VR Gear & GPUs

Hardware #

GPU support matrix #

Manufacturer Driver VR Support Reprojection Support Hybrid Graphics Support Notes
Nvidia Nvidia (Closed Source) Excellent Excellent Supported Requires an implicit vulkan-layer to not segfault: AURjammyfocalbullseye
Nvidia Nouveau (Open Source) Functional Functional Supported Lacks DisplayPort audio.
Intel i915 (Open Source) Functional Unknown Supported Relatively old, most likely poor support for newer GPUs.
Intel Intel/Xe (Open Source) No wired HMDs N/A / Unable to drive wired. Supported Lacks direct mode implementation in driver, unable to drive wired HMDs.
AMD RADV (Open Source) Excellent Robust (RDNA+) Supported RDNA generation and up supported with compute tunneling for reprojection. Lower than RDNA are not robust.
AMD AMDVLK (Open Source) Use RADV Use RADV N/A RADV preferred in all circumstances, unable to drive wired HMDs. Do not use. Do not seek support.
AMD AMDGPU PRO (Closed Source) Use RADV Use RADV N/A RADV preferred in all circumstances, unable to drive wired HMDs. Do not use. Do not seek support.

Notes:

  • VR Support: Indicates how well supported the necessary Vulkan API components are.
  • Reprojection Support: Describes the support and quality of reprojection features for VR. Poor support indicates that the driver is not able to properly handle Vulkan realtime shaders and it will present as visual stutter. Non-robust solutions will suffer stutter under very high GPU load.
  • PRIME/ Hybrid GPU Support: Compatibility with systems using multiple GPUs for render offload. Monado and all clients must be run on a single select GPU due to memory tiling requirements.
  • For Nvidia proprietary drivers, the vulkan-layer must be installed in order to not crash.
  • AMD GPUs lower than RDNA generation have functional but less robust reprojection capabilities, expected to be similar to Intel.
  • Audio over displayport is known to temporarily cut out when new audio sources spring up on pipewire without a fix to add alsa headroom
  • X11 configurations are discouraged but workable, please upgrade your system to Wayland if at all possible.

XR Devices #

A non-comprehensive table of various VR/XR devices and the drivers that support them.

Device SteamVR Monado WiVRn
PC VR
Valve Index 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
HTC Vive 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
HTC Vive Pro 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
HTC Vive Pro Eye ✅ (No eyechip) ✅ (No eyechip) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
HTC Vive Pro 2 ✅ (custom driver and patches) ✅ (With two kernel patches 1 2, AMD GPUs only.)
Bigscreen Beyond ✅ (with kernel patch, AMD GPUs only.) ✅ (with kernel patch, AMD GPUs only.)
Somnium VR1 ? ? ?
VRgineers XTAL ? ? ?
StarVR One ? ? ?
Varjo VR-1 ? ? ?
Varjo VR-2 ? ? ?
Varjo VR-3 ? ? ?
Pimax 4K ❌ (Planned) 🚧 (WIP, with kernel patches) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Pimax 5K Plus ❌ (Planned) ✅ (WIP, with kernel patches) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Pimax 5K XR ❌ (Planned) ✅ (WIP, with kernel patches) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Pimax 5K SUPER ❌ (Planned) ✅ (WIP, with kernel patches) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Pimax 8K ❌ (Planned) ✅ (WIP, with kernel patches) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Pimax Vision 8K X ❌ (Planned) ✅ (WIP, with kernel patches) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Pimax Vision 8K PLUS ❌ (Planned) ✅ (WIP, with kernel patches) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Lenovo Explorer ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Acer AH101 ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Dell Visor ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
HP WMR headset ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Samsung Odyssey ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Asus HC102 ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Samsung Odyssey+ ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
HP Reverb ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Acer OJO 500 ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
HP Reverb G2 ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Oculus Rift CV1 ✅ (OpenHMD SteamVR plugin) ✅ (OpenHMD plugin based support) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Oculus Rift S ✅ (Monado SteamVR plugin) ✅ (experimental 6dof controllers) 🚧 (WiVRn PC-PC stream)
Standalone
Quest ✅ (via ALVR)
Quest 2 ✅ (via ALVR)
Quest Pro ✅ (via ALVR)
Quest 3 ✅ (via ALVR)
Pico 4 ✅ (via ALVR)
Pico Neo 3 ✅ (via ALVR)
HTC Vive Focus 3 ✅ (via ALVR)
HTC Vive XR Elite ✅ (via ALVR)
Lynx R1 ✅ (via ALVR)
Apple Vision Pro ✅ (via ALVR) 🚧 (WIP client)
Trackers
Vive/Tundra trackers ✅ (native or spacecal) ✅ (native or motoc) ✅ (motoc)
SlimeVR trackers ✅ (OSC + experimental driver)
Project Babble ✅ (oscavmgr) ✅ (oscavmgr) ✅ (oscavmgr)
Eyetrack VR ✅ (oscavmgr) ✅ (oscavmgr) ✅ (oscavmgr)
Mercury Handtrack 🚧 (Monado SteamVR plugin, win only) ✅ (survive driver only)
Lucid VR Gloves ? ✅ (survive driver only)
Kinect FBT ✅ (experimental) 🚧
Standable FBT

