Steam Link vs Virtual Desktop! Which is the BEST PCVR Streaming Method?

Steam Link has been official announced for Quest Platform! How does it compare to our long time goat Virtual Desktop. Steam Link vs Virtual Desktop aka Premium vs Free PCVR streaming experience! What's better? In this video, I'll be going over both and comparing use cases for both and general performance testing.

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VR Headsets:
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- Oculus Quest 1
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- Oculus Quest 3
- Oculus Quest Pro

MartydudeVR PC Specs:
My PC setup is as follows:

PC - Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC 24G, 32GB DDR4 RAM, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Cores 4.5GHz, Windows 11_Home
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#quest #steam #pcvr

[andrewmachleid]

I love how this removes the friction with PC VR, that was the big thing. PC VR cable/air link, step 1: turn on computer, step 2: turn on quest, step 3: link the quest, launch rift, step 4: run Steam VR. Steam link removes a step and a half (literally) for free. That’s the big problem people have with VR especially PC VR friction, as usual I have nothing but praise for Valve as a compony, keep up the great work.

[dathyr]

Thanks for all the information on both of these programs. I just got my Quest 3 and to start out with, I am using a link cable and testing my SIM racing games. So far, it has been very good. Maybe later on I will try Steam Link and Virtual Desktop. Still learning the Quest 3.
Need to watch your other videos on Steam Link and Virtual Desktop.
Thanks for the video and take care.

[PaulieK]

I hear ya dude. Ive been switching back and forth between the two and they are both great. I actually use Virtual Desktop for just light web browsing and watching YouTube videos and that's another great use case with all the cool environments.

[ltsmithneko]

From someone with 700-ish hours with VD and tried Steam link yesterday.

Played Payday 2 VR on Steam link the number 1 issue I noticed was just how blurry it gets with fast movement/trying to keep up with data. Along with the occasional stutter, but I'll give it ease of access to users.^^

As for VD it looks so clean with no studder or blurry situations, n' gives you plenty of options to adjust it to your pc specs. c:

For me I'll stick with VD n' suggest SL for new pcvr players to test how they're internet/rig will do

[omgitsbats]

The colors are washed out because it's encoding with limited black levels to assist with compression. It'll get updated. It's just a small change to the encoder configuration. Right now it's prioritizing latency.

[alexstevens]

Just got my pc that's capable to run pcvr last night absolutely 💯 love it I use qwest 3 with a laptop rtx4060 steam vr 👌 working to 😊

[xeomak]

Just discovered your channel. Really helpful video. I'm getting a Quest 3 for

[metsatll]

in virtualdesktop you can change to h264+ codec and 500mbit bitrate. you don't even need a wifi 6e router for it, an older 5ghz router can run it, if it is any good.

[Roze_aye]

So far i have tried air link, virtual desktop, and steam link on my quest 3, and unfortunately. none of them really work good for me.


Tried using all of them to play beat saber since thats the only vr game I have on my pc at the moment. For both air and steam link, they gave me the issue where clarity wasnt the best. as well as the most annoying issue, where it looked like someone was moving the screen close and away from EXTREMELY fast. making it borderline nauseating. And it would only happen when the game was running, sitting in the steam vr room ran perfectly fine. They also had the issue of when the game was running the whole thing lagged and the actual movements of the controllers was incredibly delayed

The Virtual Desktop didnt have the issues with the shaking, which was a good sign at the start. but it did still suffer from the delay in the controller movements, and so far nothing I mess around with really fixes it

[GodsAutobiography]

is there a difference between steam link and air link? You kept saying steam link but the video always showed air link

[gopherchucksgamingnstuff]

I love its ability to make a Non-VR game still have 3D I play RIDE 5 with it and it's like looking through a giant Window into the game world.

[shadowworlds]

If you can not log on using steam link its because openxr needs to be turned on in steam. You may have it set to oculus and this will not work. Good vid . Virtual desktop was around in the oculus DK2 days. I was using it when it was in beta. Still a very good program.

[ofiterpunte]

Virtual Desktop also has passthrough out of the box. Pick a color and it becomes transparent.

[shmityanderson]

VERY GOOD VIDEO KEEP GOING YOU CAN BE ON THE TOP ONE DAY

[MisterC]

Good video! I like the comparison, small comment on the video production.
When comparing 2 things side by side, find something to compare directly. If you show a picture or video of gameplay in VRD, try and get the exact same place in Steam Link, especially when talking about something as subjective as color.

I really the liked the fighter game, but you had 2 totally different scenarios between the 2 services, which hurts how well I can compare them greatly.

[tekgeekster]

Steam link is so good, it's the only app I have pinned to my home screen.

[sensha]

Thing to know: For those who have a non-VR-ready GPU, for example Intel Arc GPUs, Virtual Desktop allows you to play without the Oculus software which does not recognize the headset because of the GPU. Virtual Desktop allows you to open SteamVR without a compatible GPU (I have an Oculus Quest 2 and an Intel A770 GPU and I have to use Virtual Desktop to be able to play in PCVR)

[benitezkebab]

Tried it out yesterday and for steaming virtual desktop still gave me better results. Also if you use the quest 2 mic for streaming like I do, the volume levels on stream link was terrible .

[XxNewmilleniumxX]

I may be new to this but I just brought a quest 3 and vrd with the last of us cranked max at 1440p and it was surreal. I used steamlink and it was just to laggy. I thought maybe because my gpu couldn't handle it (I have a 6800xt and a 5600x btw). When I used vrd and everything was just incredible and ran flawlessly. You can honestly use this if your bedroom tv or living room tv is occupied by your spouse or a family member. Do not walk, run to buy vrd, it might be the best 20$ I have spent for the quest this far. Your VR exclusive games that you play via pc you can now honestly play them via vrd and might even get a higher resolution and texture output then natively buying and running them through sidequest or the metastore. Steamlink is in no comparison imo.

[joe-D]

Wait..why are you comparing VD to AIR link @3:55 ? Also whats your wxact setup in terms of wifi...are you wireless or ethernet cable connected from pc to router?