I also have a Quest 3. Do you connect Quest Link to one of the USB-C ports on the sides of the machine? It’s not connected to the USC-C on the graphics card, right?
Correct, just the ones on the side. Any should be fine since I think it just uses USB3 but I’ve been plugging it into one of the USB4 ports to be sure.
Thanks. Your answer made me realize I have no clue what the Quest3 is doing. I have an original Vive, which had to be connected to the computer by USB-A , but I also connected it directly to the GPU with either HDMI or DP.
When I got the Q3, I connected it to my Lenovo laptop via Quest Link just to see if it worked. I assumed that the Lenovo’s 2070 GPU was powering the graphics, but now I realize that I just don’t know.
So with the FW16, if I connect Quest Link to one of the main USB-C ports, does that mean that the integrated graphics is powering the experience or is something else going on?
No, the quest doesn’t send display directly through the port like the vive or index that use HDMI or DP. Because it’s just using USB3 there’s not enough bandwidth to do that, especially not with audio, inputs, and tracking data all going through the same port.
Instead quest link takes the rendered game and encodes the frames (I think usually with H.264), then sends it down the USB. Because it’s not using DP alternate mode or anything like that, it won’t matter what port its plugged into and you don’t need to plug it into the GPU. (Consider that this software was made primarily for PCs, which don’t have graphics cards with USB ports on them - wouldn’t make much sense for it to require that)
So, yes, the dGPU will still power the graphics - you can check with task manager and see that the dGPU is under load when playing VR with the quest.
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I can confirm that my Index works with the DisplayPort dongle you mentioned (Anker USB C to DisplayPort 8K@60Hz or 4K@144Hz). I also tried another dongle (UGREEN USB C to DP1.4 8K 60Hz 4K 240Hz) and it doesn’t work (headset not detected).
It works on Windows 11 but I couldn’t get it to work on Linux.
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Update: After a week or so of testing, I’m happy to report that I’ve gotten good results with this little dongle right here, Cable Matters Portable USB C to DisplayPort 1.4 Adapter. Glad to hear others have gotten good results with the Anker adapter, and interesting that the UGREEN one wasn’t working. I guess for anyone coming to this thread, be prepared to try two or three to find out which one works for you best!
Very, very happy to confirm that the “Anker USB C to DisplayPort 8K@60Hz or 4K@144Hz” adapter works fine for me and my Valve Index!
Head tracking feels a little like jello by default, as if there’s too much latency. I found that by increasing the “VsyncToPhoton” time in SteamVR’s debug commands 6/7 times, I was able to make things feel more solid.
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For anyone wondering about performance, I don’t have exact numbers but i have had little problems. Im using a 7840HS and the 7700S with 16GB ram, with the setting on to divert i belive 3 gb to VRAM, and with quest link and air link i have been getting fairly good performance in BoneLab on high with very minor issues here and there, and no problems on medium. Alyx is a similar story, with it being able to run pretty well on above mid graphics settings. Blade and Sorcery has been a little rocky, with a lot of stuttering in the menus and in gameplay with a lot of stuff going on (8+ enemies plus dead bodies and modded weapons), though i haven’t gone into many performance settings. I did notice that i was hitting 100% ram usage a lot so i assume a lot of the B&S issues are RAM related since i was not having the same problems in other titles. I’m getting a 32Gb kit from crucial tommorow or thursday though so i’ll update then.
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Ditto this. Last year I upgraded my desktop from 16 to 32 gigs and it makes all the difference for VR. On the FW16 with the 7840 and 32GB ram, the GPU is very much your bottleneck and everything else keeps it fed nicely. Keep in mind the GPU does struggle a little bit to keep up with VR. Particularly games with mediocre optimization like Into The Radius, I have to turn down the settings below what I consider playable to hit and maintain 90hz on the Valve Index. But it works well enough for Half Life Alyx, Pavlov VR, Ragnarock, and VTOL VR (it throttles to 60/45 but it does that on a desktop 3070 too so it’s fine, and anyway you’re sitting down and motion smoothing fills in the gaps). Hopefully others can chime in with their games of choice.
