to anyone on the fence about getting virtual desktop in 2024, i was having crazy preformance problems playing on 5 ghz through steam link. nothing i did could fix it, not only did VD fix all the issues i had with streaming and recording but the image quality doubled and the frame rate did as well. i can now run max VD streaming settings with Max Blade and sorcery settings at a steady 80FPS and 40MS lag
I am having the opposite issue, using Virtual Desktop i see a very annoying lagging, flashing effect when i move my head had to ditch it completely for native steam link. It maybe caused by a recent AMD driver update because initially i didnt have any issue,
Ugggghh I'm seeing that it's depending on the pc. I have a Predator gaming laptop and meta link is trash and steam link is good sometimes and horrible sometimes... so I'm gonna go ahead and try vd
@@bcmfjaysus1285 yea I’m on a full desktop with a 4060 so my pc is decently powerful but it really hates steam link and meta link but VD works seamlessly
I'm totally stoked about Virtual Desktop. I've logged several hundred hours on it for my VR gaming and it's been rock solid. You get what I'm saying, right? The Performance Dashboard totally blows me away - it's a real game changer. Whenever I run into any issues with a game, I can immediately figure out what's up, thanks to the detailed stats it provides. I've got a beast of a PC, and Virtual Desktop just runs insanely well on it. I did give Steam Link a whirl once, but didn't bother much with it since Virtual Desktop had already won me over.
I’m confused, do you mean steam virtual desktop? I thought steam virtual desktop doesn’t work with the quest 3 Hope you can help me out. Tnx in advance
@@yrtracingteam106 steamlink allows steam vr to run on quest wirelessly, and I don't know why, but when I use it with the quest pro, it is always using more than 2 times the resource as airlink uses. with the quest 3 it isn't as dramatic.
Steam Link does indeed use Eye Tracked Foveated Rendering. You have to be running Quest Pro though. Well technically it's ETE but still the same principal.
you video helped a lot. I first did steam link and was like what the hell is up with the blurry edges😅 You answered it all and i went with Virtual Desktop.
If you have a Quest Pro, the foveated rendering works great and you can crank the settings up while changing the size of the foveated ring. Also, with Quest 3 you can plug a USB-C to ethernet adapter and get incredible performance (120hz and insane in VD with very little dropped frames).
Can you elaborate a bit more on the USB-C to Ethernet Adapter? Are you saying that creating a wired network connection for the headset, is better than just USB-C connecting to your PC? Like to know more. 🤔
@@gregclare Yes. 100%. I have a few USB-C to Ethernet adapters for my family’s MacBooks. I learned about this hack with the Pico 4 (which required some ADB commands) and read that it was even easier with the Quest 3, so I gave it a try. It’s just plug and play! It works better than a link cable with Steam Link or Virtual Desktop. By plugging in Ethernet it disables wifi but shows that the headset is still connected to the network. So far the only drawback has been battery life (playing at 120hz with the least amount of compression possible). I found that if I lower the refresh rate to 90hz it gave me a bit more battery life….but 120hz is so buttery smooth. Remember the Link Cable can only be used with Oculus Desktop and tops out at 90hz and fewer codex options than VD….so in all respects this is a better and even cheaper solution than an Oculus Link Cable.
@@gregclare It works in any room in the house with an Ethernet connection even on a totally different floor from my gaming PC. I have a 20ft Ethernet cable. I Velcro’d the adapter to the side of my headstrap. I’m so excited this works so well!
@@adaptable1 Nice. I’ll give it a try, as I have a USB Ethernet adapter somewhere. I’d probably connect it at the other end of the thin USB link cable. Do you then use Virtual Desktop or Steam Link (as you would over WiFi)?
I use both depending on the game. I like that we have more options. For me Air Link has only worked one time and since it just is a jittery mess. VD and SL work just fine. Games like Into the Radius is smoother for me with SL. All in more options is a plus!!
