Update to SteamVR Suggests Valve is Still Working on a Standalone Headset

Valve is a notorious black box when it comes to basically everything. A recent update to Steam client for VR though suggests the company is still working behind the scenes on what appears to be its long-awaited standalone VR headset.

As revealed by tech analyst and consummate Steam data miner Brad Lynch, a recent update to Steam’s client included a number of VR-specific strings related to batteries, which seems to support the idea that Valve is currently readying the platform for some sort of standalone VR headset.

Image courtesy Brad Lynch

The update also included mention of new UI elements, icons, and animations added to the Steam Client for VR—something it probably wouldn’t do for a competitor’s headset, like Meta’s soon-to-release Quest 3 standalone.

Meanwhile, South Korean’s National Radio Research Agency (RAA) recently certified a “low-power wireless device” from Valve, also spotted by Lynch. It’s still too early to say whether the device in question is actually a standalone VR headset—the radio certification only mentions it uses 5 GHz wireless—however headsets like Meta Quest 2 are equally as vague when it comes to RAA listings.

Granted, Valve hasn’t come out and said it’s developing a standalone VR headset yet, although with mounting competition from Apple and Meta, 2024 may be the year we finally see the ‘Index of standalone VR’ come to the forefront. Valve Index has widely been regarded as the ‘best fit’ PC VR headset, owing to its excellent quality, performance, and comfort—something we called “the enthusiast’s choice” in our full review of the headset back when it launched in 2019.

But it hasn’t been entirely mum either. In early 2022, Valve chief Gabe Newell called its handheld gaming PC platform Steam Deck “a steppingstone” to standalone VR hardware, nothing that Steam Deck represented “battery-capable, high-performance horsepower that eventually you could use in VR applications as well.”

– – — – –

While a capable, high-end standalone VR headset from Valve is certainly something to salivate over, a few big questions remain: What will happen when Valve opens Steam up to standalone VR content? How would the largely Meta-heavy ecosystem react as Steam becomes a new outlet for VR games? And what if Valve’s headset is instead capable of playing some subsection of standard PC VR content? We don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but with Valve’s continued interest in VR, we’re still pretty hopeful to find out.

Pico Hints At Next Headset Within 12 Months With Discount For Neo 3 Link Buyers

Pico just announced the Neo 3 Link launching to European consumers, but already it’s teasing a new headset.

The ByteDance owned company is describing the Neo 3 Link consumer launch as a “beta program”, asking buyers to provide “feedback on upgrades to the Pico Store, Pico user account, payment, social, and other services”. But what comes after this beta?

Just before the launch livestream ended, Pico Europe General Manager Leland Hedges teased an Apple style “one more thing”, saying “I don’t think anyone’s done this before”:

“Everyone who participates in the beta program, should there be another product that comes from Pico within the next 12 months, they will be eligible for this discount.”

Neo 3 Link is actually the same hardware as the Neo 3 Pro sold to businesses since May last year. This 35% discount offer seems to strongly hint that Pico has been working on a new headset since then, which it seemingly plans to launch within the next 12 months.

There is an interesting disclaimer here: “Subject to beta program success”. That suggests Pico will be watching to see whether European consumers really adopt the Neo 3 Link at scale, or continue to stick with Meta’s almost identical Quest 2 instead.

Meta plans to launch its “Project Cambria” headset later this year, but that’s described as “a higher end of the price spectrum” new product line and not Quest 3. Further, as recently as December Meta’s “Consulting CTO” John Carmack said “Quest 2 will have a long life”. If Pico really is able to launch a new headset within 12 months, could it end up beating Meta to the next generation of mainstream standalone VR?

Pico Neo 3 Pro Is Getting An Ultraleap High Quality Hand Tracking Bundle

Pico Neo 3 Pro is getting a high quality hand tracking accessory from Ultraleap.

Pico was a China-based startup which launched the first standalone VR headset, Pico Goblin, a year before Oculus Go. Last year it was acquired by ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant behind the TikTok social media platform. Pico’s latest model, Neo 3 Pro, has remarkably similar specs and design to Meta’s Quest 2. But in western markets Pico currently only sells to businesses, not consumers, and it lacks built in controller free hand tracking.