Anyone testing on VRChat yet? Curious on the performance there
Pardon me, but do you mind sharing your ALVR Settings, and/or SteamVR settings? I’m running Garuda (Arch Linux) and whenever SteamVR opens up, the fans immediately rev up, and it’s got immediately. I’m not sure what’s up
Quest 2 → ALVR → SteamVR on Linux, works mostly decent. I’ve played for a while now and can say it’s darn nice.
I’d like to see your settings then lol. I couldn’t get it working well at all, there was a ton of latency and all of the steamvr menus were completely broken - looked like an encoder error or something. When I said I got it working, I didn’t mean well. I’ve just been sticking to windows for VR.
I’m currently in the ALVR Discord, If you’re there, there’s a topic in the help channel about the pixelated mess. So far I’ve been suggested to use DRI_PRIME=1 %command% for the SteamVR games, and/or steam itself. I’m posting this before testing that. – That being said, I have the router in my room, so it’s as close as it gets and latency isn’t as bad.
However, this might help out. https://youtu.be/_5k9htTdpuI
So after some fiddling around, I stumbled around this; Steam Community :: Guide :: Guide for Linux VR and in my particular case, the display was a pixelated mess, so the solution is a “Display is Garbled”. This happens because the FW16 can have more than 1 GPU (iGPU + dGPU 7700S) and to get it to use the correct GPU you need to add it to your Enviroment Variables, AND Launch Options of every game you want to play. At least for now.
The command in question is;
ENABLE_DEVICE_CHOOSER_LAYER=1 VULKAN_DEVICE_INDEX=<device-index> %command%
This requires the Vulkan Device Chooser; GitHub - aejsmith/vkdevicechooser: Vulkan layer to force a specific device to be used
This will practically enforce the software to use the specified device, if you need to see what devices are available you can run the following; vulkaninfo --summary, in my case the 7700S was GPU1 so you set VULKAN_DEVICE_INDEX=1
I was also told by the kind peeps at the ALVR discord, to use WlxOverlay-S; GitHub - galister/wlx-overlay-s: Access your Wayland/X11 desktop from Monado/WiVRn/SteamVR. Now with Vulkan! as a desktop overlay replacement, and it works rather decent, albeit it takes some getting used to.
EDIT:
I forgot to mention that I run Steam Runtime/Native, and WlxOverlay-S with said options as enviroment variables. I run ALVR like that too but it might not be necesarry
I’ll give these a try when I can! That does explain the garbled display stuff. It was a while ago, but I believe I did try setting DRI_PRIME=1 for games but I don’t think I did it for steamVR itself, so I’ll definitely try that. Thanks for the info!
welp. Just tried to get it working for about an hour and couldn’t. Some things were broken with ALVR, some with SteamVR. SteamVR in general just kinda seems to be a mess on linux. Launching it opens like 3 blank windows for some reason. But every time I tried to connect ALVR, it would crash and disable the alvr plugin. I’ve decided to just abandon trying to get it working on linux, so many things were broken that it really doesn’t feel like it’s worth trying anymore.
SteamVR on Linux is literally broken; you’re probably better off using Monado and WiVRn via Envision (though the UX is still a big work-in-progress); https://lvra.gitlab.io/ can guide you through setup (though some of the info is a bit scattered throughout)
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Sadly, the new BIOS Update (3.03) did mess some stuff up… I was able to run SteamVR via ALVR just fine prior, but now it’s broken again. – I will attempt WiVRn via Envision
I have the Meta Quest 2 working OK (tested with no issues so far in VTOL VR on Steam using the Meta Quest link app - not Steam VR)
Win 10 Pro, Ryzen 7 7840HS w/ Radeon RX 7700S, 32GB RAM
I’m plugged in with a wired USB link (top right port, nearest power button). Other ports / setups etc might work, but this specifically is my setup.
I did have an issue with a black screen when initially trying to open the desktop once quest link had connected, but this reddit post solved my issue (I needed a full PC restart rather than just restarting quest link). Relevant text here for reference:
Go to Windows Settings → Display → Graphics Settings (way at the bottom)
Under “Graphics performance preference” → “Choose an app to set preference” -" “Desktop app”. Click “Browse” and select:C:\Program Files\Oculus\Support\oculus-runtime\OVRServer_x64.exe
Click “Add”.
Select “Options” and set it to “Power saving”, and click save.Restart the Oculus software and Virtual Desktop now works properly.