Has anyone tried AirLink? Does it mean we no longer need to go through SteamVR?

VR andysonofbob

VR andysonofbob
Hope so, as oculus runtime seems to perform better on my rig compared to Steam VR, both wired and wireless

I still play ED wired because up to now, you had to go through Steam VR for wireless ED.
 

Arioch

Arioch
[VR] andysonofbob said:
Hope so, as oculus runtime seems to perform better on my rig compared to Steam VR, both wired and wireless

I still play ED wired because up to now, you had to go through Steam VR for wireless ED.
Click to expand...
I believe AirLink was activated yesterday (it was originally due to go live next week) but you need both headset and desktop updated to v28 software - my Q2 is currently v27 and doesn’t report an update as available. From past experience, the updates are rolled out over a few days according to some arcane methodology, so I’m hoping to try wireless ED in the next few days 🤞
 

Mikuda

M
New here! Bought Q2 specifically for ED. Played for about 2 weeks on cable. Switched to Airlink yesterday and it's awesome. Even smoother than on USB to my surprise. As for usage it still works exactly like Oculus Link. Just without cable.
 

Arioch

Arioch
v28 became available for my Quest today, so I’ve had my first taster of AirLink - initial impressions: not bad!

With ED, I had three minor stutters as I did a test flight around an Orbis, but the graphics seemed to stay as clear as they normally are. I also had a quick go on Vader Immortal’s lightsaber dojo and experienced a few more stutters, and the graphics took a downturn on a few occasions - the “variable bitrate” setting was at 100Mbps.

Whether it’s my router or the early nature of the software, I don’t know. I’ll have a deeper fiddle with the settings, but I’ll not be retiring my Link cable just yet 😁
 

Arioch

Arioch
I’ve had another go with AirLink - things have massively improved for some reason. Whether Windows had some background task going on last time or maybe it just needed the shutdown and restart, whatever the reason - I had no issues today 😁

Had a run around in Odyssey using the camera suite, then tried Vader Immortal and some Beat Sabre - no stutters and flawless tracking, and I didn’t see any graphics compression artefacts. Thumbs up from me 👍
 

jacklul

jacklul
Just FYI you can use Steam version of the game + Oculus without SteamVR by adding Elite Dangerous (EDLaunch.exe) into Oculus library then going to C:\Program Files\Oculus\CoreData\Manifests, finding manifest file for the EDLaunch shortcut you just created and inside it you set "launchParameters":"/VR /Steam" then restart Oculus software from the Settings->Beta.
Since I did this it never launched SteamVR for me but uses Steam login in the launcher. You have to launch it from Oculus Dash, do not launch SteamVR.

Oculus library by default imports EDLaunch without those parameters which seems like once Steam detects launch being initiated from Oculus it launches SteamVR...
Oculus players should avoid using SteamVR as much as possible - a lot of Steam games actually have special launch options or parameters that force Oculus SDK.
 

Arioch

Arioch
I had an issue getting AirLink working with SteamVR when trying to play SkyrimVR - SteamVR wasn’t detecting the headset.

The solution is to start SteamVR while using the physical Link cable then start up AirLink in the Quest 2, then unplug the cable. I don’t have the Steam version of ED so I don’t know if this is an issue, but there’s a workaround if it is 👍
 

Kemo

Kemo
I'm really impressed with Airlink as well - been playing Moss and HL:Alyx on it and it's almost flawless. My previous attempts with Virtual Desktop were a bit flaky, but with the exception of some very minor blips (almost unnoticeable frame drops) it's been comparable to my Rift S connected to the same PC.

I suspect the setup is key here. I have a Virgin Hub3, a TP Link AX1500 router acting as a 5GHz access point which is on a wired connection to the Hub3. My PC is also wired connection. The TP Link Router is only a metre or two from my play space, so it's all about as good and as close as it could get. Oh, and the family don't connect to this 5GHz connection.
 

SushiCW

SushiCW
I haven't had a chance to try air link yet but I'm looking forward to it, I was very happy with virtual desktop (well, except for ED where it performed a lot worse than wired, but I don't need wireless for playing Elite).
 

MadKingLudwig

MadKingLudwig
Played on AirLink for the first time (IE first time in ED in VR) last night and it was good - all wirelessly over the 5Ghz channel, both laptop and Q2. As laptop is not cabled to the network, I'm going to test with cable tonight to compare.
 

MadKingLudwig

MadKingLudwig
jacklul said:
Just FYI you can use Steam version of the game + Oculus without SteamVR by adding Elite Dangerous (EDLaunch.exe) into Oculus library then going to C:\Program Files\Oculus\CoreData\Manifests, finding manifest file for the EDLaunch shortcut you just created and inside it you set "launchParameters":"/VR /Steam" then restart Oculus software from the Settings->Beta.
Since I did this it never launched SteamVR for me but uses Steam login in the launcher. You have to launch it from Oculus Dash, do not launch SteamVR.

Oculus library by default imports EDLaunch without those parameters which seems like once Steam detects launch being initiated from Oculus it launches SteamVR...
Oculus players should avoid using SteamVR as much as possible - a lot of Steam games actually have special launch options or parameters that force Oculus SDK.
Click to expand...
Cool - will try this tonight. I did notice that ED had been added to my library when I opened this up just now.
 
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