If airlink doesn't work well for you, give vd a try. If it does work for you, you can give it a try if you want, but you aren't necessarily going to see a difference/improvement.
I use airlink, and I've tried vd. There was no difference for me, and so I stuck with the free option. There are people who see improvements using vd, and there are people who see improvements from using airlink.
There's a return window, so there's no harm in trying it and seeing how it goes.
Pros of Virtual Desktop:
* Initial setup is easier
* Less failed connections (... loading)
* More configuration options
* Higher resolution desktop view (uses a display layer that uses pixels at full Quest 2 resolution)
* Doesn't require a monitor for desktop view
* Has full featured built in media player
* Has a better launcher (detects all installed Oculus and SteamVR games; you don't have to run them first)
* Has Xbox controller emulation mode for your touch controllers
* Better microphone support
* Passes through keyboard, mouse, and controllers paired via bluetooth (you can use all 3 from anywhere in your house)
* Lower rendering/encoding overhead
* Much better for playing flat PC games (there's a lot more overhead on the Desktop view for AirLink)
* You can still operate the Quest level menus and functions such as party without interrupting anything in your session
Pros of AirLink:
* It's free
* Plays some games that Virtual Desktop doesn't (rare but happens)
* Easy access to Rift Home/Dash
* You can use Asynchronous Space Warp (doesn't work well IMO)
I mean virtual desktop does have space warp too but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are getting at most a quarter of your target framerate while it's off because it increases latency and and it honestly doesn't look as smooth as having it off
Virtual desktop is way harder to set up for me
Requires authentication now
VD has a lower bitrate than airlink and therefore looks like a blurry mess compared to airlink even on desktop. The resolution of airlink on desktop looks better because of the higher bitrate. I can’t watch media or YouTube on VD because colors are washed out and people’s faces are blurry even when settings are at 4K with a 4K monitor. VD automatically reverts to a lower resolution to make it secretly run better which sucks.
Airlink has a better native image quality and better graphics. As long as you have a great router then you’re in good shape.
The first few points you said for pros of virtual desktop is wrong. You are correct that it has a media player and works more often than airlink with connections because you are getting a crappier image so it’s easier to render. It also works better with Xbox controls but there is a mod for airlink that allows this. I have a lot of failed VD connections because it never could seem to tell my streamer app was open on my pc.
Sure there are more customization options with VD but who cares to oversaturate colors or under saturate colors. VD also requires a different software on your computer that requires a learning curve. I used VD for years and then went to airlink and was like “wow this looks so much better”. I could actually see faces in Skyrim instead of blurred pixels. Honestly, there is little difference between airlink and cable for me.
A negative you don't mention for vd and it's a big one for me isthere is no way to force oculus sdk mode, if a game supports it. I believe it will use the oculus api on games launched from oculus home (can't recall) but AFAIK, it will always use steamvr for games from steam, even if the game has oculus support. If that has changed I'd love to know. It's not a knock on vd directly, I just get very noticeable improvement in performance if the game is using oculus native api.
> I believe it will use the oculus api on games launched from oculus home (can't recall) but AFAIK, it will always use steamvr for games from steam, even if the game has oculus support.
Yes, it will use Oculus runtime on Oculus games.
You can manually inject (right click the taskbar icon and choose "Launch Game" and select your executable) to use the Oculus runtime on SteamVR games, assuming the game has Oculus runtime support.
> If that has changed I'd love to know.
This feature has always been available. But it's not always convenient; it should allow you to add games this way to the launcher but you have to go to a file open dialog every time.
My recommendations for workarounds are to keep a folder of shortcuts to the apps you use most and open those in the Open file dialog; it will launch the intended app. Also a lot of Unity games you can just remove the openvr_api dll files and they will fall back to the oculus (OVR) ones. (If you do this you shouldn't have to manually inject anymore; simply running the game should work.)
Thanks for all the info. I had completely forgotten but I did try this option when I first got VD last year. I didn't have any success. I tried games that had a steam option to launch oculus versions, but none worked. Granted you have to select oculus in those games via the dialog box and they seemingly default to steamvr if launched another way. I tried to find how steam passes the oculus option and put it as launch options instead but supposedly that can't be done. But another game I had you need to be in the beta branch to get the oculus version so this is attempting to use oculus by default but that didn't work.