The Ultraleap hand tracking bundle will be formally released in summer. It includes the headset, Ultraleap’s Stereo IR 170 tracker, and a bespoke mount pre-attached with Ultraleap’s software pre-installed.

I had the chance to try Ultraleap’s latest technology at CES 2022. The hand tracking quality was significantly better than Quest 2 – the virtual hands seemed to match my own precisely and with no perceptible latency, and I could even interlock my fingers. Only by almost entirely occluding one hand did tracking start to fail.

For now an “early access” bundle is available for “developers, evaluation, and proof of concepts”, but Ultraleap cautions this is not suitable for scalable deployments as the tracker currently lacks the European Economic Area’s CE regulatory marking. The bundle is priced at €999 in Europe, sold by Bestware and VR Expert. In the US it’s sold by Mace Virtual Labs.

Businesses may be able to buy the tracker separately and attach it to their own Pico Neo 3 Pro, but that wouldn’t include the mount or software license.

Valve: Steam Deck is a “stepping stone” to Standalone VR

Steam Deck, Valve’s handheld gaming PC that launched late last month, doesn’t really have the horsepower capable of playing SteamVR games, although Valve chief Gabe Newell calls it a “stepping stone” to what could one day be Valve standalone VR headset.

In an interview published in Edge Magazine’s latest issue (via UploadVR), Newell had this to say when asked about how important Steam Deck was to VR:

“One of the things [Steam Deck] represents is battery-capable, high-performance horsepower that eventually you could use in VR applications as well. You can take the PC and build something that is much more transportable. We’re not really there yet, but this is a stepping stone.”

Despite being mostly a black box, Valve has been fairly transparent with its interest in standalone VR. Back at Steam Deck’s hands-on event in August, Valve said Deck’s custom AMD processor could be used in such a project.

“We’re not ready to say anything about [a standalone VR headset], but [Steam Deck’s hardware] would run well in that environment, with the TDP necessary… it’s very relevant to us and our future plans,” Valve’s Greg Coomer said.

It’s also filed patents for essentially wireless and standalone versions of its Index PC VR headset, making it pretty clear that Valve is more than curious about making its own standalone.

In the meantime, you might be surprised to learn that SteamVR games aren’t marked ‘Deck Verified’, and it’s for good reason. Deck’s hardware can run ‘AAA’ PC games at its native display resolution of 1,280 × 800 at no higher than 60Hz.

Meta’s Quest 2 on the other hand was purpose-built to run a library of VR games at 3,664 × 1,920 (in 3D), and at a minimum of 72Hz. Unlike SteamVR games, Quest’s games are specially optimized from the ground-up to hit specific performance benchmarks, and then gut-checked by Meta before they’re launched on the main store.

Steam Deck is undoubtedly helping to better position Valve as a serious hardware manufacturer, so the “stepping stone” analogy makes a good deal of sense since Deck clearly isn’t a plug-and-play solution for PC VR users looking for a mobile gaming rig.

Tech analyst and YouTuber Brad Lynch revealed evidence of the internal naming scheme ‘Deckard’ which may point to a standalone headset prototype currently in the works. Lynch has uncovered mounting evidence in subsequent releases of SteamVR too, so we’ll have our eyes peeled in the coming months now that Steam Deck is in the hands of more people and the company pushes further updates.

The post Valve: Steam Deck is a “stepping stone” to Standalone VR appeared first on Road to VR.

Linux-based Standalone VR Headset Ditches Kickstarter & Opens Direct Preorders

SimulaVR, the startup behind its own open-source VR Linux distro, is creating a VR headset that aims to bring the full power of a PC to the standalone format. The company initially had plans to launch a Kickstarter last month, but has scuttled its crowdfunding campaign for direct-to-consumer sales.

