Comprehensive ALVR Setup For ANY Device

[@Crisot.]

I wanted to tell you that people don't realize the amount of work behind this video. I've been struggling to get ALVR to work for weeks, testing tons of solutions, each of them bringing new problems. Here, you condense absolutely everything that exists and anticipate solutions to the problems we might encounter, and there's no mistake, everything works, unlike the multiple haphazard solutions one can find on the internet. It's truly impressive. Hat off!

[@shin_coldfire]

There are so little info about ALVR on Linux. You are a god sent! I have struggled for so long and your guide was very helpful. Basically, I had major problems with bitrate. Artifacts, stutter, totally unplayable. I've already changed bitrate to constant, but kept it around 30-60 with no significant changes to my problem. I thought it just my router can't handle it (but it's pretty powerful Mikrotik). To my amaze, when you said, that your bitrate is around 130, I tried it, and it actually worked flawlessly! Thank you so much! Still, the only issue is sound. It keeps resetting for me, when I put down the headset for a moment.

[@TheDisturbed0ne1]

Man, you are amazing. I really didn't think the quest 2 would work on Linux, this is amazing news! I'm so close to being able to completely ditch windows now!

[@nacs]

[@gildedlink]

very grateful for this primer, I just got a Vive Focus 3 and I've had my head in the hardware waiting for it to ship to me and hadn't managed to find as much information (beyond finding ALVR/ALXR packages) on configuring it for use in Garuda (arch based linux distro). It arrives tomorrow and thanks to your help I know that it's going to work with the mesa driver I have just fine, and I was really worried about having to grab AMDGPUPRO without causing chaos on my system.

[@6XENO9]

THanks for the vid, it gets almost all of the secrets explained in one place. Very informative. With few hints from yu vid I've got ALVR on Fedora 39 talking to Pico4 via steamvr. Not there's one piece of puzzle to be solved. Hot make windows apps running via Wine talk to SteamVR/ALVR. So far I can get regular output displayed on headset but not in VR mode. I guess it needs sort of shim/glue that will let app know there's VR available and send output to steamvr

[@KatelynTea]

I kept watching after you covered my issue cause your voice is just so smooth

[@RoniBliss]

Massive thanks for this proper detailed guide. I have been able to get ALVR with Pico 4 running the best its ever been at highest image quality! Your nerdiness is greatly appreciated!

[@russjr08]

This is fantastic, thank you so much! This is such a great resource that it really should be directly on the ALVR repo!

[@RickyBobbyNASCARLOVER]

Oculus Go ALVR tips anyone? 😭 also thanks for making the best video you’re good to listen to, keep up the work rate and you’ll blow soon the algorithm will bless you my boy ❤

[@bobbienl1]

Great video, great info, great editing, great energy! Keep on trucking my man

[@05Matz]

Exciting. So this would mean that, even if I can only find 'standalone' headsets available secondhand to dip my toes into VR, as long as this application supports them, I should be able to use them for PCVR from the Linux gaming PC I just spent a lot of money building? That's great news! I'll still search specifically for hardware that's non-Meta-associated, though. If I get desperate enough several years down the line, I MIGHT consider used Oculus/Meta hardware if it can be jailbroken to be independent from their servers and trusted to not suddenly brick itself remotely or start phoning home, but new it's not an option, period -- I refuse to have ANYTHING to do with Meta. I have far more of a vendetta against them than I do against Microsoft, and I just built an expensive gaming PC Linux-only. Meta is up there near Nintendo for me, as far as enmity goes.

[@FriedPotatoes509]

christ, i really owe you man Before this, i used airlink with oculus killer which is a program that kills the oculus dash to save VRAM (the dash takes 200 megabytes even if not open during gameplay) but that had a set of issues to itself, namely not being able to exit link directly or not being able to change bitrate, hell, sometimes airlink would just crash when launching or closing a game because, of course, the oculus SDK being the oculus SDK at its finest, and i would have to restart the oculus program service in the task manager entirely because of it. I'd previously given ALVR a try but it had a lot of delay but that was because i never set it up properly, so now I actually took the time to play around with the settings now using this guide as a reference and now it works even better than airlink and i even get double the performance now. Thank you so much for the guide.

