Hi bidinou, I recently got the original vive second hand off ebay and I can say that I have been very surprised just how well it all 'just works' on linux.
There are a few titles that still have issues, I posted on protondb a result for 'The Lab' that works well but does have slow loading times and crashes when starting robot repair and creature cave. Elite Dangerous is spectacular in vr- it does crash on first launch but works second time, and Portal VR is short but fun. Google earth is great but can stutter sometimes while downloading location data.

My original hardware was an Fx8350 with an rx480 which did just about manage to take the strain, but I have recently upgraded to a ryzen 2700 and rx5700 - yes, I'm an amd fanboi :) . Which handles vr very well.

No problems with eye strain. There is an adjustment for ipd on the side of the headset. Some games like Pavlov VR and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice VR can make you feel nauseous though.

Hope this helps!

Last edited by buono on 17 Nov 2019 at 10:39 am UTC

Interesting summary of the current Linux VR situation can be found here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/e07h74/some_clarification_about_vr_on_linux/

Quoting: buonoHi bidinou, I recently got the original vive second hand off ebay and I can say that I have been very surprised just how well it all 'just works' on linux.
There are a few titles that still have issues, I posted on protondb a result for 'The Lab' that works well but does have slow loading times and crashes when starting robot repair and creature cave. Elite Dangerous is spectacular in vr- it does crash on first launch but works second time, and Portal VR is short but fun. Google earth is great but can stutter sometimes while downloading location data.

My original hardware was an Fx8350 with an rx480 which did just about manage to take the strain, but I have recently upgraded to a ryzen 2700 and rx5700 - yes, I'm an amd fanboi :) . Which handles vr very well.

No problems with eye strain. There is an adjustment for ipd on the side of the headset. Some games like Pavlov VR and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice VR can make you feel nauseous though.

Hope this helps!

I need to try Elite again, last time I did it ran about 100FPS less than Windows, and in VR was just awful performance. I could probably turn down the performance, but then I also have the Index, which has a lot higher resolution.

Performance on the vive is pretty good, I have set it to vr ultra. Do get stutters in the station at the start of the game but other than that it's very good. I haven't used windows since win2000 so I have no idea how the performance compares to windows.
I would have thought your 2080 should manage without breaking a sweat. I am not sure if there are any nvidia specific issues but I would be surprised if there were. I'm CMDR Art Crow if you see me around.

There is a setting that I think I set in Linux that I did at some point in Windows as well that just tanks performance (I think it was probably shadows). I'll have to check, but as I said in my other post, it does seem to be about 90-100fps difference in performance, at least last time I tested it. There have been a few Proton and nVidia driver updates since then.

Usually the 2080 can handle it, but I do know there is that one setting that just makes it a jitter fest.

Quoting: buonoPerformance on the vive is pretty good, I have set it to vr ultra. Do get stutters in the station at the start of the game but other than that it's very good. I haven't used windows since win2000 so I have no idea how the performance compares to windows.
I would have thought your 2080 should manage without breaking a sweat. I am not sure if there are any nvidia specific issues but I would be surprised if there were. I'm CMDR Art Crow if you see me around.

Ha, well if I can get Elite to work again, sadly I'm Commander something number, because I didn't get around to fixing it when they offered to change everyone's name.

Weirdly when I finally get the game working, it seems that no matter what quality I put it on (I just tried VR low to VR ultra) I get weird stuttering as I look around. Wonder if it's because I'm running under Gnome, or if the DE affects it somehow.

Got a used HTC Vive Pro cheaply. Seems like a lot of games that work fine with Proton on the 2D mode, do crash in VR and I am also having some other issues (like COMPOUND not recognizing the Vive controllers).

But Beat Saber works great :)

Still trying out some other stuff. I guess VR on Linux is best described as a work in progress, but you can play some games nicely already.

Quoting: JuliusGot a used HTC Vive Pro cheaply. Seems like a lot of games that work fine with Proton on the 2D mode, do crash in VR and I am also having some other issues (like COMPOUND not recognizing the Vive controllers).

But Beat Saber works great :)

Still trying out some other stuff. I guess VR on Linux is best described as a work in progress, but you can play some games nicely already.

