HTC Vive on iMac Pro - nothing works

[kodensan]

After days of trial end error, reading forums, watching the few available videos and talking to Apple Care, I don't seem to have much options left. Would appreciate any help.

I'm used to Mac environtment and after Apple announced that iMac Pro will work with HTC Vive, I made the switch from my previous machine and bought both iMac Pro and HTC Vive.

First of all, Installation instructions begin with a link to ViveSense file that is PC-only exe file. So no macOS version.

Second, SteamVR setup that is available for macOS gets me nowhere past initialisation of HTC Vive (all the icons are green, the headset icon is green and at some point starts to slowly flash).

Whenever I try to update firmware of controllers or base stations, SteamVR crashes. Whenever I try to run Room Setup, SteamVR crashes. Actually, it seems like Room Setup starts, and after a millisecond crashes but still lingers in a system because after selecting it from menu after that I get "Application Already Running" error message. So here I am.

- The HTC Vive is fully functional, I tried it on a friend's PC - it installs and works as intended.
- I tried to set it up on a clean High Sierra, I have erased my iMac Pro completely for this.
- To connect Vive to my Mac I use official Apple HDMI to USB-C adapter (tried with and without plugging in it's additional USB-C power slot)

Can anyone please advise me on this?

Apple Care Support sends me to HTC and Steam. There is no answer from HTC, and I am deeply frustrated that Apple promoted iMac Pro's ability to work with HTC Vive and demonstrated it at all it's iMac Pro events. Perhaps I have a faulty iMac Pro, but Apple still insists that the problem is with SteamVR and HTC's lack of native macOS support.

I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

[Loki Eliot]

Hey kodensan i feel your pain. I've had a vive since October last year and so far on Steam the only 'game' with full Mac VR support is Blobby Tennis.

SteamVR for the Mac is a crappy buggy mess. Currently The official Mac Release crashes when trying to pair devices. The Beta (which you can opt into by right clicking SteamVR and selecting properties and head to the beta tab) does not crash, but brings up a message 'Your Headset must connected' which Windows users used to get about a year ago.

There is no support for Steam Home or Vive Port for the mac and vive still don't mention supporting mac on their website.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Unity 2017.2 supports creating VR experiences on the mac all be it with flakey stability. The resulting builds work great though on Mac with SteamVR.

The fact is that Mac VR is still in the development stage, because Valves SteamVR for mac is not as stable or feature rich as the Windows version, and this in turn makes it harder to develop for. So when it comes to Mac VR, your on your own in the developers wilderness with very little documentation.

Im using the high end iMac 2017 and im able to create perfectly working VR experiences with Unity. I'll attach a dropboxlink to a quick basic VR room experience for you to try on your iMac.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v9mz6f550xu3jpl/MacVRTemplate_Test.zip?dl=0

All you should need to do is click the app icon to launch and it should automatically open SteamVR and run.
Controls: Hold trigger to pick up things, Click touchpad to teleport via laser pointer.

[Loki Eliot]

To add to this for my mac friends, there is a second choice in the beta drop downs. The one named 'imputemulator-temporary' is allowing me to pair my controllers and extra trackers correctly BUT this beta then goes on to display experiences wrong, so i have to 'once devices are paired' return to the other Beta version of SteamVR to actually run VR experiences correctly. This is the kinda crap Mac users have to deal with. As far as i can tell there is no way to update firmware on Vive devices because SteamVR lacks the ability to successfully restart on Mac.

[kodensan]

Loki, thank you for so much help! Your response moved things for me, I appreciate it very much. It's great not to feel all alone)) It is a sad realisation, though, that Apple gives us such a bad start, but it's a start nonetheless. Got quite lost in your room but it was a room!) My first VR experience) Thank you once again, good luck to your endeavours)

[Loki Eliot]

Thanx, that room is basically my start template from experimenting in VR. Until the support on Mac becomes more robust the only other way to enjoy VR on your mac is to Bootcamp Windows but that also comes with all the faffing about that comes with windows. Steam's categories are a bit misleading for mac users. A game can be listed as VR ready but not which platform is VR ready, so a game listed as VR ready and available for Mac, might not be VR ready for Mac.

