Category: Oculus Link

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This $20 USB-C Cable Feels Made For Oculus Link

PartyLink’s 3 meter USB Type-C cable claims to be “directly designed & manufactured for the Quest” — and that claim holds up when using it.

Essentially, this is the cable that came with your Oculus Quest except it actually works with Oculus Link due to supporting USB 3.0 transfer speeds.

It has a USB Type-C connector on each end, with one side being right angled so that it better suits being connected to the Quest headset and doesn’t stick out.

If your motherboard doesn’t have a USB Type-C port and you don’t have an NVIDIA RTX card with the port either, this cable comes with an adapter to allow it to be used with any functional USB 3.0 port.

It also includes a little strap you can use to attach the cable to the rear (similar to how regular PC VR headsets hold their cables), which makes rotating in VR easier.

We tested this cable and found that it works the same as other cords we tested with Oculus Link via both USB-C and with the USB-A adapter. As always with USB cables, your experience may vary based on your PC’s motherboard.

Of course, this is still only a 3 meter cable. That’s shorter than the Rift S’ 5 meter cable, and the upcoming official 5 meter Oculus Link Cable. However, no other cable currently on the market (without extensions) is 5 meters either, and that official cable will be priced at $79.

Given the PartyLink cable‘s right angled connector, length, price and included Type-A adapter, we’d recommend this cable as the go-to for Oculus Link.

It is currently backordered until December 5, but you can place an order on Amazon to secure your place in the queue for it.

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Fiber Optic Accessory Stretches Wired PC VR Oculus Quest Mode To Multiple Rooms/Homes

An intriguing accessory attached to Oculus Quest promises to stretch Oculus Link to a multi-room or even multi-home wired PC VR headset.

A tweet from Twitter user GamerToTheEnd shows the accessory attached successfully to Oculus Quest for Oculus Link Beta by converting a USB 3 signal from your PC to a fiber optic connection that can supposedly extend up to 250 meters in length.

The USB 3.0 to fiber optical extender set lists “request price” but we’re told it usually sells for around $150 not including the additional cost of fiber cable to connect it, which we see priced on Amazon to around $160 for 200 meters. That’s pretty pricey considering Quest itself starts around $400 and you can get VR PCs for cheaper than ever. Still, the fact that it works at all is notable.

The site selling the accessory includes the chart below which explains how it plugs directly into a USB 3 port on your compatible PC’s motherboard and then coverts it to a fiber optic connection that can extend up to 250 meters to a box that converts it back into a USB 3.0 connection for the Quest to use with the Oculus Link Beta. The box on the end nearest the Quest requires power, so you’ll need a power outlet nearby that box. We’re told this also charges Quest while playing. The fiber optic cable itself wouldn’t add noticeable latency but it is possible the signal conversion would, but we haven’t tested this ourselves.Connection Chart Fiber Optic Oculus Link

There are some home or VR play space configurations people might have that could make such an accessory worthwhile. Imagine running your PC in a garage or a shed dedicated to VR play, for instance, and then running fiber optic cable through your walls to the living room. You could use Quest in wireless mode, of course, or plug it in to the extension box to access PC VR games like No Man’s Sky, Skyrim VR, Asgard’s Wrath or Stormland, and there’d be no mess, sound, or heat from having a compatible VR Ready PC in the house.

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John Carmack Hoping To Update Oculus Link For Clearer Images

Oculus Link launched at the start of a very busy week last week, and everyone seems to be happy with it. But it’s well known that images shown inside your Quest when hooked up to a PC for Link are compressed slightly. John Carmack might tackle that in the future.

Taking to Twitter last week, Carmack was asked if Oculus Link users can expect clearer image quality in a future update. “I am hoping to add a new mode that takes full advantage of USB3.1 bandwidth,” he replied, “but that would be months out before it could hit users.”

Carmack’s technical wizardry once doubled resolution inside Oculus Home on Gear VR and he’s spent years optimising mobile VR performance. If anyone can get a clearer image quality out of Oculus Link, it’s him.

Compression on Link isn’t hugely problematic to begin with, but it’s great to hear that there might be further improvements still. Oculus Link is currently available in Beta, so it makes sense that we’d see more updates for the service as time went on. We also know that Facebook will be expanding Link to work with more graphics cards in the future, too.

This is also a sign that Carmack isn’t as removed from VR development as some might fear. Earlier this month the developer announced that he was moving to a consulting role at Facebook so that he could spend more time working on AI on his own.

Need more on Link? Check out the $13 recommended cable you can use to jump into PC VR. Or how about our list of PC VR games to play on the beta?

