Drift & Resets
Drift is normal in any inertial tracking system, including SlimeVR. The question is “how often is it bad enough to be noticeable?” — and the answer should be “rarely, with a yaw reset now and then.”
If you find yourself resetting constantly, something deeper is off.
Quick checklist
- Did you full-reset at session start? Stand straight, face forward, trigger full reset. Don’t skip this.
- Is Stay Aligned on? See Stay Aligned. It eliminates most yaw drift automatically.
- Are your body proportions correct? Wrong torso length looks like drift even though it isn’t. Re-run AutoBone.
- Did you run mounting calibration? Without it, the server is guessing at orientation. Re-run Mounting Calibration.
Common symptoms
”My avatar is facing 10° off”
Trigger a yaw reset. If you have to do this every few minutes, enable Stay Aligned.
”My feet are facing the wrong way” or “Knees bend backward”
Mounting on those trackers is wrong. Re-run Mounting Calibration with the trackers worn correctly (USB ports down, on a spot where muscle movement doesn’t shift them, not on a joint).
”My avatar is leaning forward / hunched”
Hip tracker is mounted too high (in the small of your back rather than on the lower back) or rotated wrong. Re-check placement on Wearing Trackers.
”One leg is drifting much faster than the other”
A single tracker may have a hardware quirk. Try swapping its body-part assignment with a different tracker (e.g., move the left-thigh tracker to right-thigh). If the drift follows the tracker, that tracker is the problem — reach out via support.
”Drift gets bad when I do fast turns”
This is normal in inertial tracking. Fast yaw motion accumulates errors. Mitigations: Stay Aligned, more frequent yaw resets, and a stationary moment between turns.
When resets aren’t fixing anything
If you reset, it looks right for a second, then immediately drifts again:
- Trackers shifted on the strap (re-tighten, re-do mounting calibration)
- Wrong body location assignment (swap two trackers — see Assigning Trackers)
- Receiver placement is so bad that a tracker is intermittently disconnecting — see Range & Placement