Valve Launches Official Steam Link PC VR Streaming App On Quest

An anonymous reader quotes a report from UploadVR: Valve just launched a free official Steam Link app on Meta Quest. The app, which is on the official Quest Store and approved by Meta, lets you wirelessly play SteamVR games like Half-Life: Alyx on your Quest 2, Quest Pro, or Quest 3 by streaming from your gaming PC over your home Wi-Fi network. You can also play your traditional non-VR Steam games on a giant virtual screen.

Suprised

[JackieBrown]

I'm pleastantly suprised Meta allowed this on their store.

Now there is no real reason to purchase the meta version of games (other than they may be better optimized for controllers but since this is now an offical app, hopefully devs start supporting meta on steam)

Re:

[Drago3711]

Meta has actually been supportive of wireless SteamVR for a long time. You can do it from their native application via airlink [meta.com] (available since ~2021) and via Virtual Desktop [meta.com] (an application on their store since 2019).

I'm excited to give it a try, but honestly the existing solutions are so good that it will be tough to beat them.

Re: Suprised

[ZERO1ZERO]

Using a quest2 . I have virtual desktop always seems like a weird shim in that games would often just play in 2d on my headset getting it to do actual 3d seems difficult . I could never get airlink to work i have a decent unifi network. I ultimately eneded up with a cable that seems to work just like the old oculus headset did so thats fine. What does this new meta thingy do for me does it mean iâ(TM)ll finally have wifi vr?

Re:

[thegarbz]

You've setup something wrong. Virtual Desktop is no more of a "shim" than Airlink is. They both do literally exactly the same thing, except that Virtual Desktop has (in my opinion) far better visual quality. Once setup correctly it's no more complicated than firing up VD in the headset, and clicking play on your favourite steam VR game.

Re: Suprised

[ZERO1ZERO]

Virtual desktop just acts like a view of my pc desktop . Its like theatre mode. I have a literal virtual desktop thats about 100â . Then inload a game its just like playing on a monitor in my headset . Maybe ill look at it but i couldnâ(TM)t see what the fuss was about. Its like quest has its OS, then v desktop acts as a view of my PC OS that would load steam VR inside the pc OS inside my quest os. If it isnâ(TM)t conflicting with oculus software that i need to register/dereguster faceb

Re:

[davecotter]

> Now there is no real reason to purchase the meta version of games

well, except for the part about "you don't need a separate computer", which is a pretty compelling reason. When I travel, i just want to pop on my headset, i don't want to have to bring a windows laptop with me. And honestly in general, I'd just rather not have to boot 2 devices to play a game. If it's available on either standalone or Steam, personally i'll always be getting the standalone version.

Re:

[Brain-Fu]

No Linux support. :)

Yes, I and everybody knows that Windows is the defacto standard for video games. Valve has bent way over backwards to support gaming on Linux, so it seems like Linux support for an app like this would be right up their alley.

Maybe it will come in the near future.

Re:

[Brain-Fu]

That :) was supposed to be a :(

Re:

[JackieBrown]

That's wierd. You'd think they'd make it work with SteamOS/Steamdeck

Re:

[Brain-Fu]

Steamdeck isn't powerful enough to run VR games.

Re:

[damnbunni]

Steam Deck has an AMD GPU and this requires an nVidia GPU.

Re:

[thegarbz]

I'm pleastantly suprised Meta allowed this on their store.

I'm not. Meta supported this natively already via OculusLink, the Oculus software on PC, and their open Oculus API. Most of my VR games are on Steam but I've only ever owned Oculus HMDs. The only lock-in they have is that games from the Oculus store aren't playable on other headsets, and ReVive took care of that.

And even if they didn't Virtual Desktop (arguably the best PCVR > HMD integration program) has been a separate product as well.

hopefully devs start supporting meta on steam

They always have. To be clear this isn't about supporting Meta, this

Re:

[LostMyBeaver]

There never was. Meta is confused by where their device fits.

It's a mobile device, not a game console. Games should be priced like they are on phones, not Playstation.

I bought BeatSaber and some vr video stuff. The rest was just too expensive. And I'm switching to Apple Vision Pro anyway

Latency?

[Intellectual Elitist]

How will this not be nausea-inducing if the wi-fi connection alone adds a 20-30ms delay, plus whatever additional delay from protocol, encoding/decoding, etc.?

Re:

[davecotter]

I've tried it and not noticed the latency. Feels just about as fluid as standalone games.

Re:

[illaqueate]

it's in 35-55ms range under an ideal scenario which is acceptable enough for many. Wired VR can be under 20ms with good performance. I definitely wouldn't use Steam Link or Virtual Desktop on twitch games if I had a choice but it's the only choice if you only have a Quest. There's a lot of hyperbole on Reddit saying it's near displayport quality but I think most of those those people don't know any better (some people don't notice they are in reprojection, or the difference between 80 and 120hz refresh).

Ima

Re:

[DCstewieG]

I agree, it is amazing. My kids got a Quest 2 last year so of course I tried it out with my PC and its aging 1060 GTX. I figured I’d play some simpler games but no, I’ve played Half-Life Alyx with absolutely no issues over the wireless AirLink. My PC is connected with ethernet and I have 5GHz wi-fi but still, it’s crazy. Pistol Whip, Beat Saber, all great.

There might be some prediction and image warping based on movement (headset adjusting the view before the game reacts) but whatever it i

Re:

[epiphani]

What universe do you live in where your wifi has 20-30ms of latency? I get grumpy when my wifi can't consistently stay under 2ms.

Re:

[sinkskinkshrieks]

Against an HP laser printer in non-direct wireless mode: round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.309/5.290/21.747/4.378 ms For shitty clients on shitty consumer wireless APs in a highly-congested urban environment, I would expect greater packet loss and latency variance.

Re:

[sinkskinkshrieks]

^ Ubiquiti U6-Enterprise (6e-capable) APs, TL-SG3428XMP switch, and dense urban WiFi environment

Re: Latency?

[DJGrahamJ]

The universe where video encoding and decoding takes time.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Simple: WiFi doesn't add that kind of latency, at least not when it's working correctly. My total latency when gaming is in the order of 20-30ms, and that's accessing some server out in the internet. WiFi latency is 1ms. It's far lower than the ~5ms latency that is added by NVENC which is used to transmit the data to the headset, and even then I have zero nausea when playing.

And I'm not some hard stomached alpha-male. I get seasick just watching people on boats. It took me a week or two to get over VR sickn

Hurray, sort of

[sinkskinkshrieks]

I have a Quest Pro I got as a "perk" that I barely use. Previously, it required a Windows-installed Steam app named SteamVR and the shitty Quest software for Windows. The whole setup was fragile and required frequent re-pairing, so maybe it will finally work. Also, non-VR games are always playable on 2D virtual desktops. TBH, VR is a scifi mythological vaporware technology trope like flying cars that has been recurring every few years since 1980. If this category hasn't established itself by now, then it pr

Re:

[thegarbz]

You will still need SteamVR. It's the API used by games on Steam to access and interpret VR hardware. I believe (I don't have the ability to try until next week) that all this will allow you to do is skip the Oculus software.

Not sure why yours was fragile, or what you are talking about with "repairing". Airlink on the Pro is the same as on the 3 and 2 and has worked pretty flawlessly for years, (Quest Pro specific bugs?).

VR is a scifi mythological vaporware technology

You have a headset. There are over 9000 VR games available on Steam right now (admitted