VR - Is it really going to be a success? Or, thanks Time for starting a discussion!

[scharmers]

I can’t see doing Elite or any other sim without a full-on HOTAS. Kinda the cost of doing business.

[Alistair]

It was written for keyboard only as I recall from the 80s :)

[jpinard]

@krayzkrok

I’ve yet to try it in VR

I can’t wait to hear your experience of it in VR!

[robc04]

@krayzkrok

I’ve had to stop playing Beat Saber temporarily because my hands get too sweaty to hold the controllers properly! But I have some grips coming (sometime, at some point, maybe!), looking forward to those arriving.

You didn’t stop before you at least beat some of my scores :-)

[TurinTur]

It seems the AppLab thingie is finally working, they had new entries for the past 3 days
https://applabdb.com/new
https://ol.reddit.com/r/applab/new/

[TurinTur]

It sounds right.

Well, the only thing missing is the ‘crossing fingers’ part because oculus detection of usb is super finicky.

[TurinTur]

Maybe it gets confused with the usb adapter for the ethernet.

[Ginger_Yellow]

I use 5Ghz ac wireless (PC and headset) for Virtual Desktop and it’s fine, but I am about 2m from the router.

[Andon]

I’m having great experience with Virtual Desktop stream to my 5G wifi router. I don’t get 90 FPS, but everything is playable without any stuttering. I’m just about set the Link Cable aside and use it only for charging occasionally.

[Ginger_Yellow]

I do miss the ability to pin a window using the Link, it seems a bizarre oversight for VD given it’s literally called the same thing as the Oculus functionality.

[Ginger_Yellow]

@krayzkrok

I just can’t seem to get my Quest to work with Steam Link. At first it took several attempts at plugging it in / unplugging it / plugging it back in before I actually got it working, as it kept reverting back to the standard home page. When it finally worked, and I got the Link UI up, I opened Virtual Desktop no trouble, but then several attempts at launching Steam VR all ended in failure.

I’m confused. Steam Link or Oculus Link? Why are you opening Virtual Desktop in the Link? The whole point of Virtual Desktop (for gaming) is you don’t need the Link.

I’ve mostly stopped using the Link, but when I was using it I did notice that it was not a good idea to unplug the cable. It wouldn’t reconnect unless I restarted the computer. So I would definitely recommend leaving it plugged in while fiddling about with other settings to rule out that issue. I would also recommend trying other cables - it is supposed to be pretty finicky about them.

[Ginger_Yellow]

I’m coming to the Quest from having a Rift, so I basically use it the same way I used that. I plug it in, but (if it’s a Steam game) I load the game normally on my desktop then put the headset on. If it’s a non-Quest Oculus Store game, I use the in-headset interface to load it.

@krayzkrok

Why do all the guides insist you buy Virtual Desktop to play Steam games? Was that the old way of doing things before the recent patch?

Well, it’s a way of playing pancake games in VR, which may be what they mean. Or it’s also the only way to play Steam games wirelessly.

[TurinTur]

@krayzkrok

@Ginger_Yellow

I’m confused. Steam Link or Oculus Link? Why are you opening Virtual Desktop in the Link? The whole point of Virtual Desktop (for gaming) is you don’t need the Link.

Take your level of confusion, double it, then double it again, maybe a third time, and that’s about half as confused as I am.

I thought you accessed Steam VR (and other VR games on Steam) by plugging in the Link cable, where it brings up the Link UI, where you can select Virtual Desktop so you can bring up Steam, and then launching whatever app from there? If that is not the case, then I’m back to square one. Is there a good guide, because I’ve been trying to follow random YouTube dudes (and the occasional bit of actual writing) and obviously getting myself hellishly confused.

I think the confusion here is that there are two things called Virtual Desktop, there is an app with that name (that gives wireless capability to Quest when connected to the pc via wifi), and also the feature in Oculus where you can see your own desktop.

[Ginger_Yellow]

Yes, I suspect that’s part of the confusion. Using Oculus’s VD feature should amount to the same thing as my method - it just boils down to whether you prefer to do everything with the headset on first. Whereas using the VD app is completely different.

[Quaro]

There are actually THREE things. There’s the Virtual Desktop ‘feature’ in Oculus (they copied the name), there’s Virtual Desktop on the Quest store (this is what you want), and there’s Virtual Desktop on the Oculus Store (for wired Oculus headsets, nothing to do with Steam games.)

1. WIRELESS PC VR: If you use virtual desktop on Quest, you use no link, no usb cable, nothing. You just install the streamer app here: https://www.vrdesktop.net/ and then start Virtual Desktop on the Quest. Then always launch any Steam VR or Oculus Games from inside Virtual Desktop itself (to repeat, start from the Oculus Quest version of VD). Getting this to work with no latency can require network fiddling, moving your router to the same room as the VR headset, using a secondary router as access point, whatever. But even if you do NONE of that you can verify PC VR games will start wireless, even if they lag.

2. WIRED PC VR: Use nothing called Virtual Desktop at any stage. Just plug in a USB cable and you’ll get a popup in the headset about enabling Oculus Link. When you do, having the headset plugged in makes it work just like a regular wired Oculus CK1 or Rift-S. Start VR games as normal, either in the Oculus PC app, or in Steam.

(Also ‘Steam Link’ is Valve’s way of playing PC games over the network to your phone or other PCs in the house, nothing to do with VR at all)

[Ginger_Yellow]

Do you have any cross-play Oculus games? Do they work when you use the Link cable? And, apart from Elite, what happens if you load a Steam game without going to SteamVR first? Personally, I almost never load SteamVR on its own - any game* that needs it will load it as necessary.

*MSFS seems to be an exception, but it’s only using SteamVR for the OXR runtime.

[TurinTur]

@krayzkrok

@TurinTur

I think the confusion here is that there are two things called Virtual Desktop

That certainly is good to know!

But plugging in the Link cable, then launching Steam VR, gives me this every time…

Perhaps time to reinstall it. (or, by the looks of it, find 13 Gb on my hard drive…? This must be trying to do something on my root drive which only has 11 Gb free)

Well, first time I see that error. It seems it’s an error from Steamvr itself, not Ocuclus?
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamVR/comments/ca4qog/does_anyone_else_have_this_issue_it_crashes_steam/

edit: what is your swap file size in Windows?

[Quaro]

Yeah, looks like you might have fixed your windows swap file to a fixed size, and it needs more. Either unrestrict or increase it.

[Quaro]

I would try mostly free Oculus PC apps first (there are tons) because SteamVR needs Oculus to work anyway. Did you get the popup inside the VR headset? Make sure the Oculus PC app is updated. Other than not, try different USB port or different cable maybe.

[Ginger_Yellow]

@krayzkrok

When I plug in the Link cable it asks about allowing data sharing, I agree,

I think you’re supposed to not agree to that one, though I admit I did the first time and it didn’t seem to make any difference

1. A message is displayed in VR prompting you to Allow access to data . Select Deny .
   
   If you mistakenly ‘Allow’ the prompt, you must unplug your USB cable from the Quest and plug it back in.

As I said above, I also highly recommend restarting before plugging in the cable again, once you’ve removed it.