User Guide For Rift

This is our user guide for the Rift w/ Touch. It contains setup preparations, steps, resources, and utilities. Read the preparational steps in order to understand what you need to get or do for your VR system outside of buying the headset, like getting working extension cables or even the right PC hardware. Our steps should ensure that you will be less likely to run into bugs and other oddities. It may be a bit long, but you should be covered pretty well by it so you're less likely to run into troubleshooting headaches.


	--- Table of Contents ---

	Required Preparation And Hardware
	   General Steps
	   More Preparations For The Rift

	How To Setup

	Tips, Utilities, And Extra Stuff

	Troubleshooting


	--- Required Preparation And Hardware ---

	General Steps (1 and 2 are shared with the buying guide, and the others are shared with the Vive guide):

1. If you don't have a gaming PC, you can build a VR-capable rig for $600. The current recommended specs is a GTX 1060 / GTX 970 / RX 480 / R9 290 or greater, an i5-4590 or greater, and 8GB or more RAM. Windows 10 is more optimized specifically for VR than W7/8, and some applications require W10. The headsets don't have good support or any support for MacOS and GNU/Linux. Laptops don't work with VR headsets unless they are labeled VR compatible (due to a hardware design problem with mobile GPUs). Easily build a PC: https://pcpartpicker.com/
2. You should want the size of the area you're going to use VR in is at least 2 x 1.5m, or else you will be somewhat limited in both the end user experience, and the actual software that may take advantage of larger spaces. The bigger, the more room you have to move around in without hitting things, and the more freedom you have to interact with VR. This is called room-scale.
3. The headset works best when hooked to your GPU HDMI port directly, so if you have an HDMI monitor, you want to plug that into another port. You may get a bug where various games don't play if you plug anything into the motherboard's ports, so only use the ports on the GPU. This may mean that you need to purchase an HDMI to Displayport or similar adapter, for your monitor.
4. The headsets can have problems with longer extension cables. It is highly recommended that you have your PC in the same room as your use area if you don't want to go through a lot of trouble experimenting with cables to see which ones work.
5. If you plan on overclocking, you need to make absolute sure you have a good cooling solution, as high temperatures will throttle the GPU and cause stuttering and possible motion sickness in VR. Do not overclock if you don't know what you're doing.
6. You will want to determine your interpupillary distance (IPD). It is the distance between your pupils. The headsets have an IPD adjustment so the lenses match your eyes better. Opticians usually can be asked to measure your IPD, for free. You can also use a webcam to do it yourself using this website:
http://www.trylive.com/demos/trylive-eyewear/pupil-distance
Write down the number for later.
7. Turn off XBOX DVR in Windows 10. If affects performance bad. It's in settings in the Creators Update, otherwise nuke it in the registry.
8. Uninstall f.lux if you have it.
9. Uninstall Nvidia Geforce Experience if you have it.
10. In general, turn off power saving features in Windows, or tweak settings for "high performance". Also do this for your graphics card settings.
11. Make sure there is the least amount of stuff running in the background as possible. Things that run while you use VR, even RGB lit mice and performance monitoring software, may compromise with latency, causing micro-stutters that are noticeable in VR. Or just lag in general. Use DPC Latency Checker if you want to be very sure of clearing your system from some of these problematic pieces of software, however this might be unnecessary.


	More Preparations For The Rift (w/ Touch):

1. If you have bad vision to the point that you use glasses everyday, you will want to get lens adapters for the headset. Using glasses with the headset is doable, but not recommended since many frames don't fit inside, and you have the chance of scratching the headset's own lenses. Still, you can try if you want, and it may work well for you. Here are some options if you want an adapter from most to least expensive:
https://vroptician.com/prescription-lens-inserts/oculus-rift/
https://widmovr.com/product/oculus-rift-prescription-lenses-adapter/
This one requires access to 3D printing but is cheaper (there might be local 3D printing services you can use, look it up):
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1602460
Finally the cheapest option that requires only your old glasses, foam, and glue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4j9626/am_i_part_of_the_cv1_modders_club_now/

