Half-Life: Alyx support for Linux aiming to arrive with Vulkan support post-release

Good news ! So I'll wait this update before buying anything. With hope, graphic cards prices will get lower with RTX 30xx release and by the time some guys will sell there VR set at an affordable price... and SteamVR Linux will mature.

Quoting: mike456What's this teleportation thing, can't you simply walk in vr like in non vr 3d games?

Basically, it is easier on most people's brains to point and click to move.

You can walk around in the play space physically, but of course you are limited by walls and cable length. Some games implement an arm swinging method to move, which seems to work pretty well for others. But a lot of games provide various options. One common one is to kind of put blinders on as you turn (the motion makes some ill if you smoothly try moving with say a mouse / controller, because your vision is sliding around while your head is not). If you can stand and play Windlands standing and not fall over or puke, you should be able to handle anything in VR.

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: mike456What's this teleportation thing, can't you simply walk in vr like in non vr 3d games?

Basically, it is easier on most people's brains to point and click to move.

You can walk around in the play space physically, but of course you are limited by walls and cable length. Some games implement an arm swinging method to move, which seems to work pretty well for others. But a lot of games provide various options. One common one is to kind of put blinders on as you turn (the motion makes some ill if you smoothly try moving with say a mouse / controller, because your vision is sliding around while your head is not). If you can stand and play Windlands standing and not fall over or puke, you should be able to handle anything in VR.

How is it doing for you?
Do you face significant motion sickness?

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: appetrosyanMarketing wise, is it wise to release a game you developed in house, for a hostile platform, and only then release it for "steam", OS? I mean I understand that they have no faith in other publishers. But WTF? Valve? It's your OS. If you want for it to make sense for people to install it, add some incentive!

Hostile platform? No faith in other publishers? What are you even talking about?

Put it differently.

How do you expect other people to support Steam OS and Steam consoles, if you yourself, release what should be a steam os exclusive on Windows first, and only patch support for your in house platform post-launch.

I think it has to do with the VR state. Probably VR on Linux (Vulkan?) is not as stable as on other platforms and/or lacks features. Keep in mind that all other (non-VR) games of Valve were first day Linux releases (Artifact and Underlods). Both games always are/were on par with the Windows version. Even the Early Access version of Underlords was right there with Windows all the time. A lot of Linux-friendly developers have a bit of delay in their Linux version before the actual release.

Quoting: sub

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: mike456What's this teleportation thing, can't you simply walk in vr like in non vr 3d games?

Basically, it is easier on most people's brains to point and click to move.

You can walk around in the play space physically, but of course you are limited by walls and cable length. Some games implement an arm swinging method to move, which seems to work pretty well for others. But a lot of games provide various options. One common one is to kind of put blinders on as you turn (the motion makes some ill if you smoothly try moving with say a mouse / controller, because your vision is sliding around while your head is not). If you can stand and play Windlands standing and not fall over or puke, you should be able to handle anything in VR.

How is it doing for you?
Do you face significant motion sickness?

I don't get any motion sickness. There have been times when a game / operating system crash happens and your world goes from being fluid to stopping dead in its tracks that is a bit unnerving, but that hasn't happened with it in a while.
The thing to get used to of course is getting a good fit on your head, and the smaller than human Field of View. Definitely feels like you are looking through a face mask. Though these days, that might be the new normal.

Quoting: appetrosyan

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: appetrosyanMarketing wise, is it wise to release a game you developed in house, for a hostile platform, and only then release it for "steam", OS? I mean I understand that they have no faith in other publishers. But WTF? Valve? It's your OS. If you want for it to make sense for people to install it, add some incentive!

Hostile platform? No faith in other publishers? What are you even talking about?

Put it differently.

How do you expect other people to support Steam OS and Steam consoles, if you yourself, release what should be a steam os exclusive on Windows first, and only patch support for your in house platform post-launch.

Steam OS exclusivity would be just stupid. And that's not what Steam OS is for.

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: appetrosyan

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: appetrosyanMarketing wise, is it wise to release a game you developed in house, for a hostile platform, and only then release it for "steam", OS? I mean I understand that they have no faith in other publishers. But WTF? Valve? It's your OS. If you want for it to make sense for people to install it, add some incentive!

Hostile platform? No faith in other publishers? What are you even talking about?

Put it differently.

How do you expect other people to support Steam OS and Steam consoles, if you yourself, release what should be a steam os exclusive on Windows first, and only patch support for your in house platform post-launch.

Steam OS exclusivity would be just stupid. And that's not what Steam OS is for.

Not to mention Valve is completely against exclusives.

Quoting: sub

Quoting: HoriIDK... I've got a Valve Index this monday (a great way to fight the pandemic btw) and SteamVR works VERY badly on Linux, and often freezes my whole system. Many games also refuse to start even.

I'm sorry to say this but I play all my VR games on Windows because of that, and they will likely count as Windows sales because of this. I really hoped I can stick to Linux, but VR is where I draw the line. I can handle errors, glitches and crashes on traditional games, but not in VR.

