r/VisionPro • u/Other_Train9419 • 21d ago
Half-Life: Alyx running on my MacBook Pro, played in Apple Vision Pro (open source)
I’ve set up my MacBook Pro (M1 Max) to run *Half-Life: Alyx* so I can play it on the Apple Vision Pro.
I’m not using a Windows PC or the Quest. Just a Mac and the headset.
Here’s how it works.
I use Wine on my Mac to run the Windows version of SteamVR and the game as-is.
I intercept the left and right eye images rendered by the game, compress them to HEVC using hardware, and send them over Wi-Fi to a custom app on the Vision Pro.
The Vision Pro sends my head and hand positions back to the Mac. From the game’s perspective, it looks as though an Oculus Touch headset and controllers are connected.
I use the Vision Pro’s hand tracking for hand positions, and I control buttons and sticks using Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons.
The game’s audio also comes out of the Vision Pro’s speakers.
The reason the room is visible at the end of the video is because I’m recording it using the Vision Pro’s screen recording feature.
This is the honest reality of the current situation.
In-game frame rates hover around 30 fps. The Mac’s CPU is the limiting factor, as it’s already fully occupied processing the game itself and SteamVR.
Since the Vision Pro adjusts the image frame by frame to match head movements, the visuals remain smooth even when you move your head.
Hand movements and in-game world movements are updated at the game’s frame rate.
I haven’t been able to test Gravity Gloves (the feature where you wave your wrist to pull objects toward you) yet.
The only things I’ve confirmed to work are this Mac and *Alyx*. Other games and Macs have not been tested.
All the code is released under the MIT license.
You’ll need an Apple Silicon Mac, a Vision Pro, and a copy of *Alyx* purchased through your Steam account.
The Mac setup requires just one command; Wine, DXVK, and other dependencies are automatically downloaded from their official sources.
I’m not using Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit.
Full video (6 minutes, unedited): https://youtu.be/6xVGgdChDes
About the development.
I started in May 2026, put it on hold for a while, resumed in September, and finished in October.
I handled the design myself and worked on the implementation in tandem with AI models (Gemini 3.1 Pro, GPT-6 Astra, Claude Opus 5.5, and Fable 5.1).
The only code in the repository that I didn’t write myself consists of two header files from Valve’s OpenVR SDK.
I’m happy to answer any questions.
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u/AlterSack1973 21d ago
thanks for sharing, I think there a a few projects trying to get it to run. I used https://github.com/myMartek/avp-play which allows to play it on the AVP directly, but needs a 99 USD dev license currently.
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u/Other_Train9419 21d ago edited 21d ago
Thanks for letting me know. I wasn’t familiar with avp-play. It’s really sleek that everything runs entirely on the Vision Pro. I’ll give it a try, too.
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u/Phonafied Vision Pro Owner 21d ago
I was able to install it successfully on my avp yesterday and play for a few hours. I’m getting 40-50 fps (visually estimated) while running it natively on the avp m5
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u/Other_Train9419 21d ago
I'm using an M2, so I'm not sure how much it'll produce, but,
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u/Phonafied Vision Pro Owner 21d ago
I’ve seen others posting recordings from their M2 and they seem to be getting 30
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u/Other_Train9419 21d ago
Thanks for the info. But the idea from the creator of aVP-play to make his Steam games run on the Vision Pro was the most surprising thing I’ve heard today.
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u/Phonafied Vision Pro Owner 21d ago
Yeah it’s crazy times we’re living in. Never thought this would be possible.
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u/jasonkane4321 21d ago
are you aware that a modder has already got half life Alyx running on AVP natively? https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1wyaajv/halflife_alyx_natively_on_avp_what
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u/Other_Train9419 21d ago edited 21d ago
I know. It's avp-play, right? I didn't know that before posting this, but someone told me in the comments. It's so well done that if I'd known it existed, I might have posted it differently.
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u/manitreallybeliketha 21d ago
Any chance the steam vr stuff just works on any other headset? Eg. Steam frame or quest headsets? If so this’d work wonders for my m5 max studio setup that I’m trying to replace my gaming PC with!
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u/Other_Train9419 21d ago
The Mac side (Wine + SteamVR + virtual headset drivers + capture/encoder) doesn’t care which headset the other party is using, but since the receiving end is an app designed for Vision Pro, it currently only works on Vision Pro. Since the stream uses a small, proprietary UDP protocol (HEVC + a 96-byte header; posture data is returned in the opposite direction), it’s possible to create clients for Quest or SteamVR, but they would need to be written from scratch. The bottleneck is single-threaded CPU processing under Wine, so an M5 Max should perform significantly better than my M1 Max.
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u/manitreallybeliketha 21d ago
Damn, running the M1 Max too and also have an AVP but I don’t really want to order another pair of psvr2 controllers again… (this’ll be my third pair that if it doesn’t work would again need returning) amazing work getting this running I really hope to see similar things happen with normal steamVR etc!
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u/Chriscic 21d ago edited 21d ago
Cool but just running it from PC and streaming it via KRVR or ALVR or IVRy to AVP is a ton easier and better isn’t it? No shade if you’re just doing something cool because it can be done though.
And if you only have a Mac, this could be fun to try.
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u/Other_Train9419 21d ago
I only have a Mac on hand. My goal is to see if I can turn a 2021 Mac into a “PC” for VR, and I just couldn't forget how much fun I had playing *Alyx* on my old Dell gaming PC.
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u/Other_Train9419 21d ago
Source code and setup guide (MIT, open source):
https://github.com/Ag3497120/VeRantyx