On VD, do you use the same codec for all the games? According to VD Developer: "H.264+" supports up to 500 Mbps bitrate. It should significantly reduce compression artifacts "in very specific game scenarios like fast-paced action, dense vegetation or racing games". HEVC 10-bit uses 10-bit color depth instead of 8-bit. HEVC 10-bit is supported on NVIDIA 10 series or newer GPUs only. It should result in significantly reduced color banding and thus superior image quality, which should be especially noticeable in any situations with distinct color gradients, such as fog or darkness.
Been torn on which one offered the better experience, and your vid definitely cleared up some points for me. With my PC being on the higher end, and running the Q3 for HMD, Virtual Desktop just has a better looking experience and utitlizes my hardware better than Steam link can at present. Very good presentation on both of these though. Much thanks! 🍻
Important detail: Steam Link is not using foveated rendering, it's using foveated encoding. The rendering happens at the game level and affects performance for how well your PC runs the game. The encoding happens after that and it affects the video that is sent to your headset, it would affect your network performance and not your PC performance.
They're independent of each other. Foveated rendering needs to be implemented at the game level by the game's developers. Foveated encoding is just something the Steam Link streamer does to save on bandwidth@@joseandresjulienbarriere8786
because the game would have to support it directly. Only two consumer vr headsets support eye tracking currently for this to work. PSVR2, and Quest Pro. PSVR2 is a proprietary platform, so it can natively tune performance because it's designed to do that. Possibly even on a hardware level (I'm just guessing about that though), so game devs might not need to put in the extra work to make that happen. Quest Pro is a rather niche headset not a lot of people have, mostly because of the price, and it's being connected to a pc, which isn't it's native platform. Not a lot of game devs are gonna go out of their way to program such a feature for a headset almost nobody has. @@joseandresjulienbarriere8786
@@joseandresjulienbarriere8786 Because fov rendering is for performance and fov compression is for bandwidth. Should they introduce fov rendering it should be a separate adjustment. It's also likely that Valve's new HMD will have eye tracking and if so then fov compression could also be tracked.
@@joseandresjulienbarriere8786they do. If you change encoded video size while gpu bound you'll see that your fps is different. For me it was in empty vrchat server 100 fps in 512px and 75 with 1024 at the same scene and 100% resolution using gtx 1060 6gb. Thou 512 looks awful without eye tracking, I daily drive 704 but didn't benchmark it. Also vram usage is a bit lower(400mb difference I think) as well as amount of encoding artifacts at same bitrate with 512 compared to 1024
Just tested all three yesterday in Onward using my Quest Pro. Virtual desktop and SteamLink both fell short of Oculus Link, as link near zero lag and no compression artifacts whatsoever. Note: This is with my new Wifi 7 router which was no more than 8 feet at any given moment. and yes, I know the Pro only supports wifi 6e and 5G freq range.
i didn't even think Wifi 7 routers were available yet? Im glad Link works well for you. It always falls short of the Virtual Desktop performance for me, particularly since the increased bit rate and AV1 Codec was added.
@@RushReality not only are Wi-Fi 7 routers available on Amazon, they have come way down in price since when they were released. About 6 months ago, the reviews I saw had them priced at around $1,000 for a 2 unit mesh network. Right now I just bought a TP link router, Wi-Fi 7 with all ports being 2.5 gigahertz for about $260. That's a significant price difference, so I plunged in mainly for the purpose of better connectivity to my 3090 PC. And while was I unbelievably impressed with the Oculus link clarity. The other two seemed more like I was watching a RU-vid video as the h.264 compression was very evident, especially with fast movement as you mentioned in this video
I just know one thing, I wasted like $80 on a Link Cable a couple years ago because that cable is garbage. Virtual Desktop is miles better and I only tried it on Wi-Fi. Granted I have an amazing Internet connection.
I've been trying to get my steam link dialed in so it would be as good as or better than VRdesktop on msfs2020. I got to the point where it's like what's the point. Why am I trying to get my quest 3 headset to work with a clunky cable when I'm totally satisfied with my VR desktop performance. I'm A Private pilot so I know what cockpits are really supposed to look like and I know what I can accept for a facsimile. I have a 4070ti with a i7-13700fk. Steam link went to the recycling bin today!
I've just upgraded from a Rift S to a Quest 3. Is it better to use virtual desktop or wired via USB ? Might be a dumb question but the Game super resolution sounds like it's helping to make it look better...
