Trying to get some VR games working in Linux on my 6800xt

Software & Operating Systems Linux
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My system has a ryzen 9 5950X and a rx6800xt.

I’m running arch, with Gnome as my desktop environment and I have a valve index. I’m tired of booting into Windows to play VR titles, so I’m trying to get to the bottom of whatever makes steamvr a stuttering mess on my system.

What I have found out so far:

  1. Steamvr won’t work at all in Wayland.
  2. The choice and configuration of the GPU drivers seems to matter a lot.

What I’m still struggling with:

  1. Which beta version of steamvr I should be using
  2. How to get steamvr and the games it spawns to use a specific driver of my choosing.
  3. A good Xorg.conf to get the most out of my rx6800xt and index
  4. Which VR games work well:
    A. Natively
    B. Via proton

If any of you have a 6800xt and index working well together in Linux, I’d like to know which driver you are using, and your Xorg config

2 Likes
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I presume you are using a Index?

VR under Linux is still a work in progress!

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Yes

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Index should have a better chance of working with SteamVR for linux.

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I have been able to get steamvr home to launch on it, but not at a playable framerate

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I agree, but I think with some effort I should be able to get it working better than it currently is on my system

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the SteamVR “stuttering” is a known bug in the way SteamVR handles reprojection, and has been around for a long time. Reprojection causing stutter · Issue #277 · ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux · GitHub
i find that some games are made playable by using the legacy reprojection option in SteamVR’s per-game settings, but not all.
until Valve fixes this, or adds an option to disable reprojection entirely, VR is going to be a struggle. dont get your hopes up, Valve doesnt seem to have any interest in fixing long-standing bugs in their Linux applications.

some things ive found to help me on my 5700:
*disabling compositing and any accelerated graphics features of my DE (plasma 5)
*using a kernel with futex2 enabled.

1 Like
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Parts of Steam are open-source so maybe there is potential for a 3rd party to come in and fix things.

Also try running a VR game inside GameScope, could help.

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I’d be willing to bet that once Deckard comes out there will be better support and Steam VR will get many improvements. Steam seems to be going all in on the Deck rn so hopefully that success will push LinuxVR to be more usable