As you may have noticed, the Windows 10 April 2018 Update has been officially released by Microsoft, and with it comes a raft of Windows Mixed Reality improvements – and the news that Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR has left ‘early access’.
In other words, this is effectively saying that a full range of functionality is now in place. As Valve notes, SteamVR has been available to those with Windows Mixed Reality headsets since last November, and testing has been ongoing on the aforementioned new features, with 24 updates having been released to beta testers.
The improvements that come with the April Update include boosts to performance – so users should find less video RAM being consumed now – and overall stability, along with haptic feedback for motion controllers, and a new Skyloft environment (to go with the existing Cliff House).
Custom capers
Furthermore, it’s easier to customize those virtual environments, and once you’ve personalized them, taking photos to show off the results is also a much simpler matter (you just hold down the Windows button and tap your trigger).
Valve also observed that there are now 422 games in the Steam Store which support Windows Mixed Reality, giving gamers a much broader choice outside of the offerings in the Microsoft Store.
This doesn’t mean that Valve is done with further honing SteamVR for Windows Mixed Reality headsets, and indeed the firm promises that further new features are going to be delivered via regular updates.
All of which is good news for those who have taken the plunge with Microsoft’s headsets that include the likes of the Lenovo Explorer and Samsung’s HMD Odyssey – and that’s a growing number of folks by all accounts.
- Some of our best laptops have the power to run Mixed Reality
Via MS Power User