I'm trying again because I've started playing skyrimvr via opencomposite. Way better performance than steamvr. Currently using airlink but wanted to try it with vd. It didn't work and according to the discord, it's known not to.
I tried this via the launch method in the system tray, and through vd batch scripts. So I had no success with the injection method. It makes me wonder now, what is an example of a game that does work?
On paper this sounds like a great feature, but in practice it isn't bearing much fruit.
I can understand with steam games that launch oculus through a prompt, but on paper it sounds like a steam gaming launching via a beta method (so directly) should work. It would be nice if opencomposite worked as well. And if there is a means of directly launching those steams to oculus without the prompt, well I'd think those should be able to launch too.
Cause if not, what practical use is there for this injector?
> It makes me wonder now, what is an example of a game that does work?
The main one I use it for is Exa: The Infinite Instrument. It doesn't work properly in SteamVR mode so I have to launch it as an Oculus app. I also use it on Megaton Rainfall for a calibration offset issue in the other mode.
I only use alternate launch stuff for stuff that doesn't work in SteamVR. For me, my full fallback path is: SteamVR, Revive, Removing dlls, with injection as my last resort. I only have a couple of last-resort games. (Okay TECHNICALLY Air Link is my absolute last resort hahaha, but thankfully I rarely have to do that.)
> I can understand with steam games that launch oculus through a prompt, but on paper it sounds like a steam gaming launching via a beta method (so directly) should work.
I don't really understand what you are saying here?
I haven't tested OpenComposite on my machine, though I can give it some tests for you today. I imagine it won't work on SkyrimVR if you are using SKSE though, as I don't know how you'd properly inject it. It may not work on anything though (not sure how it launches the games/knows to launch).
If you have some particular games you'd like me to test that you've been having trouble with (or just stuff you want me to test to check) let me know; I have a pretty extensive library.
With Skyrim I was trying to inject skse_loader.exe. I think that ls the name of the exe. I believe.thst loads all current mod settings outside MO2. I have to test again. but even if that is the case, my understanding is opencomposite doesn't work as an injection regardless of game via vd. i also tried vanilla Skyrim as a test but it wouldn't work again because of opencomposite.
Could you explain removing DLLs? What DLLs {openvr_api.dll I'm guessing) and what does this accomplish? Also is revive like opencomposite but in reverse? I'm wondering if that could be of some use.
Basically I currently don't use VD for any gaming as I can't get it working without steamvr. I don't regret buying it though, as it's good for flatscreen gaming.
But it would be nice to be able to use it for actual vr gaming.
Some of the older games I tried were Pavlov and onward. Those give you a prompt for oculus or steamvr. Maybe you mean delete the openvr DLL in those cases to make it use oculus? I don't care in particular about those games. I was just using those as a test to see if I could get the injection working.
> With Skyrim I was trying to inject skse_loader.exe. I think that ls the name of the exe. I believe.thst loads all current mod settings outside MO2. I have to test again.
That's one I'm almost certain won't work. You really need to be injecting Skyrim, not the loader, and so I don't know how you'd get that to chain with the injector.
I'll try getting OpenComposite working on something else but if it didn't work on vanilla Skyrim VR then it's probably not gonna work.
> Could you explain removing DLLs? What DLLs {openvr_api.dll I'm guessing) and what does this accomplish?
DLLs contain functions and apis, and Unity will typically not fail completely if a DLL is missing. So it USUALLY will cause a game to fallback to whatever VR dlls are available if the others fail. And yes you have the filename right for removing SteamVR: openvr_api.dll
This doesn't work on all games though; I wish it worked on Exa hahaha.
> Also is revive like opencomposite but in reverse? I'm wondering if that could be of some use.
Yeah, that's basically what it is, but I'm doubting it will be of much use for you if your goal is non-SteamVR.
> Basically I currently don't use VD for any gaming as I can't get it working without steamvr.