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Half-Life: Alyx Announced, Oculus Link Released And Win Espire! | VRecap

Well, that was a week. As if November wasn’t busy enough for VR already, two of the biggest headlines of the year also came in by surprise. Let’s cover those and more in the VRecap, shall we?

First up, we’re talking about Half-Life: Alyx. 12 years on from Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Valve is finally returning to its storied franchise with a VR exclusive adventure. We’ll be playing as Alyx Vance before the events of Half-Life 2, fighting off headcrabs and using a pair of grabity glove (yes, that’s their name, we think). Needless to say we’re very excited, but watch the video for the incredible footage.

Also new this week is Oculus Link. Facebook’s plan to get your Quest headset running Rift content is in full swing with the launch of the beta. We’ve tried it and it works amazingly well. We’ll be really looking forward to diving into, well, Half-Life: Alyx with our Quests next year.

Moving on, we’re back to Boneworks. Will the game have multiplayer? Does the developer even want it? Watch the recap to find out.

Oh and there’s a bit more news on the PS5. Another patent has surfaced, this time showing what seems to be the DualShock 5. What nuggets of info can we glean from the designs shown in the documents?

Release-wise it’s another big one, with the long-awaited return of Espire 1 and the completion of the Vader Immortal trilogy among other things. Speaking of Espire, that’s our giveaway for the week so make sure to check it out!

GIVEAWAY: Win A Free Copy Of Espire 1: VR Operative On Steam!

Okay, we’re in dire need of a little rest. Next week will be just as busy; we’ve got our Holiday VR Showcase on the way! Tune in for some great looks at upcoming projects.

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This Week’s The VR Download Episode Is LIVE, Half Life Special Tomorrow

This is one of the biggest weeks for VR news yet, with two huge but separate stories. For that reason, we’ll have two episodes of The VR Download.

Unlike regular video podcasts, The VR Download is broadcast from a virtual reality studio! Our team are together in a virtual space, giving us many of the benefits of a studio even though we live on different continents.

Episode 7: Wednesday 10:30 am PST

Our Special Guest this week is Mike Daly, the Lead Designer of Stormland! He’ll be joining us for the duration of the show, and at the end we’ll be interviewing him.

This week’s Hot Topic is Oculus Link, the new feature which allows Quest to act as a PC VR headset via USB 3.0 cable with Type-C connector.

Half Life Special: Thursday 11:15 am PST

Since Valve just announced Half Life: Alyx, its “flagship” VR game, and will be sharing more details on Thursday morning, we’ll be having our first special episode all about this game after those details are revealed.

This won’t follow our normal show structure, and we won’t have a guest. You’ll get our opinions, insights, and hopes about what this game could mean for you and for the VR industry as a whole.

Watch In VR With BigScreen!

Every week, you can watch The VR Download LIVE in virtual reality with an audience of other VR users on any major VR headset (including Oculus Quest and Oculus Go!), via the BigScreen platform.

Click on the image above to subscribe to the event.

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Oculus Link Beta Livestream: Playing Rift Games On Quest!

For today’s livestream we’re going to take Oculus Quest for a spin plugged into our PC to try out the Oculus Link Beta. If you’re curious about how we livestream the way we do then look no further than this handy guide for general tips and this guide specific to our Oculus Quest setup.

Yesterday Oculus released the Beta version of Oculus Link support which is the name they’re giving a new feature that lets you plug your Oculus Quest into your gaming PC, using the Oculus Home PC app, to access Rift content. The feature makes your PC think your Quest is a Rift S which means you can play games on Steam or Oculus Home just fine. We’ve even got a list of some of the best PC VR exclusives you should try first.

The Oculus Link for Quest stream is planned to start around 12:15PM PT today. We’ll be hitting just YouTube. You can see the full stream embedded via YouTube right here down below once it’s up, or find it here on this page:

You can see lots of our past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist and various other gameplay highlights. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube to stay up-to-date on gameplay videos, video reviews, interviews, and more original content!

And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next other than Oculus Link with Quest! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely.

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How to Tell if Your PC is Ready for Oculus Link & Air Link

Oculus Link and Oculus Air Link (also called Quest Link and Quest Air Link) allows you to use your Quest headset to play PC VR games, opening up a world of high quality content that you simply won’t find on the Quest Store. Here’s a breakdown of the Oculus Link and Air Link recommended system requirements and hardware specs, and what you’ll need to use Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3, or Quest Pro to play Rift and SteamVR games on your PC.

Updated – March 24th, 2024

Looking to make your Quest 3 gaming experience even better? Don’t miss our top picks for the most essential Quest 3 accessories.

