If you want to play PC VR games such as Asgard's Wrath or Boneworks on your Quest 2,
without needing cables, then Meta's Oculus Air Link is the easiest and cheapest way to
go wireless. So here I'm going to take you through the super easy steps to get
the Meta and SteamVR platform set up on your PC so that you'll be playing your first PC VR game
on your Quest 2 headset, without any cables, in no time at all.
Welcome to my Tech Gear.
Let's get into it!
Setting up Air Link on your PC and Quest 2 headset is super easy and just involves three main steps.
Get a VR capable PC.
Get a wireless router.
And install some software.
That's it!
So, first up is the PC.
Now, when running PC VR games, the games are running on the PC rather than on the headset.
So you're going to need a PC capable of running VR games. Now both Steam and Meta have released
what they regard as the minimum spec for this. Without diving into it in too much detail…
You will need a PC with at least an Intel i5 or a Ryzen 5 CPU. 8GB of RAM, although I
would recommend 16GB. And at least an x60 Nvidia graphics card. Be that a 1060, a 2060, or a 3060,
or it's AMD equivalent. You can run PC VR games on lower specs but you will hit hardware limitations
pretty quickly, and some AAA titles like Half-Life: Alyx just won't be playable.
For reference, in my PC, I've got a Ryzen 5600X CPU paired up with 32GB of RAM and a
Nvidia 3060 Ti graphics card, which generally performs pretty well. I do get some low memory
graphic warnings in games like Half-Life: Alyx as it only has 8GB of VRAM. However,
despite those warnings, I've never had any actual issues in the games.
So as long as your PC meets those minimum specs then you're good to go on to the next step.
Next up is the router. Well, that's a router if you live in some other countries!
Anyway, as you will be connecting wirelessly from your headset to your PC you will need a
good quality router to give you the most stable connection and ensure you don't get jittery or
out of sync video or dropped frames. So to achieve that you will need a good 5GHz wireless router,
preferably a wifi 6 one. These are either branded as wifi 6 or AX routers.
If it's branded AC then it's a wifi 5 router. It can work with AC routers as long as you
still use the 5GHz band. So if you've already got one of those then give it a go. If you're
looking at buying one though then getting an AX wifi 6 router is by far the better option.
Something like the tp-link Archer series of routers would be a good choice here.
Good connectivity and not too expensive. I'll
place some links to them in the description down below for you.
When setting the router up your PC should be connected to it via an ethernet cable
rather than over wi-fi, and preferably nothing else operating on the wi-fi network either.
Now if you have lots of people in your house using your wi-fi at the
same time then it's a good idea to get a dedicated router just for your VR setup.
However I actually just have everything running over a single wi-fi network and it's fine.
I do however make sure that the rest of the family
aren't all streaming Netflix at the same time whilst I'm playing.
Now Meta do caution against using wi-fi mesh networks for this, but I have a mesh network,
I bought the tp-link Deco X60, and it's been fine. I did have an issue originally where
the signal kept dropping frames, but if I went into the mesh network settings and I locked the
headset to a single node in my network rather than allowing it to roam, that fixed the issue for me.
Hopefully that's a nice little handy tip for anyone else who might be in the same position.
With the PC and the router covered it's now time to install some software.
To play Meta and Steam PC VR games on your Quest 2 headset
you just need to install three pieces of software.
You need to install the official Meta Oculus PC app, and the Steam app so that you can install
SteamVR, and that's it! Fortunately, installing all of those is dead easy.
First we need to install the Oculus app onto your PC. So go to the Quest setup page,
and under the Quest 2 ‘Airlink / Link cable’ section click the ‘download software’ button.
This will download the installer to your browser's default download location.
For most people, once it's downloaded, it will appear at the bottom of your browser window.
Simply left click on the file to run it and follow the simple instructions to install the app.
Now the first time you run it it will take you through a first time setup process where you will
need to log in with your Meta / Oculus account, or create one if you don't have one already.
Next, in order to install SteamVR on your PC you do need to install the main Steam app
first. To install it go to the Steam home page in your browser and click the ‘Install Steam’
button at the top of the page. Then click on ‘Install Steam’ on the following page
as well. This will download a steamsetup.exe file to your default download location. Again,
for most browsers it will pop up as a downloaded file at the bottom of your browser screen.
Click on that file and follow the simple instructions to install it. If you don't
already have a Steam account then you will need to set one up as you install the app.
