If you’re trying to launch Half-Life: Alyx—a game that’s been around for nearly five years—you might run into a frustrating issue. Despite the game being on sale on Steam and seemingly launching, you may find that nothing moves in your VR headset. You can hear the sound and see the ground, but the game remains unresponsive. Meanwhile, on your computer screen, you see the dreaded error message:
SteamVR runtime failure: Timed out waiting for response from Moono. SteamVR needs to be restarted.
The Cause of the Error
It appears that this issue is triggered by the Valve logo sequence at the beginning of the game. Fortunately, there’s a simple fix that allows you to bypass this problem and get into the game smoothly.
How to Fix It
The solution is to disable the Valve logo during the game’s launch. Here’s how you can do it:
For the Paid Version (Steam Version)
Open Steam and navigate to your library.
Right-click on Half-Life: Alyx and select Properties.
In the General tab, locate the Launch Options section.
Add the following command:
-novid
Close the window and launch the game.
For the Free Version (Standalone Shortcut Method)
Find the game’s executable shortcut on your computer.
Right-click on it and select Properties.
In the Target field, go to the end of the path and add a space, followed by:
-novid
Click Apply, then OK.
Start the game using the modified shortcut.
What Happens Next?
With this tweak, the game will skip the Valve logo and take you directly to the menu. Once you’ve played for a while and have a saved game, you may be able to remove the -novid option and restore the original startup sequence. At that point, the Valve logo should display properly in both your VR headset and on your screen.