it sucks, that their games are a stuttering mess when using Air Link and that Virtual
Desktop provides a vastly superior experience.
My experience with Air Link has always been really good but I still wanted to give Virtual
Desktop a try and see why people love it so much.
Now having used both Air Link and Virtual Desktop I think Air Link is better and here's
why.
You can barely notice it in this game capture because of the difference in the frame rate
between what you see in the headset in person and the rate the Quest 2 captures at but I
experience very noticeable stuttering when moving around in a game using Virtual Desktop.
I threw the performance overlay up here so you can see the frame rate drop from time
to time and it's at those times that I'm experiencing that stuttering.
Running through the same area of the game trying to more or less repeat the same actions
using Air Link you can see I have a much more consistent frame rate according to the Oculus
Debug Tools Performance overlay.
And I can attest that my game experience with Air Link is nice and smooth.
No stuttering.
When playing Red Matter using Virtual Desktop, in addition to the stuttering the text on
the screen of the scanning tool gets all funky if I'm moving around at all.
Again it doesn't look too horrible in this capture but in the headset it does look worse.
I have to hold completely still and hold the scanning tool completely still for the text
to look normal.
Again, when using Air Link this does not happen.
The text on the scanner screen remains completely normal.
Now I'm sure some Virtual Desktop fanboys is going to say,
"You need to disable this setting, OR enable this other setting."
I've done all of that.
I've messed with All the settings in Virtual Desktop and no matter what I do I get stuttering
when playing games.
"What about your router?
Is it wireless A/C or A/X?
Is your PC connected with an Ethernet cable?
Are you connected to your WiFi' 5GHz band?
Is your WiFi Channel bandwidth set to 80MHz?"
Yah.
I'm using a wireless A/X router, my PC is connected using an Ethernet cable, my Quest
2 is connected to the 5GHz band and my channel bandwidth is set to 80MHz as is recommended
for both Air Link and Virtual Desktop.
My PC has a Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, an RTX 3080ti GPU and 64GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM.
If you know what all of that is, then you know that this PC has no problem running these
games at max settings.
I don't know why my games stutter when using Virtual Desktop and run fine when using Air
Link.
Many other people online seem to be having the exact opposite experience I'm having and
you might even be one of them.
By saying I think Air Link is better I'm not discounting what other people have experienced.
I've been into PC's and gaming long enough to know that there are weird things that happen.
That not all people experience the same things.
That equally spec'd pieces of hardware do not perform exactly the same.
I'm quite certain all the people complaining about Air Link are having a horrible experience
using it and Virtual Desktop is solving their problems.
This is simply not the case for me though.
If you're following all the recommended practices for Air Link and are still having issues;
by all means give Virtual Desktop a try.
Your experience may be very different than mine and it may fix the problems you're having.
And even if Air Link is working just fine for you, you may still want to give Virtual
Desktop a try because it has some really great features that quite frankly I really, really
like.
Virtual Desktop is super simple to use, which is always a good thing in my book.
Launching both Oculus and Steam VR games is almost effortless.
Changing settings can be done quickly and easily all while in VR.
The home environments included with Virtual Desktop are all really cool!
I especially like this modern apartment one.
In most VR home environments it's very obvious that things in the background like the view
out the window is nothing more than a flat image of scenery.
This one took me by surprise though.
It actually has a feeling of depth to it.
The moving traffic and the shimmer or twinkle of lights in the distance all help make this
one feel incredibly immersive.
And another one of my favorite features in Virtual Desktop is the Quest 2 menu is still
accessible when you press the Oculus button on the right controller.
This is something I've always wished Air Link was able to do.
If I had been able to fix the stuttering problem, this video would have gone quite differently
because I would totally be switching over to Virtual Desktop.
Everything else about it, I think is great.
And speaking of things that are great...
check out this video about one of the best VR games of 2022.
It's a cross buy title so you can play it directly on your Quest 2 OR play the extra
crispy PCVR version using Air Link or Virtual Desktop.