PlayStation VR2 PC Adapter Review

Ever since Sony released the PS VR 2 with its handy, universal USB-C connector in early 2023, PC gamers have been wondering when they’d be able to utilize it. It seemed like a no-brainer—just plug it into a spare USB-C port on your computer and SteamVR would take care of the rest.

Of course, it’s not that plain. After years of waiting, Sony has finally released an adapter, probably the most boring-looking PC peripheral to hit the world in the last few years, that you’ll need to utilize a $500 headset for a $500 console with a $1,000-plus PC. It requires a USB-A and DisplayPort connection from your computer, plus power from a wall outlet (would a USB-C power plug hurt, Sony?), and provides a single USB-C connector for connecting your PS VR 2 unit.

It’s a deep matte black square with a USB cable trapped inside, rather than the sleek white design that defines the PS5 and PS VR 2. It’s so basic that I resorted to photographing the power supply to add some visual interest to this review, but it’s also a black block. It’s almost enough to make me yearn for RGB.

The plastic finish has a textured finish that will collect dust. And while I’m not one to shy away from obvious jokes, it would be better kept in a drawer than on a shelf.

The DisplayPort 1.4 choice is odd, as HDMI ports are much more common (DisplayPort, being an open standard, may have something to do with that), and you could find yourself having to buy a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter to utilize the PSVR adapter — although Sony says that officially this won’t work and it has to be a native port, which rules out most gaming laptops. It’s a bit like using obsolete hardware that requires multiple adapters strung together to come to life, although it’s still better than the six or so USB cables that early Oculus Rift headsets required with their extra sensors.

You’ll also need Bluetooth to connect the Sony handheld controllers to your computer. It needs to be Bluetooth 4.0 or higher, which most computers powerful enough to think about VR should be able to handle. official compatibility list in the case of USB Bluetooth adapters, it is very petite, being only two products long, and Sony has decided not to integrate Bluetooth into the adapter, even though it could have done so to make it as similar to the PS5 as possible.

Your GPU also matters, with Sony recommending a GeForce GTX 1650 / Radeon RX 5500XT or better (the RX 5700 is roughly on par with the PS5, though opinions on this vary wildly), and that needs to be paired with a Core i5 7600 / Ryzen 3 3100 or better. These specs fall somewhere between those for Valve Index (lower) and Meta Quest 3 (higher), though the specs of the games themselves are more significant and will outweigh these base specs.

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Inside, you’ll find what sets the PS VR 2 apart from the Quest and Index: 120Hz OLED screens. They’re not as high-resolution as the Quest 3’s or as speedy as the Index’s, but the fact that you get energetic colors and solid blacks (all the reasons OLED gaming monitors get so much utilize) should make the PS VR 2 one of the best, if not the best, PC VR headsets on the market today.

The instruction manual in the box is little more than a folded piece of paper, but setting it up involves installing the SteamVR and PlayStation VR 2 apps on Steam, which are both free, and you’ll also need a game or two. Half-Life Alyx is pretty good. Then, pair the handheld controllers with your computer’s Bluetooth, which requires holding down two buttons on each controller and pairing them via Windows settings. They connected immediately on my laptop with Bluetooth 5.4, which is encouraging.

The system I used to test the PS VR 2 adapter was the one with the largest GPU I could get my hands on, a GeForce RTX 4090 in the ridiculously steep Acer Predator Helios 18. It doesn’t have a full-size DisplayPort socket, though, so I used the adapter from a USB-C port, exactly as Sony forbids. When I first launch the PlayStation VR 2 app in Steam, it runs an installer script and downloads some .NET components, then goes through a setup checklist that ends with a “DisplayPort cable not connected” error for me.

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Turns out, that wasn’t the case: the cable had come loose from the USB-C adapter, and reinserting it resulted in a “fused” screen. Damn it, Sony.

Firing up Alyx reminds me of just how good VR can be when it’s done right. Early on in the game (it leaves you stranded in an empty space for an unsettlingly long time while it loads, making me wonder if everything was working properly—a “loading” message wouldn’t have been a bad thing), as you stand on the balcony of City 17 and watch the pigeons and the Combine run around, there’s a bit of a jolt to the convoluted scene as the frame rate drops.

That went away once I teleported in, and while there were occasional frame rate hiccups, everything from that point on was pretty silky, including opening the menu to save my game and the SteamVR overlay. My main gripe with the PS VR 2 is that I constantly have to adjust it to sharpen text, keep the rubber border from squashing my nose or poking my eye, and find the balance between having the center in focus and having the edges blurry.

The best thing about the PlayStation VR 2 on the PlayStation 5 is that it just works. It connects with a single cable, which is quite long. You press a button on the handheld controllers and they connect on the first try. And the software is excellent, letting you pop up the overlay at any time. It’s a little finicky about space, preferring that you play every game standing in the middle of a football pitch, but that’s the case with many VR options. In my experience, the PC adapter and Steam VR come pretty close to replicating this, although Steam seems less concerned with furniture positioning.

There are horror stories circulating online about Bluetooth not connecting, hand controllers freezing, DisplayPort errors, and more. It all worked for me on the first try, even though I tested it on a powerful laptop.

Any recommendation for this product as a PC VR system will come with a lot of “ifs.” If you already have a PS5 and If you already have PS VR 2 and If you are really interested in VR games and If the PlayStation selection doesn’t give you everything you want, and If If you have a good enough gaming PC, then this adapter is a much better idea than buying a second headset. However, it may be one software update away from being the PC VR top hat, and if Sony can iron out any connectivity glitches and keep the price low, there’s no reason it can’t climb to that crown.