Quest 2 Air Link

The new air link feature has been released in the last day or so. Has anyone here tried it? It does seem to be better quality than virtual desktop, and for me at least more stable than the link cable. I’ve only had a quick go so didn’t run any tests but it may be the answer some people need if you’re having issues getting your Q2 to work properly.

The only downside I saw is that it doesn’t half drain the battery quickly.

Yep, I’ve had it for several days. Tried with MSFS and other VR apps. Works fine. Biggest advantage it has over VD is that it can use ASW, and for MSFS you can use the Oculus OpenXR runtime instead of the SteamVR one. Basically it works just like having the Link cable connected.

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I’ve logged about 5 hours in FS 2020 doing bush trips with Airlink. Beyond the normal stuttering I get with FS 2020 in VR, everything seems to be fine so far

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For me in combination with Steam VR it’s an absolute unplayable nightmare compared with Virtual Desktop! I used the same settings as before (with virtual desktop) so that I could do an 1-1 compare.

Pro’s:
The image quality from the outside seems a bit better, probably because of the higher bitrate. The instruments it self are less clear.

Negative’s:
Extreme stutters during playing. When i move my head the image is flickering and a lot of jitters.
Sometimes during the approach (like the landing challange Strong Winds - Innsbruck 747) the audio and the image are freezing for a couple of seconds (black screen in my Q2) to come back, and catching up those seconds like the image is beeing fast forwarded.

I also tried to set the Oculus debug tool the the setting 0 (for bitrate), but no results at all.

I got the feeling that maybe Steam VR home is opened in the background as well, because if i pauze the game and switch to release the VR mode (CTRL + TAB) Steam VR home is also extreme slow.

System:
AMD 3700x
Nvidia 3080 (466.11)
32GB
5GHZ router

UPDATE
After some tweaking I was able to improve the performance with Air Link.
After changing from SteamVR to OpenXR it was more stable, but the jitters and micro stutters are still there. With Virtual desktop I have no jitters and micro stutters, but it’s less clear…

An horrible trade off, but so far I really prefer Virtual Desktop, because with Link Air i’m unable to look at an instrument without it’s moving. The problem with Virtual Desktop is that i can’t get the OpenXR to work, for some reason it’s not reconizing my Quest 2.

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Don’t use Steam VR would be the best advice I could offer, it doesn’t work very well and Steam doesn’t even see FS2020 as a VR game. Use the debugger, Oculus software and FS2020 just leave SteamVR turned off. I have a 3900X and a 3070 so very similar system and smooth VR (most of the time). I’ve also changed the setting in debugger to leave ASW 45PS ON instead of off and this helps with both cable and airlink.

My biggest problem that i can’t get it to work together. I would love to do so, Virtual desktop icm with OpenXR isn’t recognizing my Quest2.

Now with Oculus Air Link it is, but the performance is not good enough yet :frowning:

Tried it without much hope
I had to factory reset my headset for it to show up in options

It was lag nightmare then I read online that I had to set bitrate to 0 in oculus debug tool

After I did that it worked perfect 1st time
& I love it

I’ve rolled up my link cable & will use airlink every time as it seems rock solid & hassle free to my surprise

I just have a standard virgin broadband router that has 2g & 5g

10900k & 3080

Think quality about same as cable link but maybe less overhead as in onwardVR I put resolution supersample to stupidly high levels to test & all ran fine but not sure if this is due to V28 updates etc I’ve not compared to cable on V28

We are being spoilt by oculus quest2 was a top purchase for me

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I found the graphics a little blurry with the Airlink, but I was surprised about how smooth the experience was with it with no setup at all other than turning it on.

Hop into your Oculus app on PC with the headset connected via airlink. Under settings then device change your resolution scaling to something higher than 1.0. 1.7 is the native res of the screens on a Q2. I’m going 1.4 to 1.5 and it looks really nice.

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I bought the steam version of fs2020 and it runs very smooth at 30+ fps with virtual desktop. It is unplayable with air link. Every other VR game I have runs perfectly with air link, and most of them are steam games and run with steam vr. I set the debug tool to a 0 like everyone says, but air link can’t handle it. i have an i7-700K CPU and a Nvidia 3070. Anyone have any luck with the steam edition?

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How do you make it work with the Oculus runtime?

Air link must be significant technical achievement. It’s superior to cable link in smoothness and stability although shown images look little bit blurry and less sharp compared with those from Tony’s tnt setting with link cable. I still prefer his tweak in flying bush trips where clear long distance view is important but believe air link is very promising and will reach such level of sharpness soon.
Unlike MSFS, interestingly, I’m having difficulties in running old original rift programs with air link. For example, whenever I activate Berlin Blitz, I’m kicked out to quest 2 home screen in a few seconds. If someone has had similar problem and solved it, please share the tips. Thank you.

I’m not sure it will be helpful enough for you. This is what I found by simple googling.

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Open the registry and change the OpenXR to :[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Khronos\OpenXR\1]
“ActiveRuntime”=“C:\Program Files\Oculus\Support\oculus-runtime\oculus_openxr_64.json”

Make sure your Oculus folder is in that location. And export the current key to the desktop if you need to change it back. Other steam vr games make not work with the Oculus runtime although mine do. The steam vr developer settings have an option to use the steam OpenXR also.

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I changed the OpenXR runtime to the Oculus version and it runs very good. No jitters, very smooth with all settings to medium or high. It seems to be better than Virtual desktop. I don’t know why the Steam OpenXR has problems with FS2020

As I understand, Open XR is a kind of interpreter translating Windows language into Oculus or Steam language and Oculus machines can understand only Oculus language spoken by Oculus app.

Wow! Oculus have outdone themselves here, what an amazing first release. Like others I had to do a factory reset and also then set the bitrate to 0 in the debug app but then it just works and it is so smooth. I have not done any tweaking yet but very impressed so far, link cable is relegated to charging duties :slight_smile:

Just one thing , 5G is a tad sensitive

If your even few meters away in the next room to your router performance may still be good but it is effected

In same room & line of sight to router then the performance & experience is seamless for me

10900k & 3080 , standard virgin media router that has 2g & 5G

Reading Air Link requirement let me think, if you don’t have a 5G router, or if it’s too far from your computer (but plugged through Ethernet), you can simply use the computer as a WIFI 5G hot spot, whatever Internet connection and speed you get at your home, and whatever distance between the main router and your gaming zone. The only requirement is you should be plugged to your main router by Ethernet and you have an unused wifi card in it (or you add a cheap 5G card or dongle).

You just have now to connect the headset to this new wifi access point from your unused wifi card in your PC.

I may have wrong but I don’t see why it shouldn’t work…

Edit: I’m speculating to help other persons as I meet the Oculus requirement, I just need now a Quest 2 :crazy_face:

I am sure your clear on this but just to be 100% explicit, you dont need to be by your PC for AirLink to work. Of course this being an MSFS forum and there being no support for VR controllers, unless you have very long extension leads on your flight controls or extremely strong Bluetooth then you’ll more than likely be in the same room as your PC.

My house router is downstairs, I connect this to powerlines that get me ethernet to my upstairs study. From here I connect to a D-link DIR X1560 WiFi6 router. I connect both the PC and the Oculus Quest to this WiFi6 router.

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