Not you you responded to but I tried both. I mean I never seriously thought the passthrough would be good enough, and it wasn't, but it was just barely legible and useful when I was trying to pair my AVP to my MBP. But I really tried to like MVD and I just couldn't do it. It wasn't clear enough and felt like an added "tax" on my mind, also I felt very limited compared to when using my external monitors.
Is the virtual display feature as it's presented now likely to be a stopgap or fallback? A bit like emulation or Rosetta apps when Apple silicon was new, or running iPhone apps on an iPad. Those were things that seemed core when each was first introduced and then quickly disappeared for most people in most cases.
I wonder if it could largely be replaced by native AVP apps or a better way for them to send out data from the Mac to the headset once there is broader software support?
Many people work on remote desktop all day long, and I spend my fair share of time in SSH sessions as well. It's not like it improves the experience compared to working locally, but for me it works fine so long as you're within a few hundred kilometers without much jitter. On the VR, the screen should move as you move your head because that position isn't what's being passed through, so that can't be the difference either. I don't understand (without having a device myself) how/whether this is worse than normal video streaming over LAN?
If i'm not mistaken, judge2020 meant that what's not suitable is looking through your AVP at your real monitor. The virtual display (glorified VNC or whatever) that you're saying is OK, I think the agree is also OK.
And I'd assume that yes, it would be torture to try to view a monitor through the AVP just due to the resolution loss. It would be like poorly downscaling the 4k/5k resolution of your 27" monitor to like 1366x768 but much worse since the pixels are not even staying lined up on a level grid but resampled at slightly diagonal angles as your head moves even a couple of degrees. I am pretty sure setting up 2 more big $1000 monitors left and right would be better than "center monitor + AVP with virtual apps left and right" (and it would save about $2000 lol).
I agree with you completely myself -- I bought a 4k 27" HP Envy monitor in the $400ish range about 5 years ago, and that plus the 16" laptop on a double arm setup is a great setup for me. But I definitely 2.5x'd the numbers in case of the people I've heard of (certain deeply-observant Apple devotees) who wax poetic about how using anything but a perfect multiple pixel ratio is painful to their eyes (they believe a 27" has to be 5k and don't believe in using a scaled screen resolution). Although tbh, I should have said "$1600 monitors" in that case, as there is nearly zero competition in that resolution+size combo, so Apple's hilarious one is the only option.
You misunderstood, the video passthrough of your surroundings is not good enough. Using the macOS virtual display is fine, there is some noticeable streaming latency, maybe 30ms (that would be solved if it could just take DP over USB-C or Thunderbolt in) but it's suitable for long term use.
Not just giving a display port of some sort seems like such a mistake given that there's already the battery cord/pack and that the virtual display latency is so bad.