VR game streaming tool ALVR adds PipeWire support on Linux

While the Linux support of ALVR is still quite rough due to various issues with SteamVR, ALVR is a very promising way to stream VR games to your headset via Wi-Fi and a new release is out now with v20.9.1.

Quite an exciting release actually bringing much improved audio support on Linux, thanks to it now supporting PipeWire! As the developers said in their release post: "PipeWire support was in the making for a long time. Finally now audio works out of the box on Linux without the need of any external software except the PipeWire system package. This puts Linux on par if not on better support status than Windows!". Fantastic news.

They've also now had a Meta AppLab release, with ALVR also landing in PICO Lab soon.

All the changes:

Changes for v20.9.1

• Fix performance issues on lobby room.

Changes for v20.9.0

• Add PipeWire support on Linux (by @Meister1593 #1973)

  • Now ALVR creates its own input and output devices
  • Old ALSA and Jack backends are removed
• Add launcher (by @Kirottu #1686, @zarik5 #2058)
• Add GPU checks for Linux (by @Meister1593 #2110)
• Many dashboard tweaks (by @zarik5 #2117 #2119 #2120 #2176)
• Show hands and controllers in the lobby (by @zarik5 #2218)
• Allow recentering in the lobby (by @zarik5 #2155)
• Fix controller detection on Pico Neo 3 Link (by @HoLo85 #2192)
• Fix HEVC black screen on Linux/VAAPI (by @Nibor62 #2203)
• Loosen restrictions on device selection with VoiceMeeter (by @xuan25 #2209)
• Many documentation changes and internal refactorings, mainly thanks to @The-personified-devil and @zarik5

See all on the GitHub page.

Also related in case you missed the recent article: ElectricMaple joins WiVRn and ALVR in giving options to stream VR to a headset.