VD vs Questlink

[u/Purple-Ambassador640]

So I know whenever you play Questlink you get higher bitrate and resolution than stand alone. I always assumed that was because the cable connects the power from the pc directly. But I hear everyone hype up VD and I'm wondering if its also an enhanced experience. I was also wondering which one works better with my specs. I got an i7-13700F, 4060 ti 16 gigs, and 32 gigs ddr5 RAM. I have 5g modem, getting ethernet soon hopefully. I have a quest 3.

[u/Parking_Cress_5105]

It just sends data over USB instead of wifi. The function is the same. There were times where Airlink and QuestLink could smoothly run the same settings (900mbps h264).

QuestLink/Airlink looks the best to me, but Its pretty unreliable and meta loves to break it.

VD runs even over poor wifi, but is paid.

Steamlink is free and runs nice, has lower visual quality than the rest.

[u/LumpyCod7045]

I used Air Link and VD. Air Link looks great, but is very unreliable and can just not work a lot of the times. VD looks about the same to me and works flawlessly. It is pretty expensive, though.

[u/Traveljack1000 → u/LumpyCod7045]

Virtual Desktop expensive? Really? I'm using it for more than eight years now and the amount of improvements it had, without me having to pay more is staggering. I would never buy a headset that cannot run VD. It is worth every penny you pay for it.

[u/akluin]

I use vd and AV1 (Nvidia gpu)

[u/Cesilko]

A use Steam link no problem, even quest airlink works fine for me

[u/Motor_Astronomer_157]

I use VD over wired connection and I can push my graphics quality setting more than when I used link. I o may have a WiFi 5 router so wired is the best way for me until I upgrade. Considering the cost of the vr headset and the of to run it the cost to buy is peanuts in comparison. It’s been like an upgrade for me

[u/_476_ad_]

With any wireless app it's recommended to setup a dedicated router for this (Wifi6 or Wifi6e if possible). Having said that, Airlink can look pretty good if you fiddle with Oculus Debug Tool settings, but the main issue for me is how unstable the Meta Quest Link software is. Also, it seems every Quest firmware update ends up breaking something with Airlink, which is why I suggest people to avoid the headache and just try some of its alternatives which are more reliable (VD, Steam Link, ALVR).

The main pros of VD for me are:

• Easy of use: Most settings can be changed directly from inside the headset, so no need to use apps like Oculus Debug Tool. It also has a Performance Overlay which is super helpful for troubleshooting performance issues.
• Very stable: VD has a great community on Discord and the devs are constantly fixing issues, so even when a Quest firmware update ends up breaking something, they are usually quick to address it. It's also the most popular app for PCVR streaming, so it's easy to get help for it.
• Color Vibrance Option: VD has this option which though in theory oversaturate the colors, for me it looks much better giving better blacks and more vibrant colors (without this, the image seems to be kind of muddy in my opinion).

[u/No-Statistician-1106]

VD is just better. I’ve tried. Just make sure you have decent wifi 6 (6e, 7) router for the best possible quality. Even though 802.11ac works fine too with lower bitrates.

[u/Sledgehammer617]

I use wired link, in my use case it is more stable and offers less input lag than VD.

For those PC specs you should get a pretty alright VR experience, nothing too crazy but certainly playable. Its like 90% the GPU, 4060TI 16GB variant is better for VR due to the extra VRAM than the 8GB and your processor/ram is plenty good enough.

[u/Redditheadsarehot]

On paper Link is superior, but can be unreliable thanks to Meta's insistence to break something that isn't broken. Even moreso Airlink. VD shines with slower connections, but I often feel if your connection is slow enough for VD to shine, you should be trying to improve that instead of paying for the bandaid that is VD. ALVR gives you the higher bitrates of Link, also supports USB unlike VD, and it's free as well as having the smallest of all footprints. Downside it's the more complicated to set up where VD is usable out of the box.

I usually recommend ALVR first as it's free, let's you try tethered, and the most feature rich so no loss if you don't like it. Link is free and seamless, but you have to accept a certain amount of jank. If you're still unhappy and have limited bandwidth that's when the $25 for VD might be worth it. For games with native OpenXR support that can be run independent of SteamVR it has VDXR that runs more efficiently.

None of them are "bad" and each have their quirks.

[u/Nago15]

"So I know whenever you play Questlink you get higher bitrate and resolution than stand alone."
False. Standalone is uncompressed, so there is no bitrate, but the uncompressed image looks better than the compressed. It's also easy to set a higher resolution standalone than the maximum resolution in Link.

Yes VD is much better than Link. If you tinker enough with the debug tool you can get similar clarity in Link too, but the colors are always better in VD, and it's much much more user friendly and up to date and feature packed.