What probably needs to happen is Apple needs to create their own competition to the Steam VR bridge. As it stands we are completely at Valves mercy because they hold the keys to VR on Mac.

[charleskrenz]

Im in the same bad place. When I run room set up, I get the ApplicationAlreadyRunning error. Any help on how to get past this would be much appreciated

[charleskrenz]

Perhaps someone knows the name of the process associated with "room set up"... I could then delete there process in the activity monitor. eh, that's probably trouble, but I'd like to try.

[IDerpedYourMom]

Have you tried installing windows on your mac?

[charleskrenz]

I've vmware running a windows based drafting package. It might run over there. Unfortunately, though, I'm trying to edit 360 video in final cut, a capability just released last month. Apple support implies very few have actually tried to do this. Someone must be successful.

[Humanovation]

I've been running SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality Portal on a Mac for several months ... unfortunately, it is through Boot Camp and using an eGPU (where they both work great). I have a new iMac Pro now and can't get either the Vive or the Samsung HMD to power up in OS X 10.3.3 either with an HDMI dongle or via the eGPU ... they both work fine though in Windows 10 via Bootcamp using the eGPU.

I upgraded to the 10.3.4 beta for a day, but it made my sound scratchy, so I reverted. iMac Pro is awesome, but since I have to use an eGPU to get VR to work anyway, it is no better than my 2017 15" MBP ...

BTW ... WMR is WAY more stable than SteamVR in Boot Camp, it's not even close.

[Somian]

Hi,

I have an iMac pro with Vega 64 and am about to get a Vive Pro. I heard that there should be "plug and play support" for the vive pro since Mojave.

Do you have any experience with that? I'm hesitant to drop another $1500 on a VR setup if it doesn't even work in the end.

I used to develop for VR with the oculus Devkit 2 back in the day until they dropped support for Mac. I'd love to go back to that but it needs to work.

Also some supported games would be nice. I saw that Serious Sam Fusion, for example, is on Mac but does it also work in VR?

[SweetSusi]

Originally posted by  Somian:

Hi,

I have an iMac pro with Vega 64 and am about to get a Vive Pro. I heard that there should be "plug and play support" for the vive pro since Mojave.

Do you have any experience with that? I'm hesitant to drop another $1500 on a VR setup if it doesn't even work in the end.

I used to develop for VR with the oculus Devkit 2 back in the day until they dropped support for Mac. I'd love to go back to that but it needs to work.

Also some supported games would be nice. I saw that Serious Sam Fusion, for example, is on Mac but does it also work in VR?

I was waiting a long time to see Mojava but all was disapointing... no Plug no Play so far. And when you Google .. no information since the announcement for Plug&Play support.

If someone has success this would be nice to read!

[anthony042]

I should know by Tuesday order a Vive pro setup today wish me luck. I have a iMac Pro and I have Mojave installed. I have a vive but one of my base station has died, got two years out of it. Just long enough for the warrant to run out.

[anthony042]

I got the Vive Pro on luck with with hdmi cable that I was using for the old Vive. But though read Vive blog I found out that you need a cable that supports 4K so I ordered a usb-c to a mini display port 4K from Amazon, it came in to day. It is working but still I can’t set the floor height, steam does not realize the keyboard input for the floor height. Is there a way to set the floor height. Thanks

[SweetSusi]

Had the same problem with input.... no resolution found.

Anything else works? Firmware updates, Bluetooth, Headset Cam...?

[Endorph1n]

Managed to get my Vive up and running (not stable though) on my new MacBook Pro 15 with Vega 20 graphics in native MacOS - to get over the floor height bug, pop the headset on the floor, the height box defaults to 0cm so just click next. Then prepare yourself for massive disappointment as there doesn't appear to be any VR content for the Mac available. Can't get it to work through parallels and haven't tried bootcamp. Having had my Vive for a couple of years running on a PC with an Nvidia GTX 1070 I can honestly say its a great bit of kit but if your only machine is a Mac then unless I can get it working in parallels or bootcamp I couldn't recommend any Mac owner buy a Vive. I will post back if I have any joy. If anyone out there has cracked it then please tell us how.