@Carl 

Hi:

I'm using the AX50 v1.0 US version

I'm using an Oculus Quest 2 with Virtual Desktop

The suttering occurs universally, in whatever game I'm using.  These include:

Half-Life Alyx

The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners

Zero Calibre

Lone Echo

Stuttering occurs immediately once game starts.  Game runs okay for a few seconds, stutters, then happens regularly afterwards.

Aside from stuttering, I've observed delay in rendering scenes especially when looking back suddenly -- I see black whereas I should be seeing the rendered scene.

I have configured the AX 50 to be exclusively 5ghz running AX only (also happens in mixed AX), on a DFS channel at 80 or 160 bandwidth.  No changes occurred whatever settings I chose to turn on or off, except when going back to AC. 

I have not observed increase in CPU utilization on the AX50, but the stuttering occurs nevertheless.

I am currently using a Xiami AX3600 with 0 issues. Latency seems to be lower by 3-5ms as well.

I got some great tech support from the VD Discord last night and thought I'd share, in case anyone finds this thread while struggling with one of these routers.  I'll give you some things you can try to determine whether the router really is the issue.

I returned my AX1500 and got an AX3000 and performance improved, but I still had some issues and these steps helped.

- Turn on the performance overlay in Virtual Desktop, launch your game, and watch for which numbers spike / turn orange.

- For me, framerate and "game" kept spiking.  "Game" is basically your GPU.  Turns out, VD pushes much higher resolution than Oculus link.  That's why Oculus link ran more smoothly, not necessarily because of the router (although like I said, the AX1500 did have issues as well).

- In virtual desktop, I set VR Graphics to "Low," streaming framerate to 72 FPS, and turned on Sliced Encoding.

Now games run smoothly.  Granted, it's still a bit smoother in Oculus link because I can get 90 FPS, but framerate drops due to overtaxing the GPU are dramatically more noticeable VR than simply setting a lower framerate.  If your machine can keep up with your chosen FPS setting, it applies a sort of anti-aliasing to smooth out the movement.  If you're overtaxing your GPU, you not only lose frames, but you lose this smoothing effect as well.  Thus, my 70-90 varying FPS with higher graphics settings seemed very stuttery, while my consistent 72 FPS looks smooth.

Long story short: try the lower graphics and framerate settings.

For reference, I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070.  It just couldn't quite keep up with the higher settings.

I do wonder what the AX1500 could have done for me if I'd tried this before returning it.  Maybe someone else with a similar setup will find this and tell us.

@bfair31 responding to myself to say, unfortunately, I'm still having networking issues with the ax3000.  I heard on the VD Discord that the ax3000 also has issues sometimes, so I'll be returning another tp-link router and trying something from asus.

As was mentioned on the discord, "People have been having better luck with asus.  TP-Link seems to be shitting the bed with their AX routers."

Attaching an image of the VD overlay during a small networking spike.  It's often much worse than this, but it's hard to capture a screenshot at just the right time.

Great screenshot. That's absolutely what everyone is seeing. And it can be much worse than that.

@Carl Thank you for being the badgering middle man for us all. The post above mine has a great screenshot of what one of those latency spikes look like.

AC mixed mode 5GHZ channel is the best solution so far. It's significantly less SPIKEY with the latency. Not as good as some routers but around 10-12ms or so.

AX mode even with 2.4ghz channel turned off, only 5ghz channel on. Virtual desktop settings are at medium or high, with streaming bitrate at 90-100 and desktop streaming rate at 32. HVEC because im on an AMD cpu and gpu.

I have also experienced this lag on all my games, most of which are through steam VR. Exactly, games like pavlov VR and walking dead saints & sinners

Oculus Quest 2.

latest version updates

5700 XT

ryzen 7 3700x

Archer AX50 v1.0

1.0.9 Build 20200708 rel.55037(5553)

VR Goggle model

VR Goggle Firmware Version

Router model and hardware version

Router Frimware version

Games you have experianced the issue on

@oursoul Hi, glad I came across this thread, though after quite a few hours of my own testing had already clearly confirmed the issue. Like others I bought this router primarily to enhance Virtual Desktop with Quest 2 at 90Hz, but also for future proofing and the other great features it offers at a good price.

My Netgear EX6150 WiFi access point and BT Hub 6 already worked fine with virtual desktop anyway. I A/B'd switching between the EX6150 and AX50 running Synth Riders in non-fail mode and the issue is blatant. EX6150 works smooth and the AX50 (Quest2 only device on AX50 5GHz band) stutters, as in halts for a fraction of a second every +/-10 seconds. The VDesktop overlay shows the network latency spike when this occurs. My old EX6150 continued working smoothly as other devices were added to the 5GHz band. The AX50 is wired directly PC, whereas EX6150 test goes via 2 Netgear switches!

Firmware Version:1.0.9 Build 20200708 rel.55037(4555)
Hardware Version:Archer AX50 v1.0

PC = B550 + AMD 3600 + Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti -> AX50

Luckily I bought it only a few weeks ago in UK so on Monday it's going back. It was clearly already a return when I bought it, covered in fingerprints :) Can't expend any more time beta testing! Lesson re-learned if it ain't broke... I'll stick to my existing hardware that works.

@oursoul Before I leave the debate I thought as a parting gesture I would upload two videos clearly demonstrating the issue with TP-Link routers using virtual desktop that does not occur using a cheap WiFi hotspot. Videos include the Virtual desktop overlay:-
 

Synth Riders via Virtual Desktop using TP-Link AX50 router recorded on Quest2 = stutters
 

Synth Riders via Virtual Desktop using Netgear EX6150 recorded on Quest2 = smooth playback






 

@BeemanDev nicely done on the videos. With all the information and presentation believe feeling everyone here, at least we can say that hopefully TP-LINK won collect it all and use it to diagnose and fix whatever is plaguing these ax routers.