Valve adds Oculus Rift DK2 support to SteamVR

August 18, 2014 | 09:51

Tags: #dk2 #middleware #oculus-rift-dk2 #steamvr #vr

Companies: #oculus-rift #oculus-vr #steam #valve

Valve has announced an update to its SteamVR beta, adding support for the new positional tracking system used in the Oculus Rift Developer Kit 2 (DK2) design.

Oculus VR's latest hardware design is an undeniable improvement over its first-generation hardware, boasting a more accurate means of tracking the user's head movements and a higher-resolution display that dodges the visible-pixel problem of the first generation. To make the most of its new features, however, client software needs to be updated - and Valve's SteamVR middleware has received just such an update.

According to the company's official change log, the latest release of SteamVR - which is still a beta - adds full support for the Oculus Rift DK2 hardware, with positional tracking supported on both Windows and OS X but not Linux or Valve's own Steam OS platforms. The update also fixes an issue that could cause the middleware application itself, vrserver.exe, to run even when no head-mounted display is detected and to slowly increase its share of CPU time until the system is bogged down completely.

As a beta, it's unsurprising to see that there are still some issues that need to be resolved: as well as adding support for DK2 head-tracking on Linux and Steam OS, Valve has confirmed that the current beta still only supports the 'Extend Desktop' multi-monitor mode and can take a good few seconds to gracefully fail if the Oculus driver application isn't running when a head-mounted display tries to contact it.

Those who have been lucky enough to receive their Oculus Rift DK2 hardware over the last few weeks will need to manually opt-in to the beta through the Steam desktop application in order to take advantage of the latest improvements.
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