Why do PCVR players play stand-alone?

[breonko]

I used to be a quest player, got a pc and never looked back (except for exclusives.)

but I constantly see “I use quest because it’s easier” and stuff like that.

it takes quite literally 3d seconds to turn on a pc and open virtual desktop/steamlink/airlink. And it’s 100000x better than standalone.

[nalex66]

For many games, PCVR isn’t “100000x better.”  I play a lot of Walkabout and Ancient Dungeon, which look identical on PC vs stand-alone. In those cases, it’s just less friction to put on the headset and play, rather than stream from PC. Even for games with a graphical difference, playing stand-alone has advantages, like instant passthrough with a quick double-tap on the side of the headset (doesn’t work while connected to PC).

Also, some of the exclusives are pretty great games. Dungeons of Eternity is one of my favourites, and Asgard’s Wrath 2 and Assassin’s Creed Nexus are both worth your time.

I’ve got a decent PC with a 3080Ti, but I can’t remember the last time I played PCVR, although I play stand-alone VR games just about every day.

[AliceinVRworld]

Agree everything looks better in PCVR however, I like using hand tracking in Vrchat and while being on PC there is not a way...However, I do like laying down on my bed and my computer is not close enough to be with cable as with Airlink is not working sometimes. But that is why I use standalone sometimes! 

[oculusness]

I play the meta home environments on standalone..... that's about it.

[LaserDisk]

I like to switch it up between the two, I'm not always on the hunt for top-notch graphics whenever I dive into VR. I prefer to hang out and have a chat with my buddies in VR chat; sometimes we're just chilling by a virtual campfire, sharing stories. I don't require the best graphics or the ability to see every detail to have a great conversation.

[DaftnDirect]

I don't exclude myself from anything VR solely on the basis of perceived superiority.

PCVR is great but limited by the number of new titles compared to standalone, I really just play a couple PCVR games and sims and they've been around for a long time and I absolutely love them but there's more variety on standalone. PCVR tends to target the longer sit-down sessions especially with the sims... sometimes I'm in the mood for that, sometimes I'm in the mood for a more physically active shorter type of fun play.

Sometimes I'm away from home, or playing with friends/family, or demoing the headset. Sometimes I'm movie watching, streaming something from my NAS, 3D is especially good. Sometimes I'm having a meet-up in Horizon Worlds.

There's a tendency to spend a lot of money on a PC/GPU and then think anything else is not good... maybe it's a little bit of self justification for spending the big bucks.

Eventually, if GPU prices ever come down, the PCVR userbase may increase to the point where a larger percentage of game releases include native VR but right now I think Quests are keeping VR gaming alive so I don't think it should be looked down on.

[TomCgcmfc]

@breonko I mainly use flight sims like msfs2020 so I therefore mainly use my QPro with Link.  To get the best out of this I have a very powerful PC (i913900k/rtx4090/32Gb 6400ram/z790mb/1000w psu).

I also have a very good wifi6 setup and I can get very good wireless PCVR results with both my QPro and Q3.  I tend to mainly use my Q3 standalone for MR apps and quest exclusives.  I mainly use it for wireless PCVR with most everything else.  For the most part PCVR versions look and play better than standalone imho.  Obviously standalone is great when I’m away from my PC.  

I also don’t find it takes any significant amount of extra effort to run PCVR.  I think it really just depends on your usage and whether or not you have a good PC and WiFi setup.  The main thing is to have a good VR experience, no matter what mode you prefer to use, standalone or PCVR imho.