I’m losing my mind a little bit. Trying to use my Quest 2 for PCVR through Steam Link, but the stream quality is awful. Like “did I accidentally open YouTube in 2009” awful. Everything is blurry, bitrate changes don’t seem to do much, SteamVR resolution changes don’t seem to do much, debug tool tweaks don’t seem to do much.
Games actually run. Tracking is fine. It’s not crashing. It just looks terrible.
PC specs:
i7-12700KF
32 GB RAM
Arc A770
Network setup: main router is not in the room. PC is plugged by Ethernet into a Wi-Fi extender near the desk. Quest is connected to 5 GHz. I’m rural, so there shouldn’t be much Wi-Fi congestion around me. Is this my GPU, Steam Link being Steam Link, or something dumb in my network setup?
Before buying a new router or sacrificing the extender to the gods, check the Wi-Fi properly. Run NetSpot on a laptop or another analyzer near the play area and look at the 5 GHz channel, signal level, channel width, and nearby networks. Rural doesn’t always mean clean. Your own extender/router can still pick a bad channel, sit on DFS weirdness, or have a weak link back to the main router. Also check signal near the extender, not just near the Quest. The extender’s backhaul is probably the part ruining the party.
Extenders aren’t always useless, but they’re the wrong tool for this job.
@tech_guru23 Exactly. Extenders are fine until you ask them to do something more demanding than keeping a smart plug alive. Then suddenly everyone is shocked the $35 wall wart isn’t a datacenter.
@Present-Implement42 Ok, yeah, I think I was giving the extender way too much credit.
Arc might complicate things, sure. PCVR streaming can be pickier with encoding than normal gaming. But I wouldn’t blame the GPU first when there’s a Wi-Fi extender sitting in the middle of the whole thing like a raccoon in the vents. Test with a USB Link cable. If cable looks good, your PC is probably fine and the wireless path is the problem. If cable also looks bad, then go back to GPU/encoder/settings.