FS2 and Wireless Oculus Quest2 VR

  • Yes, I have an HP Reverb G1 for VR and most of the VR discussion focus right now has been about the new G2. However, I came across some articles about using the new Oculus Quest2 along with an application on the Quest2 (previously on Windows) called Virtual Desktop which acts as a conduit with some addon patching called Sidequest to permit Wireless VR. For best performance, a new 1Gbps router ($70USD or so) is added to your current router system so you can have a dedicated connection to your PC. The Quest 2 then uses that wireless connection to receive the VR image from your already well equipped VR ready PC and the quest controllers are used to fly the plane instead of the HOTAS unless you sit near them or have a Bluetooth HOTAS. The freedom from the tethered cable is really amazing amd other PC games that run only on a PC (like Half life:Alyx) can be enjoyed with this wireless setup. I know that you think this would not really work well - the video should be artifacted and blurry and the latency should be excessive - but it's not! I flew FS2 around in the 777 and the EFIS displays (update rates on the Q2 include 60,72,80, and 90) were quite crisp and the "sweet spot" in the Q2 is wide enough so that both the PFD and NAV MFD were clear without moving my head. The latency is about 40 msec so only the quickest games would suffer at all. I provide a couple links to read about it all:

    Software Steps:

    https://darkuni.medium.com/quest-newbie-t…op-9796427cdd0c

    Youtube:

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    Think about it!

  • Yes, it works very well, but just a few things for others to know:

    (1) Only the SteamVR build will run through Virtual Desktop wirelessly. The native Oculus build doesn't appear in the headset, even if you force it to launch. Not a big deal, still works just fine, just something to be aware of.

    (2) Wireless VR through Virtual Desktop does not support Oculus ASW or SteamVR's motion smoothing, so you will want to make sure you've got AeroFly's graphics settings configured so that you can hold a stable 90fps (or whichever framerate you've selected in Virtual desktop's options -- you can choose 72 or 80Hz too. Just make sure your system can comfortably hold the chosen framerate or things will get choppy.)

    Other than those two minor things, it works very well. Visuals through Virtual Desktop over wireless are great--very crisp. Also I'm getting ~30-35ms latency on my setup which is on-par with a hardwired Rift S. Compared to the Oculus Link cabled solution for Quest1/2, somehow Virtual Desktop manages better visual quality for a given amount of processing overhead. Link works fine too, but it uses more system resources to get an image on-par with what Virtual Desktop delivers. I know that sounds crazy but it's true, at least for now.

  • qwerty42,

    Thanks for your feedback. A couple questions:

    1) With wireless Virtual Desktop ( and not near the PC ) how do you assign a Quest2 controller button to the key "ESC" so you can get to the setting pages?

    2) Is there any future ability to get ASW / Motion Reprojection for wireless VD

    3) If you use the Link Cable, can you get some ASW?

    Also, a comment on full FOV clarity for the Quest 2 versus the Reverb G2. Others have tested what I will call Full FOV clarity (the desire only at this state of evolution in HMDs. of course) so that glass cockpit instrument panels like the Dash8 or 777 (FS2 aircraft) can be seen with PFD and NAV/MFD at the same time with only eye gaze changes - not head movement. I found for my visual characteristics (face shape, IPD, and lens prescription) that the Q2 and Reverb G1 were much better for me than G2. The following detailed reports (Use Translate from Spanish to English ) spell it out:

    https://www.realovirtual.com/articulos/5693…erb-g2-analisis

    https://www.realovirtual.com/articulos/5646…uest-2-analisis

  • Yeah, wireless Virtual Desktop with the Quest 2 (and a Wifi 5 or 6 router at 866 Mbps) is pretty amazing although I run most software on 60 Hz and 60 fps with my old PC.

    5 Ghz Wifi has a shorter range compared to the 'old' 2,4 Ghz Wifi so it's best to be not too far away from your router (same floor is fine over here)...

    Still a much better picture then with my Lenovo Explorer headset. :)
    Reviewers indeed report a slightly narrower Field Of View with the Reverb G2 compared to the G1....


    I don't know about your other questions but you can assign the ESC key to a joystick button in one of the AFS2 menu's, I've done so for years.