Recommended PC Specs for Oculus Link & Air Link

You’ll need a reasonably powerful PC to play Rift and Steam games on Quest via Oculus Link & Air Link, though many modern gaming PCs with NVIDIA or AMD graphics cards will fit the bill. Here’s the PC hardware you’ll need for Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro to work on PC.

Oculus Link & Air Link Compatible Graphics Cards

GPU Supported
Not Currently Supported
NVIDIA Titan Z ✖
NVIDIA Titan X ✔
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 ✔
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (desktop, 3GB) ✖
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (desktop, 6GB) ✔
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060M ✖
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (all) ✔
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (all) ✔
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ✖
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Super ✔
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 ✔
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti ✔
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20/30*/40-series (all) ✔
AMD 200 Series ✖
AMD 300 Series ✖
AMD 400 Series ✔
AMD 500 Series ✔
AMD 5000 Series ✔
AMD 6000 Series* ✔
AMD Vega Series ✔

*NVIDIA 3050 (laptop) and 3050ti GPUs are not recommended for use with Link
*Radeon RX 6500 is not recommended for use with Link

Oculus Link & Air Link CPU, RAM, USB, and Operating System Recommended System Requirements

Recommended Specs
Processor
Intel i7 / AMD Ryzen 7 or greater
Memory 16GB+ RAM
Operating System Windows 10+
USB Ports 1x USB-C port (unless using Air Link)

Oculus Link vs. Air Link

What’s the difference between Oculus Link and Oculus Air Link? Oculus Link uses a cable to connect your headset directly to your PC. This will generally result in the best visual performance, and in most cases it will let your headset’s battery last significantly longer than if you use Air Link.

Oculus Air Link is the same feature as Oculus Link, except wireless. If you have an ideal network configuration, Air Link can be a great way to easily play PC games wirelessly with Quest. Without an ideal network configuration, you might have issues with Air Link (like lag or low quality visuals).

Tethered: Oculus Link Cable

Oculus Link technically works with any USB cable, including the one that comes in the box with Quest, but without a fairly long cable you won’t have much room to move around. If you’re only planning to play seated games like racing or flying sims, you can probably get by with the included cable, but you’ll probably want to buy a dedicated cable that’s long enough that you can really spread your virtual wings.

An inexpensive option is to combine this Anker 10ft USB 3.0 cable with this CableCreation 16ft USB 3.0 extender for a total of 26 feet for around $39 from Amazon.

Alternatively, Oculus sells a lighter (but much more expensive) 16ft USB 3.0 Oculus Link cable for $80, also available on Amazon.

Whether you pick a third-party USB 3.0 cable or Oculus’ own cable, both will give you the same visual experience when used with Oculus Link.

Wireless: Oculus Air Link Network Recommendations

You’ll need a properly configured network for Oculus Air Link to deliver a good wireless PC VR experience. Here’s what to do to ensure the best performance:

  • PC connected to router/access-point via Ethernet cable
  • Router supporting Wi-Fi 5 (also called 802.11AC) or Wi-Fi 6 / Wi-Fi 6E (also called 802.11AX)
  • Headset connected to 5GHz Wi-Fi band
  • Router in the same room as the headset or in line-of-sight, and at least 1m off the ground
  • Don’t use a mesh network configuration (extenders, etc)

Get the Most Out of Quest

The Best Quest 3 Accessories: Quest 3 is a great headset but there's a few areas where accessoires can really improve the experience, especially the headstrap!

The Very Best Quest Games: The Quest library can be daunting, here's our quick guide to the best games.

Essential Quest Tips, Tricks, and Settings: If you're just diving into VR as a new Quest owner, you should absolutely check out our Quest Tips & Tricks Guide for a heap of useful tricks and settings everyone should know about.

Fitness and Fun on Quest: For fitness in VR that's as fun as it is physical, check out our suggestion for a VR Workout Routine.

Relaxing in VR: Are you less of a competitive gamer and more interested in how you can use VR to chill out? We have a great list of VR Games for Relaxation and Meditation.

Flex Your Creativity in VR: And last but not least, if you're a creative type looking to express yourself in VR, our list of Tools for Painting, Modeling, Designing & Animating in VR offers a huge range of artful activities, with something for everyone from fiddlers to professionals.

The post How to Tell if Your PC is Ready for Oculus Link & Air Link appeared first on Road to VR.

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Community Download: Does Oculus Link Make Quest The Only Headset Worth Buying?

Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know if you think the Oculus Link is a good enough feature to make the Quest the only headset worth buying?

This week the much-hyped Oculus Link feature (which allows you to connect your Quest to a compatible gaming PC via a USB cable) finally released into beta. This means if you have the right cable and the right PC specs, you can turn your Quest (essentially) into a Rift S.

