NOTE: These blogs were written specifically for owners of the original Rift. They do not apply to Rift S, which comes with a built-in room-scale solution: the Oculus Insight tracking system.

Part 3 in a 4-Part Series

Check out the rest of the series below:

Welcome back for the third installment of our Oculus Roomscale* series! Today, we answer the question: “How do I know how many host controllers my computer has and how many sensors are connected to each?”

Generally speaking, you shouldn’t have to worry about which sensors are connected to which host controller on your PC. If you stick with our recommendation of two USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 for a total of three sensors, you should be fine connecting all sensors to the same controller.

That said, if you want to experiment with other configurations or if you experience bandwidth issues, you can use the Windows Device Manager to view which host controller your sensors are connected to and adjust accordingly.

First, open the Windows Device Manager. You can do this easily by searching for “device” and opening the control panel.

Next, select “Devices by type” in the View menu to easily identify your Oculus devices.

Once you’re viewing devices by type, you’ll find all your “Rift Sensor” devices under the “Oculus VR Devices” drop-down menu in Device Manager. Select the Rift Sensor you want to check ...

... and switch to “Devices by connection” under the View tab.

You’ll now see where your highlighted Rift sensor lives, as well as its position in the host controller’s hierarchy. In the case above, the selected Rift sensor is connected to the “Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.0 (Microsoft)” USB host controller.

Look around in the host controller’s hierarchy to see if any other Rift sensors are connected. Alternatively, by going back to the “Devices by type” view mode, selecting another sensor, and switching back to “Devices by connection,” you can see which controller the other sensor is connected to. In this case, both sensors are connected to the Intel controller.

If you want to try spreading out your sensors across multiple host controllers, you can unplug the sensor from its existing port and plug it into a port farther away from the others. Afterward, follow the above steps to see which host controller it’s now connected to.

In this case, we disconnected the sensor from an adjacent port on the back of the the computer and moved it a few rows down. After reviewing in Device Manager again, the second sensor is now on an ASMedia USB 3.1 host controller.

Please note that Oculus roomscale doesn’t require you to move your sensors onto different host controllers. That said, if you’re planning on using advanced configurations that involve multiple sensors, or if you want three or more sensors all on USB 3.0 or USB 2.0, you may need to move a sensor or two onto a different host controller to prevent running out of bandwidth by plugging in too many sensors.

We hope this information is helpful and empowers more people to experiment with new setups. On Monday, we’ll take a look at some extra equipment you can use to make it even easier to get creative!

— The Oculus Team

*Roomscale is an optional feature. Your results and performance may vary. Not all PCs will have enough ports to support roomscale, including some PCs that otherwise meet our recommended and minimum specs.