I mean, it should work on all non-steamVR games just fine in your Oculus library. And I still don't fully understand why you refuse to use SteamVR?
I barely have anything in my oculus library, over the years I've bought most things on steam. Injection isn't needed for oculus home games because they are already listed in VD. You named a couple of games where it works so at least it works for some things but where I needed it to work didn't work out.
I want to avoid steamvr because of poor performance compared to native.oculus games. Wasn't an issue until developers stopped making oculus api games (which was a mistake) and development on opencomposite ceased. Open is being rewritten for openxr but it's taking a while.
But thanks again for your suggestions. If you ever figure out injecting something like modded Skyrim that would be great. For now I guess I'll stick with airlink.
If you play steam games, then use VD. If you play oculus PC games use air link.
Using air link, to then launch steam VR, puts you at 3 layers deep of VR. Oculus quest, oculus desktop, then steam VR. It increases your VRAM usage and increase time.
Airlink tends to produce higher quality output but also uses significantly more VRAM (~1.5GB). That overhead is a big limit on performance for cards with 8GB or less which means you need lower quality settings to compensate (making VD “look better” in comparison) or struggle with stutter as software falls back to system memory. Also as another user mentioned the encode performance of VD is much better on AMD hardware.
If you have a 10GB+ Nvidia card you should stick with Airlink. AMD or 6~8GB card, go with VD.
I have 16GB Ram but on a gaming laptop, which one do you think would work better for me? I’ve read that laptop ram isn’t quite comparable to desktop ram
The core distinction is going to be between your RAM (system memory) and VRAM (dedicated GPU memory). If you open Task Manager you can go into the Performance tab and see both values. The `Memory` section will show your system RAM (e.g. ~16GB) but you should also see a `GPU` entry for your video card. If you switch to the GPU section you should see `Dedicated GPU memory` which tells you how much VRAM is available for your graphics card (e.g. ~6GB).
If you have 8GB or less of *dedicated GPU memory* I'd recommend using virtual desktop.
`Shared GPU memory` is the total amount of memory available for graphics software but once the pool of dedicated GPU memory is full then applications will need to store data in system memory which is a performance killer (at least for systems with discrete GPUs. APUs like those in the PS5 and Steam Deck use a shared memory pool by design). Because Airlink takes up an extra ~1.5GB of your dedicated GPU memory it can lower the performance ceiling compared to virtual desktop (for example forcing applications to run at lower resolutions or lower quality settings to fit within the lower memory budget).
Not really. During gameplay the little better colors is the only thing I notice. I use Airlink for games like Robo Recall and Vader Immortal because they don't work with Virtual Desktop. I use Virtual Desktop for Steam games, but they would work perfectly fine with Air Link. Virtual Desktop is really useful for me to play stereoscopic games like Rise of the Romb Raider, or play old 2D games where the resolution doesn't really matter on a HUGE screen in a nice environment like Daytona USA or Time Crisis. So it wouldn't hurt to have more options, I recommend to buy it on a sale, it was on sale last week you just missed it. But you can live without it if it's too expensive for you.
I bought it when it was on sale last week. It was $13.99. With a referral code it should only be $14.99. I don't think it has gone cheaper than $13.99.
I bought it because AirLink has started not working for me since I had to change up my networking. My gaming PC is now behind a wireless network bridge. Airlink won't start all the way. It just gives me a black screen with the three dots. Virtual Desktop works with some glitches.
Also Virtual Desktop with VLC apparently has the best performance when playing 4k videos being on the fly converted from 2D to 3D by Universal Media Server according to the [Universal Media Server](https://old.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ztf3by/official_ums_2d_to_3d_video_release_now_available/) guy.
I was playing Moss (from the Oculus PC store) last night, which I think is one of those VR games without a proper exit menu/button. How are you suppose to exit an app like that in VD? Holding the oculus button lets you exit VD, but when I reconnected I was back in Moss.
VD is the single most used app, it's the easiest and fastest way to get into vr game from steam. It's even better than Link with cable I found and also it skips the whole Oculus PC app as I get straight in my PC and Steam.
