Valve Is Working With AMD On VR Support In AMDGPU-PRO

Right now if you want to make use of SteamVR on Linux with Radeon GPUs, you need to use a patched version of the RADV driver. The RADV Vulkan bits for SteamVR are still working their way to mainline while the AMDGPU-PRO hybrid driver doesn't yet support SteamVR's required Vulkan extensions, but the support is being worked on.

Prominent Valve Linux developer Pierre-Loup Griffais has posted in our forums, "AMD is working on VR support for AMDGPU-PRO and we're working with them on it, not focused on radv."

It's not too surprising. Valve has worked with AMD in the past on improving their binary Linux driver while at the same time they employ a number of developers working on the open-source Radeon graphics driver stack too. It's in Valve's best interest to see SteamVR working on as much hardware/system as possible and so only makes sense they are interested in seeing the hybrid AMDGPU-PRO Vulkan driver also support SteamVR. Plus the AMDGPU-PRO driver remains AMD's only officially supported Vulkan driver with the graphics company not supporting the independent RADV and still having plans for open-sourcing their driver in the future.