A few days ago, I picked the Playstation VR2 PC adapter. Not too long after unboxing it, I was reinstalling Steam OS…

VRen’t

My goal was to get this thing working on my Steam Deck. So I got it all hooked up, and started downloading SteamVR.

SteamVR fired up just fine, but didn’t see the headset. Turns out, I also needed the PSVR2 app. After installing that, it wouldn’t open. After playing around with different versions of proton, I came to a horrifying conclusion.

Forgive me Lord Gaben, for I have sinned

My plan, to boot Windows on my Steam Deck.

Now, I’m not completely crazy, my plan was to boot Windows off of an SD card.

Firing up a Windows VM on my laptop, I had windows generate an install iso. I then had Rufus write that iso to an SD card, as a preinstalled Windows To Go disk, with access to my internal SSD disabled.

Booting up the SD card, I got to work. Downloading drivers from Valve, installing those drivers, setting up Steam, and installing SteamVR and the PSVR2 app.

After running the PSVR2 set up, my headset was detected in SteamVR, yay! However, nothing was showing up on the headset, just the “Please take off the headset” animation. Windows, was not seeing the adapter, as a display device.

I decided to give it a break, boot back into SteamOS, and play some games.

The Damage Has Been Done

Booting into SteamOS, I ran into an issue.

Despite disabling Windows To Go’s ability to do anything with the internal drive, it still did. None of my games would launch, even after reinstalling them. My /home partition was borked.

Grabbing my Windows To Go SD card, I quickly overwrote it with a SteamOS recovery image.

I gave the repair install option a shot. Hoping that it would un bork my /home partition, while keeping my data. It wasn’t successful, my stuff was gone.

PV VR feels like a massive pain. And somehow Windows keeps getting worse.

The adaptor isn’t a complete loss. In SteamOS gaming mode, I can use it as a private screen for normal games. That’s neat.

I’m not going to give up on PC VR. But it’s pretty clear to me, that I’ll have to use something other than the Steam Deck. Maybe this will push me to build a proper gaming PC.