VirtualLink to replace VR-cablemess with single USB Type-C

Not just that but it took years for others to catch up to Intel's USB quality. Heck, even AMD were far behind WRT to USB speed and stability for many years. The same applied to SATA chipsets and performance.

The last time I remember a robust 3rd party I/O implementation right out of the gate was the VESA local bus (the competing standard to Intel's PCI) back in 1992. Perhaps because it wasn't trying to follow in Intel's footsteps.

Hell, Intel was late to the SSD party but their first product which featured their own internally developed SSD control chip blew everyone out of the water.

I'm sure my memory is just being pessimistic about the whole thing, but it does seem to take 3rd parties ages to get things right. Hell, just look at the mess that is USB-C. It's starting to get better, but it's still not exactly as universal (in terms of implemented features across implementations in devices) as USB-A (USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.1, etc.).

Regards,
SB

 

The Connection is an alternate mode of USB-C should simplify and speed up the setup time for your VR gear avoiding one of the major inconveniences of having and using a VR headset in a room where it isn’t always connected

 

I didn't know this. Are there comparisons in the internets?

 

So.. VirtualLink is officially dead.

If Valve cancelling the adapters citing reliability problems and lack of adoption and its absence from the RTX30 cards didn't make it obvious enough, the official website is gone from the Internet and the wikipedia page points to the standard in the past tense.

So there you go. RIP VirtualLink.

 

???
ps: is usb-c thunderbolt ?

 

Thunderbolt 3 and 4 use USB-C as physical medium.
Thunderbolt 1 and 2 used Mini DisplayPort.

USB-C allows "alternate modes", where the pins can be reconfigured to change signals and frequencies. VirtualLink was supposed to use USB-C alternate mode.

 

Every VR headset should be shipped in a way which lets you freely rotate. A slip ring is one way to achieve that, wireless is another. Slip rings are hard to make work with these superfast electrical busses.

To ship VR with fixed wires is to ship them crippled, creating a crippled VR system which poisons the well of VR. Which is what the new wave of VR hardware manufacturers did from the start unfortunately.

As Carmack said :

Unfortunately the money overrode his principles and he cooperated in shipping a system where neither could realistically work because of cable entanglement ... we're all whores for money.

VR was doing it wrong, VR is doing it wrong ... but unfortunately now everyone is so used to it, they can't even conceive of the current state being the huge fucking mess it truly is.

 

The basic premise here is that VR needs to be used with a stationary 'server' into which the headset is tethered. Backpack-VR FTW?

 

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/kat-walk-c.61874/

This is whats going to happen. There is no other way to drive enough pixels at a high enough quality.

People love crap like the quest but its crap. I'm sorry it is. Its so much crap that people begged to allow them to use it off their pc.


The wireless headsets like the quest are crippling vr. I know many people who have bought a quest and returned it because as they said the switch has better graphics.


A work around could be a hip mounted set up where the headset is just the optics and sound and it goes to a hip pc that has a much stronger SOC on it. I know of one using an amd APU but its just a protype

 

When I say wireless I mean with a wireless video link.

 

I'd love to see a good wireless solution on this end , however i think it wont happen for awhile unless facebook does it. Resolution on headsets is still going up and all the wireless stuff is based off existing wireless tech. It would take someone willing to invest in every facet of the hardware to bring something from the gorund up to the market. Or they would have to be willing to hold things back so far in terms of resolution and frame rate.

 

The problem with wireless is that you either need a fair amount of compression OR you need to mount something on the ceiling and use 60 GHz or optical (without mounting on the ceiling LoS requirements will make it flaky). Also yeah, it would need to be well supported.

 

for context there is standalone (content is delivered from within the headset) and wireless (content is delivered from a PC using a non-wired solution).

Prior to quest, VR users were more than happy with a system that requiring significant time in positioning and calibrating room cameras. If it really made a massive difference (compared to say wifi6 on the quest2 with Virtual Desktop), a wireless mount in the centre of a ceiling should not be a big barrier. Have also heard some thoughts that VR headset manufacturers could ship a dongle that goes into a USB-c port and provides point to point wireless, eliminating issues with old/cheap/slow routers.

 

already can work with Quest. But due to stupid design of Windows 10 hotspot feature, it could be rather hard to do depending on people's setup. Using the very old "hostednetwork" command thru cmd with static IP address still work as reliable as ever tho.