Update (February 14th, 2022): SimulaVR has opened up preorder sales for its Simula One VR headset, ditching plans for its Kickstarter. The company says it doing so to save money on fees, which in turn is allowing them to pass on $100 price reduction for all versions of its headset.

The company says in a blogpost update that, given the number of people interested in the Kickstarter, it more realistically looks to assemble the required funds in 1-4 months, and is much less likely to do so under the 60-day cap Kickstarter places on projects. In addition to the $100 savings per-device, it’s also accepting $1,500 half-deposits to reserve headsets.

Here’s the new price breakdown:

Headset Full Deposit Pre-Order Pricing (Early Bird Pricing) Full Deposit Pre-Order Pricing Partial Deposit Pre-Order Pricing MSRP
Simula One $2,499 $2,699 $1,499 + $1,499 = $2,998 $3,499
Simula One Tethered Edition[1] $1,999 $1,999 $1,149 + $1,149 = $2,298 $2,499
Simula One Founders’ Edition[1] $4,999 $4,999 N/A $4,999

 

It’s important to note that Simula VR is making initial deposits are refundable only for one week after submission. They become non-refundable until headsets are delivered. Headsets are aimed to ship starting in Q4 2022, with the company guaranteeing all headsets shipped before end of 2023. Check out the preorder agreement here for more details.

The original article, including spec sheet, follows below:

Original Article (January 12th, 2022): It’s been about a month since we first learned about Simula One, a headset that’s squarely targeted at developers and people who want to use Linux natively on a virtual screen for work (re: not gamers or consumers). Now the company has released price and specs ahead of its Kickstarter campaign, which is slated to launch at some point this month.

Here’s are Simula One’s specs as they stand now:

  • Display: dual 2,448 x 2,448 per-eye LCDs at 90Hz, RGB stripe
  • Lenses: Triple-element non-Fresnel design
  • FOV: 100-degrees (estimated)
  • Sensors: Dual RGB cameras,
  • IPD range: 55 – 77 mm hardware adjustable
  • Ports: 1 USB4/Thunderbolt 4; 3-4 USB3.2 Gen 2 via USB-C with DisplayPort alt mode
  • Audio: 3.5mm jack, no microphone
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-1165G7 Processor (4.70 GHz / 12M cache)
  • GPU: Integrated Iris XE Graphics
  • RAM: 16 GB (dual-channel)
  • Storage: 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD

All of that PC hardware will come at a price though. Simula One is set to cost $2,799 for Kickstarter customers, which will then go up to $3,500 MSRP after the campaign has finished. Early birds will be able to snap up a limited number of headsets priced at $2,499.

With the Kickstarter campaign, SimulaVR hopes to raise $2.5 million, something SimulaVR founder George Singer says is the base amount the project needs in order to break even. While the initial ask of $2.5 million is undoubtedly large, the startup has presented a pretty convincing cost breakdown alongside a defense we simply don’t hear enough with these sorts of ambitious projects:

“We’ve noticed that other campaigns will sometimes target very small fundraising goals in order to easily beat them/not risk public failure. That is not the case with our campaign: it takes a higher amount of money to jumpstart an operation like this, and we’d rather be open & transparent with people about it up front.”

Singer admits there is “a very real chance our Kickstarter campaign could fail,” which would force the company to either abandon Simula One or delay operations to search alterative funding though. We’ll just have to see how forgiving the Venn diagram of professional VR users and Linux devs are; Singer says the campaign needs to sell at least 892 units to break even.

Outside of the model mentioned above in the spec sheet, the campaign will also provide funding tiers for a tethered-only headset for consumers who want to provide their own computer, docking stations for office desks, and a more expensive headset made with finer materials.

There’s still no telling when the Kickstarter for Simula One will arrive. If you want to be notified right before it launches, you can subscribe to email updates here. (see update)

The post Linux-based Standalone VR Headset Ditches Kickstarter & Opens Direct Preorders appeared first on Road to VR.

Is Facebook Upping Quest 2 Base Model Storage To 128GB?

Facebook may soon increase the Oculus Quest 2 base model storage from 64GB to 128GB.