There’s not loads in it. If well optimised Virtual Desktop can perform very close to wired though with slightly more compression. Though both methods bring compression in some form. I tend to switch between the two depending on the situation but more often than not I play wirelessly.
what steam link settings do you recommend for blade and sorcery? or should i just leave everything on Auto? using ethernet/wifi 6 plugged into my Scar 16 rtx 4080 is la i9-13980HX
Unfortunately, i have a connection problem with the VD app. I install windows again, I restart the quest 3 and reinstalling the vd app on Quest 3 and the pc, but whatever I do, the vd app can't find my pc, the app problem suddenly start 1 week ago, before that I easily connect to my computer without any problem. I also don't add any app or change anything to my pc. Also, the Steam link app and air link app are working without problem, and I use them right now for my pc vr gaming. This is really ridiculous for the paid app to have this kind of problem.
Hey... So do you need to have your PC wired into your router, and then set up a second router on your PC that your oculus headset then connects to? Or do you just connect virtual desktop to your PC?
I think though with ACC, for some reason over the past year or so, it's gotten worse in it's visuals in that they appear to have become more blurry overall.
My question is about stabilization option. How can I make it happen because I hate how fast I move my head and video with out stabilization option is not fun to watch, on @Rush Reality video I did see like a stabilization when screen is not shaking like crazy what happens for me.Any suggestions ?
I've got a question: is Virtual Desktop capable of connecting wirelessly via cable? I have a shitty wi-fi router from my ISP, which is also placed in a room far from my PC, so I believe that in my case it will have a lot of freezes while playing wirelessly.
This might not apply to you, but make sure your using the right codec. Just changing and trying another might improve performance. You change it using the VD pc desktop app.
Im looking for a way to add 2 virtual monitors and play multi-monitor games like trucking sim but meta link isnt capable of adding extra screens that u dont have irl. Is virtual desktop capable of adding screens and play on them with low latency?
For me nothing beats 6-800mbps bitrate h264 on air link. I don't know why VD doesn't go that high, for me it caps out at just under 400mbps on h264+ and it looks a fair bit worse than air link. I've tried AV1 and HVEC at 200mbps on VD and it the compression is definitely more noticeable although better in most cases than h264+ on VD.
If your streaming games fropm a PC to a VR headset then your Internet speed has almost nothing to do with it as that only applies to data sent over the internet via your ISP, for best performance on wifi with VR is to get a dedicated acsess point that only it uses for its wifi.
My life doesn’t have a lot of time to give to me for using steam link on my quest 2, but the last time I tried to use it my quest controllers were usable only for one of the games I got from the VR fest steam sale. It was a VR only title. Do you have a recommendation on what I need to do to get other games to work through steam link?
I've heard for years now, people talking about Virtual Desktop, I finally gave it a chance.. and it sucks.. there's a VERY clear lag/delay when you game and it seems to do everything worse than both Steam Link and Air Link. Refunded that crap.
I think VD has its uses, it's more customizable than air link and steam link. It also tends to be a little more stable and is updated more frequently. Most games for me look far better over air link though so I use it for almost all my PC VR gaming.
@@RushReality Have you tried air link at 600-800mbps bitrate, Encode Resolution Width set up correctly for quest 3 and Pixels Per Display Pixel Override set to 1.2 or 1.3 and rendering resolution set to 1.5x? It looks significantly better than anything VD or steam link can do.
There are no difference for me between Air Link and Steam Link, both looks and run beautifully and without issue. Virtual Desktop however, very very VERY clear delay in movements and actions, I only tried it for about an hour in Arizona Sunshine with different settings, but it was horrible.@@Kewickviper
Just an FYI your internet/broadband speed has no impact at all on wireless quality, you could litearlly have an airgapped network and it would work fine. Its the speed bottleneck of the LAN that matters.
Hi :) I've purchased a PICO 4 VR Headset and played VRChat today with wireless Steamlink-Connection. The expereince was not that good.. it was very blurry and I dunno.. just not graphixally overwhelming. (Looked like 1080p maximum). Would I get a better experience, when I run it witha cable for PCVR? ^^ Got a high end pc and a lan cable on it.
