Have a VR headset and want to do some gaming from your Linux PC? WiVRn has a new release out that should make the experience even better.
What is it? WiVRn is an application that wirelessly streams a virtual reality game to a standalone VR headset from a Linux computer. It’s has different levels of support across various Meta Quest headsets, Pico, HTC Vive and others.
Biggest difference is probably that ALVR works on top of SteamVR while WiVRn uses opencomposite/xrizer/vapor instead. SteamVR seems to be somewhat broken and buggy on Linux atm and just having to not use it can be a plus depending on the game. In theory this should also result in some performance gains in certain titles.
ALVR is easier to “install” but then completly overwhelms you with its settings. WiVRn is way cleaner in regards to the user facing settings. Most of the important settings are even done within the headset .apk which is a nice QOL improvement. Installation on CachyOS took a lot more time until i figured it out though. Getting the WiVRn-server, wivrn-dashboard, lib32-wivrn, xrizer, lib32-xrizer, opencomposite etc of the AUR. That lib32 stuff is needed for certain titles like the HL2 VR mod.
Imagequality is more or less the same. Latency is maybe a bit better on WiVRn but hard to tell between different programs. Pico Connect, Virtual Desktop, ALVR, WiVRn all provide wildly different latency readouts in my experience. 60ms seems to be the best case i can achieve with my current setup with WiVRn which feels similar to 35ms in Pico Connect or 40-50ms in VD. But WiVRn sometimes just gives me 15-30ms more latency for whatever reason. Then i need to restart the server, the app, my whole pc until it just works again as expected. In some games i just get constantly 100ms but still feel just fine. In other games 80ms feels horrible until it gets back down to 70ish ms.
In general the WiVRN/Xrizer/lib32 combo is so far the most reliable in my case. Got almost every game working with it(Hitman VR, SW Squadrons Epic Store Version and Race Room Racing Experience are the only duds so far). ALVR/SteamVR shits the bed way more often by not picking up a VR title. Steam Link just doesnt want to establish a VR connection at all on my setup for whatever reason.
On most days i’m pretty happy with the current state of VR on Linux. On others i ask myself if it wouldnt be quicker to just spin up a dualbooted Win LTSC install instead of troubleshooting for 2-3 hours again.
Edit:
https://lvra.gitlab.io/
https://db.vronlinux.org/
Also i forgot to mention wayVR which is awesome in combination with WiVRn. Its not perfect but i think i like it even more than VD for in VR desktop use. Atleast when everything works which it does most of the times until it doesnt.
