Want to play Alyx? Try the wireless streaming using Oculus Quest!

Half-life: Alyx rapidly became the most popular VR game as soon as it launched on 23rd March. People started to take out their VR devices that have been on the shelf for a long time. However, some old desktop VR devices such as Oculus Rift CV1 don’t have a high resolution to provide enough immersion. At the same time, the wire connected to the headset restricts the user’s movement. To have a good experience of the newest half-life, these two problems need to be solved urgently. This article will teach you how to set up a 2k-resolution Alyx experience using your stand-alone VR headset.

First of all, please check the required devices and hardware requirements. If you have all the things ready, you can start to do it step by step.

• Oculus Quest.
• A PC :
  • Meets or be better than the lowest requirement of Alyx. (See here).
  • Has a WIFI card (supporting 802.11ac will be the best choice).
  • Windows 10 OS.
  • SteamVR installed.
• A router (working at 5Ghz if possible).

Step 1: Download the latest ALVR desktop server installer (.exe) from Github. Click me to download. Then double click the .exe file and follow the instruction to install it. The ALVR is a free plugin on Github. But it still at the Alpha release which means it is not stable and potentially has some bugs. So my suggestion is to download the latest version if possible. (the current version is v2.40-alpha5).

Step 2: Download the ALVR apk file. Do not download the apk file from the above original ALVR page since this apk was designed for Oculus Go and you will have only one controller. What I recommend to do is go here and download the bug-fixed version.

Step 3: Download the ADB tool to install the apk file onto Oculus Quest. Then unzip the file to anywhere you want. Notice: you can also choose other methods to install the apk file.

Step 4: Turn on the developer mode in the Oculus App on your phone. If you are not a developer yet, please register as a developer first.

Step 5: Connect your Oculus Quest to PC, press WIN+R to open up the command line.

Step 6: cd to the root folder of the ADB tool that you unzipped in step 3. For example:

cd C:\platform-tools_r30.0.0-windows\platform-tools

Step 7: Use “adb devices” to check if the device is detected. You will see the device code if the Quest is detected. For example:

adb devices
List of devices attached
1XXXX9XXXX9411  device

Step 8: If your device is detected, use “adb install” command to install the apk file on to the Quest in Step 2. For example:

adb install YOUR_PATH\ALVRClient-GithubNormalOvr-release-v2.4.0-alpha5.apk

You will see this if succeeded:

Performing Streamed Install
Success

Or you might also see the error below:

adb: failed to install app-Github-Normal-Ovr-debug.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE: Package com.polygraphene.alvr signatures do not match the previously installed version; ignoring!]

This means you have already had a version of ALVR on your device. Try to use the command below to uninstall it and do step 8 again.

.\adb uninstall com.polygraphene.alvr

Step 9: Run the application on Oculus Quest, it can be found in “Library->unknown sources”. As soon as you getting into the application, you will see yourself inside an Oculus space and says: “Waiting for the server”.

Step 10: Run the ALVR server that we have installed in step 1. You will see your devices in the “server” tab. Click “connect” then “start server” on the right top corner.

Step 11: After you start the server, steamVR will pop up automatically. Then you can set up your device as a desktop version. Notice: the Oculus Quest has a build-in Room-scale view set up, so you can choose “stand only” in steam VR, which will save a lot of time of configuration.

Step 12: Start the Half-life: Alyx and enjoy!

If you have any problem on setting up the wireless streaming, please leave your comment below.