Does VR work in Linux ?

[macromarco83]

I have The Talos Principle VR and it works here in linux, does this game run VR mode in linux too ? (Vive btw)

[Myrakel]

Hello, I bought this game today and wanted to try it with my Vive.
I started it from within SteamVR but all that happened was that it started the 2D version on my desktop monitor. Now I found this topic and it seems the VR version is not working under Linux.
I really hope you will add VR support for Linux in the future. :-)

[chrix]

Originally posted by Dan Dixon:

"VR in linux is... inconclusive. Well, it definitely didn't work for me. Trying to launch US2, I got the message that it will run on desktop AND the HMD, so performance may be compromised. But it didn't run on the HMD at all.

This probably refers to the SteamVR Theater mode where a conventional 2D game is displayed on a 2D surface in a VR environment. This does *not* exist on Linux though the dialogs in Steam still do. Sorta unpolished.

I read that you are using at least Unity 2017.2 now: http://universesandbox.com/blog/2018/03/update-20-5/ so I bought and tried it.

VR mode does *not* launch by default. For the VR mode you have to add the parameter "-vrmode openvr" in steam properties or start it from command line like ./Universe\ Sandbox.x86_64 -vrmode openvr.

Unfortunately you have to confirm a steamvr dashboard dialog (why???) but the VR mode WORKS.
Here is a short demo video: https://youtu.be/DTk3xln7C0Y

Unfortunately (at least on the AMD radv vulkan driver) it crashes on startup if you add the parameter "-force-vulkan", so it only works in OpenGL mode which has suboptimal performance, but still works. Perhaps in a more recent Unity version the Vulkan renderer can work.

[[EaR]Termy]

-vrmode openvr did not work for me.
Using proton did work and VR was fine, unfortunately, sound was missing and performance was pretty bad :/
Now i have to decide if i refund it, i bought it primarily for VR...

[son.c.to]

I could not find where the binaries are installed but the steam command line launcher is steam

steam://rungameid/230290


this successfully launches in regular mode. I tried

steam steam://rungameid/230290 -vrmode openvr

and it still launch in regular mode . Can someone provide the exact command line (with paths) to launch in VR mode? If it doesn't work I'll have to ask for a refund

I'm using Ubuntu 19.10 with Valve Index

[Jar]

We still don't officially support VR on Linux, but it should technically work (as it sounds like it did for chrix above) if you add the command line option to the binary.

Here's a conversation about where the binaries are installed:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/227502/where-are-steam-games-installed

[chrix]

It doesn't work right now for me, amdgpu seems to have a weird issue

[228186.940398] [drm:amdgpu_syncobj_lookup_and_add_to_sync [amdgpu]] *ERROR* syncobj 17 failed to find fence @ 0 (-22)!
[228186.940434] [drm:amdgpu_cs_ioctl [amdgpu]] *ERROR* Failed in the dependencies handling -22!

but it does seem to try to start in vr mode when I give it the paramter -vrmode openvr.

I don't know if steam steam://rungameid/230290 -vrmode openvr is actually supposed to work. Best to either put it in the game launch options in the properties in steam or start it from command line like ./Universe\ Sandbox.x86_64 -vrmode openvr

On some systems it might help to use the steam runtime's run.sh script for that, it would look something like
~/.steam/steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/run.sh ./Universe\ Sandbox.x86_64 -vrmode openvr