My favorite gaming monitor right now isn’t even a monitor

5 July 2025

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my-favorite-gaming-monitor-right-now-isn’t-even-a-monitor — My favorite gaming monitor right now isn’t even a monitor

I’m not making any friends with this opinion, and that’s OK. I love playing games in my Meta Quest 3. No, I’m not talking about VR games — though I’ll happily take on anyone in Beat Saber — I’m talking about my regular, ol’ Steam games. It’s what VR enthusiasts would call “flat” games, and as much as I dislike that term, I am essentially playing my PC games on a large, flat screen in mixed reality.

In some ways, the Quest 3 is almost like a Steam Deck

I think of the Quest 3 almost like a Steam Deck. I know that sounds ridiculous, but stick with me. With the Steam Deck, it’s not just about portability, it’s also about convenience. There are reasons to own a handheld even if you don’t travel often, allowing you to play games on the couch or in bed, or really anywhere you feel most comfortable. There are trade-offs with this type of device when it comes to performance and image quality, but as a companion to your main desktop, those trade-offs are worth it for the convenience. I think about playing games on the Quest 3 in a similar way.

It’s about the convenience of throwing on the headset, booting up Steam Link, and playing a game on a billboard-sized screen sitting in my living room. There are streaming artifacts, and the occasional packet burst from the network, but those are trade-offs I’m willing to live with. I played through the Lies of P Overture DLC this way, and I made my way through most of the endgame in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on my Quest 3. I wouldn’t boot up Marvel Rivals or Path of Exile 2, but for those immersive, single-player games, I’ve yet to see a proper monitor as immersive as playing on a virtual screen in the Quest 3.

Streaming your non-VR games to a VR headset isn’t anything new, but there are a few aspects of the Quest 3 that make this experience practical. First, passthrough. Passthrough has been around since Oculus was branded on headsets, but the passthrough is really good on the Quest 3, especially in decent lighting conditions. I primarily play games in passthrough mode so I can see the surrounding room, pet my dog and cats when they need a bit of attention, grab a drink of water, or really anything else that I wouldn’t be able to do in some VR environment.

That’s specific to the Quest 3, but recent advancements in headsets benefit this type of flat gaming, as well. Now, you have hand tracking, and as spotty as it is, it works well enough to boot up Steam Link without pulling out your controllers. Now, you don’t need to go through a 15-minute process of drawing your boundary just because you sit in a different spot. And now, you don’t need a mass of cables hanging off your back to keep the headset running. VR has progressed a lot over the past few years, and it’s created a device like the Quest 3 that, believe it or not, is shockingly convenient for playing PC games.

There are more options than you think

As mentioned, I use Steam Link to play games on the Quest 3, but that’s far from the only option. There are at least half a dozen ways to get your PC screen to show up on your headset, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. First, Steam Link. Steam Link works great because of the latency. It’s designed for low-latency gameplay, and it’ll trade streaming quality to that end. Connect a Bluetooth controller to the Quest 3, download Steam Link, and you’re set.

One of the more popular options you’ll hear of is Virtual Desktop, which is a $25 app mostly focused on productivity. And that’s because it only works over a wireless connection, similar to Meta’s own Remote Desktop. If that’s your primary focus, it’s worth the investment, but I’ve been using a free app called Immersed. It’s not as user-friendly, but it supports a direct USB connection, which is great if your internet is spotty.

Finally, there are the full-on wired connections, which are the best when it comes to quality, but the worst when it comes to practicality. You can use Meta’s own Quest Link, but I prefer the Steam VR environment more. With either, you’re able to pull up your desktop, launch a game, and play it with almost a direct pass through. You aren’t able to use either in mixed reality, though. These are the apps I would reach for normally — I picked up an obscenely long link cable for my Quest 3 — but I’ve been toying with Immersed more because it works in mixed reality.

Really, though, Steam Link is the most straightforward option. It works like a normal window in the Quest 3, so you’re able to snap the display anywhere you want, and you can easily organize it with other windows if you want to pull up a Twitch stream or listen to music on Spotify. It’d be great to one day have a direct USB pass through that works in mixed reality — if I missed it, please let me know — but Steam Link is what has worked best for me so far.

An image showing the internal components of a gaming PC with RGB lights.

It’s great

Objectively, streaming games to the Quest 3 is not the best way to play. There are issues with streaming games, sure, but there’s also the fact that the Quest 3 only goes up to 120Hz (and defaults to 90Hz), it doesn’t support HDR, and it dies out within a couple of hours. Even with all of those clear drawbacks, it’s probably my favorite way to play games right now. It’s immersive, convenient, and comfortable, and I don’t have to worry about performance because the games are all running on my main PC.

Now, if you don’t have even a passing interest in playing VR games, I’m not saying you should go out and buy a Quest 3. $500 can buy you an excellent gaming monitor, or even a GPU upgrade, and that’s probably a better way to spend your money. But, if you’re happy with your PC setup, and you’re looking for a new way to dig through your Steam backlog and maybe mess around in some VR games, the Quest 3 is fantastic.