[@italianchef1465]

U are amazing bro I was trying to sit this up for soooooo long but u helped me do it 👍

[@rony9225]

You saved my sanity. Thanks a lot!❤

[@DarkVeilGaming]

Thank you so much for this video! I had no clue that alvr had a flatpak version now, that's huge for me as I run a 64-bit-only distro and previously was having to copy over 32-bit libs from a chroot in order to run native steam (couldn't get alvr working in a chroot for some reason, no clue why) If this works for me, I could finally get rid of those libs and just use flatpak steam, hooray!

[@issacdowling]

Lmk if this ends up working

[@DarkVeilGaming]

@@issacdowling Unfortunately I cannot get it to work :( I've tried both native steam and flatpak steam and both have the same issue - the steamvr main room loads (not steamvr home) and I can launch a game.. on my headset it says (for instance, beatsaber) "beatsaber next up..." and the game loads on my computer, but it never pushes it to my headset for some reason. I do have WAYLAND_DISPLAY="" %command% set on steamvr, as I am on wayland (hyprland, specifically) I'm assuming it's an issue on my end with wayland Edit: I should note that steamvr worked perfectly fine (natively) on the same distro under x11 (granted I don't have the exact same packages installed but ya know) so I can only assume it's something wayland-related

[@Nopraz42]

Thank you so much for the tutorial, i had the microphone problem and didn't know how to change the audio output for the stream. Maybe now I will be able to ditch windows lol

[@TheSpacemanSpliff]

I'd like to increase the maximum buffer size, where is this located in the ALVR settings?

[@Maxb0tbeep]

nice video, I'm going to look through my own settings now

[@Brandon21058]

Great channel man keep it up.

[@Mongoose-rt8ic]

this guy is litraly the sigma

[@tomalbeartcharles7560]

THANK YOU!

[@CrunchyMC936]

does this work in google cardboard

[@aaalemon]

Is there a way to do alvr on a steam deck

[@angeldragonpants2944]

I think I got most of the stuff here down, but I'm ending up with most of my games crashing on startup. They seem to work fine when not running SteamVR/ALVR, so I'm not sure which end the issue is on

[@anon2036]

I've got the same headset as you. What's your gpu, I'll probably just copy your settings to the letter.

[@issacdowling]

At the time, I had a 6600xt

[@anon2036]

@@issacdowling I see the gpu drought was not easy for you. I've got a 3090 so bumped the resolution a little to 3120, bitrate is at 1gbps on usb, encoding and decoding latency is high but it's manageable. Looks better than VD, dunno why I spent 650 ntd on it, when this looks way better. Thanks for the guide.

[@kadanam5vr]

it does not let me install the file because every time that i try to download it when it downloads it says the fil is not downloaded often so it tells me that i need to make sure that the file is safe but i dont know how to do it so can you help me pls

[@KatelynTea]

is there an advanced option somewhere, if so that should let you click run anyway

[@Azamyth]

i've got a weird issue it sort of sounds like what you were describing with wayland where steamvr would run and tracking worked but it just was not rendering any of that in the headset, all i saw was black void with a boundary ring on the floor. so the weird part is i've got default nothing fancy linux mint running so its not a wayland issue as i don't have wayland its so close to working but just doesn't and i'm not really sure what to do at this point :/

[@Thy_Slaya]

I read when streaming games (like with Steamlink or Moonlight) that using h.264 produces less latency than hevc which is better for streaming games over the internet since the added latency won't make a difference. So I assume this would apply for VR streaming as well? That h.264 would actually be be better? Maybe consider a future video to test the two would be an idea. Thanks for all your work

[@4dslitz]

I have no clue if you said this in the video or not I have a hard time understanding stuff like this. So I have a quest 2 and I do not have a pc I just have a windows 11 and it's a Hp. So when I load ALVR on my windows and then click launch steam vr it does that BUT on my vr it just sits in this little area with like northern lights and stuff. SOMETIMES it will load up in this apartment type thing BUT I can really describe it because it flashes black and then closes me out of ALVR. I've looked up what I can do to fix it but I can find anything? I also use a cable from my windows to my oculus.

[@robdavis8556]

What about Oculus windows apps on Linux? Will I be able to play Lone Echo?

[@slrxvr]

For windows to oculus quest 2 it doesn’t show my client showing

[@shmink2]

Great video. Would you ever do one about a wired connection. I'm using fedora and a quest 2. I've had no luck setting up a wired connection. My wireless connection is quite good but in my experience wired is always better.

