Quest 2, Which WiFi6 Router?

[melmac]

I had a chance to try out the TP-Link AC1750/RE450 access point at my parent's house yesterday. The powerline adapters are Netgear PL1000 https://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/networking/powerline/PL1000.aspx and the one in the living room is wired to a Tenda G1005D 5-port Gigabit Switch. I've got the same switch and I recall I had some issues using it with a Raspberry Pi running Moonlight to stream from my PC to my TV which I fixed by replacing it with a Trendnet TEG S50g https://www.trendnet.com/products/product-detail?prod=510_TEG-S50G . So I may need to replace my parent's one too but there seems to be another problem that's unrelated to that.

I had the AP set up with only the 5Ghz band on and wired to the switch and the Quest 2 connected to that fine but in Alcove I tried to play some of the travel videos from Paris and Amsterdam and they just kept freezing for about 10 seconds every 5 seconds. It was the data stream that was freezing, as I could still rotate the view to look around the still image, so the app wasn't crashing. I had no such problems playing these videos with the Quest 2 connected to the AP in my house, with it wired directly to my BT Smarthub.

So I tried using the AC1750 as a WiFi repeater instead of an AP, extending just the 5Ghz signal. That reduced the speed to 150Mps (which doesn't really matter for this test, as my Dad's broadband is only 100Mbps) but it took the Tenda switch and the powerline adapters out of the equation and I still had the same problem with the video playback freezing in Alcove.

I also tried connecting the Quest 2 directly to the Wifi on the Virgin Media hub upstairs, on the 5Ghz band. The signal's not great downstairs, which is why I bought the AC1750 but by the living room door its OK and I still had the same problem with the Alcove videos freezing.

So I'm wondering if there's an issue with the Virgin Media router/modem causing this. If so, it won't make any difference what other equipment I use. What diagnostics could I do to find out if there is a problem with the router? My parents haven't had any problems streaming online video from Amazon and iPlayer to their WiFi connected TV in the bedroom upstairs, nor with offline video stored on the PC streamed via Plex and the powerline adapters to the TV downstairs, so I don't really see how there could be a problem with the VM router that would only cause problems with Quest apps playing online videos but equally I don't see what else it could be, in light of the things that I tried.

There are a lot of different ways to test things. What I would do first is bring the Quest 2 upstairs and connect it to the Main Router directly using 5Ghz. See what happens.
If that works ok, you should bring the TP-Link Ac1750 upstairs as well. Connect it to the switch with a Cat 5e cable. Unplug everything else from the Switch apart from the PC, Main Router and the AC1750. Connect the Quest 2 to the AC1750 using 5Ghz. Again see what happens.

If that also works ok, then you are down to two things. Either the Wiring in the house or the Homeplugs aren't good enough to supply enough bandwidth for the Quest 2. You can get by on speeds slower than 100Mbps for streaming movies, but you need much faster speeds for the Quest 2 to work.

 

[doveman]

There are a lot of different ways to test things. What I would do first is bring the Quest 2 upstairs and connect it to the Main Router directly using 5Ghz. See what happens.
If that works ok, you should bring the TP-Link Ac1750 upstairs as well. Connect it to the switch with a Cat 5e cable. Unplug everything else from the Switch apart from the PC, Main Router and the AC1750. Connect the Quest 2 to the AC1750 using 5Ghz. Again see what happens.

If that also works ok, then you are down to two things. Either the Wiring in the house or the Homeplugs aren't good enough to supply enough bandwidth for the Quest 2. You can get by on speeds slower than 100Mbps for streaming movies, but you need much faster speeds for the Quest 2 to work.

Thanks. I'll try that next time I'm over there. Is there anything my Dad could do in the meantime, either using a wireless device like a phone or a tablet, or his PC wired to the VM router, to diagnose whether there's a problem with the router that could cause problems with video streaming to the Quest (in apps like Alcove and Youtube VR) but not with streaming video from Amazon, iPlayer to other devices, as I did experience the problem with the video freezing with the Quest connected directly to the VM router, albeit the Quest was downstairs at the time?

