RiftLift

Play your Meta Rift (Oculus Rift) PC VR games on Linux.

RiftLift is a Linux compatibility app for Meta Rift PC VR games. Its desktop GUI handles Meta sign-in, owned-game downloads, Steam shortcuts, local playtime, and launching through your existing OpenXR headset setup. It supports Rift Store releases and compatible Steam games that include an Oculus mode. If your headset works with Monado, SteamVR is not required.

Alpha software: game compatibility is still expanding.

See the compatibility wiki for games tested with real VR output.

Quick start

Before you start, you need:

• a 64-bit Linux PC;
• Steam;
• a VR headset that already works through Monado/OpenXR; and
• a Meta account that owns a Rift / PC VR game.

Your headset must already run OpenXR apps. RiftLift does not install headset drivers or Monado.

1. Install RiftLift

Download riftlift-installer.sh from the latest GitHub release, then run:

bash riftlift-installer.sh

The installer verifies its matching build, adds desktop integration, and downloads the pinned compatibility components.

To install from a source checkout instead, run ./install.sh in the repository.

2. Check your setup and sign in

Open RiftLift and click System to verify the setup.

Click Sign In and complete Meta's hosted sign-in page. Passwords and security codes go only to Meta.

3. Add a game

Copy the URL of a game you own from the Meta Rift / PC VR store. Click Add Game in RiftLift and paste it.

Leave Add to Steam when finished checked and click Install.

A Quest-only purchase is not a Windows PC game. The store page must offer a Rift or PC VR build. Cross-buy titles work when the PC version is present on your Meta account.

4. Play

Select the game and click Launch in VR, or use its Steam shortcut. RiftLift tracks playtime locally.

Everyday use

The desktop app is the recommended way to use RiftLift:

• System checks whether RiftLift and your OpenXR setup are ready.
• Sign In opens Meta's sign-in flow.
• Add Game downloads an owned Rift game and optionally adds it to Steam.
• Add a local game… inside Add Game registers an existing Windows VR game without moving or copying it.
• Steam Games finds installed Steam titles with a compatible Oculus mode.
• Launch in VR starts the selected game through your active OpenXR runtime.
• Game details show the playtime RiftLift has tracked locally.
• The ⟳ button reloads games added elsewhere and refreshes store details and artwork.
• View Activity shows download, setup, launch, and diagnostic messages.

Steam may restart once when RiftLift adds or updates shortcuts.

Troubleshooting

Start with System in the desktop app, or run riftlift doctor.

Doctor checks the graphics/XR stack, RiftLift components, games, and recent launch evidence. It creates a redacted public paste; use riftlift doctor --no-paste for local output only.

Common fixes:

• RiftLift cannot find OpenXR: start your normal Monado setup and try again.
• Meta asks you to sign in again: click Sign In, finish Meta's flow, and retry.
• A game is missing from Steam: close Steam, run riftlift steam-sync, and reopen it.
• A game fails to launch: enable Debug logging in the top bar, reproduce the problem once, then click System. RiftLift captures Proton, targeted Wine XR/Steam/Vulkan channels, DXVK, VKD3D, loader and crash diagnostics. Doctor correlates those files with game, Steam/XR, journal, kernel GPU and coredump evidence, then puts its likely cause and next steps before the raw excerpts. Retention rotates with the five-launch history, preserves both log headers and failure tails, and is capped at approximately 120 MiB.

RiftLift uses Envision's selected profile, including its Monado manifest and environment. Build and select the profile, then start its XR service before launching a game. Non-Envision runtimes can set XR_RUNTIME_JSON; custom service startup can set RIFTLIFT_LAUNCH_WRAPPER.

Updating RiftLift

From the RiftLift folder, run:

git pull --ff-only
./install.sh

Your sign-in and installed games are preserved.

Command line (optional)

Everything in the desktop app is also available from the command line:

riftlift doctor                 # prints and creates a shareable diagnostic paste
riftlift login
riftlift add 'https://www.meta.com/experiences/APP_ID/'
riftlift add-local '/path/to/game.exe' --name 'My VR Game'
riftlift list
riftlift launch GAME-SLUG

Useful maintenance commands:

riftlift steam-sync
riftlift metadata
riftlift metadata GAME-SLUG --refresh
riftlift setup

Run riftlift --help or riftlift COMMAND --help for every option. Unusual Rift Store manifests can use riftlift add --executable PATH and --arguments '...', but normal games should not need either override. Download concurrency adapts to the CPUs available to RiftLift; use --jobs only when you want to override it.

