There’s some good news for all the Oculus Rifters out there who are after a more immersive virtual reality experience: namely the fact that the latest software for the headset now officially supports roomscale VR.
Roomscale tracking has been supported in beta for some time now – since the Oculus Touch controllers were launched at the end of last year – but as with all beta testing, there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be glitchy or temperamental.
However, as TechCrunch spotted, with the latest release of the Oculus software (v1.15), this is now an official cast-iron feature.
The release notes state: “360° tracking with three sensors is now fully supported for sitting, standing, and roomscale play modes.”
Three’s a charm
So, note that you must have three sensors. Apparently tracking with two sensors (as seen with the HTC Vive) is still ‘experimental’, so remains in the beta phase with Oculus.
As we reported last summer when roomscale support was first revealed, Oculus Rift tracking has always been pretty glitchy with just a pair of sensors, causing problems particularly when you turn around and are facing away from the sensors.
You can, in fact, have up to four sensors on the boil in a Rift gaming session, but three sensors is reportedly feeling rock-solid at the moment (as it should do given the dropping of the beta tag).
All good news for Oculus Rift owners, then. Another small feature was also added to warn users if they aren’t plugging the headset into the most ‘appropriate’ GPU (i.e. not the motherboard HDMI port for your integrated graphics.
Meanwhile, earlier today there was some good news for HTC Vive owners as well – the arrival of the Rift’s top-notch shooter Superhot VR on Steam.
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