. Disabling various video settings in both Windows and the Adrenaline software (HAGS, AntiLag, Etc)
6. Trying other VR headsets. This issue prevails across every headset listed above, as well as many others. I believe this issue affects every DisplayPort or HDMI VR device, although I obviously do not own every single one in order to test.

Testing done so far:
I (and others) have tested this issue across multiple Radeon GPUs, and found it to affect the GPUs as follows:
Radeon 7900XTX
Radeon 7900XT
Radeon 7800XT
Radeon 7700XT
Radeon 780M (iGPU)

These tests were done across multiple systems, using various CPUs, Motherboards, and VR Headsets from various companies. This added latency was observable across all of them. Based on these tests, it would seem that this issue affects every 7000-Series GPU when used with any DisplayPort or HDMI VR Headset. Additionally, I have contacted Valve Support, and a couple of people at Valve whom I am in touch with, regarding this issue. This issue does not seem to be caused by SteamVR, rather by the 7000-Series' GPU Drivers. I am aware of the existence of a ticket between Valve and AMD to solve this issue, however it remains incomplete.

It will also be noted that some users were unable to detect this issue with the naked eye before being instructed what to look for, however for many others such as myself, it renders VR completely unusable. This issue has been observed and reported by many others both on this forum and others. I will include some such reports below, to provide additional context in hopes that this issue may be resolved:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/3/3802777845426075295/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/3/4757578612645955738/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/3/4036976796099163351/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/3/3843305689129585017/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/3/3781373416971923626/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/s/Ldkw58kG4Z

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/s/wl66p3f5wu

https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/s/vQMx4WdBtQ

https://community.amd.com/t5/pc-graphics/7900xtx-steamvr-visual-lag/td-p/708697

https://community.amd.com/t5/pc-graphics/7900-xtx-vr-latency-issue-not-the-known-performance-issue/m...

[RidgeXR]

cc @Matt_AMD as I seem to remember you wanted to be tagged in any future VR related issues.

[AMD-Vik]

Thanks for reporting - we've created a ticket for this internally.

[RidgeXR]

Thank you Vik! Keep us posted, would be wonderful to get this fixed.

[ky56]

Any movement on this?

[AMD-Vik]

Hey there. The issue was successfully reproduced. A fix has been identified and implemented, I believe it's undergone some preliminary testing and things are looking positive.

Unfortunately I've no timelines on ETAs, but I'd imagine this fix will make it into an upcoming driver package release.

[ky56]

Thanks for the reply Vik. That's amazing. Look forward to the driver update.

Will this fix also apply to the Linux Mesa drivers as well? When I last tried SteamVR on Arch Linux with the 5700XT, I believe the same issue occurred.

[ky56]

I would like to add that the GPU driver is stable on my system but only if I haven't initialized my Valve Index with SteamVR. After initializing, wake from sleep will crash the system.

Logging out after initializing used to black screen / crash the system up until the latest GPU driver update a few days ago. I was able to reset it by logging via RDP from another computer and disabling and enabling the GPU in Device Manager. However that had a percentage chance of crashing the system as well.

vsync_to_photon is also an issue under Linux SteamVR under RX 5000 series GPUs (5700XT for me) and presumably other AMD gpus as well. I tried this a couple months ago so I don't know if this has changed? I don't normally run Linux but would like to if this gets fixed.

Currently using a ASUS TUF 7900XTX. Previous GPU is a AMD Reference 5700XT.

[Sepfox]

I can confirm the current driver version causes more than just the photon-latency issue in SteamVR.

I know multiple cases (myself and multiple friends) where the newer driver releases have caused significant connection issues with displays, even when SteamVR is not in use.

On my end, it manifested as a black screen on all displays (including HMD) when the HMD was connected to the GPU. On windows 11, this persisted and would not go away under any circumstance. under windows 10 the picture eventually came back, though it was still taking a bit of time.

My friends had different issues, but all were related to their displays, and fixed with the 24.5.1 driver. I only checked 24.9.1 myself, though 24.10.1 still seems to have the issue.

I know only cases of this happening with fully native SteamVR Direct Mode HMDs (OG Vive, Vive Pro, Vive Pro Eye, Valve Index, Bigscreen Beyond) in combination with RX 7900XTX's and 7800XT's.

So far the only thing that worked reliably for both me and my friends was a clean DDU-reinstall of 24.5.1, or alternatively disconnecting the HMD on every boot, and plugging it back in afterwards.

It might be related, it might not be.

[ky56]

A clean DDU install of 24.10.1 has resolved the black screen on boot and black screen on log out. I am running Windows 10 LTSC 2021 so that could be the difference.

Make sure your primary display is not on a higher order port than the VR DP port. As in plug your display into DP0 and you headset into DP1 or above. These aren't labeled on the graphics card so you'll have to work out the order by trial and error. That said though, on my ASUS TUF 7900XTX card and AMD Reference 5700XT, DP0 is closest to the PCIe slot/bottom of the card.

[Rogabex]

I'm coming in to list my specs for this issue as I want to assist with hopefully finding a resolution. 

CPU : Ryzen 7 7800X3D

GPU : SAPPHIRE PULSE 7900XTX 24GB

Motherboard : Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX

Headset : Valve Index & Bigscreen Beyond

My issue can be "resolved" by pressing the VSync_Photon_Increment in SteamVR debug settings 5 times. Although it is still prominent it makes the headset usable.

I do not have this issue on an identical system using specifically the 4070. I have also attempted switching the cards in both desktops and the issue persists.

[ky56]

Are you sure the offset isn't 9ms as that's in the range RidgeXR reported and what I found to be the nearest correct value? I also thought it was 5ms as first.

[Rogabex]

5ms feels like it's correct because once I go above that, it begins to feel even worse and it feels like it's distorting. I'll give it a shot again later today as I feel there's a chance I may have just gotten used to the latency.

[Rogabex]

Update, 8 clicks feels perfect now. No idea why, I think it was placebo as anything was better than default lol.