A developer got Apple Vision Pro working on SteamVR by porting ALVR.
You’re probably familiar with the three most popular tools to make Meta Quests act as PC VR headsets on Windows: Virtual Desktop, Steam Link, and Quest (Air) Link. But you might not be as familiar with ALVR, the open-source alternative that has been around since before any of those.
ALVR is an Android client app with a Windows streamer, compatible with most Android-based headsets including Quest, Pico, and Vive XR Elite. But the code is open-source, and software developer Zhuowei Zhang has successfully ported it to visionOS, meaning Vision Pro too can act as a Windows PC VR headset.
Zhang’s code is available on GitHub, and he posted instructions for building it on a Mastodon instance owned by programmer J. Walter Weatherman.
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Video by J. Walter Weatherman of Apple Vision Pro accessing SteamVR on a Windows gaming PC on his local network.
Weatherman posted a short clip showing himself trying Zhang’s port on a Vision Pro. There’s a visible jitter and visual artifacts, but it’s unclear how much of this is the fault of Zhang’s code versus Weatherman’s Wi-Fi network conditions. I’ve reached out to Weatherman to ask and will update this article if I get a response.
Of course, even if these issues can be fixed, you won’t be able to play many SteamVR games. Most SteamVR content expects tracked controllers, and Vision Pro doesn’t include or support any.
You could get SteamVR Tracking base stations and Index controllers and use a tool like OpenVR Space Calibrator to manually align them, but that would cost you around $600 and the alignment will drift over time so will need to be reset.
If you’re not willing to do that, Vision Pro could still prove an excellent headset for use with untracked input devices, such as racing wheels for sim racing or HOTAS setups for flight simulators.
