Anyone recommend a USB 3 Pci card for the three USB 3 ports the Oculus needs?

[Marky]

I'll just say that I've never managed to get 3 Oculus devices working in my 4-port Inateck card - it detects them all in the Home app, but when I try to launch something in VR, it will just disconnect something after 5-10 seconds.

A good rule of thumb is do not connect more than 2 sensors to a single controller.

Cool, thanks Noted.

Wish I could use the other PCI-E connector on my motherboard and fit another USB3 Card, but it probably wouldn't fit with my huge Noctua CPU fan

The other option was to get a card with 4 ports and 4 seperate controllers - but they were upwards of £75

 

[FlukeRogi]

The problem is if you use USB 3. If you use the Extension cable, the sensor will run at USB 2 so won't have the bandwidth issues

I am using an extension on one, and I've tried. I've my two closest sensors plugged into the Inateck card. If I plug the 3rd in using the extension cable that came with the 3rd sensor, it fails. It almost seems to work, but within 10 seconds, I get a disconnect.

If I use all 3 without any on an extension, it doesn't even pretend to want to work.

 

[melmac]

I am using an extension on one, and I've tried. I've my two closest sensors plugged into the Inateck card. If I plug the 3rd in using the extension cable that came with the 3rd sensor, it fails. It almost seems to work, but within 10 seconds, I get a disconnect.

If I use all 3 without any on an extension, it doesn't even pretend to want to work.

Wow, that's odd, I have my 3 sensors on the Inateck card, one sensor is using the USB 2 extension cable. I had my headset plugged into the card until last week, but I moved into another USB 3 port on my motherboard to try and solve the problem with the right touch controller sometimes feeling slow.

 

[Wrinkly]

Running the ~£75 StarTech PEXUSB3S44V card with zero issues in an old PC which I have listed below. I don't need to bother with drivers as Windows 10 supports it out of the box. I have also found that leaving power management set to balanced is fine, no disconnects so far. I get true full bandwidth USB 3.0 from each port and if I need more then I should be able to split each using a hub. Not that I would ever need to but I could have HD TV playing beside a HD webcam stream while playing a game in the rift.

You can get away with using a USB 2 port with the rift but why would you want to? You go from USB 2 480p to USB 3 720p, 50% more which covers both accuracy and smoothness of tracking.

Although it's more expensive than other solutions, it is way cheaper than a new CPU, motherboard and RAM to natively support the Rift. Considering the age of my PC the StarTech works out as a steal. When the next node shrink hits I will go for a Ryzen setup and should be able to simply swap the card to the new machine.

3770k @ 4.5.
Noctua NH-D14.
GA-Z77X-D3H Motherboard.
32GB of DDR3.
EVGA 1080Ti FTW3.
750W XFX PSU.
Sandisk Ultra II 480GB SSD.
Sandisk X300 512GB SSD.
2 x WD Black 1TB.
DVD Writer.
HAF XB (Dremel'd to improve airflow and fit a magnetic dust filter).
2 x Noctua AF-140 fans.
Noiseblocker 120 fan.
USB Bitfenix Recon fan contoller with sensor placed inside 1080Ti heatsink.
USB Oculus Rift + 2 sensors, wil decide on 3rd / 4th after moving office/bedroom.
USB 3.0 card PCI-X 4 port/4 controllers (dedicated to the Rift).
USB 2.0 card PCI-E 7 port/1 controller.
USB Hauppage HDsolo TV Tuner.
USB Gamecom 788 7.1 headphones.
USB MS Lifecam.
USB Strafe RGB MX silent with USB passthrough.
USB Logitech G502.
USB Xbox controller.
USB UPS.
USB barcode reader cradles x 2.
2 free front facing intel USB 3.0 ports for removable storage.

 

[Quartz]

All of mine are in use, so I'll need a new PCIe card I assume with 4 ports?

How much bandwidth does the Rift actually need? IOW could you make do with a USB 3 hub?

 

[Wrinkly]

How much bandwidth does the Rift actually need? IOW could you make do with a USB 3 hub?

Good info on the Oculus blog from January https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-roomscale-balancing-bandwidth-on-usb/. One thing to also take into consideration is that not all USB 2 / 3 are born equal hence some chipsets such as VIA do not work.

 

[NeilF]

I'm using the drivers supplied by Microsoft, and the Oculus software recognized the ports as USB 3.0. It did display a notification about updating them, but that's all.

Tracking is working beautifully, with no random disconnects or any such behavior.

Yeh, the Oculus software is recommending I install Fresco drivers? Should I? Or just leave the existing Microsoft ones?

 

[melmac]

Yeh, the Oculus software is recommending I install Fresco drivers? Should I? Or just leave the existing Microsoft ones?

If the tracking is working for you, leave it. But, I would recommend downloading Oculus tray tool and using it.

 

[NeilF]

If the tracking is working for you, leave it. But, I would recommend downloading Oculus tray tool and using it.

I have downloaded it... Excuse my ignorance, but use it how? What features should I be using on it exactly?

 

[rtho782]

I have the Startech 4 channel card, with 4 sensors on, and the rift itself on my motherboard.

Seems to work quite well, but with SLI GPUs I am completely out of PCIe lanes and had to take out my 2nd NIC.

It's this that is making me drool over threadripper....

I actually have the cheap Inateck card too, which I was using with 3 sensors, but decided it was best to go for the Startech for 4.

That card, it is best to use the Fresco drivers for, there are some registry tweaks to be done after driver install too.

Reddit has a good guide and a powershell script to disable power management etc for optimal performance:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/wiki/touch_360_roomscale