If I may ask - what GPU?

Recently bought a 5700XT and waiting for the Index, which currently says 2-4 weeks. :(

Alex will run on the rx 5700. I am currently running Arch with these tweeks from the mesa-git repo, vulkan-radeon-git, mesa-git, together with 32 bit libs and xf86-video-amdgpu-git. I am also using the drm-fixes-5.6 branch of the linux kernel (An easy way to do this can be found in gardotd426 's comment on this thread from about a week ago). I have had about 3 crashes in about 4.5 hours of gameplay and been able to ssh in but can only recover with a reboot.
The game itself is great fun, I am using the index headset but I only have the old controllers and I think to get the most out of the game you need valves new controllers.

Quoting: buono

Quoting: sub

Quoting: HoriIDK... I've got a Valve Index this monday (a great way to fight the pandemic btw) and SteamVR works VERY badly on Linux, and often freezes my whole system. Many games also refuse to start even.

I'm sorry to say this but I play all my VR games on Windows because of that, and they will likely count as Windows sales because of this. I really hoped I can stick to Linux, but VR is where I draw the line. I can handle errors, glitches and crashes on traditional games, but not in VR.

If I may ask - what GPU?

Recently bought a 5700XT and waiting for the Index, which currently says 2-4 weeks. :(

Alex will run on the rx 5700. I am currently running Arch with these tweeks from the mesa-git repo, vulkan-radeon-git, mesa-git, together with 32 bit libs and xf86-video-amdgpu-git. I am also using the drm-fixes-5.6 branch of the linux kernel (An easy way to do this can be found in gardotd426 's comment on this thread from about a week ago). I have had about 3 crashes in about 4.5 hours of gameplay and been able to ssh in but can only recover with a reboot.
The game itself is great fun, I am using the index headset but I only have the old controllers and I think to get the most out of the game you need valves new controllers.

Thank you!

I have no doubt, that this game is fun. :)

Waiting for the second mail for payment and shipment.
Still stuck at 2-4 weeks. :/

I have a 5 -7 week wait for the controllers :)
btw the launch options I'm using are - RADV_PERFTEST=aco gamemoderun %command%
and this is the branch I am using.
The game is definitely worth the wait :)

Quoting: buono

Quoting: sub

Quoting: HoriIDK... I've got a Valve Index this monday (a great way to fight the pandemic btw) and SteamVR works VERY badly on Linux, and often freezes my whole system. Many games also refuse to start even.

I'm sorry to say this but I play all my VR games on Windows because of that, and they will likely count as Windows sales because of this. I really hoped I can stick to Linux, but VR is where I draw the line. I can handle errors, glitches and crashes on traditional games, but not in VR.

If I may ask - what GPU?

Recently bought a 5700XT and waiting for the Index, which currently says 2-4 weeks. :(

Alex will run on the rx 5700. I am currently running Arch with these tweeks from the mesa-git repo, vulkan-radeon-git, mesa-git, together with 32 bit libs and xf86-video-amdgpu-git. I am also using the drm-fixes-5.6 branch of the linux kernel (An easy way to do this can be found in gardotd426 's comment on this thread from about a week ago). I have had about 3 crashes in about 4.5 hours of gameplay and been able to ssh in but can only recover with a reboot.
The game itself is great fun, I am using the index headset but I only have the old controllers and I think to get the most out of the game you need valves new controllers.

Is the 5700xt as bad as people make it out to be. I'm currently thinking of upgrading, and people cast doubt on whether I should get nVidia or AMD.

Quoting: appetrosyanIs the 5700xt as bad as people make it out to be.

Nvidia fans bash AMD and vice versa. Business as usual.

I'm not really interested in VR myself, but I'm pretty damn happy with my 5700XT for regular gaming. If that's what you're asking.

But if you mean in the context of VR on Linux and Half Life: Alyx specifically, judging by the comments on this SteamVR article from a couple of days ago, AMD might actually be the safer bet right now.

appetrosyan
Is the 5700xt as bad as people make it out to be.

NO! Its a pretty awesome card. I bought mine day 1 release.
Okay I will accept it took a while for everything to catch up but now everything is sweet plays everything I through at it. Mainly in 4k.

And most all VR games play fine.
HL:A has got a little performance issues but I bet they will get sorted very soon or wait for native release.
PS Cool game so far.


Last edited by stud68 on 28 March 2020 at 8:59 pm UTC

I am very pleased with my card. The only time I really experience issues is with VR, but the current state of VR is beta anyway. I have watched corben78 play H/L Alyx on his nvidia harware on GOL's twitch channel and he experienced problems also. Unless you really want openCL I recommend the radeon rx 5700 very much.


Last edited by buono on 30 March 2020 at 8:34 am UTC

I'm surprised that Source 2 didn't use Vulkan by default for all platforms. Why go back to DirectX 11? Windows 7 and the majority of video cards released in the past 3-4 years should easily support Vulkan on Windows and Linux.