Yeah, there are definitely rough edges. I wish they would finally fix the lighthouses not waking up over bluetooth.

I can only speak from experience with the Index, but it's generally ok. Sometimes SteamVR needs to be restarted for something to work again, sometimes it won't start, that's about it. I also haven't been able to get a single VR video player to work, they all start on the monitor and not the headset, if at all.

The big problem with nvidia is lack of async reprojection, which basically means horrible stutter. My 980Ti is borderline unusable, I had to put my index in 80 hz mode and reduce rendering res to have a fairly smooth experience in HL:A. No Man's Sky is unplayable on any settings. OFC a faster card will deal with this better, which I guess the 2060 must be.

Oh, and I have to manually switch the audio device to the headset every time I start VR. That gets annoying very quickly.

Quoting: slaapliedjeI wish they would finally fix the lighthouses not waking up over bluetooth.

They go into sleep? I only got the 1.0 Lighthouse boxes and they seems to be on all the time unless I cut the power.

Another issue I noticed (seems to be known according to the Valve issue tracker) is that the Vive Pro headphones sometimes switch into a really low quality mode (super annoying with a music game like Beat Saber) and it takes some random fiddling to get it back to high(er) quality :(

Quoting: Julius

Quoting: slaapliedjeI wish they would finally fix the lighthouses not waking up over bluetooth.

They go into sleep? I only got the 1.0 Lighthouse boxes and they seems to be on all the time unless I cut the power.

Another issue I noticed (seems to be known according to the Valve issue tracker) is that the Vive Pro headphones sometimes switch into a really low quality mode (super annoying with a music game like Beat Saber) and it takes some random fiddling to get it back to high(er) quality :(

Huh, I hadn't had the headphone issue with my Vive Pro.

Under Windows, when you close out SteamVR the lighthouses will go to sleep. Under Linux, they won't wake back up. Like you say, I have to unplug them then plug them in again to get them to wake up. It's the bluetooth portion that isn't working right.

Quoting: damarrinI can only speak from experience with the Index, but it's generally ok. Sometimes SteamVR needs to be restarted for something to work again, sometimes it won't start, that's about it. I also haven't been able to get a single VR video player to work, they all start on the monitor and not the headset, if at all.

The big problem with nvidia is lack of async reprojection, which basically means horrible stutter. My 980Ti is borderline unusable, I had to put my index in 80 hz mode and reduce rendering res to have a fairly smooth experience in HL:A. No Man's Sky is unplayable on any settings. OFC a faster card will deal with this better, which I guess the 2060 must be.

Yeah, I have a 2080 in mine, and the Index definitely needs something hire than a 980 (can't speak for the 980 Ti, but last Christmas I brought my 'portable' system over with a 980 in an eGPU case over to my sister's house, and it ran like garbage on the Index. Runs fine on the original Vive. Pushing that extra resolution / refresh just put the 980 on it's knees.) Would be nice if nvidia would provide reprojection to smooth that out, instead of forcing us to buy faster cards to get the smoothness... as it is, I'm probably eventually going to get a 3080 just for VR... maybe I can finally play Elite: Dangerous in Linux... except I now have a Thrustmaster Warthog, and I need someone to port their awesome software over to Linux...

Quoting: damarrinOh, and I have to manually switch the audio device to the headset every time I start VR. That gets annoying very quickly.

I could have sworn I'd fixed this issue somehow. There is a setting that is supposed to make it switch to the headset when you put it on. I unfortunately have been doing a lot of soldering near my system, so don't have room to set up and play VR games. It's been that way so long I haven't even played Half-Life: Alyx yet...

On the point of the audio, I have an eSwap Pro controller (basically a really nice PS4 controller) that I use on the PC a lot, Windows likes to change the speakers to the audio output on the controller which is really annoying. So every operating system still doesn't deal with multiple audio outputs well.

Linux totally switches audio output to my Dualshock 4 every time it's connected. This gets annoying very quick, too.

Quoting: damarrinLinux totally switches audio output to my Dualshock 4 every time it's connected. This gets annoying very quick, too.

This is what we get for everyone whining that Linux wasn't enough like Windows :P