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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

There are reports that they tried it. Not just wired but also wireless.

But the increase in latency in transmitting 10k+ of video data from the displays to the puck and back was enough to make the user more nauseous. I suspect because they wouldn't be able to process the data in time for the next frame.

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Meta can do wireless VR streamed from a PC with airlink. That’s at lower resolution, but it’s at least theoretically possible.

The latency is terrible though. I have an oculus quest 2. Maybe it’s an offer of magnitude better on the 3 but I doubt it.

Usually the WiFi setup is the biggest culprit. You’ll want to have wifi 6 and wire your desktop to the router.

Apple could theoretically directly connect between their compute puck and their headset.

I think this would theoretically work in the optimistic case. But it doesn't make a lot of practical sense: if the puck has the battery, you need to physically connect it to the headset anyway. Even if you used wifi for the data transfer, you're subject to any interference (retransmission of packets for a real-time OS sounds like a nightmare) and people leaving the puck on their desk and getting too far away. In a way, the cable is a feature and not a limitation.

Since it doesn't have a headphone jack (as far as I know) this is actually still a problem since you have to wear wireless earbuds with it, if you don't want other people to hear it.

I'm having an absolute blast with a Quest 3 and Skyrim VR running off my PC, via Steam Link, wireless. Not experiencing any latency (obviously this is all local - copper to my PC, Wifi to the Quest).

Wireless streaming VR seems like a non-starter, just an optional bullet point for marketing material. Shorter latency is always better in VR.

1080p feed (2m pixels) compared to each eye (23m pixels).

So you need 10x the network bandwidth at the same power levels.

The solutions I've seen adjust for head rotation on the headset (they render and transmit slightly more than the FOV), so latency only affects translation (which happens less frequently and less quickly) and actual scene updates (which are less latency sensitive than head rotation).

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