PS VR2 emulation on PC is ‘very’ slowly making headway. The hardware launched in February this year and there’s no doubt that Sony purposely blocked PC support on the VR headset in order to lock users into a PS5 console. However, it seems that in the distant future, we might be able to play PS VR2 on PC as emulation is progressing to get the unit functional on the platform.
Developer iVRy, who has successfully ported the original PlayStation VR tech to PC, announced that they have made progress on PS VR2 enabling the unit to connect to PC and support some tracking features. While this doesn’t sound like a huge achievement, it is actually quite a big one.
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According to iVRy, the work-in-progress SteamVR driver for PS VR2 now does 6DOF tracking using the headset’s cameras. The developer claims that Sony’s PS VR2 headset calculates all the tracking on the unit internally and thanks to some mods and tweaking, this tracking is now accessible on the driver.
In addition to that, iVRy says that they have successfully developed Cinema Mode on PS VR2 through PC. This means the driver now lets you see your desktop through the PS VR2 lenses. A small step but at least it is something.
iVRy claims that using a Linux PC with custom software has been the best route to enable PS VR2 on PC. This was possible by bypassing the block Sony put on the PS VR2 hardware which told PCs the VR unit couldn’t do DSC (Digital Stream Compression).
The developer says that Sony’s headset tells the PC that it doesn’t support DSC which is necessary to run the unit’s 4000 x 2040 display modes at 60Hz over the DisplayPort connection. As a result, PC drivers refuse to enable support for the unit. However, bypassing this block made the cinema mode possible.
We are still a long way away from playing PS VR2 on PC though. iVRy says that development on the motion controllers hasn’t even started yet. Every aspect of the PS VR2 tech has to be bypassed and then woven into the drivers. It is going to be a long wait. Thankfully, things are looking positive. You can follow iVRy for the updates here.
