Gents of the Forum (and those rare ladies) - You don’t have to be a prophet to see that in the years ahead, VR headsets will increasingly drop the need for a data cable snaking from your desktop rig up to your head. I had a bit of time during the nights in late March and early April and decided to make a guide for what is coming down the pike, … wireless VR simming:
We are already in the early stages but most guys have a boatload of questions about everything from wireless communications to the best bit rate settings. This guide aims to answer a plethora of questions:
What VR headset is best in 2025 if I want to ditch the cables?
How do I maximize wireless information flow from the graphics card to the VR headset?
How do I set up my wireless router for wireless VR flight simming?
How does wireless transmission of information even work?
What can I realistically expect in the next few years? … In the next few decades?
The guide is free to all and no attempt is being made to make money from it. All the images within are open source or I have obtained permission to use (still trying to nail down one last image). I am optimistic that almost everyone from hardcore simmers to tech-enthusiasts will find the information contained within the guide useful. If you have accolades, please post them in this thread. If you find errors, please send me privately. … LOL, … I’m just sh#%%ing you. … If you notice any errors, please post them in this thread. I welcome correction and suggestions. If there is a feature you would like the guide to address, post below please. More generally, if you have technical questions about wireless VR simming, happy to try and help out (just beware that I also have work and a family taking up my time )
Enjoy!
J
(This guide is released under the GPL 2.0. If you are a member of multiple flight sim forums (say, DCS, IL2, X-Plane, etc … ), please feel free to distribute there as well because the information contained within the guide is going to be equally helpful for those simming communities as well.)
@Aurelius8663 Wow, a real wealth of information imho, thanks for sharing this.
I’ve just spent ~30 minutes skimming through it and I’ve already learnt lots. It’s def. going to take me a lot longer to read this properly and try to comprehend more of it. Thanks again mate and best cheers from Australia.
Edit; I’ve also found my +2.5yo preordered QPro/rtx4090 to be and excellent PCVR headset. I mainly only use it with all my flight/racing sims. I use the official link cable connected to my z790mb usb3.2 gen2 type-c port at 900mbps Dynamic bitrate (which ends up at ~750mbps). Because of its Qled screens with local dimming, I still find it better than my slightly higher res Q3/512Gb headset.
I use my Q3 for everything else; Standalone vr/mr and wireless PCVR (wifi6) with Air Link or VD. Both are a great combo, for me anyway. Cheers.
I’m glad it looks like it will be helpful. I was just in Brisbane back in Feb for a conference … big fan of Down Under!
Many guys new to VR flight simming focus almost entirely on screen resolution. Like you, I did a fairly thorough evaluation of the Quest 3 vs the Quest Pro. The Pro surprisingly came out of top for a number of reasons, … the Qled screens, the better weight distribution on the head, the self tracking hand controllers, and the ability to track hand motion without the controllers (I downloaded an add-on package from Github that is AI based). I can now turn dials and flip switches in, say, the DCS F-18 Hornet with close to 100% precision.
If you have questions about wireless VR simming or the guide (once you read it), feel free to post below!
Just a pity that the QPro is wireless bitrate limited, depending on the codec, to 160-270mbps since v76. Hopefully meta will fix this soon. Fortunately for me I mainly use my QPro with Link so this doesn’t matter, for me anyway. Cheers.
That said, it looks like he took down his AI hand tracking training package. This software used AI to recognize your hands just like a voice activation software learns to recognize your voice. This is the guy though, … maybe you can email him? Once I downloaded his hand tracking package, it took it three or four days to really zoom in on the particular hand motions that I made, say, in the F-18 cockpit (in DCS). Once I trained it though, it now recognizes my hand motions correctly about 99% of the time. I can flip switches and turn small dials with zero problems!
I will add this info to the wireless guide in a few days!
Guys, I may just adapt Chris’s code and add in some custom tensorial transformers (similar to ChatGPT but different architecture) for an AI assisted hand tracker for Quest users. It shouldn’t take me too long if I get a few free days later this month. I will keep everyone posted
Sounds good! Thanks. I’ve emailed him too…
I’ve tried various means of getting hand tracking working well in MSFS, but the gesture recognition is always just a bit too flaky to be useful.
Yeah, I agree Unmodified, … I’d call the stock hand tracking to be working correctly about 65% of the time. It also has problems with small hand motions and movements of the hands when turning dials. It will get there though.
Your suggestion will enter the next small update to the guide (probably release later this week).
Sorry to hear that, … Chris was pretty friendly when I spoke with him back in January. I may have time to release my own AI hand training package once the seminar class I am teaching here at the university ends in late May. I will update here if I decide to pursue that path in the weeks ahead …
I have begun to a develop a modified transformer neural network (AI) model for hand tracking for Quest Pro and Quest 3 users. Unsure of how much progress I can make in the weeks ahead but I will keep a progression log here.
Appreciate the kind comments JoeDancen. The guide will soon be updated to better detail codecs and will include a section on router firmware adjustment (especially how to maximize bands and channels). Feel free to pass along problems if you see them! - J
What wil be the best settings for my quest 3 and asus router? Its dedicated for the quest. Pc via 2.5gb utp to the router. Router wirreles to the quest with virtual desktop.
Speed is 2401mbps in vd.. router is asus ax7800 and 3 feet from simrig
Sometimes the quest has problems to connect. Takes a long time before the network is shown
Your router settings are not bad. One thing you might try is to use a phone app like Wifi Analyzer and check your channels. Typically, for the 6GHz band you will receive better signal strengths for the lower channels (5 through 37). (You currently have your channel selection set to “auto” which means an ASUS algorithm tries to constantly switch you around to the best channel but in doing so, plays with the critical frame timing and codec decompressing abilities of the XR2+.) I recommend a fixed channel for you. You might try setting your channel to say 33 or 37 to minimize distortion. With a channel in the 50s to 100, you are typically looking at -47 to -55 dBm which is rather poor for wireless VR use.
You also may wish to experiment with Virtual Desktop by switching from H.264 to H.265 as your codec. Experiment by using both combined with adjustments from Oculus Tray Tools (OTT). I usually find with the Quest 3 that I get better results with H.265 (HEVC). You should be aware that there is a strong element of adophenia (this is distinct from apophenia) where people perceive benefits that actually are not present (this is very common in debates of MSAA versus DLSS and so on).
Virtual Desktop has been pretty sound for me up until mid-May when things have gotten slightly worse for me. Have not had a chance to delve into the why of it at the moment.
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