Hardware note #

WiVRn PC XR to WiVRn PC client streaming remains mainly for debug use.

Vive Pro microphones should be set to use 44.1khz sample rates as feeding in 48khz raises the pitch of the audio.

Vive Pro creates HDMI Output Source after startup of SteamVR/Monado/etc. Use it instead of Vive Pro USB Audio Source, since the audio might appear distorted.

Valve index audio output should be set to 48khz or no audio will output.

Vive Pro Eye HMD functional, eyechip WIP.

Pimax initialization code WIP. Distortion matrix dump work in progress.

Eyetrack VR and Project Babble will both be implemented through oscavmgr to emit proper unified flexes over OSC.

Tracking technologies can be mixed Monado/WiVRn by using motoc.

Applying a kernel patch (for Vive Pro 2, Bigscreen Beyond, Pimax) #

Arch #

  1. download the patch(es), then follow the steps on https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel/Arch_build_system, which should be roughly: mkdir ~/build/ -> cd ~/build/ -> pkgctl repo clone --protocol=https linux -> cd linux
  2. (section 2 of link) open PKGBUILD in that directory and modify the pkgbase line (at the top) to read e.g. “pkgbase=linux-customvr”. then add a line containing “<patchfilename>.patch” to the source array:
source=(
  https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v${pkgver%%.*}.x/${_srcname}.tar.{xz,sign}
  <patchfilename>.patch
  $url/releases/download/$_srctag/linux-$_srctag.patch.zst{,.sig}
  config  # the main kernel config file
)
  1. close PKGBUILD. (may not be necessary but i ran updpkgsums) -> makepkg -s --skippgpcheck (i didn’t feel like fixing a pgp error)
  2. then section 4 of https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel/Arch_build_system#Installing and restart

Fedora #

  1. Prepare the kernel
git clone https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/kernel.git
cd kernel

# replace 41 with your fedora version
git switch f41

# name this the 'bsb' build
sed -i 's/# define buildid .*/%define buildid .bsb/g' kernel.spec
  1. Replace linux-kernel-test.patch with the actual patch file downloaded from the table above

  2. Build RPMs:

fedpkg local
  1. Install kernel:
sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck ./x86_64/kernel-*.rpm
  1. Reboot and check that using uname -a that the bsb kernel is running.

Official guide: Building a Kernel from the Fedora dist-git

NixOS #

  1. download the patch(es)
  2. add this to your configuration.nix or other nix file you use:
  boot.kernelPatches = [
    {
      name = "type what the patch is for here";
      patch = /path/to/patch/file.patch;
    }
  ];

reference commit on my nix files: https://github.com/TayouVR/nixfiles/commit/d6ef568a2642c5a26eb92611be7335afdb6047de