Launched in February this year, the PlayStation VR2 is Sony’s newest bet on the virtual reality gaming market. Bringing many improvements over its previous generation, one of the biggest highlights of the new device is the immersion provided by haptic responsive controls on the hands and glasses.
Even before its launch, one of the biggest criticisms of PS VR2 is the fact that the device is not directly compatible with PCs, which greatly restricts its use, even more so at a time when Sony has invested so much in expanding PlayStation titles. for other platforms.
Apparently, this limitation is not eternal, at least that’s what a driver developer for Windows indicates.
The iVRy driver is software from Steam that adds custom drivers for other non-PC headsets like PlayStation VR, GearVR or Google Daydream.
This allows gamers to connect these devices to their PC and use them to play SteamVR games without having to buy a separate dedicated PC VR headset.
Since the launch of the PlayStation VR2 in February, iVRy has been trying to determine if it’s possible to make Sony’s new headset compatible with VR on PC as well.
Now, after almost four months, the conclusion has been reached that it is indeed possible to use PlayStation VR2 on PC, but that it will require more work and will likely need extra custom hardware.
PSVR2 was blocking VR modes saying it couldn’t do [Digital Stream Compression]. We modified an AMD Open Source Linux GPU driver to force DSC… Now we know how to put the PSVR2 in VR mode, so we can design some hardware to do this in Windows.
Can PSVR2 be used on PC? Yes.
Day #121: And we’re in!
– PSVR2 was blocking VR modes by saying it couldn’t do DSC
– We modified an AMD Open Source Linux GPU driver to force DSC
– Now we know how to put the PSVR2 into VR mode, so we can design some hardware to do it on Windows
– “Can PSVR2 be used on PC?” – Yes pic.twitter.com/fNnLaNYEV1— iVRy (@iVRy_VR) June 28, 2023
The developer then clarified his statement by explaining that it will be some time before PS VR2 can be fully used on PC, telling a follower, “How long is a piece of string? There is no way at this time to provide estimates. It won’t be soon, that’s for sure.
He told another: “We have a lot of work to do just to get a basic driver [três graus de liberdade] working, so we have 6DOF, so we have controllers. This is a long process that we have just begun.”
He also noted that “due to Sony’s design choices”, an extra piece of hardware will be required to make PS VR2 run on PC.
Everyone will need an adapter (except some AMD users on Linux). That adapter doesn’t exist yet. We have to design and build one. Then hopefully some hardware company will pick it up and mass-produce it.
It is worth noting that the developer had previously commented on the need for this adapter to use PS VR2 in “cinema mode” on computers that have NVIDIA GPUs from the RTX 20×0 series and AMD 6800/6900 that have USB-C “VR” ports.
As you can see, the device was not really made for use on the PC, showing that Sony’s focus was to restrict technology to its console.
