OpenVR without Steam?

[Not A Banana]

Is it currently possible to use the Vive without having steam installed at all? Is Steam the only way to get the SteamVR runtime?

[Black Blade]

as i all ready answered you before:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/0/405693392919984134/

You can use the Vive with OpenVR without Steam if you so wish
SteamVR is to ingrate VR to Steam, so that will not work without Steam

[bendotcom]

Steam is currently the only supported distribution method for the SteamVR runtime. The runtime does not require Steam to be present or running once it's on your system. We're currently updating it frequently, though, so having Steam there to keep it up to date is important.

Applications may require Steam if they use Steamworks.

[railboy]

I think one reason this question keeps coming up is because the differences between OpenVR and SteamVR - and possibly even Steamworks - isn't totally clear for a lot of people. So it's not obvious what this all means in terms of support / functionality. Maybe one of those little Portal-people graphical aids would help? Something that illustrates how all these pieces fit together and what they do? Just a thought.

[aaron.leiby]

Joe went over this a bit in his talk at Vision a short while ago.

https://youtu.be/4Gs5k2Fti1U

[railboy]

Yeah that's pretty clear. If you were to boil that dev-oriented vid down to an infographic and post it to VR communities I'm betting it would clear up a lot of pointless confusion. Lately I'm seeing 3-4 posts a day on forums / reddit / whatever that get this basic info wrong. And a lot of those mistakes are eroding confidence that OpenVR is truly 'open.'

Should be easy right? I mean it's not like you guys are busy or anything...