My BT broadband is only 72Mbps and the Quest apps that stream online content work OK here, whilst my Dad's VM Broadband is 100MBps but maybe normal movies only use say 20MBps, whereas Quest videos use 60Mbps and there's an issue with the VM router when streaming high bitrate content. So maybe there's some tests my Dad could do which would show if there's a problem with the router when downloading/streaming high bitrate content from the Internet which is causing the data transfer to freeze for several seconds repeatedly.

I recall seeing someone saying that the VM router doesn't work well with the Quest but someone else said it worked OK for them. I guess connecting the PC upstairs to a switch and then connecting the switch to the powerline adapter and the VM router would allow for PCVR streaming between the PC and the Quest without going via the VM router but obviously the VM router would still be used when streaming online video content to Quest apps, so if there's an incompatibility with the VM router and the Quest, I'm not sure how we'd solve that.

 

[melmac]

Thanks. I'll try that next time I'm over there. Is there anything my Dad could do in the meantime, either using a wireless device like a phone or a tablet, or his PC wired to the VM router, to diagnose whether there's a problem with the router that could cause problems with video streaming to the Quest (in apps like Alcove and Youtube VR) but not with streaming video from Amazon, iPlayer to other devices, as I did experience the problem with the video freezing with the Quest connected directly to the VM router, albeit the Quest was downstairs at the time?

My BT broadband is only 72Mbps and the Quest apps that stream online content work OK here, whilst my Dad's VM Broadband is 100MBps but maybe normal movies only use say 20MBps, whereas Quest videos use 60Mbps and there's an issue with the VM router when streaming high bitrate content. So maybe there's some tests my Dad could do which would show if there's a problem with the router when downloading/streaming high bitrate content from the Internet which is causing the data transfer to freeze for several seconds repeatedly.

I recall seeing someone saying that the VM router doesn't work well with the Quest but someone else said it worked OK for them. I guess connecting the PC upstairs to a switch and then connecting the switch to the powerline adapter and the VM router would allow for PCVR streaming between the PC and the Quest without going via the VM router but obviously the VM router would still be used when streaming online video content to Quest apps, so if there's an incompatibility with the VM router and the Quest, I'm not sure how we'd solve that.

I doubt it's an incompatibility or a problem with the Virgin Media router as it's not connected the Virgin Media router, it's connected to the AC1750. The video freezing when you were connected to the VM router directly from downstairs can easily be explained by the signal strength.

There isn't really anything that can be done apart from what I already said. Surely your Father could do the first part, bring the Quest 2 upstairs and connect it to the VM router?

 

[Nitefly]

A WiFi 5/802.11ac router can do 1200Mbps, so it would be strange if a WiFi 6/802.11ax router wasn't able to provide faster speeds. From a quick look, it seems that this router supports 4x4 11ax on 5GHz 160MHz bandwidth with 1024QAM modulation whereas a WiFi 5 router only supports 4x4 11ac on 5GHz 80MHz with 256QAM modulation, so in theory the router should support 2.4Gbps but the Qualcomm FastConnect 6800 SoC in the Quest 2 has a peak speed of approx. 1.7Gbps, so that will be the limiting factor https://www.qualcomm.com/products/fastconnect-6800

My TP-Link AC1750 supports 1200Mbps on Wifi 5/802.11ac but my Quest 2 still only connects at 866Mbps, so I'm not sure if it can connect any faster, even if you have a WiFi 6 router.

Thanks mate, I appreciate the help - sorry for some reason I didn’t see the notification for your response hence the slow reply.

 

[doveman]

I doubt it's an incompatibility or a problem with the Virgin Media router as it's not connected the Virgin Media router, it's connected to the AC1750. The video freezing when you were connected to the VM router directly from downstairs can easily be explained by the signal strength.

There isn't really anything that can be done apart from what I already said. Surely your Father could do the first part, bring the Quest 2 upstairs and connect it to the VM router?

He could if he had it but it's at my house at the moment, so I'll do those tests next time I'm over there.

One thing I've just remembered is that we were casting from the Quest to his PC at the time, using Airserver for Windows 10 as the inbuilt casting to a webpage is rubbish and only shows a small window which is quite hard to see on the TV. The PC upstairs was then streaming to a SteamLink connected to the TV downstairs. So travelling over the Powerline adapaters was 1) the video content streaming from the Internet to the Quest app; 2) the Quest casting to the PC; 3) the PC streaming to the SteamLink.

