New SteamVR Update Adds Full Support for Oculus Rift S
There is some great news for the owners of the newly released Oculus Rift S headsets.
SteamVR is continuing to stay on top of its game when it comes to supporting the virtual reality platform. Valve, the company behind Steam, has just added full SteamVR support for the Oculus Rift headset which was unveiled recently.
The haptic feedback on the Touch controllers were not working on SteamVR when the Rift S headset was first released. The company went head and released the hotfix for this in less than 24 hours.
In the recent weeks, Valve has been busy expanding its support for Oculus Rift S in SteamVR Beta builds. Users will now be able to see the new Touch controller in the SteamVR dashboard, Home as well as in the apps that utilize the default SteamVR controller model.
Before the latest update, the SteamVR (non-Beta version) would detect the Oculus Rift S headset using three sensors. This is the form in which the Oculus runtime presents the virtual reality hardware to apps that were developed using the older SDKs. Valve will now be making use of the latest SDK where the Rift S headset will be detected in itself without the need for external sensors and with a higher default resolution.
The Steam store will therefore be updated to factor in the new compatibility for Rift S with all the games that are marked as compatible with the Rift. Previously before the new update, there would be a warning message for Rift S users which would notify them that their virtual reality head was incompatible.
The Oculus Rift S allows users to redraw the Guardian boundary when inside virtual reality through the black and white Passthrough+ mode. With the update, it will now be possible for SteamVR to detect when the user redraws the boundary so as to position the virtual reality content in the center of the space (inside the Guardian boundary) without having to restart the VR headset.
The new release will also supposedly help in fixing the many bugs and stability issues.
Improvements in the Valve Index VR Headset
The new update is happening at a time when Valve is about to release its much-anticipated top-line PC VR headset. The headset hits the market later this month. In the meantime, the company has been busy sprucing up the Index software to make it customer-ready.
The new release will boost the Hidden Area Mesh for the Valve Index VR headset which, according to Valve, will enhance the stereo overlap and account for the canting while improving the accommodation for re-projection. Valve has also claimed it has worked to enhance the AMD support for Index for all frame rates.
Finally, the new update will add auto-detection for VirtualLink which will likely be for the Index VirtualLink adapter that Valve plans to ship by the end of next month.
https://virtualrealitytimes.com/2019/06/15/new-steamvr-update-adds-full-support-for-oculus-rift-s/https://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SteamVR-600x300.pnghttps://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SteamVR-150x90.pngHardwareOculus Rift SVR HeadsetsThere is some great news for the owners of the newly released Oculus Rift S headsets. SteamVR is continuing to stay on top of its game when it comes to supporting the virtual reality platform. Valve, the company behind Steam, has just added full SteamVR support for the Oculus Rift...Sam OchanjiSam Ochanji[email protected]EditorVirtual Reality Times - Metaverse & VR