[@TheAmazingComicDork]

The installer isn’t showing

[@cybercat8819]

Hi, im on a 3060 card and at first i had a problem with the my pc not finding the headset than when it did it keept instantly disconnecting and well than i tried to restart my pc, i use arch btw, as that fixes a lot of problems well most of the time that actually works but with other things this time it just got worse now all im getting is ALVR ERROR couldn't find VA-API runtime on system, do you know how to fix this ? been trying to fix it for some time now :/

[@DucksonTheGreat]

when I try to run a game gorilla tag for instance, it just flashes the gorilla tag logo and crashes. Ive looked it up but nothing shows up. please help

[@explodingmonkey44]

I can't figure out how to use mic and speaker on the quest 3 to talk in Discord on my PC

[@oglothenerd]

Linux for the win. 😎

[@WRZ100]

For some reason I can't set the firewall rules :( So even though it says connected and streaming, there's just nothing being shown.

[@KydDynoMyte_]

Have you tried the ALXR client for ALVR? You can make some simple mixed reality experiences using the pico4 passthrough. You can make the near black pixels transparent to show the passthrough image. Works great for games with a black background.

[@issacdowling]

I haven't tried it due to it requiring the ALVR server from V18, which didn't have good Linux support. I'd like to experiment, maybe one day I will in a VM or if they update to a more recent ALVR server

[@rasperinlaboratories5392]

Hey i installed alvr for endeavorus arch but i get lag and the headset connects and disconnects any help

[@FlockofSmeagles]

Hand tracking though? VD's are terribly limited without it.

[@simonschippers2426]

Getting SteamVR fail with code 500 while using the flatpak method.. I think it is related to SteamVR 2.0. Do you also face any issues?

[@issacdowling]

Unfortunately, I've switched headset now, so I can't test it anymore, however SteamVR 2.0 did work fine for me. Maybe something to do with Wayland if you're using a Wayland compositor? Mine works fine, but there is still some weirdness for some people not using X

[@simonschippers2426]

Hi, the latest Steam VR Update solved the issue! (Other had the same issue.) Finally it works :D I still have to fiddle with the parameters, but the performance is pretty good already👍

[@nzxl]

you should make a video on vGPU drivers for Linux if you can get your hands on an NVIDIA card :) I've been using that to share my GPU to VMs without needing to do any annoying passthrough stuff.

[@issacdowling]

I would like to do something like that, but right now I can't justify any NVIDIA GPU since all of the ones I can afford only have 8gb of VRAM. I will be getting a new GPU soon, but it'll probably be an RX 6800

[@DaXpt007]

not sure whats wrong still get Please plug in your headset on steam vr and in ALVR I get streamer not connected! Clientes will not be discovered

[@seriousshuck3484]

Can't get this to work on Mint. I think the firewall rules not working is the culprit.

[@CoyoteCrimes]

Can ALVR pasthrough face and eye tracking on linux if you are running a game in proton for instance, cause as much as i don't like meta, quest pro and ditching windows whilst keeping face and eye tracking sounds pretty neato

[@issacdowling]

I _think_ that it should, since I know ALVR does have support for these things, though I've not got a Quest Pro to test with Proton

[@CoyoteCrimes]

@@issacdowling that's my hunch, I'm getting a quest pro here soon. If I remember I will toatally drop a reply here on my findings.

[@elmar64]

I know, embarrassing to say, but as a non-native VR noob I have difficulties to follow that kind of smart English video tutorials. I can turn on automatic subtitles but the usability is poor when I need to backtrack or jump (and it doesn't always show whole sentences). Seeing your content as a blogpost would be awesome (maybe I could use a youtube to text tool, but the current technology will produce errors for sure). It would allow me to use my pace, only look at code lines or copy them. Dev dot to or Medium are like KZbin for blogs.

[@issacdowling]

I do actually have a blog (available at issacdowling.com), however I rarely post there right now. I'd like to more in the future, for little topics that aren't video-worthy, but still worth sharing, however there's lots of effort involved for a very small audience (effort that's duplicated if there's already a video on the subject). At some point in the future, what you asked for may happen, but -until then - how would you feel about me investigating getting some much higher quality automated subtitles (no longer using KZbin's built-in systems)? I could potentially both include them embedded as another subtitle track, and separately on the blog if you'd prefer reading a large page of text.

