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Play PCVR games on your Apple Silicon Mac, streamed to your headset - over USB or Wi-Fi.
Windows VR games run under Wine with D3D11 translated to Metal, a custom OpenXR runtime captures every frame, and hardware H.264 streams it to the stock ALVR client on your headset - with full 6DoF tracking, controllers, haptics, and game audio coming back the other way.
Free 7-day preview. Everything works for one week from first launch. To keep going, enter a license key in the app to unlock the latest version - support me on Patreon (coming soon) to get your key. New preview releases also reset the window.
Join the MoltenVR Discord for support, announcements, and early-access builds.
- USB streaming - 100 Mbps H.264 over the cable; no Wi-Fi jitter. (Wi-Fi works too.)
- Low-latency pipeline - hardware encode in frame-in/frame-out mode, 72 fps.
- Full input - 6DoF head + controllers, buttons, thumbsticks, and haptics.
- Desktop view - double-tap the menu button in VR to see your Mac desktop.
- Game audio - routed into the stream via BlackHole.
- Setup wizard + management app - built-in managed Wine bottles (WhiskyWine/GPTK, recommended; existing Whisky / CrossOver / Wineskin bottles also work), automatic game detection (Steam, BSManager multi-version, itch.io), one-click patching, live stats.
| Game | Source | Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Half-Life: Alyx | Steam | Source 2 |
| Beat Saber 1.44.1 | Steam | Unity 6 |
| Beat Saber 1.40.8 (modded, BSIPA) | BSManager | Unity 2022.3 |
| Iron Lung VR | itch.io | Unity |
| Minecraft + Vivecraft | Prism | native (no Wine!) |
Half-Life: Alyx runs fully playable - DXVK rendering, OpenComposite
translating SteamVR calls onto the MoltenVR OpenXR runtime, with tracking, controllers and
haptics all working. (No in-game rebinding UI - OpenComposite has no SteamVR dashboard;
edit game/hlvr/cfg/bindings_touch.json to change controls.)
Other Unity OpenXR/OpenVR titles may work - try yours and open an issue with the result.
- Apple Silicon Mac, macOS 14+
- A headset running the ALVR client (v20.14.0)
- No separate Wine app needed - MoltenVR sets up its own managed Wine bottle (recommended). Existing bottles from Whisky (frankea fork), CrossOver, or Wineskin are also supported.
- For USB streaming:
brew install android-platform-tools - For game audio:
brew install --cask blackhole-2ch && brew install switchaudio-osx
- Download
MoltenVR-Preview-vX.Y.Z.zipfrom Releases, unzip, and drag MoltenVR.app to/Applications. - Open it - the setup wizard checks your system, sets up your Wine bottle (graphics layer + VR runtime install are one click each), and walks you to your first stream.
- Press Start Stream, put the headset on, open the ALVR app, and launch a game from the Games screen.
macOS will ask for Screen Recording (desktop view) and Microphone (game audio) permissions the first time those features are used - grant both. The app is not notarized yet: right-click → Open on first launch.
- Setup Guide - fresh install to streaming in six steps
- Beat Saber Setup Guide - download to launch in six steps
- Bottles & DXMT, explained - what a bottle is and how the graphics layer works
Do I need Whisky or CrossOver? No. MoltenVR has its own built-in Wine bottle manager (WhiskyWine/GPTK under the hood) and that's the recommended setup - the wizard creates and configures the bottle for you. If you already have games in a Whisky, CrossOver, or Wineskin bottle, the app can use that instead.
Is this SteamVR for Mac? No - SteamVR doesn't run on macOS. MoltenVR is its own OpenXR runtime + streaming stack, reusing ALVR's battle-tested transport and headset client.
A game launches flat (not in VR)? Open an issue with the game name - unsupported games usually just need one more OpenXR extension advertised, which is a small fix.
What happens after the 7 days? The app asks for a license key. Enter one (from Patreon) to unlock the latest version on this Mac - or grab a fresh preview release here, which resets the window.
Does Minecraft really run in VR on a Mac? Yes - via Vivecraft, fully native (no Wine). It's the first working Mac Minecraft VR since SteamVR for Mac was discontinued in 2020.
- ALVR - streaming core and headset client (MIT License;
the full notice ships inside MoltenVR.app at
Contents/Resources/THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md) - DXMT - D3D11 → Metal translation
- OpenComposite - OpenVR → OpenXR translation for SteamVR-native games (GPLv3)
- WhiskyWine (via the frankea Whisky fork) - Wine build for macOS
- BlackHole - audio loopback driver
© Toby Fox. Preview build - all rights reserved. Binaries only; source not included.