How To Use Your PS VR2 Headset With A Windows PC

Virtual reality has come a long way. These days it's easy to find a decent headset for your PC or gaming console. While there may be many choices out there, one of the best options is the PlayStation VR2. Not only does the peripheral serve PS5 owners, but now it's making its way to PC, too.

In our review of the PlayStation VR2, writer Andy Zahn noted that the headset was so good (at least on paper), that it was "enough to make owners of high-end PC VR headsets jealous," delivering an impressive headset with good value for money. So if you are a jealous PC gamer, or you're tired of the limited offering of VR games on the PlayStation, what can you do? If you want to access Steam VR and play games like "Half-Life: Alyx" on the PS VR2, Sony just released a PlayStation VR2 PC Adapter that makes it relatively easy to use your headset with a Windows PC.

Just like the PlayStation 5 was hard to come by for a good while after release, this adapter is already hard to track. At the time of this writing, the only major retailer to have the PlayStation VR2 PC Adapter is Target. Even if the adapter isn't available by the time you try to buy one, stock fluctuates frequently, just like it did with the actual PlayStation 5 console.

Once you get your hands on a PS VR2 PC Adapter, however, it's relatively straightforward to connect to your PC. On the PlayStation, you use a single USB-C cable to connect the headset to the console, and the adapter is meant to serve that same function. You connect the PS VR2 PC Adapter to your PC via USB-A and DisplayPort, then power the adapter through a DC barrel jack. The adapter connects to your headset through a USB-C port on the other end. From there, fire up the PlayStation VR2 App on Steam and get access to some of the best VR games out there.

Unfortunately, as straightforward as Sony says the PlayStation VR2 PC Adapter is, it's not exactly plug-and-play. For one, you will need more than the $60 adapter to connect to a Windows PC. In addition to a Steam account, you also need a DisplayPort 1.4 cable which is not provided with the adapter, and the adapter does not support HDMI-to-DisplayPort.

There's also the fact that the PSVR2 does not support some of its biggest features when connecting to a PC, like HDR, eye tracking, adaptive triggers, or haptic feedback, according to Sony. The adapter also works exclusively for the headset itself, not its extremely important peripherals like the controllers. Controllers will have to connect over Bluetooth and users are reporting issues figuring out how exactly to connect the controllers to the PC if it doesn't already support Bluetooth. 

One way to skip all this and not even have to use the adapter is if you're one of the lucky people with a GPU that has a VirtualLink port that can connect directly to the PlayStation VR2. Unfortunately, the VirtualLink port never became widely accessible and only a few graphics cards have it.