Free companion · Windows · macOS · Linux

Put your PC behind the headset

koko Companion shares folders from your computer straight to the headset, and then does the work a Quest can’t. It converts ordinary flat films to 3D while you watch them, sharpens lower-resolution video with a neural upscaler, re-encodes the files the headset can’t decode, opens Blu-ray disc images and builds your library previews. No server to configure, no account, nothing uploaded anywhere. Your files stay on your machine and travel over your own network.

v1.2.2 · free with koko VR Theater

Pick your folders

Install and open koko Companion, then drag in the folders you want the headset to see (or browse for them) and press Start. That’s the whole setup, and it takes about a minute: no server to configure, no account, no library to scan, nothing moved or copied. It serves those folders in place and nothing else.

Scan the code from your headset

In koko VR Theater open Files → PC Companion and scan the QR code shown on your computer. Your folders appear in the headset and play directly, straight off the disk, with nothing copied across. Everything below happens on its own from there.

What your computer does for the headset

A Quest is a phone chip with a battery. Your desktop isn’t. Once the two are paired, the headset hands over the work it can’t do well and keeps the part it does best, which is showing you the picture.

2D to 3D

Flat films, given depth

The headline one, and the reason most people install this. Your computer estimates depth on every frame and builds a second eye from it as the film plays, so an ordinary 2D film arrives at the headset in stereo. Any film you own, with no special release and nothing to prepare. Optional and off until you turn it on. The converter, its models and the accelerator it needs are all inside the installer, which is why the download is large: nothing to fetch and nothing to configure.

Upscale

Desktop-grade sharpening

Optional, and off until you turn it on. A neural upscaler on your graphics card lifts lower-resolution video toward the headset’s panels, with debanding on the way. Pick Fast, which any PC can run, or Quality, which is several times the work and wants a recent card, or leave it on automatic and it takes the best setting it can keep up with for each video. Far past what a standalone headset can run in real time.

Transcode

Plays what the Quest can't

A 12K file, or a codec the headset has no hardware for, is re-encoded here on the fly and streamed as it goes. Your GPU does it: NVENC, Quick Sync, VAAPI, VideoToolbox or AMF, with a CPU fallback. The headset asks only when it truly can’t manage alone.

Sharing

Your folders, direct play

Pick the folders the headset may see. It browses and plays them straight off your disk, at full resolution, with no copying and no library scan.

Connections

Your NAS logins, once

Add a network share on the computer and it shows up on the headset, and the other way round. Passwords live in your operating system’s keychain, not in a file and not in the headset.

Discs

Blu-ray images, opened here

An ISO is a filesystem, not a video file, and navigating one over the network is slow. The computer opens it instead, finds the main feature, and passes the video through untouched with the disc’s own soundtracks intact.

Previews

Library filmstrips, in minutes

Every library tile is a scrubbable filmstrip sampled across the file, and making those costs the headset real time and real heat. A paired computer makes them instead, for its own shares and for any NAS it can reach.

Volumetric

Gaussian splats, rendered on PC

Experimental: the computer draws volumetric captures and streams the view to the headset, well past what it could draw itself. Off by default, and it works the graphics card hard.

Background

Runs itself

Start it with the computer, close it to the tray, and it picks up sharing where it left off after a reboot. The window is a control panel, not the app.

Every one of these is optional, never a requirement. Turn the computer off and the headset goes back to doing what it can by itself, more slowly and in 2D.

It only answers to your headset

Nothing is uploaded, there is no account and no cloud, and no port is opened to the internet. The connection is encrypted with a certificate generated on your machine, and the QR code carries that certificate’s fingerprint so the headset can tell it is talking to your computer and nothing else. Only the folders you picked are served, only to headsets you paired, and you can rotate the pairing code whenever you like.

System requirements

Windows
Windows 10 or later (64-bit)
macOS
macOS 10.15 Catalina or later, Apple Silicon & Intel
Linux
Any x86-64 distro with GTK3 + WebKitGTK 4.1

Sharing folders asks almost nothing of the machine. Re-encoding, upscaling and converting 2D to 3D are all graphics work, and they do not ask the same amount of it. Here is where each one is confirmed, meaning measured on hardware we own rather than assumed from a spec sheet.

NVIDIA

GeForce and RTX

Re-encoding
Confirmed
Upscaling
Confirmed
2D to 3D
Confirmed, up to 4K

Apple silicon

M1 and later

Re-encoding
Confirmed
Upscaling
Confirmed, basic scaler
2D to 3D
Confirmed at 1080p

AMD and Intel

Radeon, Arc, integrated

Re-encoding
Confirmed on Linux
Upscaling
Confirmed on Linux
2D to 3D
Not yet

Converting 2D to 3D is the demanding one, because a depth model runs on every frame and the picture has to be built faster than the film plays. On the AMD card we measured it ran at well under half the speed it needs, so we do not claim it yet, and a full-size Radeon has not been tested. Intel graphics have not been tested at all. Apple silicon converts a 1080p film comfortably and a 4K one depending on the film. An Intel Mac can share and re-encode but cannot convert, because it has no Neural Engine to do it with.

Nothing here is a wall. The headset only offers a switch when your computer says it can do the work, and if the conversion turns it down or gives out, koko tells you why and carries on in 2D. When a feature declines, playback is exactly what it was before you installed the companion.

The PC and the headset must be on the same network. The first time you press Start, your operating system will ask whether koko Companion may accept connections: say yes, or the headset won’t find it. On Windows that’s the Defender Firewall prompt (tick Private networks); on macOS it’s the local network permission dialog.

The macOS build is signed and notarized by Apple, and the Windows installers are signed with Azure Artifact Signing, so both carry a real publisher. A brand-new signature can still draw a SmartScreen “unknown publisher” notice until enough downloads build reputation — choose More info → Run anyway if it does.

Other Linux packages

Don’t have the headset app yet? Get koko VR Theater on Meta. Trouble pairing? Email support@krafti.io or ask on Discord.