With Oculus Link, you will be able to play Rift and other PC VR games if you own the
Oculus Quest and a VR ready gaming PC.
This is very exciting, and having tried it ourselves during OC6; we know it can be good.
Oculus has said that the Oculus Link beta will release this month.
So hi everyone!
My name is Cas.
And here’s a video about what you can expect, along with some latest news and what you can
do to prepare for the Oculus Link.
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For those that don’t know what I’m talking about.
Let’s quickly talk about what Oculus Link is.
Oculus Link is a software update for the Oculus Quest.
The Oculus Quest is a standalone device that normally does not need a PC for VR gaming.
Once Oculus Link is out, you can connect the Quest to a gaming PC by using a high-quality
USB 3 cable.
Then using Oculus Link software, you can play PC VR games.
Like Oculus Rift exclusives: Asgard’s Wrath or Stormland.
It is also quite possible that you can play games on SteamVR.
So yes, with Oculus Link, you’ll need a gaming PC that can run VR games, and your
Quest will be on a cable.
But next to the standard Quest library, you will now have access to a much bigger games
and apps library.
And you can enjoy more graphics and processor-intensive games.
This software update essentially turns your Quest into a Rift.
A 2-in-1 VR headset.
However, it is possible that not every PC VR game will be playable with the Oculus Link,
and not every USB 3 cable will be compatible.
There are a few important things to know, which we will explain in just a bit.
The Oculus Link update is free, and the beta will come somewhere this month.
And later, Oculus will release its own optical fiber cable at an expected price of 79 US
dollars.
With this cable, you are sure that it is compatible, but you can get an alternative too.
We tried out Oculus Link and Oculus’ cable ourselves during OC6, an Oculus developer's
conference.
And it has made us very excited about it.
Here is what you can expect.
John Carmack, the CTO of Oculus, explained in his keynote during OC6 that you can expect
that the quality with the Oculus Link will be slightly worse than playing a game with
the Oculus Rift S. This is because the video will be compressed down to 150 megabits per
second to send it over the USB cable, and it will be resampled one more time due to
Time Warp.
As for tracking, moving around with your head will be just as good as on the Rift, but there
could be a little bit more latency when you move your controllers.
When we tried the Oculus Link software with the Oculus’ cable ourselves, we checked
for quality and latency.
We noticed that the latency or compression is indeed ‘a little bit’ so it does not
matter much.
Let me explain what the setup was like first.
The cable was a USB-C to USC-C cable, connected to the motherboard.
It was a 16-ft, and for the Europeans under us, 5 meters long cable.
The port that goes into the Oculus Quest has a 90 degrees cable connector, so it doesn’t
stick out sideways.
There’s also a clip that affixes the cable to the strap so that the weight of the cable
isn’t directly on the connector.
This will help prevent the cable from popping out if you accidentally pull on it.
And with this setup, I played Asgard’s Wrath for about 7 minutes, and it was great.
I tried moving my controllers fast in front of the headset to see if there was a noticeable
latency, but it wasn’t noticeable to me.
Maybe when I have more time to test it and compare it with the Rift S side-by-side, I
would, but if there was any latency, it did not matter to me.
The video quality looked very good.
It was like playing on the Rift.
The only thing I noticed here was a slight video compression when I was in the Oculus
Home app.
I did not notice this much while playing Asgard’s Wrath, maybe because I was distracted by the
game.
Of course, 7 minutes is not a lot of time for us to fully test the software, so we will
give our final say on this later once we can try it out more.
But so far so good, this is an exciting update, and it will feel like the Quest got upgraded.
And while you are watching this video, please leave a like if you found this video interesting
so far!
So when the Oculus Link comes out, what do you need, and what can you do to prepare?
Here are my suggestions.
First things first, the software itself is free, so you don’t need to do anything there
once it’s out.
Your Quest will probably automatically update, or you can manually update too.
Next, you will need a VR-ready gaming PC with a USB 3 port to run the games on.
These USB ports can be on the motherboard, but you can probably use the virtual link
port on your graphics card too if you have it.
Then you will need an Oculus Link compatible cable.
A cable that can charge and send data fast to your Quest at the same time would be optimal,
but you can probably also get a cheaper cable that’s only able to send data.
I recommend the former, though.
You can get the official Oculus fiber optic cable for an expected price of 79 US dollars
according to PCMag, which can charge and send data at the same time, plus it is about 16
feet or 5 meters long, which is good enough for our 2 by 2-meter play space.
This might sound like a lot of money for a cable, but while researching cables, we noticed
that long full speed cables that can charge too, like theirs, are hard to come by.
The practical maximum length is 3 meters of a standard USB 3 cables.
If you want longer cables, you will need fiber optics or active extensions.
An active extension could degrade the image a bit more due to the added plug, I don’t
think it will be a big difference, but it’s something to be aware of.
And fiber optics make the cable more expensive, so 79 US dollars for a 16 feet fiber optics
cable is, in our opinion, expensive but not overpriced.
So if you want to be sure you have a good working cable, I would recommend waiting for
the official Oculus cable.
However, the official Oculus cable will probably release after the Oculus Link update.
So if you want to get started with the Oculus Link straight away, you will have to buy a
temporary cable.
Since the software is not out yet, we can’t test and recommend cables just yet.
But we have bought a 3-meter USB-A to USB-C cable, and we will try an active extension
cable too on it to see if it works.
If it does, it could be a cheaper alternative.
Once the software is out, we will report back and recommend some cables.
So stay tuned for that.
For now, I recommend holding off buying a cable until its out.
But for those excited about the tech, there is some news on it.
With the latest Public Test Channel update, the beta program of Oculus.
Some lines of code were added for the Oculus Link beta, as reported by UploadVR.
An interesting find was a message that said: “This app is not compatible with Oculus
Link (beta).”
This means that it could be possible for developers to opt-out of Link support.
Whether developers will use this feature is not sure, but I personally hope not.
RoadToVR has reported that Oculus is making its Link cable specs available to third parties
too.
So if a third party wants to build their own cable and sell it, they can.
It would be great to have alternatives, but these third-party cables will probably take
a while to release too.
On Reddit, a couple of days ago, people reported that a free Rift Home app appeared on the
Oculus Quest Store.
The release date was set on November 11th.
This Rift Home app has now been taken offline, but could this mean that the Oculus Link will
release very, very soon?
There are only a few days left to know…
So, question of the day.
Are you going to prepare for the Oculus Link by buying a cable beforehand?
If so, which one are you trying out?
Drop them below so we can all get some tips.
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Shout out to artArmin and his Patreon page.
Another shout out goes to BaxornVR and his VR YouTube channel!
Everyone, see you all in the next video.
As always VR on!
[Bloopers]