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.
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.
Well that sounds simple enough that it just might work! 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?
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.
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.
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)
Quaro
5805
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.)
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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.
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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)
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.
I have a couple install, I’ll test them out see if I get the same dramas. I’m sure it’s user error as usual.
Well, first time I see that error. It seems it’s an error from Steamvr itself, not Ocuclus?
edit: what is your swap file size in Windows?
Quaro
5809
Yeah, looks like you might have fixed your windows swap file to a fixed size, and it needs more. Either unrestrict or increase it.
I’ll check the swap file size. I also just tried launching Overload (the only other VR thing I have installed) and got this error… (after Overload had finished loading on my monitor, while my headset was blank)
I got this repeatedly while trying to launch Steam VR as well.
Quaro
5811
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.
When I plug in the Link cable it asks about allowing data sharing, I agree, then the popup to activate Oculus Link appears and I agree. Then I take it off and try and launch stuff from Steam, which is where the wheels come off.
It took an embarrassing amount of time to find the page file settings, it’s midnight and I’m tired, going to bed! Thanks for the advice so far, I’ll try again in the morning powered by strong coffee.
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
As I said above, I also highly recommend restarting before plugging in the cable again, once you’ve removed it.
Andon
5814
@krayzkrok I don’t know if you are on the Qt3 Discord but if you jump on there today I’d be happy to do some troubleshooting with you. Just ping me. Andon.
My engineer brain has pretty much spent the past week messing with various ways this thing connects to systems. So I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on now.
Matt_W
5815
What do you take off? The headset? Just open your desktop from inside Oculus Home and launch games from there. You don’t need to take anything off.
jpinard
5816
His clothes. Wearing nothing but headset. lol
Matt_W
5817
This. Is. Aweome! Expert is kicking my ass again and I’m really breathing hard after a song. My scores suck–the 10% boost vs 8% for just Fast is a joke; it’s significantly faster and harder on Super Fast–but the songs are so fun to play at that speed. Ninjafeel recaptured!
It may not be directly responsible for your issues, but I’m not sure that’s enough. I thought it was recommended to always have at least 10% of your drive space free on the system drive or something.
schurem
5819
This morning the postman brought a package. From HP! Yay, little schurem gets to fly again!
So I ran upstairs with the thing, plugged it in and…
zip. nada. zilch. niente. niks, nakkes, nop. FUCK.
I called HP. Sung my song of woe. Boy at the helldesk recognized he was way out of his depth and promised an “expert” will get back to me after the weekend.
All I want is fly my viper and shoot some bots!
