Intel’s new Wi-Fi chip guarantees a greater strategy to tether your Meta Quest VR headset

Intel and Meta have teamed up on a brand new strategy to straight join your Oculus Quest headset to a gaming PC. If you purchase or construct a pc with its AX1690 Wi-Fi chip — and presumably others, we’re checking — you need to have the ability to straight join your headset to the pc as a substitute of relying in your router to do the lifting (by way of Wi-Fi Now).

If you ask me, the Oculus Quest’s coolest function is which you can tether it to a gaming PC, taking part in intensive titles like Half-Life: Alyx or Star Wars: Squadrons over Wi-Fi or wired USB-C. But when you’ve ever struggled to configure your router for the perfect Virtual Desktop or Oculus Air Link expertise, like me, this would possibly allow you to take away it from the equation.

Interestingly, the brand new function is predicated on an present one which Intel launched final yr, referred to as Double Connect Technology (DCT), which was initially marketed as a strategy to join a pc to 2.4GHz and 5GHz or 6GHz networks concurrently for elevated bandwidth and reliability.

Meta had a distinct thought, although: what if it may borrow that 5GHz (Quest 2) or 6GHz (Quest Pro) for a direct hyperlink to its headset with out killing your PC’s connection to the web?

Intel and Meta say the result’s even higher than a “hybrid” single-hop setup the place you’ve bought an ethernet cable plugged into your gaming PC and solely depend on Wi-Fi for the Quest 2. Intel claims it provides as much as 20 % decrease latency (sub-5-millisecond) since you’re slicing that router out of the equation.

Virtual Desktop developer Guy Godin calls that “marketing BS” since sub 5ms latency is already attainable with an excellent residence community, however Meta is pushing again in opposition to that — CTO Andrew Bosworth says the corporate’s information “suggests this would be an improvement for a meaningful percentage of Quest 2 customers,” with wi-fi lead Bruno Cendón including that the corporate isn’t asking people to buy new motherboards with this Wi-Fi chip — you need to have the ability to buy an M.2 add-in card or PCI board, and it simply desires customers to “enjoy the best possible PCVR experience in the easiest way.”

If that’s true, although, Godin suggested Meta ought to push Intel to repair a bug that might let its present AX200 Wi-Fi chips do a much better job of streaming. (It appears like Godin and Cendón are DMing about that now.)

Still, I guess Boz is true: as somebody who’s spent hours tweaking Virtual Desktop and router settings with solely average success, I might completely give one thing like this a strive.

It’s not fairly clear what I’ll have the ability to purchase and when, although. Intel did certainly recommend that individuals who need this could “choose new 13th Gen Core processor PCs and motherboards” — see picture above — and the AX1690 doesn’t presently appear to be out there to buy.

However, Intel’s AX411 add-in card additionally provides DCT, and you’ll simply discover one for below $40 on the internet. I simply requested each corporations if the AX411 is supported, and I’ll let you recognize what I hear.