Wirelessly Playtest Your Unity VR Project Using Virtual Desktop

Streamline your Unity VR testing Experience!

Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

When I purchased the Oculus Quest 2, I also upgraded my PC to be able to run PC VR. This is because the Oculus Quest has a feature called Air Link to wirelessly stream PC VR games. I hoped that I could use this to test Unity VR games without having to download APKs into the device every time. While that was the dream, the reality was that Air Link was buggy and almost impossible to connect. After I entered pairing mode, the Oculus desktop application would just crash. Luckily, there is a popular workaround using the application Virtual Desktop.

Virtual Desktop is an app that allows you to stream your desktop into your headset as well as PC VR applications. While it costs a few dollars, it has significantly less bugs than the Link, and users have reported that it gave a provided a better connection.

Note: To be able to set Virtual Desktop up, you will need to make sure you have a WiFi6 router and an ethernet cable.

Setting Up Virtual Desktop

1. If you don’t have Steam VR, install Steam from here, create an account, then install Steam VR (just search for it inside the store, its free).
2. Install the Virtual Desktop PC application here.
3. Purchase and install Virtual Desktop for your Oculus Quest here.
4. Open the Virtual Desktop PC application and add your Oculus username under the Accounts tab.
5. Connect a WiFi6 router to your device via ethernet cable. You should probably set the router to repeat the signal of your home internet router so that you will get Internet access.
6. On your Oculus Quest, connect to the router’s Wi-Fi, then enter the Virtual Desktop. You should see your desktop device pop up. Click connect.
7. Now, you should see your monitor screen inside your headset. Press the menu button to open settings. Launch Steam VR from here.
8. Go to your project settings for your Unity VR project, then click on XR Plug-in Management. You should set the plugin for the desktop mode as OpenXR. Under the XR Plug-in Management click the Open XR tab, and set the default OpenXR Runtime to be SteamVR. NOTE: Alternatively you could have used the Oculus plugin and downloaded the Oculus Desktop app to run VR, however in my experience the Oculus Desktop app is also buggy.
9. Now, when you play your Unity VR project, it should launch within your currently active Steam VR runtime, which will be streamed to the Virtual Desktop app in your headset!
10. However, this is all contingent on your Unity project being set up for VR properly. If you would like to learn more about that, click here to go to my tutorial series on OpenXR VR Development in Unity!