Tutorial: Half Life Alyx on Oculus Quest 2 - Air Link vs Virtual Desktop

Tutorial on how to play Half Life Alyx on Oculus Quest 2 using Virtual Desktop and Oculus Air Link. To play Half Life Alyx on Meta Quest 2, you now have a couple of easy options to choose from. We also test Virtual Desktop ($20) vs Air Link which is free, but we’ll compare the two and see which one works better.

Timeline:
0:00-0:34 - Intro
0:34-1:57 - Using Virtual Desktop
1:57-2:35 - Using Air Link
2:35-3:45 - Air Link vs Virtual Desktop
3:45-4:54 - Conclusion

Links:
Steam VR Performance Test:

[rks]

Virtual desktops developers? You mean developer, single person.... Even more reason to support him!

[harrysutton]

This is awesome and so helpful! I’ve got my Quest 2 arriving tomorrow and I’ve pre-installed everything in line with your video instructions. Can’t wait to give HL: Alyx a try!

[tomphosis]

My dad has always love the half life series and it’s his birthday today. He’s been waiting for a new half life game for years and I guess Alyx is basically a third game so I bought it for him and I can’t wait to see his reaction!

[iSpike]

I am a bit late to the table by comparison to others here. I received my Quest 2 for Xmas 2022 yep only a few days ago. It is through your videos I am learning all about Steam, And the other programs that are helping me to understand the full expansion of my very first VR system & experience. New Subscriber here and a big thumbs up 👍🏻. Cheers from Western Australia 🇦🇺🤝🏻

[kurt_cobainlover]

I've been wanting to figure out how to play PC vr games without having to do crazy big steps and this helped Alot

[dancumings]

Air Link didn't work for me. Virtual Desktop was a bit of a chore but it worked the first time I tried it. Zephyrus G15, AMD 5900 HS, 3080, 32 gb ram.

[tragic_]

Thank you, this was really helpful and helped me so much! VR is finally real to me because of this! :)

[ashes]

I use Virtual Desktop all the time with Virtual Desktop Streamer. Think I tried Air Link once but at the time it was still new and buggy.

[jebii]

Awesome! Thank YOU! I couldn't get it to work as I was missing the STEAM VR app. Followed your directions and it worked great! I do like the Virtual Desktop better than AirLink. It seemed more stable.

[janicecsw]

Can you also show how to download mods and thanks for helping!

[HayHayUSA]

Virtual desktop did not show up in the oculus store on the headset. What should I do? It downloaded on my PC fine.

[SOS_Studios]

virtual desktop has less bugs. with my airlink the whole left side of my screen is deformed and it freezes alot

[JonBear]

Alyx runs flawlessly with Virtual Desktop on 3070ti. Thank you! This was incredibly easy and made my Quest 2 infinitely more valuable.

[biskitvapes]

You forgot to mention that virtual desktop also has asynchronous spacewarp allowing to half the gpu load and play vr games on lower end systems like my ryzen 5 3500 with a plain old 1650 and 16gb ram I get 90fps locked on low settings never drops because its actually running at 45fps and virtual desktop is using a program to fill in every 2nd frame giving a massive 70% performance boost

[angrycomputer]

Why is it when I open up steam vr and go to half life alyx it keeps telling me there is a problem and a i cant buy it. It keeps telling me that it has errors gathering information from steam

[Zrdin]

@2:50 what is this service they are talking about where you can stream VR without a pc? I don't want to buy a new pc and I thought the new VR devices (like my Meta Quest 2) were going to be able to run Alyx and DOOM by themselves (Clearly I didn't read the fine print). So what is the service you are talking about? Are you talking about that google service? Is that still on?
And thank you for the helpful video.

[Ivanselectsongs]

Does internet connection matter much when running Air Link? That's why I'm even considering getting a link cable...

[ImaplanetJupiteeeerr]

This video was amazing. It had all the info I needed! Thank you! :)

[puffythedestroyer]

Although I’m currently struggling to find the right upgrade parts to make my gaming pc VR-Ready (a family member is helping me on that front),
Im glad as a Q2 owner to hear Alyx works.

Sorry Valve, I’m not gonna spend $999.99 just to play a $59.99 game

[qwixgamez]

why doesnt my 2080 ti work for steam vr? is says im at the bottom of not ready and i already bought virtual desktop