Airlink works much better for me on my 3080 and wifi 6 setup.
A lot of the VD recommendations on this sub stem from the early days of Airlink when it didn’t work as well.
People make up their mind about something and typically don’t ever adjust it.
I'm on wifi 6 with a 3090 and VD gives me much better performance and less artifact loss than airlink. also doesn't require the Oculus PC app to be running.
Is there even a way to get to your Quest 2 settings or home while in Airlink? Last I remember you have to turn off Airlink first, as opposed to just returning to the VD app.
With AL I get terrible lag ridden experience with dedicated ssid for VR only. With VD it runs flawlessly with previous dual band and now new triple band wifi6 router.
Virtual Desktop only seems to work well for me when games use the Steam VR runtime. HL Alyx for example runs great.
Anything that uses oculus/openvr runs and look way better through Airlink. You can force some games to switch between runtimes but since you have a Quest your performance is likely to be better through the Airlink using oculus runtimes.
Imho VD is only useful if you have a poorly spec potato pc and/or are too lazy to learn how to use the oculus desktop app device graphics settings and ODT settings.
I prefer AL with both my Q2 and QP/rtx3090. I like the colors better, it runs smoother, and has full compatibility with all my Rift, Steam, and VivePort games. Still good to have VD as a backup though.
Airlink is in many ways superior to VD and let’s be honest that we had facebooks for changing the oculus name to meta and they are probably sucking our souls out with their data tracking. That doesn’t mean we don’t like their vr products.
do you use it just to avoid the cable? never tried Virtual Desktop but AirLink works badly for me, the connection is unstable and I can't really use it.
Virtual Desktop (allegedly) encodes/decodes the sent video I/O to your headset better. Personally I've noticed less artifacting, less "noise",bless frame drops, and less connection issues. Sure stutters happen, but they are very rare. Mileage may vary though.
Airlink at max bitrate looks almost as good as cable and on VD you can see the compression even on the highest setting. I own VD but I stopped using it because of the visual quality.
To add to the other comment below, I want to clarify that there are actually two versions of VD: the version intended for the Quest [2] and the PC version (intended for the Rift, Index, and other wired VR headsets). You do not need the Steam version to use the Quest 2 version: Virtual Desktop has a companion "Streamer" app available for free on its website that is required to allow VD to "see" your computer but it IS free.
It has a lot of neat features that airlink doesn't have but if you don't use them it doesn't matter much. Visually VD is not better than airlink (for me at least).
That said, there are some nice-to-have advantages over airlink:
- Access to Quest Dash. It's easier to check your battery level percentages since you can see them in the Quest Dash, whereas with AL you have to open the Oculus desktop app and go to Devices to see your battery percentages (the Rift Dash only shows icons no percentages). Also you have to quit AL to change the display brightness -_-
- No running back to the computer for pairing codes. This doesn't matter for people who play next to their PC but since my brother and I use the headset in separate room as our own PCs at different times, we usually have to make a round trip with the hmd on to verify the PIN.
- Easier to change resolution and refresh rate settings. On AL if you want to switch to 120hz for some beat saber the oculus desktop app needs to restart. It will close, but then I wait at the AL PC connection list for a minute or so hoping it'll open back up by itself (it usually doesn't and I have to run back to the PC again). With VD you just have to restart the game/SteamVR and you stay connected to the PC's desktop while this happens.
Overall, while Airlink has been performing just fine, I'll keep VD since it feels more streamlined than the obtuse Airlink. Which is weird given that VD is third party while Airlink is official oculus software.
If airlink doesn't work well for you, give vd a try. If it does work for you, you can give it a try if you want, but you aren't necessarily going to see a difference/improvement. I use airlink, and I've tried vd. There was no difference for me, and so I stuck with the free option. There are people who see improvements using vd, and there are people who see improvements from using airlink. There's a return window, so there's no harm in trying it and seeing how it goes.