Existing local games

For a Windows Oculus game installed outside Meta or Steam, choose Add Game, then Add a local game…. Pick its .exe, give it a name, and optionally choose cover art. RiftLift references the existing folder in place.

The command-line equivalent is:

riftlift add-local '/path/to/game.exe' --name 'My VR Game'

Use --root when the executable sits below the folder that contains the rest of the game, or --arguments when the game documents required launch options. --app-key is available for packages that publish an Oculus application key.

Steam games with an Oculus mode

Some Windows VR games on Steam include an Oculus mode that RiftLift can send to your Linux OpenXR headset. Steam still owns, installs, and updates these games; RiftLift only adds the compatible launch path.

Add an installed Steam game

1. Install the Windows VR game normally in Steam.
2. Open RiftLift and choose Steam Games at the top of the window.
3. Wait for the scan to finish, select the game, and choose Add to RiftLift. No game files are copied or downloaded.
4. Select the game in RiftLift's library and choose Launch in VR.

Games that are already in the RiftLift library are labeled clearly and can be refreshed from the same screen. RiftLift gets their name, description, developer, genres, store link, and official artwork from Steam. Use the library ⟳ button whenever you want to refresh that information.

If a game does not appear, make sure it is fully installed, choose Scan again, and confirm that its Windows version actually includes an Oculus mode. Quest-only games and SteamVR/OpenVR-only games will not be listed.

RiftLift does not rely on a hand-maintained compatibility list. It checks each installed game's manifest, engine layout, executable format, and bundled VR runtime to detect compatible 64-bit Unity, Unreal, and native Oculus SDK games.

Star history

How RiftLift works

RiftLift keeps its files under ~/.local/share/riftlift and uses one reusable Proton environment. It combines:

• the built-in Rift compatibility runtime;
• a pinned build of the in-repository xrizer OpenVR-to-OpenXR runtime;
• GE-Proton and WineOpenXR;
• Meta's native browser sign-in service and the PC runtime files games need;
• the entitlement-respecting meta-pcvr-downloader; and
• a small compatibility bridge for older Oculus Platform SDK games.

RiftLift selects a rendering path from the runtimes bundled with each game:

Oculus-only game -> RiftLift PE ABI -> Wine unixlib -> Linux OpenXR -> headset
Oculus + OpenVR game -> RiftLift PE ABI -> Wine unixlib -> Linux OpenVR -> headset

The PE portion exists because the games and their D3D graphics objects are Windows binaries. XR runtime calls cross GE-Proton's supported in-process unixlib boundary into native ELF code; RiftLift does not proxy them through a helper daemon or Meta's Windows VR service.

RiftLift uses Meta's entitlement service before downloading a game. The legacy Platform SDK bridge supplies local login and entitlement responses only for a download whose ownership was already verified; other SDK calls continue to Meta's original library. RiftLift is compatibility software, not a purchase or DRM bypass.

Headset drivers, Monado, compositor lifecycle, and device-specific setup remain the responsibility of the host VR setup. See Architecture and ownership for the technical boundary.

The Rift compatibility runtime lives at the repository root under runtime/, while xrizer lives under components/. Their builds and release artifacts are produced by RiftLift's top-level workflows, so contributors do not need to coordinate separate forks or releases. Setup installs both automatically; users do not need to install or configure xrizer separately.

Credits

RiftLift's Oculus API translation work is derived from the GPL-licensed Revive project. RiftLift maintains that code as part of its own runtime while preserving Revive's copyright and license notices. Thanks to LibreVR and every Revive contributor whose work made this compatibility layer possible.

Legal and security

RiftLift is unaffiliated with Meta, Oculus, Valve, Collabora, or Sony. You must own the games you download. Its cached Meta runtime token is readable only by your user and is never included in diagnostic output. Downloads are pinned and verified before extraction, archive paths are validated, and Steam's shortcut file is backed up before an atomic replacement.

Expanded debug logs are stored inside RiftLift's user-private diagnostics directory and may contain game or system details. Public doctor reports redact credentials, email addresses, and home paths and include only selected excerpts.

RiftLift is GPL-3.0-or-later. Bundled and upstream components retain their own licenses and notices.