At the time of this writing two models of Quest 2 are sold: 64 GB ($299) and 256 GB ($399). The original Oculus Quest was available in 64 GB & 128 GB.

The 64 GB Quest 2 isn’t currently available for purchase in the United States on either Amazon or Facebook’s own Oculus.com website.

On July 8, photos appearing to show a 128GB box were shared anonymously on imgur.

Multiple reddit users claiming to be retail workers say they’ve seen the same box in inventory. Similar reports also happened just before the launch of Oculus Go & Oculus Quest.

Screenshot of retailer LDLC

GAMERGEN spotted French electronics retailer LDLC briefly listing a 128 GB model this month. While the listing was quickly removed, it’s still viewable on Internet Archive. Notably, the price is the same as the current 64 GB model (349 Euro).

This week, a Quest 2 ad in a Shonen Jump Plus manga apparently showed “128GB / 256GB” – though the reference seems to have been removed.

Apparent screenshot of Shonen Jump Plus manga

Unlike other portable consoles such as Nintendo Switch, Oculus headsets don’t have an SD card slot. Reaching the internal storage limit means you’ll need to uninstall some games to make room.

Most Quest games are around 1 GB in size, but major titles like Sniper Elite VR, Onward, and Larcenauts clock in around 3 GB. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – our #1 pick on Quest – requires more than 8 GB, while Myst VR requires almost 10 GB.

Resident Evil 4 VR is slated to be the first major mobile VR title not coming to the original Quest. We don’t yet know the file size, but the Switch port is 12 GB. Facebook has promised ‘really big, deep’ games for the future, partnering with Ubisoft for Assassin’s Creed & Splinter Cell titles. 64 GB storage could soon be insufficient for avid gamers – a doubling to 128 GB could drive more software sales benefitting consumers, developers and Facebook alike.

Facebook declined to comment.

Qualcomm Says Its New GPU Is 35% Faster Than Oculus Quest 2’s

Qualcomm announced its 2021 flagship chipset this week, Snapdragon 888. It claims the new GPU is 35% more powerful than the one in Oculus Quest 2.

Standalone VR headsets like Quest use the same mobile chips as high end smartphones. Your phone has limited cooling capabilities so can usually only sustain its peak performance for a few minutes, but standalone VR headsets have a cooling fan and more space.

Quest2 Exploded View

Qualcomm is the only major supplier of generally-available high performance mobile chips. Samsung makes chips for its own devices, occasionally making specific deals with others. Taiwan-based MediaTek makes generally available chips, but they don’t offer the same peak performance. Apple’s chips are exclusive.

The original Oculus Quest shipped in mid 2019 but used the Snapdragon 835 – Qualcomm’s 2017 flagship. Quest 2 sports Snapdragon XR2, a variant of 2020’s Snapdragon 865 designed specifically for headsets.

Snapdragon XR2/865 have the Adreno 650 GPU, which our benchmarks suggest is roughly twice as powerful as the one in Nintendo Switch.

Snapdragon 888, shipping in smartphones next year, is the successor to 865. It was originally expected to be called 875. “888” is considered lucky in China.

It sports Qualcomm’s newest Adreno 660 GPU, which the company claims is its greatest generational leap yet with 35% faster peak performance and 20% better power efficiency.

Reports have suggested this new chipset could cost over 50% more than its predecessor, which if true means it may not be suitable for consumer VR devices. It’s possible Facebook could launch a ‘Pro’ or enterprise-focused HMD using it, or HTC could take the opportunity to update the Vive Focus Plus which still uses the same 2017 chip as the original Quest.

Qualcomm Says Its New GPU Is 35% Faster Than Oculus Quest 2’s

Qualcomm announced its 2021 flagship chipset this week, Snapdragon 888. It claims the new GPU is 35% more powerful than the one in Oculus Quest 2.

Standalone VR headsets like Quest use the same mobile chips as high end smartphones. Your phone has limited cooling capabilities so can usually only sustain its peak performance for a few minutes, but standalone VR headsets have a cooling fan and more space.