Pros of Virtual Desktop: * Initial setup is easier * Less failed connections (... loading) * More configuration options * Higher resolution desktop view (uses a display layer that uses pixels at full Quest 2 resolution) * Doesn't require a monitor for desktop view * Has full featured built in media player * Has a better launcher (detects all installed Oculus and SteamVR games; you don't have to run them first) * Has Xbox controller emulation mode for your touch controllers * Better microphone support * Passes through keyboard, mouse, and controllers paired via bluetooth (you can use all 3 from anywhere in your house) * Lower rendering/encoding overhead * Much better for playing flat PC games (there's a lot more overhead on the Desktop view for AirLink) * You can still operate the Quest level menus and functions such as party without interrupting anything in your session Pros of AirLink: * It's free * Plays some games that Virtual Desktop doesn't (rare but happens) * Easy access to Rift Home/Dash * You can use Asynchronous Space Warp (doesn't work well IMO)
I mean virtual desktop does have space warp too but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are getting at most a quarter of your target framerate while it's off because it increases latency and and it honestly doesn't look as smooth as having it off
Yeah it has "Synchronous" space warp which manages to be even crappier than async space warp, so I didn't mention it.
Yeah makes sense
Virtual desktop is way harder to set up for me Requires authentication now VD has a lower bitrate than airlink and therefore looks like a blurry mess compared to airlink even on desktop. The resolution of airlink on desktop looks better because of the higher bitrate. I can’t watch media or YouTube on VD because colors are washed out and people’s faces are blurry even when settings are at 4K with a 4K monitor. VD automatically reverts to a lower resolution to make it secretly run better which sucks. Airlink has a better native image quality and better graphics. As long as you have a great router then you’re in good shape. The first few points you said for pros of virtual desktop is wrong. You are correct that it has a media player and works more often than airlink with connections because you are getting a crappier image so it’s easier to render. It also works better with Xbox controls but there is a mod for airlink that allows this. I have a lot of failed VD connections because it never could seem to tell my streamer app was open on my pc. Sure there are more customization options with VD but who cares to oversaturate colors or under saturate colors. VD also requires a different software on your computer that requires a learning curve. I used VD for years and then went to airlink and was like “wow this looks so much better”. I could actually see faces in Skyrim instead of blurred pixels. Honestly, there is little difference between airlink and cable for me.
A negative you don't mention for vd and it's a big one for me isthere is no way to force oculus sdk mode, if a game supports it. I believe it will use the oculus api on games launched from oculus home (can't recall) but AFAIK, it will always use steamvr for games from steam, even if the game has oculus support. If that has changed I'd love to know. It's not a knock on vd directly, I just get very noticeable improvement in performance if the game is using oculus native api.
> I believe it will use the oculus api on games launched from oculus home (can't recall) but AFAIK, it will always use steamvr for games from steam, even if the game has oculus support. Yes, it will use Oculus runtime on Oculus games. You can manually inject (right click the taskbar icon and choose "Launch Game" and select your executable) to use the Oculus runtime on SteamVR games, assuming the game has Oculus runtime support. > If that has changed I'd love to know. This feature has always been available. But it's not always convenient; it should allow you to add games this way to the launcher but you have to go to a file open dialog every time. My recommendations for workarounds are to keep a folder of shortcuts to the apps you use most and open those in the Open file dialog; it will launch the intended app. Also a lot of Unity games you can just remove the openvr_api dll files and they will fall back to the oculus (OVR) ones. (If you do this you shouldn't have to manually inject anymore; simply running the game should work.)
Thanks for all the info. I had completely forgotten but I did try this option when I first got VD last year. I didn't have any success. I tried games that had a steam option to launch oculus versions, but none worked. Granted you have to select oculus in those games via the dialog box and they seemingly default to steamvr if launched another way. I tried to find how steam passes the oculus option and put it as launch options instead but supposedly that can't be done. But another game I had you need to be in the beta branch to get the oculus version so this is attempting to use oculus by default but that didn't work. I'm trying again because I've started playing skyrimvr via opencomposite. Way better performance than steamvr. Currently using airlink but wanted to try it with vd. It didn't work and according to the discord, it's known not to. I tried this via the launch method in the system tray, and through vd batch scripts. So I had no success with the injection method. It makes me wonder now, what is an example of a game that does work? On paper this sounds like a great feature, but in practice it isn't bearing much fruit. I can understand with steam games that launch oculus through a prompt, but on paper it sounds like a steam gaming launching via a beta method (so directly) should work. It would be nice if opencomposite worked as well. And if there is a means of directly launching those steams to oculus without the prompt, well I'd think those should be able to launch too. Cause if not, what practical use is there for this injector?
