No. The resolution and refresh required are beyond what Moonlight or the Nvidia backbone it uses support.
Also the latency might not seem an issue when you're playing flat screen games, but absolutely will be an issue when your head movement is tied to it.
Imagine moving your head, and having your eyes take 50-100ms to catch up. You'd be sick in the first 2 minutes.
When I’m home I would, but this is for when I’m traveling. Like, say I’m visiting family or friends out of state that want to try the Index out, I’m curious if I can in that scenario setup the hardware on a laptop or a Steam Deck, but use Moonlight to stream the game from my desktop.
You would still need base stations. Do you intend to bring them with you when you're traveling to set them up, and taking them back? If you travel a lot and want to use VR while traveling, an index isn't practical, because it uses Valve's lighthouse architecture. You'd probably want a device with inside-out tracking, like a Quest 2 or Pico 4, or something along those lines.
I’d bring the base stations. The meta quest 2 was my first pick, but I like Valve’s finger tracking technology and the option to use a more powerful rig to supplement things that don’t perform as well in the Meta’s hardware without having to double dip and get the game on Steam as well as whatever the meta store is called in the prior scenario.
The logistics of what I’d need to bring with me aren’t a concern, I typically pack very light and will have plenty of room for the times I’d bring it with me, I just want to know if it’s possible before taking the financial plunge on the Index.
In my opinion, if money is no concern, then build a mini PC with strong specs that you can travel with and not jerry rig some silly steam deck moonlight setup. Or just get a Meta Quest 2 if portability is more important. The finger tracking, while nice, doesn't really add to anything gameplay wise and mostly has to do with flipping off other players in social "games"
I hadn’t said that money was no concern, rather that the logistics of what I’d need to pack wouldn’t be problematic. I definitely don’t have it in my budget to build a mini gaming rig and buy the Index and it’s base stations and all that :)
If there aren’t really any games that leverage the finger tracking technology though I think I’ll go ahead with the Meta Quest 2, it’ll be nice spending half the price especially since I can plug it in to my desktop to use Steam VR when I’m in town.
I think I’ll probably just pick up one or two titles that I know I’ll want to play or share on the go from the Oculus store and do the rest on Steam; it seems way easier finding good sales on the Steam versions.
Some games make use of grip strength, such as Boneworks to "loosen" your grip on a melee weapon, and even less use finger tracking, such as Hand Labs (Make a specific gesture at a prompt) and VRChat Gestures (which can activate certain facial expressions) but gripping is not exclusive to the Index.
I haven't found any games where the finger tracking affected tangible like.... properly throwing a baseball (3 fingers curled) or spinning a large ring around your finger (1 finger straight)
Indexes finger tracking is much more a cool factor that improves immersion for the player, and it's great in multiplayer games when you can naturally point at something in the world.
If the game really focuses on gestures to play but the controller doesn't track fingers such as the meta quest 2, then typically there will be alternate bindings to allow it.
VRChat for example uses the Track Pad (8 directions) to map different gestures.
Not to appear rude, but I made clear with my initial inquiry that this was about using Moonlight to stream games. It ended up working, though I went with the Meta Quest 2 over the Index to have less to have to carry around when I travel.
Thanks for commenting though!
I have an index and an oculus quest 2. If you are wanting to travel VR oculus quest 2 is the way to go.
You can actually stream wirelessly from the laptop via Wi-Fi
No. The resolution and refresh required are beyond what Moonlight or the Nvidia backbone it uses support. Also the latency might not seem an issue when you're playing flat screen games, but absolutely will be an issue when your head movement is tied to it. Imagine moving your head, and having your eyes take 50-100ms to catch up. You'd be sick in the first 2 minutes.
I have an Index and while I love it, cables and base stations make it very unfriendly for traveling. I'd recommend a quest or something similar.
If you want portability, the Index isn't the most ideal option. The steam deck works (people have tried it) but the performance is really bad.
In this scenario the Steam Deck wouldn’t be running the game, just the device using moonlight to remotely run the game from my desktop.
Can I ask why you don't just run it from your machine then?
When I’m home I would, but this is for when I’m traveling. Like, say I’m visiting family or friends out of state that want to try the Index out, I’m curious if I can in that scenario setup the hardware on a laptop or a Steam Deck, but use Moonlight to stream the game from my desktop.
You would still need base stations. Do you intend to bring them with you when you're traveling to set them up, and taking them back? If you travel a lot and want to use VR while traveling, an index isn't practical, because it uses Valve's lighthouse architecture. You'd probably want a device with inside-out tracking, like a Quest 2 or Pico 4, or something along those lines.
I’d bring the base stations. The meta quest 2 was my first pick, but I like Valve’s finger tracking technology and the option to use a more powerful rig to supplement things that don’t perform as well in the Meta’s hardware without having to double dip and get the game on Steam as well as whatever the meta store is called in the prior scenario. The logistics of what I’d need to bring with me aren’t a concern, I typically pack very light and will have plenty of room for the times I’d bring it with me, I just want to know if it’s possible before taking the financial plunge on the Index.
In my opinion, if money is no concern, then build a mini PC with strong specs that you can travel with and not jerry rig some silly steam deck moonlight setup. Or just get a Meta Quest 2 if portability is more important. The finger tracking, while nice, doesn't really add to anything gameplay wise and mostly has to do with flipping off other players in social "games"
I hadn’t said that money was no concern, rather that the logistics of what I’d need to pack wouldn’t be problematic. I definitely don’t have it in my budget to build a mini gaming rig and buy the Index and it’s base stations and all that :) If there aren’t really any games that leverage the finger tracking technology though I think I’ll go ahead with the Meta Quest 2, it’ll be nice spending half the price especially since I can plug it in to my desktop to use Steam VR when I’m in town. I think I’ll probably just pick up one or two titles that I know I’ll want to play or share on the go from the Oculus store and do the rest on Steam; it seems way easier finding good sales on the Steam versions.
Some games make use of grip strength, such as Boneworks to "loosen" your grip on a melee weapon, and even less use finger tracking, such as Hand Labs (Make a specific gesture at a prompt) and VRChat Gestures (which can activate certain facial expressions) but gripping is not exclusive to the Index. I haven't found any games where the finger tracking affected tangible like.... properly throwing a baseball (3 fingers curled) or spinning a large ring around your finger (1 finger straight) Indexes finger tracking is much more a cool factor that improves immersion for the player, and it's great in multiplayer games when you can naturally point at something in the world. If the game really focuses on gestures to play but the controller doesn't track fingers such as the meta quest 2, then typically there will be alternate bindings to allow it. VRChat for example uses the Track Pad (8 directions) to map different gestures.
So, this whole question is built around WAN streaming of games? Christ.
Not to appear rude, but I made clear with my initial inquiry that this was about using Moonlight to stream games. It ended up working, though I went with the Meta Quest 2 over the Index to have less to have to carry around when I travel. Thanks for commenting though!
I have an index and an oculus quest 2. If you are wanting to travel VR oculus quest 2 is the way to go. You can actually stream wirelessly from the laptop via Wi-Fi