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Variants · VR

VR hardware: headsets, treadmills and SteamVR

The kit that has to work before the science can start.

By the watermaze.org editors · Updated

A virtual water maze is only as good as the kit it runs on. If the headset freezes, the floor sits at the wrong height or the treadmill doesn't pick up a step, the participant's path stops meaning what you think it means. So it's worth getting the hardware right before the first real session.

This guide sticks to the science of the water maze. Hardware questions are very specific to one make of headset, one treadmill and one version of the software, and they go out of date quickly. So we don't answer them here. Instead, this page shows what the questions cover and points you to the people who maintain the answers.

What the hardware questions cover

There are 89 hardware questions in the HVS 6D VR help, in these groups:

  • The omnidirectional treadmill or treadplate (38 questions): setting it up and putting it together, safety, connecting it to the PC, walking speed and sensitivity settings, care and maintenance, preparing participants, the words people use, common mistakes and fixing problems.
  • Meta Quest headset and Link (14 questions): connecting the Quest 3 to the PC by cable (Link) or wirelessly (Air Link), which PC and cable you need, sound, headset updates, and what to do when the picture stutters or freezes.
  • The boundary and recentring (12 questions): Stationary or Roomscale, setting the floor level, recentring the view during a session, lost tracking, and the safety checks to do before each participant.
  • SteamVR (8 questions): installing it, starting and restarting it, keeping it on a stable version during a study, and the errors it can show.
  • Controllers (7 questions): whether you need them, pairing, batteries, drift, and hand tracking.
  • Graphics drivers (5 questions): the driver version, the Link freeze some drivers cause, and stopping Windows from changing the driver mid-study.
  • OpenXR runtime (4 questions): what a runtime is, which one should be active, and what happens if the wrong one is.
  • Heart rate (1 question): recording heart rate with a Polar H10 chest strap during a VR run.

Where to find the answers

The answers live with the HVS Image VR team, because they change when the hardware and software do. If you're choosing kit, start with the equipment you need for a virtual Morris water maze: the headset, the treadmill, the controllers and the PC. For the walking side of things, see the omnidirectional VR treadmill page, which covers the safety rail and footwear. What you can change in each trial is set out in the configurable parameters for the HVS 6D VR Morris water maze, and the whole system is described on the virtual reality Morris water maze page.

If you already have HVS 6D VR and something isn't working, the detailed answers are in the help inside the software, or you can ask the HVS Image team directly.

Before you blame the hardware

Some problems look like hardware but come from the session. If a participant seems to walk through the wall or start outside the pool, check the boundary and recentre the headset before you change any settings. For the session routine itself (fitting the headset, safety and starting each trial), see running VR sessions safely.

Spotted a mistake, or know a better source? Tell us and we'll fix it and say so on our corrections page.