Meta Quest 2: PC VR streaming with Air Link – latency review

With Air Link, you can stream PC VR games to the Quest 2 over your Wi-Fi network. What’s the latency?

The following test metrics and impressions were kindly provided by our Unreal Engine expert, Robin Hasenbach.

What Air Link is and what you need to consider when setting up wireless data transfer can be read in detail in our PC VR streaming guide. You will also find similarities, differences and advantages and disadvantages of the paid alternative. virtual office.

We measured the Air Link performance in three test environments:

• a high-end PC with a relatively complex network configuration,
• a game book with a separate access point, and
• a gaming laptop with WIFI hotspot.

We streamed on a Meta Quest 2 with 64 gigabytes of storage. General test impressions follow at the end of the article.

Test environment A: high-end PC

System Setup:

• GPU: RTX 3090
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5900X
• RAM: 32 GB
• SSD: M.2 NVMe
• Operating System: Windows 10 Pro (latest update)
• NVidia Driver: 466.11 (Gaming Ready Driver)

Network:

• PC connected via Cat.7 cable
  • about. 9 m to patch panel in network cabinet
• 10cm Cat.7 patch cable from patch panel to switch
  • Netgear 24-Port Gigabit Switch
• 5m Cat.7 cable to Wi-Fi access point
  • Ubiquiti U6-LR Wi-Fi access point (mounted on the wall about 3 m from the Meta Quest 2)
• Total length: approx. Network cable 14m + 3m wireless

Results

We have proposed the following readings and a 54.8 millisecond latency.

• Encode/Transfer/Decode: approx. 5.6ms
• Frame latency: approx. 54.8ms
• Frame rate: 90Hz
• Application follow-up time: approx. 29.4ms

Test Environment B: Gaming Laptop with Access Point

System Setup:

• GPU: RTX 2060
• Processor: Intel i7 8750H
• RAM: 16 GB RAM
• SSD: M.2 NVMe
• Windows 10 Pro operating system (latest update)
• NVidia Driver: 466.11 (Gaming Ready Driver)

Network:

• Laptop to Wi-Fi access point (wireless, approx. 3 m)
• Quest 2 to Wi-Fi hotspot (about 3m)
• Total length: approx. 6m wireless

Results

We have proposed the following readings and a 59.1 millisecond latency.

• Encode/Transfer/Decode: approx. 6.7ms
• Frame latency: approx. 59.1ms
• Frame rate: 80Hz
• Application follow-up time: approx. 30.7ms

Test environment C: Gaming laptop with Wi-Fi hotspot.

System Setup:

• GPU: RTX 2060
• Processor: Intel i7 8750H
• RAM: 16 GB RAM
• SSD: M.2 NVMe
• Windows 10 Pro operating system (latest update)
• NVidia Driver: 466.11 (Gaming Ready Driver)

Network:

• Wi-Fi hotspot open on the laptop
• Total length: approx. 3 meters wireless

Results

We found the following readings and latency of 79.9 milliseconds.

• Encode/Transfer/Decode: approx. 3ms (highly fluctuating!)
• Frame latency: approx. 79.9 ms (highly fluctuating!)
• Frame rate: 72.5 Hz (fluctuating!)
• Application follow-up time: approx. 30.1ms

Conclusion

We tested Air Link with the following games:

single player:

• Half-Life: Alyx
• Blade and sorcery
• beat the saber
• Google Earth VR

Multiplayer:

• Pavlov RV
• Population one
• Phasmophobia

Latency is not noticeable as long as you have access to a good network. The hotspot solution (C test environment) is possible, but not recommended because the latency is much higher in direct comparison. It would be better use a separate Wi-Fi hotspot and connect it to the PC as short as possible (test environment B). High latencies were caused by long cable runs and redirects (test environment A).

Additionally, the titles above can be played well as usual, and there are no image quality differences between the Oculus Link wired solution and the Oculus Rift S’s native wired connection to the beginning. Only in Beat Saber does Air Link become noticeable in terms of latency from Expert level.

Air Link is perfectly sufficient for non-competitive titles or slower games, so you can safely do without the Link cable in most cases in the future. For the best experience, we suggest setting the bitrate at Dynamic and 200 Mbit per second. Very high latencies can occur with a fixed bitrate, while image artifacts are sometimes visible with a low dynamic bitrate.

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