Recently I've done a fairly comprehensive overview of software for working in VR. My use-case is that I would like to perform my daily work at least partially within a headset, taking advantage of the virtual space to access more monitors than are at my desk, and to do so within a pleasant, relaxing environment. Maybe even be able to stand up, walk around, and lounge in a virtual space when done working, all from the comfort of my IRL room. I distilled this vision down to the following non-negotiable qualifications for my setup.

• Lightweight HMD, to be able to use for hours without much fatigue
• Virtual environment that supports many different, customizable “worlds”
• Multi-monitor support

I will skip all of my evaluation phase and simply tell you what setup has fulfilled these requirements for me. Presently (September 2024) I have worked in this space for about a week

• HMD — Bigscreen Beyond
• OS — Windows (necessarily)
• Virtual Desktops — Desktop+
• World / Environment — VRChat or Steam Home

HMD / Hardware

I became interested in the Bigscreen Beyond when looking for a replacement for my Vive Pro 2. The Pro 2 weighs about 1.87 lbs (0.85 kg) and is quite heavy for a headset. It's a fine headset but I noticed significant fatigue after playing Skyrim VR within the first hour of playing the game. This is probably because the journey to High Hrothgar is long and there is not much to distract you while walking so my mind gradually disengaged with the world and I began to notice the heavy weight on my head increasingly often. The head strap on the Pro 2 does a lot to distribute this weight evenly over your head but still the HMD is quite heavy. Additionally the HMD is aging. I'm reminded of this when I put on newer headsets and am surprised by their clarity, especially the Quest 2 (still) and the Quest 3.

In contrast, the Beyond weighs 127 grams and looks amazing. There is a narrow sweet spot and blur around the edges which is something to get used to, but after using this for a full week I do not notice these things anymore, I simply move my head around more to look at things than I use my eyes to glance to my peripheral. I think this glancing behavior is a holdover from my Pro 2 which commanded much more inertia when moving my head. With the Beyond I barely notice it on my face.

Committing to the Beyond means embracing the SteamVR ecosystem, which I was luckily already in given that the Vive Pro 2 uses Valve's base stations. I also already used controllers the from the Index too because HTC's controllers suck, and because I wanted to flip people off in VR which you can only do (currently) with the Index controllers.

Bootstrapping into this VR setup from zero (minus an adequate computer) these are the hardware components that compose my setup.

VR Wire II is very optional but I love how it keeps the cable up and away from my head. You can inspect my Workspace further to get a feel for my VR space and wiring setup.

Also you only need one base station, but two works better so you don't lose tracking if facing away from the station. I assume you don't only want to work in VR!

OS

I thought my Beyond would work with Linux. Unfortunately for NVIDIA (ticker: NVDA) chads we have a driver problem. The wakeup signal is not sent to the headset display so while SteamVR works and the HMD is detected, the HMD is unusable because it's all black inside.

This is the only time I've ever felt that I'd be better off with an AMD card because they already patched this, though you'll need to patch the kernel yourself (note: this information may be out of date by the time you read this. check this table for Beyond support in Linux).

In every other case the NVIDIA (ticker: NVDA) cards are just better. Even on Linux! It's 2024 bro if you're not talking to your locally hallucinated waifu whose soul is encoded in a 15.6 GiB file called wizard-vicuna-30B-uncensored.ggmlv3.q3_K_M.bin loaded to VRAM on your 3090 you're not gonna make it, sorry I don't make the rules!

Virtual Desktops

I did a lot of searching for decent software I can use to actually work in VR. The choices I found relevant in 2024 for PCVR were:

• XSOverlay / OVR Toolkit
• Bigscreen Beta
• Virtual Desktop (Classic)
• Desktop+

Virtual Desktop Classic multi-monitor support is jank and I don't think Bigscreen Beta does multi-monitor well. Both of these are great for single-monitor applications, like watching anime, movies, videos etc. Bigscreen Beta allows you to watch these things with friends as well so that's really cool. I love that the screens in both these applications are applied to model textures in the virtual world, so you can actually work from a desk with your monitor view on it or watch movies on a big theater screen. Unfortunately both of these are limited to just one desktop and I was informed that Virtual Desktop for PCVR is not getting new features (hence, Classic), just fixes. They are focused on the standalone version evidently.

XSOverlay and OVR Toolkit let you arrange windows and desktops around yourself in VR. Both these softwares are separate apps that are started from the Steam menu but these windows stay around you no matter what game or environment you work from in VR. The windows are not applied to in-world textures as they can be in Virtual Desktop Classic or Bigscreen Beta, but this does have multi-monitor / multi-window support. Streamers use XSOverlay to pin their Twitch chat to their wrist, this is an example of what can be done with it.

Unfortunately I found the lag of XSOverlay desktop capture to be very distracting. It felt like the overlay refresh was 10 FPS and it made everything very choppy and unbearable to work in.

Desktop+, while not being a virtual world itself, checked all the boxes I needed to use my desktops in VR. Like XSOverlay I'm able to arrange windows around myself in any game. It works by adding a new “desktop” to the SteamVR UI that you can view using Steam VR's toolbar, and it adds a new toolbar below that you can use to add new windows. Even though it's only accessible from the SteamVR UI toolbar thing you can actually pin windows or desktops to your playspace so they are visible even when the SteamVR menu is closed. I prefer just showing my desktops when the SteamVR menu is open though.

Desktop+ works beautifully. The downside is that it does not work on Linux because the capture API Proton exposes is not implemented at all, at least according to a post from the dev from 2023. WixOverlay seems promising at least, I will try it when the Beyond becomes usable on Linux.

World / Environment

There are a number of peaceful VRChat worlds to work from but recently I've been foregoing VRChat in favor of simply working from the SteamVR dashboard, but when I do find more worlds I enjoy working in I will update the list below.

I work in invite-only instances but it could be very fun to work in a social environment during the day too. Sitting in VRChat without full-body tracking looks weird though so I'd like to wear my trackers too, and those don't have great vision of the base stations at my desk. Maybe I could build a VR-only desk with just a mouse and keyboard...