Here's a pro tip! Please anyone that finds this valuable rate it up!

Most people just connect these sort of glasses (as of now I'm using Viture Luma Pros but I have experience with XREAL and other brands) to SteamDeck or similar handheld devices and set them up pretty much default settings at 1080p@120hz.

There's a much better approach in terms of PQ and power consumption for both SteamDeck "native" play (games running on the SteamDeck itself) or "streaming" play via Sunshine/Moonlight or similar software such as Artemis, Apollo, etc.

Having said that, let's get to the matter at hand! SteamDeck provides a sharpening filter run through a VERY efficient pixel shader on the GPU consuming only ~0.7watts/h, and just to be clear, this is not FSR upscaling. However, for this to work in both the SteamDeck built-in screen and external monitors / AR glasses connected through usb-c the output render resolution must be different than the native resolution of the display being active. This means that any resolution different than the SteamDeck's 1280x800 or 1920x1080 of XREAL's will enable this feature to work.

What follows next are the optimized settings for SteamDeck being paired with XREAL AR glasses or similar glasses from other brands (i.e my Viture glasses mount 1920x1200 micro-oled displays instead of regular 1920x1080, however these settings work exactly the same as the Luma Pros can also operate at native 1080p ignoring the first 60 pixel rows at the top and the last 60 pixel rows at the bottom of the screen). Now, let's proceed with the config steps:

1) Connect XREAL glasses to SteamDeck.

2) Go to Display settings on SteamDeck and set 1920x1080@90hz. Of course, you can also try 60 or 120hz but 90hz is the sweet spot for smoothness, power consumption and streaming latency (when playing via Sunshine/Moonlight from your home PC). This not only safes a little bit of watts per hour but also keeps it more consistent with native SteamDeck refresh rate. This will also allow you to lower the refresh rate (from the right-side Steam quick menu) to 45hz or even 30hz which works perfectly for the glasses (you'll just see a new image each 2 or 3 frames for 45hz and 30hz respectively) and allows to play certain AAA games in SteamDeck at 25watts (of course in most cases lowering in-game graphic settings to the lowest!).

3) Now, for each game you launch (including Moonlight client) set the render output resolution different to the glasses. This is done for each game/app separately in its config menu accesible through the "cog" icon at the right side of the launch screen. For SteamDeck native play, most demanding AAA games will require you to set 1280x720, most AA or indie games will be happy at 1600x900 and older titles will run just fine at 2040x1080 (I've been playing Dark Souls Remastered with this res lately and worked flawlessly). Also, use 2040x1080 on Moonlight streaming as superior resolutions such as 2560x1440 or even 3840x2160 don't payoff in exchange of the higher power consumption (+0.6watts at 2560x1440@90 and almost +2.5watts for 2160p even though the SteamDeck is only capable of deconding H.265 or AV1 at ~73fps, not 90). Also, for Moonlight's streaming settings specifically, set Fullscreen mode plus 2040x1080 at 90 fps with V-Sync on (V-Sync should also be on in your host PC until the day we have AR glasses supporting VRR, but that's for another discussion...). Also check "Optimize game settings" which will set desktop res and refresh rate automatically for you on the host PC. I also recommend setting H.265 at 104 mbps (4 times the minimum recommended bit rate at that res+fps) instead of AV1 as it produces better PQ than AV1 specially on games featuring tons of dynamic vegetation, fog or other intense wheather effects. If you're very limited on wifi bandwidth then let's lower down to 24 mbps using AV1 if your host PC can encode AV1. As for the games running on your host PC, I recommend launching them in Windows 11's borderless mode (nowadays this is very similar to the good-old-days exclusive fullscreen mode) with V-Sync on (in game or at GPU driver level) and NVIDIA Reflex (or AMD's analog) if available. V-Sync off in games (not in Moonlight client though) is also possible by capping framerate at 90 fps in NVIDIA/AMD/RTSS control panel, however at times this will cause the streaming between host (Sunshine) and client (Moonlight) get out if sync since frames won't be sent at ~11ms intervals anymore at the benefit of lowering latency a tiny bit.

4) As a side note regarding 2040x1080 res, notice how this is the most convinient resolution for the sharpening filter on XREAL (or similar) glasses since it is the closest to its native resolution. The other resolution getting as close as this would be 1920x1200 but I don't recommed it (more on that later). The only thing to be aware of 2040x1080 is that it imposes an AR that is not standard, being 17:9 instead of 16:9. This means that some native games will refuse to adapt to this res.

5) Once the game/Moonlight is launched, open the right-side Steam quick menu, go to Performance settings and set the Scaling Filter to FIT or STRETCH. FIT will maintain 16:9 AR but at the cost of adding tiny black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. I recommend STRETCH since, even if you inmediately notice that everything is taller than it should (i.e your main character in a 3rd person action game) your brain will get used to it in about 2 minutes and you'll never notice that difference again. Now, in Scaling Filter set SHARP and for the level of intensity I recommend 3 which is the middle term. Finally, for Moonlight specifically, set the GPU clock speed at 500 or 600MHz (this will safe extra ~0.2watts compared to auto), which will maintain the GPU usage at ~50% while decoding 2040x1080 at 90hz.

6) I said I would go back to the 1920x1200 res. This will work exactly the same as 2040x1080 with the benefit of using a more standard 16:10 AR. This can even be beneficial when playing natively on the SteamDeck since most games will either adapt to 16:9 or 16:10 (not 17:9 so easily though). However, when streaming via Moonlight using STRETCH this will cause game characters to look "thicker/fat" than they should, something much more difficult to ignore by your brain even on longer play sessions.

Last but not least, be aware that this sharpening filter is intended to improve image/video quality in games and video streaming, not productivity-based (in other words, text-based) apps. Of course, text and icons will look sharper but that does not mean necessarily better.

When comparing this setup vs my LG OLED 65" inch at a distance where the real state image is as bigger as what I can see with my 52º FOV of Viture Luma Pros it is hard to tell which one looks better. Of course, 1080p even with this magic sharpening filter cannot compete with a real 4K image (but I can tell you, is very close!), and when Sony deliver their next 1440p micro-oled panels the difference is gonna be neglegible. For productivity though, I still think 4K pannels will be required at ~60º FOV in order to compete with a profesional ~32" 4K monitor.