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Comment by riskable | Hacker News Reader

When Valve releases a stand-alone headset that can play regular PC VR games that will be what changes the VR market. Until then it'll be just, "more of the same." Minor improvements/evolution, etc.

Biggest thing the industry could do in order to move VR/AR forwards would be to adopt SteamOS or a similar "normal" Linux OS and give end users root. That would really be a kick in the ass towards real innovation more than, "slightly better tracking; slightly lighter; now with color pass through!"

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>and give end users root.

I like the idea but the vast majority of people buying smartphones don't have root and it rarely bothers them.

Hackers can build an ecosystem. So it doesn’t really matter what the vast majority do imho.

The year of the linux desktop!

You can do this with the Quest 2 right now via AirLink. I do it all the time.

You're talking about streaming/remote control of a PC which can involve significant latency and lag spikes (unless you're tethered with a good USB cable). That is by definition not a stand-alone headset. You're just using it as a fancy VR dongle.

This necessitates two things:

    * Your PC is powerful enough to run VR games
    * Your PC is in an area that's convenient to play (with plenty of room)

Nearly all Quest 2 users are using it stand-alone. They're not hooking it up to a PC. There's a tiny fraction of users that do the PC VR thing with Steam but that's so small as to be negligible in the overall market.

You're actually kind of making my point: Imagine if you didn't need the PC or the tether and could just play those great, easy-to-mod PC VR games directly on the headset. The market for VR would undergo a massive, positive change.

I'd also like to point out that tethering limits the fun you can have! Example: https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=7668607

You can't play Beat Saber like that if you're tethered.

If you don't have a PC powerful enough for VR then you're probably not going to drop a lot of money on a combined PC+VR headset either.

I bought a cheapish wifi router to use for dedicated AirLink and I do SteamVR -> Quest 2. It works great. No latency (but I will admit the very occasional lag spike, it doesn't bother me and I don't miss a note while Beat Saber is going super fast, so it can't be that bad)

Yes, you do need a gaming PC. I got a gaming laptop for like $2400 AUD 3 years ago and it's going great with VR (and Starfield on Ultra, not in VR)

"The very occasional lag spike" completely destroys the ability to play Beat Saber. It'll drive you crazy (as it did me)!

...and I too tried dedicating my Ubiquiti UniFi 6 Wireless Long-Range Access Point (U6-LR-US) just for the headset to see if that would improve things (set it up with a new hotspot name so it'd be dedicated and only told the headset about it). The Wifi AP was on the wall just about 3 feet from my head and I still got the occasional lag spikes and I confirmed that they were due to the Wifi network (not just rendering spikes on my PC).

There's just too much random interference on the 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz bands for it to be buttery smooth. I suppose I could turn my house into a Faraday cage and that might improve things :)

That's your experience. GP has had a different experience that works for them, and maybe would for others.

> * Your PC is powerful enough to run VR games

So you want powerful enough PC on your head? It's impossible for everyone. Valve doesn't make a chip. Even for Apple, their chip is great but not comparable with powerful GeForce.

The CPU/GPU part of the device does not need to go on your head. Manufacturers make it that way for convenience (and lower part count) but that doesn't necessitate that stand-alone headsets be made like that. Apple, for example has the battery in a separate little dongle that you're supposed to put in your pocket. If they can do that there's no reason they couldn't put the CPU/GPU hardware elsewhere too.

The Steam Deck can play some VR games just fine. It just wasn't made for that purpose so as it stands it's currently sub-optimal. With a few minor changes that very same chip/hardware could make a decent VR headset.

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