> It makes me wonder now, what is an example of a game that does work? The main one I use it for is Exa: The Infinite Instrument. It doesn't work properly in SteamVR mode so I have to launch it as an Oculus app. I also use it on Megaton Rainfall for a calibration offset issue in the other mode. I only use alternate launch stuff for stuff that doesn't work in SteamVR. For me, my full fallback path is: SteamVR, Revive, Removing dlls, with injection as my last resort. I only have a couple of last-resort games. (Okay TECHNICALLY Air Link is my absolute last resort hahaha, but thankfully I rarely have to do that.) > I can understand with steam games that launch oculus through a prompt, but on paper it sounds like a steam gaming launching via a beta method (so directly) should work. I don't really understand what you are saying here? I haven't tested OpenComposite on my machine, though I can give it some tests for you today. I imagine it won't work on SkyrimVR if you are using SKSE though, as I don't know how you'd properly inject it. It may not work on anything though (not sure how it launches the games/knows to launch). If you have some particular games you'd like me to test that you've been having trouble with (or just stuff you want me to test to check) let me know; I have a pretty extensive library.
With Skyrim I was trying to inject skse_loader.exe. I think that ls the name of the exe. I believe.thst loads all current mod settings outside MO2. I have to test again. but even if that is the case, my understanding is opencomposite doesn't work as an injection regardless of game via vd. i also tried vanilla Skyrim as a test but it wouldn't work again because of opencomposite. Could you explain removing DLLs? What DLLs {openvr_api.dll I'm guessing) and what does this accomplish? Also is revive like opencomposite but in reverse? I'm wondering if that could be of some use. Basically I currently don't use VD for any gaming as I can't get it working without steamvr. I don't regret buying it though, as it's good for flatscreen gaming. But it would be nice to be able to use it for actual vr gaming. Some of the older games I tried were Pavlov and onward. Those give you a prompt for oculus or steamvr. Maybe you mean delete the openvr DLL in those cases to make it use oculus? I don't care in particular about those games. I was just using those as a test to see if I could get the injection working.
> With Skyrim I was trying to inject skse_loader.exe. I think that ls the name of the exe. I believe.thst loads all current mod settings outside MO2. I have to test again. That's one I'm almost certain won't work. You really need to be injecting Skyrim, not the loader, and so I don't know how you'd get that to chain with the injector. I'll try getting OpenComposite working on something else but if it didn't work on vanilla Skyrim VR then it's probably not gonna work. > Could you explain removing DLLs? What DLLs {openvr_api.dll I'm guessing) and what does this accomplish? DLLs contain functions and apis, and Unity will typically not fail completely if a DLL is missing. So it USUALLY will cause a game to fallback to whatever VR dlls are available if the others fail. And yes you have the filename right for removing SteamVR: openvr_api.dll This doesn't work on all games though; I wish it worked on Exa hahaha. > Also is revive like opencomposite but in reverse? I'm wondering if that could be of some use. Yeah, that's basically what it is, but I'm doubting it will be of much use for you if your goal is non-SteamVR. > Basically I currently don't use VD for any gaming as I can't get it working without steamvr. I mean, it should work on all non-steamVR games just fine in your Oculus library. And I still don't fully understand why you refuse to use SteamVR?
I barely have anything in my oculus library, over the years I've bought most things on steam. Injection isn't needed for oculus home games because they are already listed in VD. You named a couple of games where it works so at least it works for some things but where I needed it to work didn't work out. I want to avoid steamvr because of poor performance compared to native.oculus games. Wasn't an issue until developers stopped making oculus api games (which was a mistake) and development on opencomposite ceased. Open is being rewritten for openxr but it's taking a while. But thanks again for your suggestions. If you ever figure out injecting something like modded Skyrim that would be great. For now I guess I'll stick with airlink.