I have to do all this, as its impossible to help my parents learn how to use the Quest unless I can see what they see but I don't think this should overload the Gigabit Powerline adapaters, especially as the video content streaming from the Internet to the Quest app is going to be well under 100Mbps (my Dad's broadband speed), as it has to work for people who have lower BB speeds like 54Mbps. The problem might be the Tenda G1005D switch they've currently got under the TV, as I had issues with the same switch at my house just streaming PC games to a Raspberry Pi. I've got a replacement switch (D-Link GO-SW-8G 8 Port Gigabit) coming today anyway, so I'll see if that helps.

 

[doveman]

Well it turns out that there was either a fault with the Quest or with the Alcove app, as I tried playing the bus tour videos at my house, both with the Quest connected to my BT Smarthub at 866Mbps and with it connected to the TP-Link at the same speed and the videos constantly kept freezing for 5-10s here too. I did take the Quest back to my parent's house and tried connecting it to the Virgin Media router when sitting next to it and the speed was only 400Mbps, so maybe there is an issue with the VM router that would cause problems for anyone trying to use virtual desktop to play PCVR but that's obviously got nothing to do with this particular problem.

I decided that I'd wasted enough time and money fiddling with this and none of the headstraps that I've tried fitted my Mum's head or took the weight of the Quest off our faces, so I've returned it now.

 

[danswan]

Bought me a Ubiquiti Wifi6 access point, only to quickly realise the PoE standard is not compatible with my switch Realised just too late to cancel, so having to wait for it to arrive, sell it (or return if no takers) and then buy the one which works with standard PoE.

In case anyone needs to know, the Unifi6 Long Range requires PoE+ (at). The Unifi 6 Lite does 802.3af PoE which is much more common.

 

[newuser]

I did take the Quest back to my parent's house and tried connecting it to the Virgin Media router when sitting next to it and the speed was only 400Mbps, so maybe there is an issue with the VM router that would cause problems for anyone trying to use virtual desktop to play PCVR but that's obviously got nothing to do with this particular problem.

I know I'm a bit late but someone else may find this useful. I've got a virgin superhub 3 and a couple of times it has decided to connect at 400 rather than 866. On the first occasion just forgetting and reconnecting the wireless in the headset cured it. On the second occasion I had to reset the router to the default wireless settings through the web app. It doesn't make a lot of difference to be honest, still suffers from micro stutters despite my best efforts and fiddling with settings. The superhub isn't known for good range or latency. Not a lot of choice in the wireless settings either. I had better results with my 6 year old Belkin router, may it rest in peace.

I managed to snag a b grade Asus AX router from somewhere yesterday, looking forward to playing with it.

 

[godinman]

If you're connected via LAN won't the 1gbps wired connection on the AP bottleneck any benefits from WiFi 6? And if your wlan for PC do you get the full speed between the WiFi clients (PC & Q2)?

edit - not directed at anyone in particular, just wondering as I was going to upgrade my unifi ap to WiFi 6 before I thought about this.

 

[newuser]

If you're connected via LAN won't the 1gbps wired connection on the AP bottleneck any benefits from WiFi 6? And if your wlan for PC do you get the full speed between the WiFi clients (PC & Q2)?

edit - not directed at anyone in particular, just wondering as I was going to upgrade my unifi ap to WiFi 6 before I thought about this.

I've been thinking about this and I suspect that my incoming wifi 6 router will be capped to about 1200 by my 1gps wired connection. I've got 2.5 lan on the mb but I'm far too cheap to pay for a router with 2.5 wan. I'm hoping that midling wifi 6 will thrash the poor wifi 5 set up I have now. I'm expecting an improvement in latency and features like beamshaping and traffic prioritization to help. Will report back tomorrow when I've had a play.

 

[newuser]

Router arrived, it's an Asus AX82u. On the default settings with everything connecting where it wants on what band it wants VD is at 40ms latency at 100mbs in the same room. Connects at 1200.
In the room directly beneath it's still at 1200. In the living room which is one down and one over the speed drops to 600ish but the latency stays at 40. I'm sure I could do better with some fiddling but it's working well for the games I play. I'll have to see if the rest of my stuff runs okay at 2.4ghz then the quest can have 5 to itself.