You might want to check your resolution settings in your PC's steam link settings. I believe the default is set to 90% or something resolution. If you bump that up to 125% or 150% it should look much sharper.
My network set up makes Steam Link unusable on my quest 2. I use the telecom Wireless AC router. There's so much artifacting and anything more than 1m away gives an unfocused myopia effect in Skyrim VR as well as lag sometimes. To be fair tho I have the same issues with Steam Link for other devices like my smartphone.
Hey. Do you have any idea why my quest 3 would connect to one PC without any problems (same network, LAN), but not connect to a second gaming PC? It just says unable to find the PC :( Basically I can connect to my PC using virtual desktop, but my spouse can’t connect to their pc - using the same headset, different meta accounts.
Honest question should I use airlink or Virtual Desktop? Like I have 0 problems with airlink currently but I just want to know if there is something better in virtual desktop and is it worth buying
@@dantopps7332 Well you see thats what I wanted to know if VD is any better like maybe it has better customization, settings etc thats what I wanted to know and thats why I even asked my question
i have a bug in vrsteam where l1 and r1 buttons move me around in the vr room while i am gaming and it F***s up my input in the game. I dont know if its the amd card that is causing it but i lean towards buying Nvidia because of it.
hi sir, i purchased quest 3 recently but unable to transfer files from pc to quest 3. i saw many videos but they are very confusing. does virtual desktop for quest 3 allows to transfer files from pc to quest 3 ? DOES VD NEEDS WIRE CONNECTED TO PC? does it need high end pc, I HAVE RYZEN 3 3200G PROCESSOR IN PC WHICH DOES NOT HAVE TYPE C PORT. can we wirelessly transfer data/files with virtual desktop from pc to quest 3? PLEASE REPLY
Virtual desktop has pixels artifacts in the right eye screen which totally ruin immersion for me! Until they resolve that bug, I'll be using steam and air link
i think your right and when I made this I had no idea that they had hidden away the functionality to utilise eye tracking with Steam Link. Very excited to see what Valve put out.
The biggest issue with Steam Link is that it enforces the use of SteamVR, which, quite frankly, is just horrible. I do like SteamVR for its UI and general abilities, the problem is just an enormous reduction in performance when compared to playing without SteamVR. Using Virtual Desktop’s VDXR as OpenXR runtime where possible, and using OprnComposite to bypass it where not, will net you around 10-15% increased performance, and significantly reduced VRAM usage.
How do you get rid of the shimmering/jagged edges in the racing sims? I've tried everything under the sun to fix Project Cars 2, and can solve it. I have the Quest 3 and I'm running on a "decent" spec AMD 5600x and NVIDIA 3060ti OC.
returned virtual desktop after finding out i couldnt add non vr games to the games tab whole reason i got it was because it seemed to be slightly more convenient i will say image quality looked alot sharper on virtual desktop however responsiveness and latency felt better on steam link all in all ill stick to steam link because most games i wanna play in vr are non vr games and i cant even add it to the games tab so its even less convenient then steam link for me
steamlink is already better than oculus link cuz my game and my entire pc crashes after 15-30 minutes of playing or even an hour if im lucky and that doesnt happen AT ALL with steamlink
Can someone please redeem me a gift on a virtual desktop? I am from Nigeria. I've tried all ways to buy a virtual desktop but it doesn't work. I even bought a dollar credit card and a meta gift card but it still doesn't work. Can someone really help me please? I need a virtual desktop
Sounds like if you've got a Regular Guy setup with a Quest 2 and whatever WiFi you already happened to have, Steam Link might be a win. With how garbage Oculus AirLink with SteamVR was before, it's got to be an improvement.
Valve had been streaming from your PC for a long time. They just finally added vr support. Virtual desktop was first in this space, Pico and oculus came after.
@@coltynstone-lamontagne gues your not a long VR user because you dont get it Its the app it self that lets you stream from your headset without the need of VD or and cables The steam streaming app or what ever it called is a direct coppy of pico streaming asisstance
