To celebrate one year, Half-Life: Alyx is the cheapest it's ever been

This game is amazing, and one of the many reasons VR exists. My biggest gripe I think with it, is there are a few too many things that I think should have been more interactive, but I understand why they didn't.

Waiting to see the other two VR games that Valve are working on.

The reason why they officially don't support Linux, was that it only worked 100% on AMD GPUs for Linux. Do I remember that correctly? Does anyone know what the current status of that is? Because if it doesn't work as good with an Nvidia GPU even the current price is way too high for me.

I don’t know the reason why linux is not advertised as a platform for Alyx, but it’s true the Nvidia driver doesn’t have the required functionality to make it run flawlessly (async reprojection).

That said, I was able to make it run well enough on my 980 Ti, so if your hardware is better than that you’ll be fine.

Is VR still a major pain to get running on Linux?

I would need a new graphics card before it makes sense to save the money for VR.

So I would really like to play that, but when will there be actual gfx cards for a reasonable price?

Is VR still a major pain to get running on Linux?

That's a big question for the future. There are patents for a stand alone HMD from Valve. What would that run on? Steam doesn't have any ARM games yet... would that change with a new VR headset? Or will they use x86 hardware and run Linux?

The reason why they officially don't support Linux, was that it only worked 100% on AMD GPUs for Linux. Do I remember that correctly? Does anyone know what the current status of that is? Because if it doesn't work as good with an Nvidia GPU even the current price is way too high for me.

I beat the game on my 2080 RTX under Linux

Is VR still a major pain to get running on Linux?

Nope, I play a good chunk of my VR games through Linux on my Index and 2080 RTX. Half-Life ran very well with that setup.

wish they released a version that didn't need vr. can't see it being hard to make it usable with a mouse and keyboard.

Having recently beaten the game... it is full on designed around VR. You have 'gravity gloves' that yank things into your hands from a distance. There are fights where you have to duck behind objects and shoot at enemies. It's incredibly intense, and the experience wouldn't be anywhere near as good with a mouse / keyboard. There are even alien exploding balls that you can hold in your hand, until you squeeze them, then you have a few seconds to throw them before they blow up. Even cooler, you have to try to snatch them quickly from the grasp of the weird tentacle thing that is holding them.

Even the feel of throwing actual grenades is enhanced by having it in VR.

You have 'gravity gloves' that yank things into your hands from a distance. There are fights where you have to duck behind objects and shoot at enemies. It's incredibly intense, and the experience wouldn't be anywhere near as good with a mouse / keyboard. There are even alien exploding balls that you can hold in your hand, until you squeeze them, then you have a few seconds to throw them before they blow up. Even cooler, you have to try to snatch them quickly from the grasp of the weird tentacle thing that is holding them.

Every action you mention here could be implemented with a normal mouse click + kb. Or a chain of clicking, holding, etc.
It would definitely be doable via simplification. Valve just decided not to do it, probably because of multiple reasons.

It is also somewhat funny, as most of these things are not "VR" at all - they just use the controllers typically associated with VR.
But there's no real reason you shouldn't be able to use these touch/finger controllers with just a normal monitor. In the end, they are just a much improved variant of what started with the Wiimote.
I've always said and will likely always continue to say that not the headset, but the controls are the actual "revolution" here. The headset "just" increases immersion and lets you look around - saving a button/stick on the controllers.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 24 March 2021 at 6:20 am UTC

I wonder if making Alyx cheaper is making any sense though. :-D Is there a single player that bought a VR set for many hundreds of bucks but didn't want to buy the game that's supposed to be the best for VR?!?

From what I understand there's already a way to play it on the flat screen, but the game is not gonna be fun at all.
Is not about controls and technical details, is the whole game, the whole gaming experience is designed around VR.
No matter how many clever controls are implemented to replace the VR ones, the game is gonna suck. In order to adapt it to flat screen controls, the game itself, the whole story and the flow of the events need to be re-designed. Basically, Alyx on VR is an an awesome game, on flat screen is an unusual mediocre one leaving you scratching your head, WTF is this?
I'm not gonna ruin the game by playing it on the flat screen, I'll just wait until some day I'll get a VR set, and only then I'm gonna play it.


Last edited by dubigrasu on 24 March 2021 at 8:24 am UTC

Is VR still a major pain to get running on Linux?

Honestly, no... I just reinstalled and all I do is install Steam, SteamVR, Alyx, and pay. Im on Manjaro, so I can only speculate that its just as easy on other distros.

Joe

If only the 40% discount was for SteamVR...

Every action you mention here could be implemented with a normal mouse click + kb. Or a chain of clicking, holding, etc.
It would definitely be doable via simplification. Valve just decided not to do it, probably because of multiple reasons.

Here a better reason then: the game is paced and balanced around you having to do a lot of physical movement. From ducking, picking up items to reloading guns and arming grenades. This makes you a great deal slower and more vulnerable than you would every be in a kbm controlled game. Playing this with traditional mechanics and without the added immersion would probably be just boring. It needs the added panic of you trying get save because it requires more than a few small finger movements.

wish they released a version that didn't need vr. can't see it being hard to make it usable with a mouse and keyboard.

Having recently beaten the game... it is full on designed around VR. You have 'gravity gloves' that yank things into your hands from a distance. There are fights where you have to duck behind objects and shoot at enemies. It's incredibly intense, and the experience wouldn't be anywhere near as good with a mouse / keyboard. There are even alien exploding balls that you can hold in your hand, until you squeeze them, then you have a few seconds to throw them before they blow up. Even cooler, you have to try to snatch them quickly from the grasp of the weird tentacle thing that is holding them.

Even the feel of throwing actual grenades is enhanced by having it in VR.

Xen granades... i love bring box full of thease thinks with me :-)
Its another VR think. In one hand you can hold basket/box/... with items (granades, medkit),... how do this without VR?

Xen granades... i love bring box full of thease thinks with me :-)

So I was not the only one!

Unfortunately the new Bioshock: Return to Rapture mod from the workshop doesn't work. I had to switch to the proton version, which still has issues with crashing on level transitions. Also using Vulkan as default renderer crashes the game with proton right away.

I wish they'd either fix the mod support in the Linux version, or fix Proton to make HL:A work flawless. Atm it's a... well, you need to be patient and have a high frustration level ;)

Also it's not possible for me to capture the native HL:A Vulkan window with OBS. Capturing a Vulkan DXVK window works. I capture the VR mirrow view, but though it has a higher FoV, it's lacking some nice features like smoothing the cam movement.

Otherwise HL:A is THE best VR game out there (at least story based VR game).


Last edited by Corben on 24 March 2021 at 10:53 am UTC

Is VR still a major pain to get running on Linux?

This seems to very much depend on your setup. A while ago there was an article here on GOL where the author had his fair share of issues with a multi-monitor setup (and AMD card I think?).
For me, I have a single screen and a Nvidia card on Ubuntu and it was practically plug'n'play, it all went surprisingly smooth. So I guess it "depends".

It's also worth noting that VR games - for whatever reason - seem to work particularly well on Proton. There's not many (Windows) VR games at all I've not gotten to work straight out of the box.


Last edited by Beamboom on 24 March 2021 at 11:57 am UTC

It's also worth noting that VR games - for whatever reason - seem to work particularly well on Proton. There's not many (Windows) VR games at all I've not gotten to work straight out of the box.

Interesting observation. Wonder if it's by chance or something systematic. I guess the company's start applications don't play a big role in VR. And maybe something about the 3D they're forced to do right for VR?