[@elmar64]

@@issacdowling Yes, better automatic subtitles, also as a pasted text, sounds good. If it doesn't cost too much time or money.

[@emptyacronym]

steamvr blocks the alvr driver every time i open it no matter what i do

[@Rezinoviy_Ded]

Xperia Z5 Premuim has 4K display with ~800 ppi. if I connect an Ethernet connection to this smartphone will it work through ALVR?

[@issacdowling]

Probably not, though there's a chance you could get something working with some messing around, or maybe ALXR

[@Rezinoviy_Ded]

@@issacdowling Ok. ALVR is support 4k resolution or not?

[@zekkan1554]

ty

[@zydawn]

Hi. like your stuff. I was previously using ALVR with my quest and then moved to the reverb G2 , so no need for it. yesterday i got the Q3 and went back to ALVR. unfortunately i decided to uninstall and install the latest version and lost all the usb link cable settings. any ideas how to connect? i tried the usual things but no success. . i dont know if its better but i feel it should be. thanks. I'm on a windows platform.

[@Chris-mr8ef]

Hey , what you mean the reverb doesnt it? Is it natively supported in linux?

[@zydawn]

sorry. huge misunderstanding. I was previously running alvr with the quest 1 via the usb link cable. i now have the quest 3 and would like to use alvr with the usb link cable. i'm not even sure if a usb link cable would be better but I suspect it would be. thanks.

[@Chris-mr8ef]

@zydawn ty for explaining. How is your experience with Q3 on linux? I sold both rift s and original rift when i swithed to linux 3 years ago but i was thinking to get a Q3 and use it either with ALVR ( my preferred scenario) or via windows vm with gpu pass-through ( i hate the idea of having to use windows even debloated inside a vm )

[@zydawn]

sorry. i dont use linux. i previously used alvr on windows, as for the Q3 . love it . plan on selling the the HP reverb g2. I have a RTX 4080 ,5800x3d windows machine and use virtual desktop , I gave up on alvr since I couldn't get the usb link cable to work (via adb forwarder) @@Chris-mr8ef

[@OthoDaFe]

I think you should have discuss the fact that an app needs to be installed on the quest. This is a bit confusing.

[@issacdowling]

Although that's true, there is no configuration to be done on the headset side, and if you look at ANY ALVR documentation, you'll see that you need to install the app, so mentioning it here seemed like it would just unecessarily pad the video time. I did record a section about this within the OpenXR section originally, but I edited it out as not to waste people's time

[@OthoDaFe]

@@issacdowling I understand. I just wasn't familiar with Sidequest and the process to install and initiate unverified apps on the Quest (dev mode, etc.). Since it isn't really mentionned in the video, I was a bit lost. It took me an hour or two but I eventually figure it out using the documentation from ALVR. Thanks for your content, it's a really useful source of information for me, being new to Linux. Cheers!

[@Pixel11235]

Does steamdeck use flatpak?

[@issacdowling]

It does EDIT: Though ALVR will not run well on it

[@myria2834]

annoyingly, I can't get the flatpak ALVR permission to set my firewall rules, or find what those rules are supposed to be to set them myself.

[@issacdowling]

I've never actually needed them set, does it not work without them?

[@myria2834]

@@issacdowling I had a mountain of issues trying to get it working in a flatpak, to the point that SteamVR refused to run at all until I exited Steam. The AUR package interacts perfectly with Plasma''s builtin sudo login screen, so I was able to set my firewall without issue. Now I have missing drivers. This is not the only thing Manjaro gives me problems with so I'll probably just stash away my headset again until I have the free time to properly install Arch. Manjaro was easily installed, but I have nothing but problems getting anything advanced to work on it. (No AI, No Passthrough for VMs, Now no VR.) I am a truck driver, so free time is limited and going to bed frustrated is not healthy.

[@myria2834]

@@issacdowling As I expected, ALVR runs in Arch just fine. Have to use the portable tar.gz version since the gitthub says the flatpak doesn't work with nvidia, and I need to turn off the headset mic/audio until the connection is made or it fails at finding pipewire, but now I can work through all the settings in this video tomorrow.

[@TheHawaiianking-13]

1:55 ???

[@TheHawaiianking-13]

pls help

[@TheHawaiianking-13]

PLS HELLP😭😭😭😭😭😭

[@KatelynTea]

@@TheHawaiianking-13 hard to help when you aren't describing your problem

[@mactan_sc]

cool this covers everything except the part where the headset somehow magically connects to alvr

[@issacdowling]

Unless something has changed since this video came out, at the time there were was literally nothing to cover. Install app, open app, press connect, and if it doesn't appear, manually add the IP as instructed by the app.