2. a. If you want your useable area to be larger than 3 x 3m, skip to step [3.a], but if smaller, read on.
   b. In such a small space, you should be fine with the packaged 2 sensors, although buying an extra will give you slightly better tracking quality. If you buy an extra, actually skip to step [3.a].
   c. Here is info to help determine what extensions you need:
-Where you plan on placing the sensors in relation to the PC will determine how many extensions you need and how long they need to be.
-Touch has a ring of IR LEDs that the IR camera sensors see in order to calculate their positions, so if you turn your back to the sensors and hug the controllers to your chest, they will lose tracking, as the sensors can no longer see them. Your body can "occlude" your hands from the sensors. Because of that, we recommend 2 sensors to be wall mounted in opposite corners of the space at a height of around how far you can reach with your arms up. The corners are optimal because the sensors each see only 100 degrees horizontally. That should give you the most reliable tracking.
-However many applications work fine even if your tracking is biased towards one side, so you could just place the sensors on the same desk your PC is at, if you're fine with some less reliable tracking when turning around, or can't yet set things up for the best tracking.
-The cable length of each sensor is near 2.5m.
-Small movements to the sensors can affect tracking, so make sure you have a way to mount them stably.
-Wall mounts, tripods, shelves, and/or DIY methods, may help you mount the sensors, and the sensors can be detached from their "lamp shade" stands by unscrewing counterclockwise, revealing that they take 1/4" threading that's standard in mounting systems. The sensors can also work mounted upside down.
-The two sensors should use USB 3.0 ports which means that you want the extension(s) to also be USB 3.0. USB 2.0 can work, but the tracking is very slightly better with 3.0, so that's what we recommend. If 3.0 ports don't work, the 3.0 extensions are still nice to have for the future, and they don't cost that much over 2.0 cables.
-If the extension(s) is longer than 2m, you need to make sure it's an active (not passive) extension(s), or boosted/repeated. This is because the sensors have high bandwidth and power signal requirements that might not be met when the signal is extended beyond a certain range, so they need a boost.
   d. Skip to step [4].

3. a. In such a large space, 2 sensors do not provide good enough tracking, so you need to buy an extra sensor ($59).
   b. Here is info to help determine what extensions you need:
-Where you plan on placing the IR camera sensors in relation to the PC will determine how many extensions you need and how long they need to be.
-Touch has a ring of IR LEDs that the sensors see in order to calculate their positions, so if you turn your back to the sensors and hug the controllers to your chest, they will lose tracking, as the sensors can no longer see them. Your body can "occlude" your hands from the sensors. Because of that, we recommend the 3 sensors to be wall mounted in 3 of the corners of the room, at a height of around how far you can reach with your arms up. That will result in one corner not having a sensor, but that works fine. The corners are optimal because the sensors each see only 100 degrees horizontally. The resulting right triangle formation should give you the most reliable tracking. The PC should optimally be in the corner nearest to all the sensors (so opposite to the sensor-less corner), as that will reduce cable length needed.
-The cable length of each sensor is near 2.5m.
-The extra sensor priced at $59 comes with a 5m USB extension in the shipment box (active USB 2.0). If a vendor doesn't give it to you, you need to question them.
-Small movements to the sensors can affect tracking, so make sure you have a way to mount them stably. That's why we recommend wall mounts.
-Wall mounts, tripods, shelves, and/or DIY methods, may help you place the sensors, and the sensors can be detached from their "lamp shade" stands by unscrewing counterclockwise, revealing that they take 1/4" threading that's standard in mounting systems. The sensors can also work mounted upside down.
-At least two sensors should use USB 3.0 ports which means that you want USB 3.0 extensions. Any additional sensor is fine on a USB 2.0 port, but we do recommend high quality USB 3.0 extensions just for compatibility/reliability reasons and because they're not too much more expensive. All sensors (all of them) on USB 2.0 is fine too actually, but the tracking is just a bit worse so we don't recommend it.
-If the extensions are longer than 2m, you need to make sure they're active (not passive) extensions, or boosted/repeated. This is because the sensors have high bandwidth and power signal requirements that might not be met when the signal is extended beyond a certain range, so they need a boost.
   c. Now that you've gotten the sensor extensions planned out, you will also want extensions for the headset. The headset cable is 4m, and that is not enough for comfortable movement in large spaces. You want enough slack on the cable so it doesn't limit your movement. Since the cable splits into HDMI and USB at the end to plug into your PC, what we recommend is a (passive) USB 3.0 extension and a (passive) HDMI extension both 2m long. If they're longer than 2m, then they both need to be active/repeated/boosted. The headset can actually work on USB 2.0, but we recommend 3.0 just in case your motherboard doesn't have very powerful/good USB ports (which is possible). You will want to use cable ties or rubber bands to join the cables when you get them.

