Reverb G2 unable to drive more than 60Hz mode on Nvidia

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Reverb G2 VR HMD is unable to be driven at the full display bandwidth presumably due to a displayport lane limitation max of 2 in the Nvidia driver instead of the full 4 needed but this is speculation.

Users of Monado and SteamVR must select the 60Hz mode or the display remains black, the 60Hz mode is also extremely prone to flicker due to the slow rates which is quite a poor experience.

To reproduce start Monado with the env var "XRT_COMPOSITOR_FORCE_NVIDIA_DISPLAY=“HP Inc.” to select the Reverb G2 as the VR display and notice how the display remains black due to the default being the 90Hz mode.

Now use XRT_COMPOSITOR_PRINT_MODES=1 to dump the available modes into terminal and select an index next run with XRT_COMPOSITOR_DESIRED_MODE of 60Hz and the HMD should now operate.

For comfortable operation the driver should be able to push 90Hz to the display.

2

I’m having the same issue with Reverb G2 on RTX 3090.
It reports only 2 DP lanes when running in 60 Hz for me, and doesn’t work at all on 90 Hz.

1
1736×638 82.9 KB

It shows 4 lanes at 5.40 Gbps when in 90 Hz mode and screen stays off.

3

Here’s how it looks for 90 Hz when screen stays off:

2
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4

Here’s dmesg output for screen staying off at 90Hz:
Nvidia_Reverb_G2_90Hz_screen_off_bug.txt (199.4 KB)
And here’s dmesg output for 60Hz mode working (but flickering badly):
Nvidia_Reverb_G2_60Hz_works_OK.txt (204.3 KB)

5

I’m seeing the same behavior for HP Reverb G2 (60 Hz work, 90 Hz doesn’t) with RTX 5070 Ti as well.

I’m not sure if the bandwidth / number of lanes is the main factor as 2880x1440 @ 90 mode also doesn’t work. I assume that if the problem was just the bandwidth, then given 4320x2160 @ 60 mode works, the 2880x1440 @ 90 mode should have worked as well (as it requires even less bandwidth) but that’s not the case.

As mentioned in the posts above, this makes the headset basically unusable for any “real-world” scenarios due to extreme flickering, so either the fix or any suggestions on the work-arounds would be appreciated!

6

Can confirm, I am only able to make it work at 60Hz and not 90Hz on Linux

Linux is the only way to make this headset work after WMR is discontinued by Microsoft.
A fix would be greatly appreciated !

7

Same problem here. It would be nice to get this working in Linux since it had no problems with Windows drivers for years. 60Hz is too low and induces headaches.

8

Still seeing the same issue with HMDs not lighting up (Reverb G2) unless forcing 60 hz (XRT_COMPOSITOR_DESIRED_MODE=2).

Using bazzite-dx-nvidia:stable, setup as per Fedora Atomic (Bazzite) | Linux VR Adventures Wiki .

Current NVIDIA drivers version: 590.44.01
GPU: A5000

aterfax@bazzite:~$ nvidia-smi 
Sun Jan 11 20:07:20 2026       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 590.44.01              Driver Version: 590.44.01      CUDA Version: 13.1     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA RTX A5000               Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  Off |
| 30%   52C    P5             60W /  230W |    2394MiB /  24564MiB |     17%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+


aterfax@bazzite:~$ fastfetch 
                                            aterfax@bazzite
     %%%%%%====%%%%%%%%%%            
   %%%%%%%%    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%             󱋩  bazzite-dx-nvidia:stable 
  %%%%%%%%%    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%           󰣛  Bazzite
  %%%%%%%%%    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%###           Linux 6.17.7-ba22.fc43.x86_64
  %%%%%%%%%    %%%%%%%%%%%%%######        󰅐  6 hours, 1 min
  ==                  =======######  
  ==                  =========#####      󰻠  AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (16) @ 5.05 GHz
  %%%%%%%%%    %%%%%%%####======#####     󰍛  NVIDIA RTX A5000
  %%%%%%%%%    %%%%%#######=====#####     󰍛  AMD Raphael [Integrated]
  %%%%%%%%%    %%%#########=====#####       13.86 GiB / 61.94 GiB (22%)
  %%%%%%%%%    %%##########=====#####       1001.75 GiB / 1.86 TiB (53%) - btrfs
  %%%%%%%%%====###########=====######       272.21 MiB / 510.98 MiB (53%) - vfat
   %%%%%%%%====#########======######        272.21 MiB / 510.98 MiB (53%) - vfat
    %%%%%%%=====#####========######       󰍹  3440x1440 @ 144 Hz in 35" [External, HDR]
     %%%%###===============#######        󰖺  WlxOverlay-S Mouse
      %#######==========#########    
        #######################           󰕮  KDE Plasma 6.5.4
          ###################               KWin (Wayland)
              ###########                   bash 5.3.0
                                            Ptyxis 49.2
                                          󰏖  3083 (rpm), 87 (flatpak), 67 (brew), 1 (brew-cask)

                                           ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Can we get a comment from NVIDIA letting us know whether:

  • They are working on a fix?
  • What an ETA to a fix might be?
9

I also get this issue, can only get any display at all in CachyOS if I use XRT_COMPOSITOR_DESIRED_MODE = 2

It is completely unplayable at the 60Hz setting.

The flickering is absurd.

10

Hi all,

We are tracking the “display remaining black on the Reverb G2 at 90 Hz” issue on an internal bug 5923212. We can reproduce the failure, and it is under investigation.

Is there an older NVIDIA driver version where this did not occur?

Thank you.

11

Not to my knowledge. I will ask some folk and report back if anyone has further knowledge.

Can we have a status update?

12

It seems that to the knowledge of folks I’ve chatted to in Linux VR adventures and Monado discord servers, no GPU, with any historical driver has ever worked above 60Hz.

Further reference info / discussion can be found here: Making sure you're not a bot!