You can sign up to get a daily email of our articles, see the Mailing List page.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Valve adds OpenXR support to SteamVR in 'Developer Preview'

By - | Views: 16,981

This is quite exciting for the future of Virtual Reality, as Valve as now properly given their backing to the OpenXR standard and added support into SteamVR.

What is OpenXR? Overseen by The Khronos Group, who also oversee the OpenGL / Vulkan APIs, it's a royalty-free, open standard that provides high-performance access to Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). This way, developers can begin to target OpenXR and have it run cross-platform for XR (AR/VR). Standards like it are important so developers don't have to rewrite code to target each company going their own way with XR.

Thanks to The Khronos Group and the extensive hard work of OpenXR's many members (AMD, ARM, Epic, Facebook, Google, HTC, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Unity, Valve, and many more) VR now has a consolidated API to enable developers to bring universal VR support to their applications.

With OpenXR, for the first time, developers will be able to build their content in a way that will allow them to span the myriad types of hardware and software platforms.

Valve

Valve said this is only the start and they will continue expanding their support of OpenXR, with the developer preview currently supporting OpenXR 1.0.9. Sounds like support for OpenXR is quite far along too, with it passing "95% of conformance tests".

It's not enabled for all users, as it's under a Beta channel you need to opt into and it's currently aimed at developers to test with. It supports working with Vulkan on both Linux and Windows.

You can see their announcement here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
28 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
20 comments
Page: «2/2
  Go to:

Liam Dawe Jun 11, 2020
Not sure why the apparent animosity has been shown here, please have a calmer discussion. I really don't want to have to warn or go further. We have rules about respect between readers. There's absolutely no need to any kind of name calling.
mphuZ Jun 11, 2020
Quoting: Liam DaweNot sure why the apparent animosity has been shown here, please have a calmer discussion. I really don't want to have to warn or go further. We have rules about respect between readers. There's absolutely no need to any kind of name calling.
It's okay, Liam.
Shmerl Jun 11, 2020
Quoting: mphuZIt's okay, Liam.

It's was not OK, it was trolling. I hope Liam's message came through to you.


Last edited by Shmerl on 11 June 2020 at 10:37 pm UTC
mphuZ Jun 11, 2020
Quoting: ShmerlIt's was not OK, it was trolling. I hope Liam's message came through to you.
Calm down already. This is not trolling, but just different opinions. You have your radical views on the subject, and I have mine.
The message isn't just for me, in this case.


Last edited by mphuZ on 11 June 2020 at 10:51 pm UTC
Shmerl Jun 11, 2020
Quoting: mphuZCalm down already. This is not trolling, but just different opinions.

No dude, your behavior was not acceptable, it was nothing to do with opinions, it was ad hominem attacks and trolling. So stop it, period.


Last edited by Shmerl on 11 June 2020 at 10:54 pm UTC
mphuZ Jun 11, 2020
Quoting: Shmerlit was ad hominem attacks and trolling.
Come on, I said it's a translation problem. "Don't confuse warm with soft" - sounds better?
English is not my native language, so there may be some confusion when translating. Especially if there is no such expression in another native language. So sorry.
Shmerl Jun 11, 2020
Alright.
mike456 Jun 12, 2020
Hopefully this will enable HP's upcoming Headset on Linux.
micha Jun 12, 2020
Quoting: Patola
Quoting: michaThat's great news. Sadly, with the new SteamVR beta my Index stopped working. It keeps complaining SteamVR isn't the default OpenXR device and offers to set it but that's not working either. Well, it's the beta branch I guess. :-)
Updated my SteamVR to the beta and it worked correctly oy my Valve Index. I have the same distro as you, apparently, Ubuntu 20.04. Have you tried getting back to the stable version?

Yes, I switched back to stable and everything works again.

I'm not sure what "other" OpenXR device could be set as default (and in which config files). So far, most of the (Steam)VR problems I had were related to running a notebook (intel+nvidia GPU, ..). Maybe that one is too. Just a wild guess though.
Julius Jun 12, 2020
Hmm, this could enable using PSVR on Linux with Steam, as apparently Collabora has a working 6DOF prototype driver for it in Monado.
Could be a really cool entry level VR option, especially since they are widely available and relatively cheap.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.