Oculus Quest 2 really is an excellent piece of technology. Just strap on the headset, turn it on and enjoy the wonders of virtual reality in standalone mode without any additional equipment needed.
But then when you want some extra “oomph” and access to a larger selection of VR titles, you can easily connect the Quest 2 with your PC and turn it into a PC VR headset. If your PC can handle VR gaming, that is.
In this article, I am going to give an overview of the system requirements needed to enjoy PC VR gaming with your Oculus Quest 2 headset. Later in the article, you will also find performance data from real users and their respective PC specifications.
Let does get started!
System Requirements for Oculus Link / Air Link
The primary way to utilize the PC VR capabilities of your Oculus Quest 2 headset is using either Oculus Link (wired with a USB cable) or Oculus Air Link (wireless).
The main difference between the two is that for Oculus Link you will need a high-quality USB 3 cable to establish the connection between your headset and PC. Oculus Air Link on the other hand is wireless, but requires a decent router to provide a stable network connection between the headset and your PC.
The official PC requirements are the same for both Oculus Link and Air Link:
| Component | Recommended Specs |
| Processor | Intel i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or greater |
| Memory | 8 GB+ RAM |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
| USB Ports | 1x USB port |
Oculus Link Supported GPU-s
| GPU | Supported | Not Currently Supported |
| NVIDIA | ||
| NVIDIA Titan Z | X | |
| NVIDIA Titan X | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Desktop, 3GB | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Desktop, 6GB | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060M | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070(all) | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080(all) | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Super | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20-series (all) | X | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series (all) | X | |
| AMD 200 Series | X | |
| AMD 300 Series | X | |
| AMD 400 Series | X | |
| AMD 5000 Series | X | |
| AMD 6000 Series | X | |
| AMD Vega Series | X |
Recommended Specifications
The system requirements in the previous tables range from low to high and do not give any indication about the performance you might expect from your setup.
It seems that for this specific reason, Oculus has also listed optimal requirements for Oculus (Air) Link in their support manuals:
- CPU: Intel Core-i7-9700K or comparable AMD
- RAM: 16GB DDR4
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 or comparable AMD GPU
- Storage: Ranging from 50GB to 340GB
- Wi-Fi: At least 8mbps
Edit (March 2022): Oculus seems to have now removed this specific support document.
If your PC specifications are in the same ballpark, you can be pretty sure that essentially any VR game will install and run properly on your computer.
Half-Life: Alyx – Performance Data from Actual Users
To give you a further understanding of the performance you can expect with certain PC specifications, I have taken the time to gather performance data from actual users that have played Half-Life: Alyx and described their experience.
Why Half-Life: Alyx you might ask? Well, first of all, it is one of the best and also most popular titles released for VR gaming. In my mind, it’s a “must try” game for anyone getting their hands wet in the world of virtual reality.
Secondly, it is quite demanding when it comes to PC specifications. A general rule of thumb here might be that If you can run Half-Life: Alyx, you can very likely also run other VR titles (except for maybe flight simulators and only a few others games).
Things to keep in mind about the data:
- These are users` subjective descriptions of the their performance and overall experience with Half-Life: Alyx gathered from different forums, Reddit threads and Youtube videos.
- People have different views – a “good performance” for one person could be “unplayable” for another.
- Sometimes it is unknown whether the PC is a desktop or a laptop. Also keep in mind that some GPU-s in the list that have the same model name can actually come in different specifications (memory, etc)
- The same hardware on a different PC setup can perform differently (depending on power output, thermal implementation etc)
- Oftentimes, performance issues for Oculus Link as well as Air Link can be solved by tweaking your overall setup and/or configuration. Click on the links to read my troubleshooting guides.