The caveats here are, obviously, that the image will be a bit compressed compared to running VR games natively on Rift and probably won’t be quite as impressive from a performance perspective, but the fact that you could theoretically have a Rift when you need it and then unplug to access your Quest library wirelessly, as a standalone device, all in the same headset is incredibly enticing. If you don’t mind a bit of latency or performance loss for some apps you could even stream PC content wirelessly via Virtual Desktop too.

Back at Oculus Connect 6 this year we asked if you all think this is going to kill the Rift S. At this stage it’s hard to say, there are still benefits to a Rift S that the Quest with Link just can’t encapsulate, but let’s go a step further: Does the Oculus Link with Quest make it the only VR headset truly worth owning? No other device on the market can play in both worlds so effectively. Or does the exclusive library of the PSVR keep it in the discussion, or does the amazing fidelity and hand interactions of the Valve Index lock it in as the premiere option still?

Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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Oculus Link Cable Specifications and Recommendations

It’s an exciting day for Oculus Quest as the headset can finally be cabled to a PC to play Oculus Rift videogames, all thanks to Oculus Link. The only problem, what cables are compatible and suitable for VR gaming to make sure you don’t have issues arise such as latency. Handily, Facebook has released not only cable specifications but also a recommendation.

Oculus Quest new image

Facebook plans on releasing its own cable to connect PC’s and Oculus Quest but that’s not available just yet, with the company saying in a blog post: “Later this year, we’ll release a premium, custom optical fiber cable to provide a best-in-class experience with maximum throughput while using Oculus Link. It will be 5 meters (16+ feet) long to provide more freedom of movement than any other cable on the market. We’ll start rolling out our cable with limited quantities in select regions this year, and continue to expand availability in 2020.”

So in the meantime what you need is a high-quality USB-3 cable – Oculus Quest’s charging cable won’t work as its only USB-2. When looking for your own cable the specs below are the ones you’ll need to follow for the best performance. To take the guesswork out of it, Oculus recommends an Anker cable which it has tested internally. These are very cheap, retailing on Amazon for the following countries: North America, Canada, UK, Japan, Australia and Germany. None of these are as long as the official cable but expect that to be a lot more expensive.

Don’t forget to check out the PC requirements including the all-important compatible GPU’s. Only NVIDIA cards are currently supported with Facebook working with AMD to add support at some point.

Once you’ve got a suitable cable and checked your PC is supported then you’ll be able to enjoy Oculus Rift exclusives like  Stormland and Asgard’s Wrath, two of the biggest titles to arrive for the platform this year. Then in 2020, you’ll be able to go hands-free when the hand tracking feature arrives for Oculus Quest. Using the devices four inside-out tracking cameras, the hand tracking impressed when demoed at Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) in September. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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Oculus Link PC Specifications Confirmed for Oculus Quest

Oculus Link has finally arrived today, giving Oculus Quest owners the opportunity to connect the wireless head-mounted display (HMD) to a compatible PC and play awesome videogames like Stormland. However, as the software rollout is still in beta, compatibility might be an issue depending on your PC setup. So take a look at the following specifications to make sure your computer is up to the task.

Oculus Link header

First up are the main PC recommendations which aren’t that unusual, most VR compatible PC’s should have these as the bare minimum anyway. It’s the graphic card specs that may cause some issues. While a reasonable amount of NVIDIA cards are supported if you’re an AMD user there’s currently no support at present.

Oculus says: “Keep in mind, if you don’t see your card listed we can’t guarantee compatibility at this time.” Don’t fret as this is still beta software. “We’re using this beta-period to continue to test, iterate, and validate GPUs. As time goes on, we plan to move additional GPUs to the supported column by the time the software exits beta,” with the company noting: “we’re currently working directly with AMD to support as many of their cards as possible by the time we exit beta.”

Component Recommended Specs
Processor Intel i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or greater
Graphics Card See additional charts below
Memory 8GB+ RAM
Operating System Windows 10
USB Ports 1x USB 3.0 ports

 

NVIDIA GPU Supported Not Currently Supported
NVIDIA Titan Z X
NVIDIA Titan X X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060M X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070(all) X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080(all) X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 16-series(all) X
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20-series (all) X

 

AMD GPU Supported Not Currently Supported
AMD 300 Series X
AMD 400 Series X
AMD 500 Series X
AMD 5000 Series X
AMD Vega Series X

 

Oculus Link

As Oculus improves the software adding greater compatibility then VRFocus will update the article. Several other features were rolled out today as well, further improving the platform.

Now that Oculus Link has arrived the next big feature is hand tracking for the headset. Also revealed during Oculus Connect 6 (OC6), this is slated to arrive in 2020. As further updates are released, VRFocus will let you know.