Quest2 Exploded View

Qualcomm is the only major supplier of generally-available high performance mobile chips. Samsung makes chips for its own devices, occasionally making specific deals with others. Taiwan-based MediaTek makes generally available chips, but they don’t offer the same peak performance. Apple’s chips are exclusive.

The original Oculus Quest shipped in mid 2019 but used the Snapdragon 835 – Qualcomm’s 2017 flagship. Quest 2 sports Snapdragon XR2, a variant of 2020’s Snapdragon 865 designed specifically for headsets.

Snapdragon XR2/865 have the Adreno 650 GPU, which our benchmarks suggest is roughly twice as powerful as the one in Nintendo Switch.

Snapdragon 888, shipping in smartphones next year, is the successor to 865. It was originally expected to be called 875. “888” is considered lucky in China.

It sports Qualcomm’s newest Adreno 660 GPU, which the company claims is its greatest generational leap yet with 35% faster peak performance and 20% better power efficiency.

Reports have suggested this new chipset could cost over 50% more than its predecessor, which if true means it may not be suitable for consumer VR devices. It’s possible Facebook could launch a ‘Pro’ or enterprise-focused HMD using it, or HTC could take the opportunity to update the Vive Focus Plus which still uses the same 2017 chip as the original Quest.

So Just How Powerful Is Oculus Quest 2, Really?

Oculus Quest 2 is the hottest thing in VR right now- the most powerful standalone VR headset you can buy. But just how powerful is it? Can it compare to a PlayStation or PC?

Gaming PC and consoles use your essentially-unlimited mains power and tend to have a powerful cooling system involving multiple large fans. They draw hundreds of watts to achieve maximum performance.

Quest 2 uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chipset, which is a variant of the Snapdragon 865 chip used in high end smartphones like Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra.

Mobile chips have to make sensible use of the onboard battery, and there’s much less space for the cooling system. They’re designed for efficiency as much as performance- typically drawing just a few watts.

Despite these limitations, the massive investment in R&D on mobile chips over the past decade, driven by the huge smartphone & tablet industry, means Quest 2’s Snapdragon XR2 holds up surprisingly well.

CPU

The CPU (central processing unit) is the general computing component. It executes the code and sends rendering instructions to the GPU. In games, the CPU is mainly taxed by physics and AI calculations.

Headset Node Process Gold” Cores Silver” Cores Cache
Oculus Go 14 nm 2x 2.3 GHz 2x 1.6 GHz 2 MB L2
Oculus Quest 10 nm 3x 2.3 GHz 4x 1.9 GHz 3 MB L2
Oculus Quest 2 7 nm 3x 1.5 GHz 4x 1.9 GHz 1.8 MB L2
+
4 MB L3

Quest 2’s CPU is clocked significantly lower than what it’s theoretically capable of.

CPUs in mobile chips, like Qualcomm’s, actually use a different Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) to the Intel & AMD CPUs used in PCs. Mobile chips use ARM, while PC chips use x86. That means direct comparison is tricky.

Luckily, benchmarking tool GeekBench 5 is specifically designed for such cross-architecture comparisons. We sideloaded the tool onto Go, Quest 1 and Quest 2 to see how they stack up. We’ve added the score of the Intel CPU listed on the Half-Life: Alyx Steam store page for comparison:

To benchmark as accurately as possible, we used ADB commands to use the highest CPU clock rate available (Level 4) and disabled Guardian. We used a sideloaded completely blank Oculus Home environment.

Quest 2’s CPU makes modest gains over its predecessors, but the low clock speed means difference isn’t quite as big as the three generation leap might suggest.

There are of course newer CPUs from both Intel and AMD. If you’ve got enough money, you can get a CPU that would make the other bars here too small to reasonably compare.

GPU

The GPU (graphics processing unit) is responsible for rendering images and other graphical tasks. The GPU is the main component of a video/graphics card, so the terms are often used interchangeably.

