this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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[–] yoevli 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I'm approaching the point where I'm seriously considering buying a spare drive for a Windows install exclusively for VR. I'm currently dealing with 3 separate serious issues with SteamVR on Linux, one of which I sometimes can't even work around depending on how it's feeling that day. Not to mention, every new release lately seems to introduce a new problem.

I haven't had a Windows install on my system since my previous SSD died 2 or 3 years ago, but it's getting to the point where it's more trouble than it's worth.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

This is why I have a windows box. I'm hoping when they finally release SteamOS 3 for PC it will have stable SteamVR support.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

What headset do you have? The Index is fully supported in Linux.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It's not fully supported: https://old.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/zs8snv/vr_on_linux_makes_me_sad/

No async reprojection

No bluetooth support for base stations power management

Does not work on Wayland, at all (Nobara, KDE)

Lacks the ability for you to continue using your headset if for some reason it disconnects and reconnects (base stations will not be detected, neither will any bluetooth adapters like the SW7)

A plethora of bugs

It feels like my headset view is on a delay? Maybe due to no async reprojection

I'm quoting this guy because I think that VR straight up doesn't work on NixOS, and I haven't gotten to testing my Index on any other os yet.

https://xeiaso.net/blog/nixos-vr-hell-2021-12-02/ <- It seems this guy wasn't able to get VR working on NixOS either.

[–] yoevli 5 points 7 months ago

To Valve's credit, since that post they did implement base station power management and some DEs now implement Wayland's DRM leasing protocol, and there's a somewhat buggy async reproduction implementation in place (although it's broken in SteamVR 2.0 onwards).

[–] yoevli 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It most certainly is not. Besides the missing features mentioned by the other commenter, SteamVR 2.1 literally shipped last week with a bug that caused it to completely stop functioning on Linux. I think the hotfix version still isn't in the release channel. There's another bug still present in 2.1.7 that prevents VR games from starting. SteamVR Home doesn't work at all anymore.

2.0 had an issue where vrdashboard was using the wrong pixel format which caused the red and blue channels to be swapped (pretty sure that made it into the release channel), and there was a regression introduced in the last year (and is still yet to be fixed) that causes vrdashboard to be rendered to the controller instead of the battery indicator. Granted, these are more minor issues, but it shows the level of QA that goes into the Linux version (next to none).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's excellent to hear. The Index is the only vr headset I have ever been considering getting.

[–] yoevli 2 points 7 months ago

The parent comment is not correct. The Index paired with SteamVR on Linux has a plethora of issues and sometimes doesn't work at all. It's usually possible to get it working through some combination of switching SteamVR versions and rebooting, but it's never a guarantee and usually takes a good chunk of time to get sorted when it's being temperamental.