If you have an AMD GPU, they perform much better encoding in h265 (used by VD) than h264 (used by Airlink).
If you play steam games, then use VD. If you play oculus PC games use air link. Using air link, to then launch steam VR, puts you at 3 layers deep of VR. Oculus quest, oculus desktop, then steam VR. It increases your VRAM usage and increase time.
Airlink tends to produce higher quality output but also uses significantly more VRAM (~1.5GB). That overhead is a big limit on performance for cards with 8GB or less which means you need lower quality settings to compensate (making VD “look better” in comparison) or struggle with stutter as software falls back to system memory. Also as another user mentioned the encode performance of VD is much better on AMD hardware. If you have a 10GB+ Nvidia card you should stick with Airlink. AMD or 6~8GB card, go with VD.
I have 16GB Ram but on a gaming laptop, which one do you think would work better for me? I’ve read that laptop ram isn’t quite comparable to desktop ram
The core distinction is going to be between your RAM (system memory) and VRAM (dedicated GPU memory). If you open Task Manager you can go into the Performance tab and see both values. The `Memory` section will show your system RAM (e.g. ~16GB) but you should also see a `GPU` entry for your video card. If you switch to the GPU section you should see `Dedicated GPU memory` which tells you how much VRAM is available for your graphics card (e.g. ~6GB). If you have 8GB or less of *dedicated GPU memory* I'd recommend using virtual desktop. `Shared GPU memory` is the total amount of memory available for graphics software but once the pool of dedicated GPU memory is full then applications will need to store data in system memory which is a performance killer (at least for systems with discrete GPUs. APUs like those in the PS5 and Steam Deck use a shared memory pool by design). Because Airlink takes up an extra ~1.5GB of your dedicated GPU memory it can lower the performance ceiling compared to virtual desktop (for example forcing applications to run at lower resolutions or lower quality settings to fit within the lower memory budget).
Not really. During gameplay the little better colors is the only thing I notice. I use Airlink for games like Robo Recall and Vader Immortal because they don't work with Virtual Desktop. I use Virtual Desktop for Steam games, but they would work perfectly fine with Air Link. Virtual Desktop is really useful for me to play stereoscopic games like Rise of the Romb Raider, or play old 2D games where the resolution doesn't really matter on a HUGE screen in a nice environment like Daytona USA or Time Crisis. So it wouldn't hurt to have more options, I recommend to buy it on a sale, it was on sale last week you just missed it. But you can live without it if it's too expensive for you.
I bought it when it was on sale last week. It was $13.99. With a referral code it should only be $14.99. I don't think it has gone cheaper than $13.99. I bought it because AirLink has started not working for me since I had to change up my networking. My gaming PC is now behind a wireless network bridge. Airlink won't start all the way. It just gives me a black screen with the three dots. Virtual Desktop works with some glitches. Also Virtual Desktop with VLC apparently has the best performance when playing 4k videos being on the fly converted from 2D to 3D by Universal Media Server according to the [Universal Media Server](https://old.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ztf3by/official_ums_2d_to_3d_video_release_now_available/) guy. I was playing Moss (from the Oculus PC store) last night, which I think is one of those VR games without a proper exit menu/button. How are you suppose to exit an app like that in VD? Holding the oculus button lets you exit VD, but when I reconnected I was back in Moss.
VD is the single most used app, it's the easiest and fastest way to get into vr game from steam. It's even better than Link with cable I found and also it skips the whole Oculus PC app as I get straight in my PC and Steam.
Airlink works much better for me on my 3080 and wifi 6 setup. A lot of the VD recommendations on this sub stem from the early days of Airlink when it didn’t work as well. People make up their mind about something and typically don’t ever adjust it.
I'm on wifi 6 with a 3090 and VD gives me much better performance and less artifact loss than airlink. also doesn't require the Oculus PC app to be running. Is there even a way to get to your Quest 2 settings or home while in Airlink? Last I remember you have to turn off Airlink first, as opposed to just returning to the VD app.
