SteamVR for Linux gets "experimental improvements to async support"
Exciting, even more improvements to SteamVR support are coming with the latest Beta release fixing up more issues.
As a heavy SteamVR user the poor Linux support is one of the few things keeping me from dumping windows on my gaming PC. Fingers crossed for continued improvements
I've had enough issues with SteamVR and instead use an openXR runtime called Monado. The result is that I have always had working async reprojection. https://lvra.gitlab.io is a great resource for linux vr.
Given that Valve has been one of the driving forces for certain gaming-related Wayland changes, I'm guessing we'll continue seeing this for a while.
(Funnily enough, some of these changes were things that NVIDIA first proposed that got rejected, but coming from an organisation with a better reputation people were more open to hearing it. Although I'd guess Valve were also more open about why the changes were needed rather than Nvidia's "trust us bro" answers.)
Valve did promise us that they were going to improve VR support on Linux quite a while back, good to see that they're keeping that promise.
Agreed, as I keep a GPU passthrough setup almost exclusively for VR. And I would be happy to remove that maintenance burden.
I got VR to work super smoothly with the new NVIDIA driver, on Wayland + KDE, using Alvr wireless. I can even monitor in real-time a project in development in Godot. I'm officially done with windows.
Now why has Valve returned to seemingly continue work on SteamVR in earnest, especially where Linux is concerned...
Fingers crossed they're cooking something interesting up. Whether that's "Deckard" or not.
At this point I accept that Valve probably can't compete with the billions poured into the Meta Quest 3, but I'm glad they understand there's an enthusiastic audience for whatever they do next.
PCVR is an afterthought for Meta.
It seems like one of the most conspicuous contributors to recent Linux fixes works for a consulting firm presumably contracted by Valve, so it definitely seems like a coordinated effort in preparation for... something.
They promised so a while back, some time just after first introducing the Steam Deck. They're keeping that promise.
That's a pretty confusing changelog item considering async reproduction has been straight-up broken since SteamVR 2.0. That being said, I'm thrilled that Valve seems to finally be fixing some of the long-standing issues on Linux. They also recently fixed an annoying issue with the right eye mask being uninitialized, and 2.5 along with seemingly this release has fixed issues with SteamVR Home.
Still needs improvements with vsync_to_photon desync and GPU bound reprojection issues