    Happy holidays!

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

    Edited 3 times, last by PjotR22 (December 14, 2020 at 6:52 PM).

  • Thanks for your comments - but what I meant about the ESC key was not to be able to assign it to a joystick button (done that ) but to assign it to the Q2 hand controllers. I think I read that the ESC function is some combination of hand controller buttons so I will research that.

  • Sorry about that, was probably a bit distracted while reading your post..
    Don't know if it's possible to use the touch controllers buttons to trigger the escape key...

    But you can go to Virtual Desktop menu while in a game or Aerofly with a long press on left controller menu button, then choose for desktop and get a virtual keyboard by pressing left controller X button. Then you have a virtual escape button and the Aerofly menu on the virtual desktop.

    I might tell you nothing new (again) but it doesn't take much time to do it this way...


    Some games running wireless with Virtual Desktop go back to menu with a long press left controller Y button, but that does not work with Aerofly FS2...
    Maybe the IPACS team can add that too?

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

    Edited 2 times, last by PjotR22 (December 15, 2020 at 2:52 AM).

  • 1) With wireless Virtual Desktop ( and not near the PC ) how do you assign a Quest2 controller button to the key "ESC" so you can get to the setting pages?

    2) Is there any future ability to get ASW / Motion Reprojection for wireless VD

    3) If you use the Link Cable, can you get some ASW?

    Hi there,

    (1) If you mean the button that lets you get back to the AeroFly menu screens... yeah, that's a little weird with wireless and VD, for a few reasons. First, since VD has to run AeroFly in SteamVR, the left menu button on the controllers becomes SteamVR's menu button. Second, VD also uses that same button to access the VD menu and environment, via a long-press. Third, AeroFly uses that SAME button to access its menus, also via a long-press. I think you can see the issue here, lol. I use a HOTAS almost always so I haven't bothered to see if it can be fixed, but if AeroFly lets you remap that button to one of the others on the left controller it'd work just fine.

    (2) I hope so, but I don't know. The VD dev is a really smart guy, so hopefully he'll figure out how to make it happen someday, but as it stands his streamer/capture system doesn't have any way to access the lower level ASW and motion smoothing funcionality. Apparently they operate on some layer that is related to rendering the image in the hardware that his code can't grab, yet. If he can get it working, I'm not sure I'd ever bother plugging the link cable in again, because other than that drawback it's just as good or better than Link, IMO. Even the motion-to-photon latency is lower with VD than the wired Link cable, which is hard to believe but it's true.

    (3) Yep, if you use the Link cable, you get all the same functionality as a hard-wired Rift or Rift S. There's a drawback, though -- the compression to run Link eats up a significant amount of GPU overhead, compared to a Rift or Rift S. So to get visuals as good or better than the old headsets, it takes a fair bit more processing power. With everything running at maximums though, it does look quite good, and is a definite improvement in most ways vs. my CV1 Rift.

  • Jan or admin,

    Is there a chance that you could help us new Quest2 users get back to the FS2 user menus - see the above from querty42 for details. Thanks for your effort. This new wireless VR concept that allows us to fly FS2 away from our keyboard or HOTAS is really amazing - from the comfort of my easy chair - and also staying in the family den (no local PC) for when socially distanced friends come over. Hopefully the code change isn't too significant.

    Thanks

    Dave W.

  • Jan or admin,

    Is there a chance that you could help us new Quest2 users get back to the FS2 user menus - see the above from querty42 for details. Thanks for your effort. This new wireless VR concept that allows us to fly FS2 away from our keyboard or HOTAS is really amazing - from the comfort of my easy chair - and also staying in the family den (no local PC) for when socially distanced friends come over. Hopefully the code change isn't too significant.

    Thanks

    Dave W.

    Sorry! I just checked this and it turns out it works totally fine. When AeroFly is running in the SteamVR runtime, it maps the back button to a click of the left thumbstick inward, rather than the Oculus menu button on that controller. So, there's no conflict--you can access the AeroFly menus with the stick-click; you can access the steamVR menu with a quick click of the menu button; and you can access the Virtual Desktop menus with a long-press of the menu button.