4. In total you need quite a few USB ports. You need one USB 3.0/2.0 port for the headset, two USB 3.0 ports for the first two sensors, and then one USB 2.0/3.0 port for each additional sensor. Or you can get away with USB 2.0 for everything if you don't need the best quality tracking. USB 3.1 has higher bandwidth and power than USB 3.0, so you may be able to use that for the sensors if you get a USB hub. There may be a problem if your motherboard is old and cheap, or it doesn't by default have many USB ports, or it uses a crappy implementation of first gen USB 3.0 that doesn't give you the nearly full theoretical speed and power. If it's relatively new, like if it was made in the last 3 years, then you're probably fine. If not, you may want to spend $20 on a USB expansion card like this: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Express-Expansion-Connector-Renesas/dp/B011LZY20G/
Or a high class USB card like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Express-SuperSpeed-Adapter-Dedicated-Channels/dp/B00HJZEA2S/
Buy that if you want to be absolutely sure you don't run into any problems. Or if you want to go crazy with tracking, like if you want four sensors all on USB 3.0, which may allow tracking areas even larger than 4 x 4m. The additional sensors on USB 3.0 ports may slightly improve tracking quality/range.

5. Setup the Oculus software and store app:
https://www.oculus.com/setup/

6. DO NOT buy these titles as they are given to your account when you setup and activate Touch: Robo Recall, Dead and Buried, Oculus Medium, and Oculus Quill.

7. Check out our list of recommended content so you can download some stuff beforehand.

8. If you use an Asus or MSI graphics card, make sure you use an HDMI extension or adapter, as some users have reported that the HDMI cable on the Rift permanently damaged their card's HDMI port.


	--- How To Setup ---

1. Make sure you have everything from the preparational steps and have received the actual hardware.
2. Get the hardware out and install any lens adapters that you may have ordered. Make sure you've removed the headset's plastic lens covers.
3. Open the Oculus app and begin their setup process (it should have a prompt somewhere highlighted for you to begin setup).
4. Be aware that their instructions are for most casual and non-technical users. Our preparational steps deviate from their "norm" so don't listen to it when it says you should mount the sensors no more than 8 feet apart. Follow your own plan for mounting the sensors with extension cables based on the information we gave you in previous steps. When mounting them high, be sure to angle the sensors around 45 degrees from the 90 degree angle of the room corner, and then 45 degrees downward. Make sure you're pointing the shiny side of the sensor into your room, since that's where it sees out of.
5. When you get to the part about IPD, use the number you wrote down before. If you don't have the number, that's not a big problem, just follow the instructions Oculus give you.
6. If you get to the part where you hold the controller to establish tracking, and it says you need to correct your setup, skip it by pressing the "next" button.
7. On the step where you put on the headset and set your position or where you can finally see your virtual hands, do not follow the given instructions. Instead we will fine tune the sensor angles with our own procedure that ensures you have reliable tracking from reaching high up to reaching down below. This assumes you're using a room-scale sensor setup with them mounted high, and you've already angled them downward 45 degrees.
   a. Ready a piece of paper or something that can be used to occlude a single Touch controller from all sensors except one.
   b. Have a controller in one hand and the piece of paper in the other.
   c. Go into VR, and stand in the middle of your use area.
   d. Reach up with your hands as high as they can normally go and use the piece of paper to block the line-of-sight from the controller to all sensors except one.
   e. If the controller loses tracking, go adjust the sensor you didn't block so that it's angled upwards slightly more. Then repeat this step until it can maintain tracking.
   f. Repeat the last two steps for each sensor you have.
   g. After the angles are all tuned, go to the Oculus app and go back to the step where you hold the controller to establish tracking, redo those steps again, and now you can follow through the rest of the process without any more special considerations from us.
8. See you in the metaverse.

Note: read this if you have problems with USB ports. If at any time you run into tracking bugs that keep you from having a consistent experience, you may be having problems with them. Advice from this Redditor might help you out:
	https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/5ojmgf/psa_turn_off_allow_the_computer_to_turn_off_this/
If the problems persist after following that, what you should do is switch around the USB ports. How it works is that a grouping of USB ports on your PC means it's actually leading back to a single USB controller (think of the grouping as a hub and the controller as the original port), which has a limitation in how much bandwidth and power it can provide. A USB controller itself is only USB 2.0, or 3.0, so a grouping by our definition can only ever include the same version of USB port. So if you have two sensors on one USB 3.0 group of ports on the front panel of your PC, and one sensor doesn't work, then you can try moving it to the neighboring USB 2.0 port if your PC has them on the front panel, because the different USB version implies it's connected to a different USB controller.
	Usually, the lower the USB version, the less bandwidth and power it can provide, so fill up the higher versioned ports first and then transfer things down when encountering problems. If you encounter audio crackling, it might be a USB problem. The Oculus software should show you errors when there are problems with the sensors, but be aware that the "lost wireless sync" message is normal when your headset isn't active, as it should disappear once you turn the headset on and move the headset around. If you still have problems even after trying all combinations of devices on different ports, you may want to try a USB card like this:
	https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Express-Expansion-Connector-Renesas/dp/B011LZY20G/
Or if basically none of your motherboard ports work with even one of the sensors or headset, this provides a lot of bandwidth and power:
	https://www.amazon.com/Express-SuperSpeed-Adapter-Dedicated-Channels/dp/B00HJZEA2S/

WARNING: Do not let ANY amount of sunlight reach your headset. The lenses are basically magnifying lenses and the sunlight will burn your screens which the warranty doesn't cover. Even a little amount of sunlight in your room FOR A FEW SECONDS can leave a mark on the displays. Do not let yourself be that guy. Shade and cover up, and do not allow a situation in which you can even forget that you've put the headset down and there happens to be some sunlight. You WILL mess up and forget.