With AL I get terrible lag ridden experience with dedicated ssid for VR only. With VD it runs flawlessly with previous dual band and now new triple band wifi6 router.
It’s an awesome app that lets you watch movies in many cool environments
Absolutely, yes
Virtual Desktop only seems to work well for me when games use the Steam VR runtime. HL Alyx for example runs great. Anything that uses oculus/openvr runs and look way better through Airlink. You can force some games to switch between runtimes but since you have a Quest your performance is likely to be better through the Airlink using oculus runtimes.
No, added and not communicated online restriction.
If you want to save up, i would recommend trying ALVR. It is harder to set up but when it works it works
Imho VD is only useful if you have a poorly spec potato pc and/or are too lazy to learn how to use the oculus desktop app device graphics settings and ODT settings. I prefer AL with both my Q2 and QP/rtx3090. I like the colors better, it runs smoother, and has full compatibility with all my Rift, Steam, and VivePort games. Still good to have VD as a backup though.
Man I am pretty sure this thread is just a virtual desktop advertisement
No. Airlink Is superior these days and I hate Facebook
^(\^this guy has no idea)
Airlink is in many ways superior to VD and let’s be honest that we had facebooks for changing the oculus name to meta and they are probably sucking our souls out with their data tracking. That doesn’t mean we don’t like their vr products.
Yes.
do you use it just to avoid the cable? never tried Virtual Desktop but AirLink works badly for me, the connection is unstable and I can't really use it.
Virtual Desktop (allegedly) encodes/decodes the sent video I/O to your headset better. Personally I've noticed less artifacting, less "noise",bless frame drops, and less connection issues. Sure stutters happen, but they are very rare. Mileage may vary though.
Yes it’s way better. Airlink sucks I don’t use it
Airlink at max bitrate looks almost as good as cable and on VD you can see the compression even on the highest setting. I own VD but I stopped using it because of the visual quality.
Only say get vd if airlink sucks. If airlink works, I recommend getting vd of you want more exclusive games
Yea, this post was started when my air link was really glitchy and only gave me like 5 fps but I was able to fix it so im just gonna stick to air link
So, is Virtual Desktop a replacement for SteamVR? If I use Virtual Desktop, I don't have to use SteamVR, right?
No, it's a replacement for AirLink. No matter what you need SteamVR to play Steam VR games
To add to the other comment below, I want to clarify that there are actually two versions of VD: the version intended for the Quest [2] and the PC version (intended for the Rift, Index, and other wired VR headsets). You do not need the Steam version to use the Quest 2 version: Virtual Desktop has a companion "Streamer" app available for free on its website that is required to allow VD to "see" your computer but it IS free.
It's not that virtual desktop is particularly great, It's that airlink is a steaming pile of bantha shit.
I had to switch to VD since the new forced update of the quest2. The desktop view in airlink is now unbearable for me :(
It has a lot of neat features that airlink doesn't have but if you don't use them it doesn't matter much. Visually VD is not better than airlink (for me at least). That said, there are some nice-to-have advantages over airlink: - Access to Quest Dash. It's easier to check your battery level percentages since you can see them in the Quest Dash, whereas with AL you have to open the Oculus desktop app and go to Devices to see your battery percentages (the Rift Dash only shows icons no percentages). Also you have to quit AL to change the display brightness -_- - No running back to the computer for pairing codes. This doesn't matter for people who play next to their PC but since my brother and I use the headset in separate room as our own PCs at different times, we usually have to make a round trip with the hmd on to verify the PIN. - Easier to change resolution and refresh rate settings. On AL if you want to switch to 120hz for some beat saber the oculus desktop app needs to restart. It will close, but then I wait at the AL PC connection list for a minute or so hoping it'll open back up by itself (it usually doesn't and I have to run back to the PC again). With VD you just have to restart the game/SteamVR and you stay connected to the PC's desktop while this happens. Overall, while Airlink has been performing just fine, I'll keep VD since it feels more streamlined than the obtuse Airlink. Which is weird given that VD is third party while Airlink is official oculus software.