What's Better for VR - Oculus Link by USB 3 or Oculus Air Link?

@HamishOK Hey, hope you are well. Firstly you are right about Air Link's 200 Mbps (Nvidia) vs 100 Mbps (AMD). I actually had more success with Air Link (I'm running a RTX 3070) than standard Link in my VR testing.

However, the best solution by far is using the "Virtual Desktop" app that you can buy for the Quest 2. This is the smoothest experience. It just works better in every scenario. If you haven't got this yet and don't want to stuff around with trying to get Air Link working it is available on the Quest 2 store. 

Some important tips. For any wireless or link streaming turn off Ambient Occlusion in the game settings. Set the in game AA to TAA too. This is how I'm playing F1 22 atm.

@Grocs_Blech - Thanks for taking the time to explore how best to use Quest 2 with F1 2022 - your detailed explanations here and in your other posts have been of great help to me. Re using VD it's got to be worth a try as my  router is sitting right next to my rig. I'll unplug most of the other crap I've accumulated and give it a try as a standalone 5GHz connection on WiFi.

Re all the rest I find trying to get the best FPS without compromising the quality of a wired Quest link to my PC a bit of a rabbit hole that can take up way to much on my brain. Plus I need to watch Silverstone this weekend then I'll pull the trigger on F1 2022 and get a copy of VD - will let you know how I get on - in the meantime has anyone had success with a wired V41 Oculus Link USB connection to their PC?

Do I also need Steam VR running in the background? Cause if I don't use steam VR with Oculus link wired when playing AC and ACC my VR doesn't work or does this only apply to games bought on steam??

Thanks again

Hamish

F1 22 requires Steam VR to work, regardless of whether you are using Oculus Link, Air Link or Virtual Desktop.

Good luck and I hope you enjoying your racing.  🙂

I have Virtual Desktop but not tired it for F1 22. What I don’t get is why this would be better then using oculus Link which is hardwired to your PC. Virtual Desktop uses WiFi so surely the success of this solution is based on how good your home WIFi set up is?

Ok so here are my results after way too many hours of testing on a 3080/5800x  Ahah. As many people in the forums have mentioned that subtle jittering sensation when moving your head/looking left and right (dirt 2.0 all over again) is present but not as horrible as day 1.






Settings that won't change 

Oculus software



Debug tool settings




F1 22 graphics - Running Medium preset 


As @Grocs_Blech has mentioned, ambient occlusion must be off and in Video settings, game AA on - TAA as this seems to always render the best performance regarding jitters.


In F1 22, VR settings steam render res is staying at 100% and the bottom 3 settings (god rays, motion blur, and stencil) are all off.


I will not be attempting to use SSW or ASW as I've personally gotten too used to 90hz native playing Iraicng and assetto Corsa.


Our target is 90hz smooth gameplay which is achievable on all other popular sim racing titles 🙂








Link cable oculus runtime results (WORST performer)

I experience no real frame drops with the odd drop to 85 fps, this seems to be the most "jittering experience however the one with the most graphical fidelity.

Most importantly using the link cable seems to promote steam VR crashes in random instances (can't really isolate the reason), hence the need to search for other solutions.










Link cable Steam VR runtime results (Still crashes but much better performance than the oculus runtime)

This is very interesting, the frame drops are rare and only to 87fps with much less jitter, However, link cable still seems to cause crashes particularly as you change from different sessions


In order to use the steam, VR run time head to stream VR settings -> developer tab -> current run time click change to steam VR. HOWEVER you must boot STEAM VR before booting the game up in order for it to use the steam VR runtime, otherwise, it will revert to the oculus run time (regardless of what steam says) this was shown in the Virtual desktop performance overlay.



Virtual desktop Oculus runtime results (Optimal)

Using the High "VR Graphics Quality" in the Virtual desktop settings produced an Ultra smooth experience (so how 10ms lower app latency than the link cable) with the same rare drops to 88 fps.

the jittering its the same as the LINK + Steam VR combo and miles better than the Link + oculus run time. the visual fidelity wasn't as crisp as the link cable.

 Ultra quality in VD settings induced frame drops to 83 which increased jittering.









Virtual desktop Steam VR runtime results (CLOSE Second)

Almost Identical results to the Oculus runtime, ever so slightly more frame drops (2-3%) but a little less Jitters.



All in all, this was the most painful experience and EA defiantly needs to fix the jittering and optimization of VR as a whole. Specifically, the random crashes using the link cable :/, once this happens it's going to be a great experience



@Grocs_Blech id love you to try the SteamVR runtime vs oculus runtime on VD and let me know what you think

I put this here too, i hope it will help

Hello everyone, i have a pc with a 11900k and with a 3090ti. Ram 4400 cl 16
I'v putted all max settings, exept few things on high, 120 fps all the time, with minimum upper than 100, taa + fidelity mode (i think it's the best by far)
The card is at 85% with peaks of 95%
Resolution is not so high, (i have very high res in oculus app, but i lowered it on steam settings, only to little more higher than oculus screen res, like 2000 x 2000 x eye +- (i don't remember exact value).
THE KEY TO GET VERY HIGH FRAMRATE is to put the fov to 85% (it work only if you put it in steam settings, it won't work in oculus debug tool)
Without the fov to 85%, i have to lower the game settings a lot, or i got 70 fps and when i move the head i got not few stutters, even with the 3090ti.

You can decrease the fov even lower with slower cards, i start to notice it only from 80-75% or less, but i think it's subjective.

The game is absolutely insane in VR, the graphics it's a lot lot better than acc, probably the best graphic i have seen in vr togheter with flight simulator, and the immersion is incredible, i can't wait to try next headsets with future graphics cards.
But after some time you notice how much arcade is it... (yeah it's better than the past... but still too much symcade for me)
Still, the immersion is so good i will play it for sure with friends, i just hope they fix the fact that you can play without first second and third gear lol

And the fact that you can't put the screen in full screen while you are in vr... it sucks for the risk of the burn in on the tv, plz fix :\

@vrtowel @Grocs_Blech 

Keeping in mind I use a RTX 3070 and an 11th Gen i5 Intel 3.9 Ghz CPU here are some thoughts on 90hz non SSW.

Firstly, I have to set Virtual Desktop to Low.

Then I set the Medium VR preset in game.

This gives me a good 90 fps per eye around the track, but obviously setting to Low means the quality is not amazing.

Btw I have Stencil Mesh On (this will give you more fps) and Bloom / God rays off

If you are prepared to have the odd stutter here and there you can set VD to Medium and it runs pretty well at that too. It seems to be more my CPU limiting things here, than GPU.

The other option for a really smooth experience on Medium Streaming level in Virtual Desktop with High VR settings preset (turning off Ambient Occlusion and keeping it at TAA for AA) is to set it to 80hz. This works really well. For my rig getting to 90hz means too many sacrifices in the current state.