SteamVR On Linux Is Still In Frustratingly Rough Shape

SteamVR on Linux requires at least the 387.12 driver release. For my testing I was using the 387.34 driver and decided to pop in the GeForce GTX 1080 to this same Ubuntu 16.04 LTS system.

Surprise surprise, no immediate headaches. In this configuration too, surprisingly, no issues with either of the controllers.

But when progressing to the SteamVR Room Setup, it was being very buggy. For several minutes, the headset/HMD didn't want to be detected now and then when getting it to be shown, a controller would disappear even if making sure the controllers did not go to sleep...

Eventually, it succeeded. I'm thinking part of the problem may be due to the likelihood of running dated firmware on the HTC Vive base stations, but the firmware for the two base stations cannot be updated currently under Linux. I didn't have any Windows installations around this week, so no chance to easily try updating their firmware.

When you get past these initial setup challenges for the HTC Vive / SteamVR on Linux, you are left with not many compelling games. Right now with Steam's "top seller" list for VR you find games like Fallout 4 VR, Onward, Stand Out: VR Battle Royal, and others. But of these top sellers, none of the top ten VR games are even supported on Linux. The most prominent Linux VR games right now are the Croteam games like The Talos Principle and Serious Sam VR... Croteam's VR Linux game ports are very good and among my favorite Steam VR Linux titles at the moment. There's also Dota 2 VR on Linux and some smaller games like Munch.

So unless you are a huge Serious Sam / Talos Principle or Dota 2 VR fan, there still isn't any really amazing VR games for Linux while on Windows there are over 300 VR titles and 100+ other titles on the way.

The SteamVR Linux improvements being led by Keith Packard around DRM leasing, non-desktop handling, etc, unfortunately won't come overnight. While there is the initial kernel-side work merged for the current Linux 4.15 kernel, Linux users could be waiting a while to see the X.Org patches... Keith has a lots of the X.Org improvements available in patch form, but X.Org Server 1.20 isn't here yet. There was talk of getting xorg-server 1.20 out in January with all of these patches, but no xorg-server 1.20 branching, release candidates, or formalized release process yet underway. I'd be surprised now if the rest of Keith's work lands and xorg-server 1.20 releases now before February. As this next X.Org update drags on, it becomes riskier whether it will land in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS due in April. With Ubuntu 18.04 being a long-term support release and X.Org Server major releases not being trivial to pull in / mandating other X package rebuilds and risking regressions, it's uncertain at this point if we will still see it incorporated into Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Thus further postponing the easy availability of these VR Linux improvements for Ubuntu users and other non-rolling distributions.

Besides the xorg-server, RandR, and other X pieces, there is also Mesa patches for RADV that still need to land too for enabling VK_EXT_display_control / VK_EXT_display_surface_counter. Hopefully those patches will be merged for the Mesa 18.0 release coming in March and hopefully that Mesa 18.0 will make the cut for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS inclusion. At least though upgrading Mesa isn't as much of a burden for Linux gamers as having to update their entire xorg-server.

Since SteamVR first came to Linux at the start of the year, HTC has dropped the price of the Vive VR system from $799+ to $599, but still that is a steep price all things considered. By the time HTC/Valve release a next-gen VR system that is also more cost effective, hopefully there will be more Linux VR games and SteamVR will be in better shape on Linux.