[@Clydefoxy]

yes but how do i get alvr on quest?????????????????

[@KatelynTea]

its on the meta store now

[@DFX2KX]

dunno what it is about my Mint 21 install, but whoo boy. Running the regular Nvidia drivers, and SteamVR: A) always sits in my download list like it needs to update, clearing DL cache works until I restart it. Eventually boots into VR just fine, but Q2 has black screen while streaming. not sure if that's my 1080TI's fault or what. might force CPU encoding to see if that's the problem. I THINK it might be.... leaves black windows on my desktop that I cannot close, someone's going to track that down later, logout or restart vises that.

[@issacdowling]

Mint 21? I forget whether they name releases using the current year (but I assume not, since I doubt you've not updated your system in 3 years), however either way I'd maybe assume that Mint is just a bit out of date and that something better might help? Could be worth trying the flatpak to get some more modern stuff without changing your distro

[@DerrickJolicoeur]

WHOA. Okay hold up - I know I just started, but I've been trying to get ALVR working with my Intel Arc A770 on Linux for the better part of a year now. Unless something has changed VERY recently, I don't believe it works on all GPU brands. Super disappointed in that intro because I was really hoping to hear good news on that front, but you didn't show Intel in the GPU logos :(

[@issacdowling]

Two things. First, man my apologies I didn't mean to misrepresent it, I just had forgotten about Arc. Second, I've heard about issues getting Arc to work with SteamVR at all (though I don't know if that's changed), and if Arc does one day work fully with SteamVR, I believe ALVR itself *should* have Arc compatibility thanks to the AMD support (AMD and Intel will both rely on Mesa and VAAPI due to their open source drivers). While still not what you want, I am pretty sure you're getting a SteamVR problem, not actually something related to ALVR itself. Still, I should've done more research and looked into Arc.

[@DerrickJolicoeur]

I really appreciate the reply. I decided to ask around on the ALVR discord server again and got some interesting feedback that Manjaro has been shipping Mesa drivers without video encoding. Someone recommended switching to EndeavorOS [Arch + GNOME was my guideline], rather than installing Mesa through the AUR. I did make the switch to EndeavorOS, but I haven't made it through this entire guide yet (busy busy!). That said, I've still made what appears to be some pretty incredible progress compared to my last attempt in January of this year, and I'm praying a bit a troubleshooting finally makes my dream a [virtual] reality. My (OG) Quest has been incredibly underused.

[@tanner1662]

i cant seem to run the appimage on mint

[@issacdowling]

Mint ships fairly out-of-date software, if you're willing to use a more up-to-date distro, it may be worth considering switching. Otherwise, maybe try the Flatpak?

[@tanner1662]

@@issacdowling thanks for your reply. sorry this took so long, im having a bit of trouble now with just steamvr. for some reason no matter what i do it tries to run through win32. im not using proton for it but it keeps trying to do it.

[@X1Soxm]

win11/quest2 Im having this issue were all the games i try to launch either wont launch atall or will launch and stay on connecting with half the word conencting not even on screen (i can send screen shots for anyone who can help)

[@Deaner1988]

Looking like he's rapping lmao

[@cate01a]

god damn. the idea of leaving microsoft for a foss os sounds great but nah linux seems to still be a complete hell hole for anyone who doesnt hold a phd in it

[@A7med9870]

i have linux, and trust me; i was able to get vr running, just there is no damn video in the quest, as well i can't seem to find a fix for it when it works; it's amazing, when it's not it's a hell hole to deal with till the process get much straight forward, i don't recommend switching if vr is something you have to work in or use it daily

[@mjcox242]

​@@A7med9870 check the alvr Linux debugging page, should give you the launch option to fix it

[@notanaltlmao2054]

great video but you're a wee bit too fast for me bud

[@RazerrVR]

i cant even install it \

[@RazerrVR]

nvm i found it but now it isnt loading

[@MikaBoob]

🚜

[@issacdowling]

🚜

[@DerrickJolicoeur]

🚜

[@dumbfox9550]

🚜

[@kryonick5318]

this is really bad video at explaining things, i had to get up 3 more videos just to download vb