Now if you're not sure whether your PC is VR ready there is a great app in the Steam store called
‘SteamVR Performance Test’ which will test your PC for you. If you want to run it, in the Steam app,
go to the store and in the search box type in ‘SteamVR’. In the search results that pop up
click on the ‘SteamVR Performance Test’ app. Then under the ‘use SteamVR performance test’ section
click the green ‘free’ box to install it. Once it has finished installing then click on the
‘launch’ button on that page to run it. This will run a sequence of tests on the PC to test your
PC's hardware. Once finished it will show you a summary screen showing you how good your PC
is. If it's all green then you're good to go. If anything pops up as red or yellow
then it's probably a good idea to look at upgrading your PC before you go any further.
Now I'll install the SteamVR app from Steam. In the Steam app, go to the store, and in the
search box type in ‘SteamVR’. Now click on the ‘SteamVR’ app in the search results pop-up list.
Then on the following SteamVR page click on the ‘play now’ or ‘install’ button to install it.
Also, and this is important, make sure you tick the ‘create desktop shortcut’ box as you're going
to need that to launch SteamVR from your headset in a bit. Then click on next to install it.
Once that's finished then SteamVR is all set up.
So now with the software all sorted you now need to go and get your first PC VR game.
You've actually got two options here. You can actually go into the Rift store which
is in the Oculus app you installed first, or you can go into the store in the Steam
app as well and browse games under the ‘VR titles’ category in there.
The ‘top sellers’ section in both apps is a great place to start as it lists
all the most popular games on each platform. There's plenty to choose from such as ‘Lone
Echo’ on the Meta Oculus platform and ‘Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ on the Steam platform.
My personal favorite has to be Half-Life: Alyx. It really
is a great game and sets the bar of the best of what you can get out of a PC VR game.
Once you've got your games it's time to play!
With everything set up, and your games bought,
playing your first game is a few simple steps away.
First ensure that both the PC and the Quest headset are on.
Now run the Oculus app on your PC.
Put on the headset, and in the headset settings, in the experimental tab, enable ‘Air Link’. Once
you do that then click on Oculus Air Link in your settings menu. Select your PC and click on ‘Pair’.
This will take you through a pairing process, similar to how you pair some bluetooth devices,
where you will need to confirm a code on both the PC and the headset. So,
confirm the codes are the same on both the PC and the headset. Then click launch on the headset.
The next time you connect your headset you won't need to go through that pairing process again
you would just be able to hit launch straight away.
Now if you find that the ‘Pair’ or the ‘Launch’ button is greyed out do make sure that your PC is
selected first. Once your PC is selected then that will enable the ‘Launch’ and the ‘Pair’ buttons.
You will now be redirected to the Oculus Rift PC VR home screen. From there you can play any
PC VR games from the Oculus store, such as Asgard's Wrath, that you might have bought.
You can quit this screen and go back to your normal Quest home screen at
any time by clicking on the Oculus Air Link menu option and selecting ‘Quit’.
Now assuming you want to keep going and play SteamVR games though…
From the Rift home screen, select ‘desktop’ icon from the menu bar at the bottom right.
This will show you your PC screen. You should then find SteamVR as a desktop shortcut on your
desktop screen which was created when SteamVR was installed. While pointing
at the SteamVR icon with your controller, hold down the trigger button for a second and then
release the trigger. In the pop-up menu that is displayed select ‘open’. It will now run SteamVR!
You may get a message pop up in your Quest headset you can't run apps from
‘unknown sources’. This is because Meta regards the SteamVR app as an
‘unknown source’. Fortunately it's really easy to fix.
In the Oculus app on your PC,
go into your ‘settings’ and go to the ‘general’ tab. There's an ‘unknown sources’ toggle.
Just make sure you enable that. You will now be able to run SteamVR without any issues!
Once SteamVR loads, which can take a while,
you will be in a different home screen which is the Steam home screen and will display any games
that you have purchased on the Steam store. Just select the one you want to play and away you go.
Now that you have run SteamVR once it will now appear in your apps drawer
so it will be easier to launch going forward as you won't have to use the
desktop link again as you can go direct to SteamVR from the Rift home screen.
If you don't see SteamVR in your app drawer
do make sure that ‘unknown sources’ is enabled in the filter in the top right hand side.
You should now be all set up to play PC VR games using your
Quest headset on either the Meta or Steam platforms, without any cables.
I have placed links to all videos, software,
reviews etc mentioned in this video in the description down below for you.
Do let me know in the comments down below how you got on. What's the first game you tried,
and do you think it was worth it?
If you're having issues using Air Link but still want to play wirelessly then be sure
to check out my guide on setting up and using virtual desktop in the link up here.
It's a more mature platform that has more configuration options than Air Link
and is more tolerable of less than ideal network setups. I'll place a
link to it in the description down below for you as well.
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And as always…
I'll see you in the next one!