Nevertheless, here are the different PC specifications and the performance people have had playing Half-Life: Alyx with their Quest 2 headset:
| PC Specifications | Performance |
| My Setup: * AMD Ryzen 5 5600H * NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 * 16 GB RAM | Gaming laptop, 90Hz Refresh Rate, and 1.3x render resolution with Oculus Quest 2 (using Air Link) on medium settings. Runs perfectly well! If you are interested, you can watch my video about the full setup (including the router) and the kind of performance (latency, real-time bitrate) I am getting. |
| * Intel® Core™ i7-9700K * AMD Radeon™ RX 580 8GB * 16GB RAM | Work great on a mix of low and medium settings. |
| * AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900X * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 * 32GB RAM | Runs fine on ultra settings. |
| * Intel® Core™ i5 2nd Gen * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB * 8 GB DDR3 RAM | Occasional lagging and frame drops but playable at low settings (after following online manuals and tweaking the settings) |
| * AMD Ryzen™ 5 3600 * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 * 16GB RAM | The image is on the blurry side. Works fine eventually, but after a while becomes laggy and glitchy. |
| * Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti * 24GB RAM | Laptop user. The game runs decently, but hands and weapons are blurry and text on objects (e.g books) is horrendous. |
| * Intel® Core™ i5-4590 * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 * 24GB RAM | Playable with the lowest settings and when resolution is turned down. |
| * Intel® Core™ i5-4600 * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 * 8GB RAM | The game runs but is unplayable (vomit-inducing), |
| * Intel® Core™ i5-(?) * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 * 16GB RAM | Very playable. |
| * AMD Ryzen 5 1600 * NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1650 Super * 16 GB of DDR4 2666 MHz | Lowered resolution (1400x1400x per eye), low settings. Got 60+ fps with intermittent lag spikes. |
| * AMD Ryzen™ 5 2600X * NVIDIA Geforce RTX 2060 * 16GB RAM | The game runs perfectly on low to medium settings. |
| * AMD Ryzen™ 5 2600 * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti * 16GB RAM | Runs without problems on low fidelity settings. |
| * Intel Core i7-9700 * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super * 16GB RAM | 90Hz refresh rate, VR graphics set high in Virtual Desktop. Runs well. |
| * AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900X * Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 * 32 GB RAM | Maxed out with Air Link. |
| * AMD Ryzen™ 5 3600 * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 * 16GB RAM | Generally runs well, but looks blurry to the user. Occasional lag spikes and crashes occuring. |
| * Intel® Core™ i7-8700 * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB * 16GB RAM | Game is lagging and unplayable for the user. |
| * Intel® Core™ i7-8700 * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB * 16GB RAM | Playable at low settings. |
| * Intel® Core™ i7-8700 * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB * 16GB RAM | 65+ FPS at medium settings. Very playable. |
| * AMD Ryzen™ 5 2600x * AMD Radeon™ RX 580 8GB * 16GB DDR4 | Low settings, 60+ FPS average. Playable. |
| * AMD Ryzen 5 5600X * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 * 16GB RAM | 90 FPS with Quest 2 on “High” settings. Intermittent frame drops occuring. |
| * Intel Core i7 10700 * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 * 32GB RAM | Runs incredible, looks amazing. |
| * Intel® Core™ i9-10900K * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 * 32GB RAM | Runs well on Ultra settings. |
| * Intel® Core™ i9-9900K * NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti * 32GB RAM | Runs incredibly well on high settings. |
The performance list above shouldn’t be used as a go-to guide for estimating the performance you might get from specific hardware. However, when you aggregate all the data together, you can get a pretty good idea of what kind of PC is needed to run PC VR on Oculus Quest 2 properly.
I hope this article was useful and helped you understand the kind of PC specifications required for PC VR gaming and whether your computer could run PC VR properly with Oculus Quest 2 headset.
HARDWARE USED FOR TESTING AND WRITING THE ARTICLES:
* Meta Quest 2 (My “daily driver” headset, which I absolutely love & recommend)
* Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (AMD Ryzen 5 5600H, Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060, 16GB RAM)
* TP-Link Archer C6 (budget dedicated router for Air Link, see my full setup tutorial)
ESSENTIAL QUEST 2 COMFORT ACCESSORIES:
* VR Cover Foam Replacement (one of the easiest & cheapest ways to improve headset comfort)
* BoboVR M2 Head Strap (reduce pressure on your head and improve the overall fit of the headset)