Looks like selling the PC that was set up in the living room. It's sort of redundant now.

 

[melmac]

If you're connected via LAN won't the 1gbps wired connection on the AP bottleneck any benefits from WiFi 6? And if your wlan for PC do you get the full speed between the WiFi clients (PC & Q2)?

edit - not directed at anyone in particular, just wondering as I was going to upgrade my unifi ap to WiFi 6 before I thought about this.

This might be a concern in the Future, but, at the present time, no, a 1Gbps wired connection won't bottleneck a Wifi 6 Router/Access point.

However, even if it did, this would not affect the Quest 2's performance.

 

[godinman]

This might be a concern in the Future, but, at the present time, no, a 1Gbps wired connection won't bottleneck a Wifi 6 Router/Access point.

However, even if it did, this would not affect the Quest 2's performance.

I meant more in comparison to a wifi5 connection, as that pretty much is able to saturate a 1gbps Lan as it is.

I'll almost certainly cave and get a wifi6 AP and find out anyway.

 

[melmac]

I meant more in comparison to a wifi5 connection, as that pretty much is able to saturate a 1gbps Lan as it is.

I'll almost certainly cave and get a wifi6 AP and find out anyway.

You would need to have a Router and Client that supports 4x4 MIMO to come close to reaching 1Gbps. And very few client devices come with 4x4 Mimo. In reality, your Wifi 5 device will max out at much lower speeds than that.

What makes Wifi 6 much better for a home router is OFDMA, which reduces latency when connecting multiple devices. But, if you are using the Router as a dedicated router for the Quest 2, then OFDMA is redundant as there is only one device connecting, the Quest 2. So I don't there will be much, if any, difference between using an AC router for the Quest 2 versus an AX one.

If you aren't in a rush for getting a Wifi 6 router, I would hold off. Wifi 6 is going to be short lived. Wifi 6E is coming, actually is already here. It can use the 6Ghz channel once all the regulatory crap is sorted out.

 

[godinman]

Ah interesting, I guess I just read the theoretical max and went from there. I can get the unifi stuff through my business fairly cheap so I'll probably end up getting one once my supplier has stock anyway, because me nerd

 

[melmac]

Ah interesting, I guess I just read the theoretical max and went from there. I can get the unifi stuff through my business fairly cheap so I'll probably end up getting one once my supplier has stock anyway, because me nerd

haha, I can't talk because I bought one too, same reasons nerd!!

 

[ScoobyDoo]

I purchased an Asus RT-AX55 to use with my Quest 2. The Router will be in the same room and connected directly to the PC.

Will be setting them both up in an hour or so and will let you guys know how I get on.

How are you getting on with the ax55
My honor 3 gives me micro stutters quite regularly and saw on the VD discord channel that the honor 3 is prone to these and not now recommended so I was thinking of upgrading to the ax55.
Any issues with it or is it still working great?

 

[melmac]

How are you getting on with the ax55
My honor 3 gives me micro stutters quite regularly and saw on the VD discord channel that the honor 3 is prone to these and not now recommended so I was thinking of upgrading to the ax55.
Any issues with it or is it still working great?

Mine has worked great, haven't had any microstutters at all.

But before you rush out and buy one. Try the following.

Disable OFDMA. See does that improve things. If that doesn't work then try the following.

Drop the router back into AC(wifi 5) mode. See how that works. If AC mode works fine then you don't really need a new router.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Mine has worked great, haven't had any microstutters at all.

But before you rush out and buy one. Try the following.

Disable OFDMA. See does that improve things. If that doesn't work then try the following.

Drop the router back into AC(wifi 5) mode. See how that works. If AC mode works fine then you don't really need a new router.

Do you know how to disable Ofdma?
I can't find the setting on the router desktop or mobile app

 

[melmac]

Do you know how to disable Ofdma?
I can't find the setting on the router desktop or mobile app

Not sure mate, sorry. I don't have the router myself. It might be called something else completely, as that's basically a chinese router.

EDIT: if you just switch to AC mode that will disable OFDMA, as that's a Wifi 6 technology.