How to setup playing Elite with Quest 2 and airlink

TomT · May 12, 2021

Hi. Been away for awhile, but just got the Quest 2...

I'm used to playing ED via the desktop launcher, and Dr. Kai's ED Profiler with my CV1. Not sure what I need to do now to get ED running in vr on the quest. From what I've read, it seems to work pretty well, so I'd like to give it a try.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Also, again, having been away for awhile, I'm not completely clear on what will happen with vr and odyssey, from what I think I've seen, odyssey will run in vr, until you exit your ship. Is this correct? What happens then? Did anyone test vr in the alpha?

Again, thanks for your advice and assistance with this.

SushiCW · May 13, 2021

I think all you need to do is start airlink, then Elite is probably one of the games available from the oculus link launcher that pops up.

In Odyssey when you're on foot you have a 2d movie theater style projection.

DaggerSnake · May 13, 2021

Welcome to the Quest 2 club. Once connected, Airlink acts just like it's connected with a cable. I've played Elite, and No Mans Sky running on my PC in another room and didn't notice any performance issues. The Quest 2 is a pretty noticeable upgrade in resolution from CV1 to my eyes. Now if I could just stop playing Demeo, I could do some Elite....

TomT · May 13, 2021

Thanks for the feedback. Do you use the desktop launcher to run ED? I thought I read somewhere that's the way to get it to run with the Quest 2...

Chaz · May 14, 2021

I run it through the Frontier desktop launcher, but then I always do as I don't have it tied to either my Oculus or Steam account. Through Air Link, just connect to your PC and either use your mouse to start up the launcher and fire up Elite or use the Oculus desktop on the dash in home to do it with your controllers. For me personally I have to start the Frontier launcher first before the Oculus app starts up, otherwise the launcher won't work for some reason and just keeps throwing up an error code. But that's probably just an issue with my PC and not a general thing. I haven't given Air Link a good test yet vs Virtual Desktop, so I've no idea how it compares performance wise.

Kellan Fell · May 14, 2021

I've tried Air Link, and it seems fine, but I went back to link cables. If you use the link, I think it leverages your GPU (and I'm on a 3080), if you use air link I think it just uses the processing power in the headset... But I may well be wrong.

Widrow · May 14, 2021

Welcome to the Quest2 ED club! - It's fandabidozy

- I have tried air link and it worked fine except I was running through a 2.4ghz router and the graphics were a bit rough - need to switch on the 5ghz as recommended but other than that it seemed pretty straightforward to get it working through the normal steam launcher route.

Kellan Fell · May 14, 2021

The other odd thing with airlink is I lost the ingame sound (though I did still get sound from Voice Attack and EDDI)

Chaz · May 15, 2021

Kellan Fell said:
I've tried Air Link, and it seems fine, but I went back to link cables. If you use the link, I think it leverages your GPU (and I'm on a 3080), if you use air link I think it just uses the processing power in the headset... But I may well be wrong.

Not so. Link, both cable and Air uses your PC to run the games. Essentially the games are being cast to the screens of your Quest, except one method chucks the data across via a cable and the other via Wi-Fi. There is no way the Quest 2 could run Elite Dangerous from the headset. For starters you would actually need to install Elite onto the headset itself.

As for you not hearing your sound in game, make sure that "Headphones (Oculus Virtual Audio Device)" is selected as your primary sound driver down on your task bar.

Kellan Fell · May 16, 2021

Chaz said:
Not so. Link, both cable and Air uses your PC to run the games. Essentially the games are being cast to the screens of your Quest, except one method chucks the data across via a cable and the other via Wi-Fi. There is no way the Quest 2 could run Elite Dangerous from the headset. For starters you would actually need to install Elite onto the headset itself.

As for you not hearing your sound in game, make sure that "Headphones (Oculus Virtual Audio Device)" is selected as your primary sound driver down on your task bar.

Chaz, I have tied Airlink again, and I got it working just fine. It seems no different to being linked by cable...

Maltloaf · May 17, 2021

I've had really good results with Airlink. I can lock 72fps on even my lower spec gaming laptop. Using the cable and the same settings it would vary 45-72 and be noticably less smooth. Not sure what witchcraft they are using but I like it ! On my desktop machine a cable is more reliable.
What you will need is, Elite, a method of connection (cable, virtual desktop or airlink) and the oculus desktop software. For extended play at my dekstop machine I prefer a cable because the headset will retain it's charge. If you use wireless you will be limited to about 2.5 hours.
Fire up your headset, launch the oculus software and connect via whatever method you have.
My Elite is launched via Steam. I launch it, select launch in SteamVR and it never actually launches steamVR, it auto detects the Oculus driver that's loaded and uses that.

TomT · May 17, 2021

Thanks again to all for your feedback. I finally got my HTC Deluxe audio headstrap all setup, and will be giving Elite a try in the next day or so. I'm looking forward to the improved graphics of the Quest 2. From what I've seen so far (Beatsaber, some 4k youtube mv's and Lone echo), it's quite an improvement over my aged cv1.

My son also recommended attaching an Anker Powercore 13000 to extend playing time over airlink, long live the Frankenquest...

Thanks again, I love Elite in vr.

TomT · May 25, 2021

Got it going, works really well. I occasionally get a brief stutter/hiccup, which also sometimes happens in other apps running via airlink, but a reboot seems to solve it. Not sure what is causing it, but when it works, it's really nice.

Thanks

Flintlocke89 · May 25, 2021

Maltloaf said:
I've had really good results with Airlink. I can lock 72fps on even my lower spec gaming laptop. Using the cable and the same settings it would vary 45-72 and be noticably less smooth. Not sure what witchcraft they are using but I like it ! On my desktop machine a cable is more reliable.
What you will need is, Elite, a method of connection (cable, virtual desktop or airlink) and the oculus desktop software. For extended play at my dekstop machine I prefer a cable because the headset will retain it's charge. If you use wireless you will be limited to about 2.5 hours.
Fire up your headset, launch the oculus software and connect via whatever method you have.
My Elite is launched via Steam. I launch it, select launch in SteamVR and it never actually launches steamVR, it auto detects the Oculus driver that's loaded and uses that.

Coould you please tell me which settings you''re using? I'm having a hard time even getting 50 in VR with my 3080.