Use Meta Quest Hand Tracking With PCVR
Ditch the controllers and play classic PCVR games with your hands using Quest 2 and Quest 3!
We’ve just unlocked the next level of PCVR gaming as you can now link up your Quest headset and play classic PCVR games like Half-Life: Alyx or VRChat using only your hands! That means no extra link cables, trackers, or fancy schmancy gloves with haptic sensors. Just your ol’ reliable digits.
This is all thanks to your Quest’s in-built hand tracking features, though unlocking that ability for PCVR can be tricky. But never fear! We’ve got this handy (get it?) guide that should get you up and running in no time!
NB: This feature is still in beta at the time of writing, so by no means perfect and we cannot guarantee the same results we’ve experienced.
How to set up Quest hand tracking for PCVR
This is an awesome Beta feature and we’re really excited about what this means for the development of PCVR gaming—and VR gaming in general! If you want to try it out for yourself, this is how we got Quest hand tracking for PCVR up and running in just 7 short steps.
What you’ll need:
- A Quest headset
- A PC and a Steam account
- SteamVR installed on PC (in Beta mode)
- Steam Link on your Quest (also in Beta mode)
- A good WiFi connection!
We’ll cover all of these in more detail in the steps below. So, let’s get started!
Step 1: Install SteamVR (if you don’t have it)
Head to your PC, open Steam, search for SteamVR, and start that installation. This should take a couple of minutes.
You can also get the SteamVR app here.
Step 2: Download the Beta update for SteamVR
As hand tracking for PCVR is currently an experimental feature, you’ll need to run both the Steam Link and SteamVR apps in Beta mode.
For SteamVR, visit the SteamVR app page in Steam, click on the settings button (that looks like a little gear), select ‘Properties’ in the dropdown, then ‘Betas’, then select the ‘SteamVR Beta Update’ and choose the top item on the list. The update should then start installing.
SteamVR should now be running in Beta mode, but you’ll need to repeat the same process for Steam Link on your Quest.
Step 3: Opt in for the Steam Link Public Beta
Before you install Steam Link on your Quest headset, you’ll need to opt in for the Steam Link Public Beta release and allow permissions. The link to join can be found in the description of the SteamVR app on Steam, but to save time, you can do it right now by following THIS LINK.
Step 4: Install Steam Link on your Quest (if you don’t have it)
Next, let’s install Steam Link on your Quest headset. This is as simple as heading to the Horizon Store in-headset, searching for Steam Link, and installing it!
You can also click here to get Steam Link for Meta Quest.
Step 5: Run the Steam Link Public Beta
Once you’ve installed Steam Link and opted into the Public Beta by following the steps above, you’ll also need to join the Beta channel for Steam Link in your headset. Find the app in your library, click on the 3 dots, select ‘Settings’ (which may open in another window), then select ‘Release channels’, and choose ‘Public Beta’.
From here, simply run Steam Link on your Quest and connect it to your PC wirelessly to get going! This is very important as, right now, this Beta feature will ONLY work if you’re connected wirelessly to your PC.
Step 6: Set controller bindings
With all that done, you’re almost ready to get hands-on with those PCVR games (VRChat is a great first option!). But first, you’ll need to set your hands as the controller binding.
To start using hand tracking in games, you must ensure you’ve set the controller to be your hands. Doing that is very simple: Go to the game menu and select ‘Controller Bindings’. Then, under Active Controller Binding, select ‘Custom’, then ‘Choose Another’.
The first time you do this, it might say that your active controller is ‘Index controller’. We don’t want this, so click on it and scroll down to ‘Hand Tracking Controller’ in the list:
You’ll need to repeat this controller selection process for every game you play—and you’ll also notice most games will have some hand tracking controller binding presets you can choose from.
So, with all that done, let’s talk about controller binding to get the most out of your PCVR hand tracking experience!
A note on PCVR controller binding
How effective this PCVR hand tracking is will largely depend on how well you configure your controller binding by re-mapping your physical controllers to your hand tracking gestures. There are lots of options to choose from here, so select what feels most natural to you.
Ideally, you’ll want to set up a separate binding for each individual game you play. While it can be time-consuming to do this yourself, there are pre-created community bindings that others have shared on Steam for you to try—at least for the games we’ve tried.
The options are incredibly varied and you can assign all kinds of actions like jumping, moving, accessing menus, and so on to the range of gestures—even setting whether pinches are short or long holds to access different features! This means that almost every gesture can be used for two different things!
So, make sure you consider the demands of the game, how you naturally move and hold your hands while you play, and what’s most comfortable for you, then map your gestures accordingly!
Remember: It’s still in Beta
As this is a Beta feature that’s still very much in development, you may notice some quality issues while using hand tracking in PCVR—and you may not be able to complete a whole game like Half-Life using only hand tracking. After all, hand tracking does make it more difficult to actually play the game—and you’ll have a whole new controller setup to memorize!
This is also why finding the right controller binding for you is so important if you want a great experience—take the time to tinker with it for yourself to get that mapping just right!
That said, it’s awesome to see this feature brought to life! And, we’re sure that many of you dedicated VR aficionados out there will take up the challenge to beat a full game using only hand tracking!
And remember: It’ll only work with a wireless connection, so you can expect some latency issues and a quality dip versus a link cable. Hopefully, they’ll add linked support in the future!
Want that tutorial in a video?
Our SideKick, DiscoVR (aka Tetiana), has a comprehensive video tutorial ready to go, running through all the steps you need to get Quest hand tracking up and running to use it for PCVR:
About SideQuest
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Developers (like us) are free to experiment with mechanics and modes on their journey to official stores, while players can safely explore thousands of apps across the wonderful world of VR — the biggest collection all in one place, actually.
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