	--- Tips, Utilities, And Extra Stuff ---

-Play Vive games by installing Steam, and then installing SteamVR through their store.

-Oculus Tray Tool does a lot of useful things. Just get it:
https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/47247/oculus-traytool-supersampling-profiles-hmd-disconnect-fixes-hopefully/p1

-Some tips from Reddit on how to maximize visual quality and comfort from the head strap adjustments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/69nc6b/psa_oculus_adjustment_guide_how_to_increase_focus/

-Here are some options for foam replacements and facial interface covers (might also want to look on Amazon):
https://widmovr.com/
https://vrcover.com/

-The Touch controllers use one AA battery each, so we recommend getting some good rechargeable batteries with a charger if you don't already have them. Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BK-4MCCA4BA-Pre-Charged-Rechargeable-Batteries/dp/B00JHKSMJK/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1499212485&sr=8-7&keywords=rechargeable+batteries
Using that, you can always have a pair charging, ready for when your current pair runs low to switch out in an instant.

-If you prefer in-ear headphones for isolation, Oculus has a decent quality (for their price) pair that works attached to the head strap just like the default headphones. You can find that on their official site, Amazon and elsewhere.

-Here are the official Oculus accessories and replacement parts:
https://www.oculus.com/accessories/

-The plastic cable guide on the side of the head strap can over time start putting strain on the cable and even damage it over the course of months. To prevent that, we recommend using rubber bands or other means in place of the hard plastic. The guide itself can be detached from the head strap, but if you want to hook on a rubber band it might be smart to just hook the rubber band onto the guide and then have the cable run through the rubber band.

-Some users have reported that their right or left headphone goes out. It is supposedly from a ribbon cable in the head strap receiving too much stress and pulling. For this reason, we recommend you never pull on the strap too much, so that the spring-loaded mechanism doesn't have any chance to do damage. Try to slip or slide the headset on rather than pull it on when you go to wear it. And taking off should be slipping off too. However, it's possible any hair on your forehead may come in contact with the lenses, dirtying them, so we recommend first aligning the front of the headset with your face, and then pulling the back strap down your head.

-If you have visual problems with the lenses, make sure you've cleaned them with a microfiber cloth, and only wipe in circles to avoid bad scratching. Always blow before you wipe to get rid of large particles that can potentially scratch the lenses. If you have cans of air, that's the best option for normal cleaning of dust that has gotten on the lenses, but not oil or things that stick.

-Some users have had success with lens protectors:
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/6wgs7g/protecting_your_glasses_from_scratching_in_oculus/

-To prevent twisting the cables and tangling them, you can sometimes keep in mind to turn around in the opposite direction for every turn your make to do something in VR. Or after a session, you can hold the headset by the cable and let it untwist itself. If you use extensions, you can unplug from them and untwist the cable itself.

-You may use a shirt or cloth or something to cover your Rift from dust and light when you're not using it.

WARNING: Do not let ANY amount of sunlight reach your headset. The lenses are basically magnifying lenses and the sunlight will burn your screens which the warranty doesn't cover. Even a little amount of sunlight in your room FOR A FEW SECONDS can leave a mark on the displays. Do not let yourself be that guy. Shade and cover up, and do not allow a situation in which you can even forget that you've put the headset down and there happens to be some sunlight. You WILL mess up and forget.


	--- Troubleshooting ---

In case you need to replace your headset, it's better safe than sorry to contact Oculus support with a polite e-mail. Do it early on as another avenue of getting your problem solved. It's their job to be support.

Oculus' official support page:
https://support.oculus.com/

Some problems with solutions from Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/wiki/techsupport

Other than Google, you'll also want to search on Reddit to try and find solutions to your problem.


	--- Solutions to specific problems:

-Touch gestures unresponsive:
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/6wxzw0/for_those_having_unresponsive_gestures_from_the/

-right/left headphones going out
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/6lvtun/psa_fixing_the_loss_of_right_audio_issue/

-Touch thumb stick calibration being off
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/93zvas/tutorial_simple_dead_zone_fix_for_oculus_touch/