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Succeeded by the Reality Labs Corporation, the Oculus brand was the first one to work on various virtual reality-based products that shared its namesake. These would include the Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest hardware and software components. The Rift runs with the help and support of a PC, and the Quest is a standalone device.
In either case, gamers are treated to a virtual reality experience that is meant to be more immersive than the computer, console, or handheld gaming systems that are the usual standard for entertainment of this type today.
Players will use a set of controllers to perform in-game actions, and goggles that go over the eyes are meant to make a gamer feel more connected to the virtual world in which they are playing. As with any gaming system, the hardware uses software; there are system requirements and a library of games that should be optimized for the Rift or Quest.
Some players might wonder if it is possible to download games while the Oculus system is turned off or in its dedicated sleep mode. We will cover this topic in more detail in our article below.
Further, we will also discuss why it might seem like some games download quite slowly, what users might be able to do to make those downloads complete at a faster rate, how to check on whether games are downloading at all, and the directory locations for where the completed files should go.
Table of Contents
Do Oculus Games Download While Off or in Sleep Mode?
Yes and no. You cannot download games while the system is completely off. Aside from any phantom power, this would mean that no energy flows into the system. The memory inside the Oculus device is not active, nothing is computed, and it is not storing any data.
Because of this, there is no way for the device to keep receiving download data to store new game information anywhere. The Oculus must be powered on in some fashion for downloads to continue.
Turning off the system completely while a download is in progress shouldn’t harm anything, but you may find that a queue of downloads has reset itself once you turn everything back on again.
However, you can still maintain download progress in sleep mode. Sleep mode essentially just turns off the screen so it is not active when you are not wearing the headset.
It is a form of a low-power state that still keeps energy running through the device.
In these cases, the processor and memory are still in use, much like how some consoles can complete background downloads when you put them in their sleep mode. Clicking the power button one time should put the device in sleep mode.
Holding it down for too long may shut it off completely, though. Gamers should note that there is a timeout feature as well. Depending on its settings, it may put the device to sleep or shut it down after some time.
Check these settings and adjust them accordingly to ensure your downloads are not interrupted.
Why Are Oculus Downloads So Slow?
In most cases, you should be able to expect download speeds for Oculus games similar to other systems you may have. This can depend on your overall connection speed and a few other things, but you might find that some of your games seem to download much slower than they should.
The first place to look would be your own connection. You can use various programs right in your web browser to make a test that tells you how fast your connection speed is at that time.
It is a good idea to remember that other things that might take up your allotted bandwidth might have some impact on how fast your Oculus games are downloading from the servers to your device.
One of the other more likely culprits is the company itself. Games that you want to download are hosted on Oculus servers.
While these are robust and meant to handle a lot of traffic at once, it is possible that they are being bogged down by too many users requesting lots of downloads all at once.
When this happens, it can affect the game download speeds of individual users.
On a related note, it is possible that the company may throttle some download speeds. It may only do this during peak download times, but it is one way that the servers may try to handle all the traffic going through them at once.
Throttling would mean that your connection to those servers specifically has only limited speed that the server owners set. This would be true even if your overall connection speed based on your internet service provider is still considerably faster than what you’re getting from the Oculus servers.
How Can I Make My Quest Download Faster?
There might be a few things you can do to increase the download speeds of the Oculus games you want to install on your system. However, whether these can work depends on why your download speed seems limited.
For example, if you’re trying to download games after a recent holiday, many new users may have received and are trying out their own Oculus headsets.
Because of this, there could be a lot of new traffic that the servers weren’t prepared for, and everyone’s download speed might be temporarily reduced.
For this issue, your only option may be to wait and see if speed increases later.
You may check if you have support for both 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands. If you do, there is a setting whereby your network might flip between the two bands.
In most cases, it will do this based on which one might better serve your needs, and a band with less traffic may allow your hardware to take full advantage of your connection.
While this setting should be fine for most devices, it may cause some issues with the Oculus. You can try changing the setting to focus on one band instead of switching.
Doing so may allow you to see some improvement in the download speed for your games.
If the above advice doesn’t work, you can move things closer to the router or change its position. Router placement, and your device’s proximity to it, can have some impact on download speeds.
Even if it seems as though other devices are downloading things at much better speeds, it may be worthwhile to go through these motions to see if there is any improvement for your Oculus.
How Do I Know if Oculus Is Downloading?
The Oculus headset should display a download progress bar as part of a notification whenever you download a game.
You should be able to see this at any point while wearing the headset while an exchange of data is taking place. In fact, it should keep this bar present even if you load up another app within Oculus.
Putting on the headset may be one of the simplest ways to check whether something is actively downloading to your system. However, having the display always on might be tedious when you don’t want it to interrupt your playing experience.
You can disable it by going to ‘Settings’ in the Oculus and turning ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode on. Doing so should ensure these kinds of bars do not display over your game.
Can You Check Downloads on Oculus App?
You can use the Oculus app to check for all the downloaded content. The app is compatible with your computer and mobile devices. In each case, you should have access to a Library area that will show you all of the content you’ve downloaded or own for the Oculus Quest 2 system.
You may run into issues with a blank library page from time to time, and this can happen even when you know you’ve downloaded content previously.
If this happens, you can launch any game from the headset. Doing so seems to be one of the easiest ways to get the library portion to refresh itself.
Where Do Oculus Games Download To?
When you first set up your Oculus system, it will ask if you would like to put games on your default drive location for your computer.
Once you get further into the setup process, it will ask to which directory you want the games installed specifically.
If you do not, you can choose here, but it should default to a folder specifically for the Oculus in your computer’s ‘Program Files’ section.
Within the Oculus folder, it should create subfolders for different games that you install.
Conclusion
The Oculus represents a fairly new way for gamers to enjoy a virtual experience. The library of titles continues to expand, and the technology is already on its second-generation iteration for now.
As things continue to improve, we should see more realistic worlds run on even more complex hardware.
Oculus downloads can be slow at times, but there might be a few things you can do using the tips above to speed the process along a little.