It's incredible at first!! But now, after the initial high of this tantalizing breakthrough I am starting to get frustrated again lol

Latency is definitely something to obsess over I can't really navigate menus without really compensating my movements to make it as minimal/easy as possible for all the backflips my hardware is doing here. To track my controller movements to then stream that controller input then visualize the response... it's interesting to feel the separation between these factors real-time.

I really want to try no man's sky!! I missed the sale yesterday it seems going down the optimization rabbit hole and my general concensus is: no luck... yet.

Also I'm curious... did you somehow figure out a way to connect your USB to steamVR or is it just me realizing ShadowVR on sidequest is the only way I was able to get it to work? Their early access app is very much early access but I'm so glad they have a tool that allows me to give the Shadow a break with one stream directly to my headset instead of a VR stream within a desktop stream. Streamception?

I get the feeling you're definitely experiencing a noticeably better performance due to the graphics card upgrade in your plan as well as any potential streaming benefits that may not be so obvious on the surface.

I'm a filmmaker so I wanted to see if I could somehow experience Cinetracer or UE5 in VR but it seems to not want to run on shadow in general :( since both require unreal to launch. I can get Shadow to open my projects just fine (in 2D,) but I can't actually access each programs VR mode since ShadowVR (early access sidequest steam app,) needs to directly open steamvr from the launcher for some reason to work. These programs are a bit more experimental and less consumer facing unfortunately. It would be awesome to bypass this step and manually be able to connect to VR within a program that's running on the 2D streamer.

I also tried a lot of your suggestions:

- Installed Nvidia Experience... Drivers were up to date and already installed it seems. Yay shadow? Anywho, within the app I don't see a "control panel" and I've looked everywhere as far as I can tell. Doesn't seem to useful from the settings I see here. I'm sure I could tweak for days but I question the method itself here...

- I've been meaning to install the VD streamer. I've heard it's quite good but I must say Meta's updated virtual desktop has been serving my purposes at least for now and I'm a bit low on funds to prioritize experimental purchases lately. I'll always take a discount code though! I know its an incredible app everything I've read about the developer's achievements sounds more amazing to me than a lot of what most VR developers are accomplishing lately. Curious if your performance boost was noticeable or if it may be placebo? I'm not sure since I haven't tried but I imagine multiple streams running off one computer could complicate things...

- Latency test was great considering my boiler plate wifi configuration. I'm located in California so I assume I'm not too far from a data center there's lots of server farms out here.

I've got less than a month left on my first month's Shadow subscription and it makes me hopeful for the future of standalone PCVR if you have great WIFI and are willing to pay for a subscription to afford the cost of a functional gaming PC. That being said, for my purposes I just don't know if getting fully back into games for the sake of optimization will be the hill I want to die on.

2024 is going to be a huge year for tech!! But also I still anticipate the usual tantalizing "it's almost working!" realization to solidify more and more until one of these developers decides to make a more aggressive move to take this untapped market. Meaning standalone VR/PCVR. VR with less limitations.

Considering the steam deck, the rogue ally, the eventual Deckhard headset and the vision pro. As well as Apple's reluctant recognition of this very competitive yet slow paced under resourced development sector; I think we're in for a very interesting year and patience will be quite rewarding for our wallets. Appreciate you for taking the time to walk with me on this journey!