Cable is slower than airlink - how can I play PCVR 4k lag free via cable?

[Oggifourtytwo]

Hey everyone, I got a Quest 3 and a link cable. Out of the box I was able to play bootstrap island via airlink in 4k, almost lag free. However, if I am doing the same via link cable it doesn't even startup. If I lower the resolution to 0.6 it runs alright, but sometimes I get a "out of memory" error and it crashes. This problem consists throughout other games, if I try to play them in full resolution. If nothing helps, I wouldn't mind playing in a lower resolution, but as I said: I can play in 4k via airlink, so my PC should be capable enough, it just doesn't work via cable, so there must be something wrong...

I tried lot's of troubleshooting with chatGPT, but it didn't deliver useful results. Seems I can't figure out the bottleneck. Can someone maybe help?

HARDWARE
Win 11 home
Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700 2.10 GHz
Installed RAM 16,0 GB (15,8 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060Ti
Link cable: called "INIU link cable" (30€), good reviews on amazon, found no reports on faulty connection

SOFTWARE

To stream games via cable:
Meta Quest Link
Steam VR

Games I tried:
Bootstrap island
The Lab
Skyrim VR

What I tried so far (without any results)
restarted all processes
Checked cable speedtest: 2.5 Gbps
Checked all USB ports
Turned off all background processes and stuff like windows game mode
tried different refresh rates
changed video codec mode in oculus debug tool
turned off steam vr home
turned off wifi on my quest 3

My suspicion

It doesn't feel right to me, that I have to use steam VR on top of meta quest link to start a game... maybe the apps are interfering? Is there an alternative, or a more direct way to play the games from my pc on my quest?

Problems I experienced during playing
Connection to Steam Link is lost

"Out of memory" Error message
Lag
Game freezes

Crashes

[TomCgcmfc]

@Oggifourtytwo  First of all, don't expect miracles with your 3060ti with demanding PCVR apps.  Still, you should get pretty good results, albeit you may need to lower your settings a bit.

Don't muck around too much with your ODT settings.  Set to defaults things like codec and slice encoding will use the correct ones depending on if you're using Link or Air Link.  I suggest you leave everything defaults/zeros except Distortion = low and set your encoding bitrate to 0 (zero) for Air Link and 500mbps for Link.

With your meta link pc app device graphics settings I suggest you use 80Hz refresh rate and the res slider a few notches left of full right (~1.2x).  Also, with Air Link set your meta link home dashboard left icon bitrate to 200mbps Dynamic (not Fixed).  Go to your meta link settings/general tab and make sure to select Oculus as your default openxr runtime.

With SteamVR go to its settings/video and set global to 100% (not auto).  Many newer Steam VR apps allow you to select which mode to start off with.  Some do this automatically if you start them with your pc desktop shortcuts and some need you to go to your steam library and select this after clicking the play button.  Something you need to figure out yourself imho.  I you're running Steam apps it's a good idea to have steam running in the background to begin with.  I go to my steam settings and have it startup when I startup Windows 11.

Win10/11 graphics settings, disable hardware acceleration graphics (HAGS) and turn Game mode off.

With Nvidia, try keeping your drivers reasonable up to date (no more than ~10-12mo behind current).  Set your Nvidia control panel global 3d settings to all defaults except Power = prefer max performance, and change the texture quality default below this from quality to high performance.

I use both Link and Air Link with my Q3 and I get very good results with both.  I don't really notice much difference in performance but I do find that Link results in a bit lower latency, hence a bit smoother, and distant objects look a bit clearer.  Also, with Link you're not subject to the odd bit of wifi interference.  I mainly use Link for demanding racing/flight sims and Air Link for everything else.  Pretty hard to beat the freedom of wireless PCVR imho.

While I get great results with these, many users find that Virtual Desktop works very well and is a bit easier to setup.  Might be worth trying out.  With all wireless PCVR options make sure you have a good wifi6 (not necessarily wifi6e) router setup = dedicated 5Ghz channel and that your close as possible to your router, preferably in the same room.

As far as you cable goes, I've heard mixed reviews with yours.  I you get a lot of cutouts you may want to contact the supplier and see if they can help.  Some have got replacements that seem to work better.  I use the official link cable and it works well but is a bit expensive.  In the past I've used the Kuject cable from Amazon and it worked 99% as well as my official cable.

Anyway, I hope this helps.  If you still have issues I suggest you do a bit more google research troubleshooting and/or contact meta support including your log files (google how to do this) to see if they can help identify what's causing your issues.  Good luck mate and cheers.   

[majjinbuuhoo]

I'm basing my suggestion off of the Meta Quest 2 requirements, but have you tried a cable and port that does at least 5Gbps? I saw your speed test for the cable was half of that, so maybe that's what your issue could be?

[TomCgcmfc]

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@majjinbuuhoo wrote:

I'm basing my suggestion off of the Meta Quest 2 requirements, but have you tried a cable and port that does at least 5Gbps? I saw your speed test for the cable was half of that, so maybe that's what your issue could be?

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No, a usb3 5Gbps cable is fine as Link only delivers ~500mbps bitrate anyway (max 940mbps).  As long as the meta link device usb speed test gives you ~2.2-2.5Gbps you should be fine.  I get 2.4Gbps with my official link cable and this works great.

Maybe google ' how does meta link work ' for more detailed info on all this.  Cheers.