Today Valve made quite a big announcement about the future of VR, including an entire platform being dropped.
In a really short post on the official SteamVR page on Steam, Valve said "SteamVR has ended OSX support so our team can focus on Windows and Linux." with there now being a legacy branch of SteamVR for macOS. This is not long after the release of SteamVR 1.11, the "Spring Cleaning" update on April 20.
Seems odd to see such a big shift announced so abruptly, with no other reasoning. Worth noting though, Valve's own hardware with the Valve Index was never stated as supported on macOS, only "Windows 10, SteamOS, Linux". It's always sad when a platform gets support for anything dropped, which we as Linux gamers know too well, but in this case it's actually a boost for Linux for once.
With Valve now having more resources for Linux (and Windows), we might now see an increase in attention on SteamVR for Linux which has been quite rough. It's also great to see other areas of Valve call out Linux specifically as being a focus for them. We also have the Linux version of Half-Life: Alyx with Vulkan support coming hopefully sometime soon.
Since Linux is open source, as are the drivers for AMD and Intel, it makes sense to continue Linux support. Valve can (and already do) experiment a lot with Linux and pay contractors to work on various things. At times, they can do things quicker on Linux than they can on Windows (and vice versa - some bits don't work on Linux).
As of the March data from the monthly opt-in Steam Survey, 1.29% of people surveyed had a VR kit. The most popular being Oculus Rift S with the HTC Vive close behind. The Valve index already captured quite a big chunk though too at over 10%.
What do you think to this news?
In related news, Collabora have been progressing well on their fully open source OpenXR runtime Monado.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Yet, what I like about that news is that Valve being clear about ending support
instead of letting it die silently and communicating it.
Should this be the fate of Steam for Linux in the future (I wouldn't rule it out),
I hope they'll communicate it that clearly as well.
slaapliedje May 4, 2020
I hope nobody is happy about a different platform gets support (partially) cut.I am more happy that Valve sees the reason in not supporting a company that supports any sort of open development.
Yet, what I like about that news is that Valve being clear about ending support
instead of letting it die silently and communicating it.
Should this be the fate of Steam for Linux in the future (I wouldn't rule it out),
I hope they'll communicate it that clearly as well.
With the very strong rumor (not sure they have officially announced anything?) That Apple is going to be switching their macbook pro line over to their own ARM processor, why would Valve continue to support what is in essence, a dead platform? As their specific need is to support x86.
What i wonder is how it will influence Feral. Will they continue to do Mac ports ? And if they don't do Mac ports, is it worth it for them to do Linux ports ?
Did they port any VR game yet?
Mohandevir May 4, 2020
I believe not. But i am not certain. But my concern is more about the non support of Vulkan and the migration towards ARM. Plus the moderately friendly stance towards devs.
It might explain why they began porting games to the Nintendo Switch and Android... Just a guess.
Personally I am glad they are moving forward with more Linux support for VR. The wife got an Oculus Quest last week and now she wants to see what we can do with a PC powered VR system. I didn't want to buy one only to find out that it wasn't going to be supported in the future. Now I just have to wait for them to come back in stock.
The wife got an Oculus Quest last week and now she wants to see what we can do with a PC powered VR system. I didn't want to buy one only to find out that it wasn't going to be supported in the future.I thought Oculus doesn't support Linux. Does it?
The wife got an Oculus Quest last week and now she wants to see what we can do with a PC powered VR system. I didn't want to buy one only to find out that it wasn't going to be supported in the future.I thought Oculus doesn't support Linux. Does it?
No that does not support anything. it is a complete standalone system. (https://www.oculus.com/quest/)
It is really nice since it is portable and you don't need the stands in a room to use VR. Games are short and expensive, but I think that is the same for any VR system right now. You can side load apps on the system so you can bypass the Oculus (facebook) store to purchase apps for the device.
I really hope valve takes a look at the Quest and comes up with a way to do a similar setup so you don't need to have the sensors in the room.
pskosinski May 5, 2020
slaapliedje May 5, 2020
Trust me, you will want those sensors, also the Index is basically king. I refuse to give Facebook money.The wife got an Oculus Quest last week and now she wants to see what we can do with a PC powered VR system. I didn't want to buy one only to find out that it wasn't going to be supported in the future.I thought Oculus doesn't support Linux. Does it?
No that does not support anything. it is a complete standalone system. (https://www.oculus.com/quest/)
It is really nice since it is portable and you don't need the stands in a room to use VR. Games are short and expensive, but I think that is the same for any VR system right now. You can side load apps on the system so you can bypass the Oculus (facebook) store to purchase apps for the device.
I really hope valve takes a look at the Quest and comes up with a way to do a similar setup so you don't need to have the sensors in the room.
This is from someone who has had VR since the first Vive was being shipped. I also have the Vive Pro. It is a good headset, especially for viewing movies, the deep blacks and colors are great. But the Index wins on being able to read things a bit more, and the wider FOV is very nice!
One day I was testing between the two, and the feeling of having binoculars strapped to your face is far more obviouse with the Vive Pro.
But having sensors at the edge of your room that don't require cables to your PC is far nicer than Occulus, which you need three camera set up from what I understand to get the same tracking.
The Quest is a different beast though and if I recall is based on an accelerometer, and does not track your hands as well?
In any case, I am looking forward for better Linux support. There were issues that led me to switch to Windows for VR gaming and keep Linux for regular gaming. I'm gonna try it again on Linux one of this days and see if I can "reclaim the lost ground" and bring those games back to my Linux drive... after I solve the storage space issues, ugh.
I read very positive (to avoid "ecstatic" :D ) voices lately here.
I'm interested in your views when you revisit VR on Linux.
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