Headset GPU Node Process ALUs GFLOPS
Oculus Go Adreno 530 14 nm 256 ~450
Oculus Quest Adreno 540 10 nm 384 ~560
Oculus Quest 2 Adreno 650 7 nm 1024 ~1250

From the specification sheet alone it’s apparent that Quest 2’s GPU is a significant upgrade- much more so than the CPU. In fact, it’s the first standalone VR headset to cross the 1 TFLOP mark, bringing it into the same performance territory as the original Xbox One.

Or put another way, Oculus Quest 2’s GPU is (on paper at least) twice as powerful as the Nintendo Switch’s. Both are priced at $299.

Or course, a Switch can render at 720p 30FPS and still produce an acceptable experience. Quest 2’s default render resolution is twice as many pixels per eye, and the minimum FPS for games is 72. So please don’t expect The Witcher 3 in mobile VR.

But does that performance show through in actual use? To benchmark GPUs across platforms we are using GFXBench Aztec Ruins. Like GeekBench for CPUs, GFXBench is designed to take into account architecture differences.

Our results suggest Quest 2’s GPU is indeed an enormous upgrade. The system runs at a higher default resolution than Quest 1, and can support 90Hz mode with 25% more frames per second. Yet some VR developers have already gone further than this, adding new textures, shaders, clutter geometry, and effects for Quest 2 owners.

However, comparing to the graphics cards listed on the Half-Life: Alyx Steam store page, Quest 2’s graphical capabilities are a lot less impressive:

 

Standalone VR is making huge strides in graphical horsepower, but it still has a long way to go to match even 2016’s PC hardware (nevermind 2020’s).

RAM

RAM (random access memory) is where a computer temporarily stores assets and data currently in use. It is significantly faster than the main storage.

More RAM allows for larger environments and less loading or hitching when transitioning between areas.

Quest 2’s 6GB of RAM could be the key to supporting AAA-scale open worlds in future.

Keep in mind that on all systems, some RAM is taken by the operating system and background processes.

Oculus Developer Hub Is A Game Changer For Quest Iteration

Oculus Developer Hub is a new PC program with features to make Oculus Quest development more convenient with fewer hassles.

When developing for PC-based VR, testing a new change is near-instant, and by default you can see what the VR headset sees on your screen. Developing for standalone headsets like Quest is more challenging since builds need to be compiled and updated on the headset each time. Testing on PC is still possible, but won’t surface performance and Android-specific issues.

Some of the functionality of Oculus Developer Hub is already available through the 3rd party app SideQuest.

Cast Mirroring, Quick Screenshots & Videos

Developer Hub lets you mirror Quest’s view to your PC with 1 click, using the same technology behind TV & phone casting.

You can capture screenshots & videos too. They’re saved to your PC, not your Quest.

You can also enable Wi-Fi mode, so your Quest doesn’t even need to be connected via USB. This was always possible, but required some setup.

Prox Sensor & Guardian Overrides

The proximity sensor of a VR headset detects when you’re wearing it. When you’re not, the app is paused & eventually suspended by the Oculus operating system. This makes multiplayer testing a nightmare, with devs using whatever objects they can find to trick the sensor.

The Developer Hub finally offers a way to disable that sensor, so you can test networking between Quests much more easily.

There’s also a way to toggle off Guardian. Previously this has to be done inside VR- after the Guardian setup if your boundaries weren’t recognized. Leaving the Guardian boundary also causes the app to pause, so this should also be a big boost for convenience.

Install, Uninstall, and Launch APKs

You can see all your installed APKs (other than store apps) and launch or uninstall them.

Dragging an APK from your PC onto this area will install it on Quest- the easiest way to sideload yet.

Performance Summary

The Hub shows a real time view of FPS, how much RAM is free, and the current clockspeeds and load on the CPU and GPU.

While Facebook already has more detailed performance analysis tools, it’s nice to always be able to see the most important performance metrics in a clean graphical interface.

Oculus Developer Hub is available for Windows and macOS from Facebook’s Oculus website. Keep in mind you’ll soon need to use SMS verification or link your payment details to use any Oculus developer features.