Virtual Reality on your phone is about to get a whole lot better if you buy a new, high-end Android phone in the coming months.
Qualcomm is opening up its VR SDK (software development kit) for the Snapdragon 820 chipset to allow developers to improve the VR experience on phones that include the 820 processor.
The new SDK enables developers to make more immersive experiences by being able to get more accurate data from the gyroscopes and accelerometers of your phone, as well as more accurate predictive head positions.
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The SDK also offers support for 3D binocular vision with color correction to make images look better in a VR experience. There's also VR layering improvements, which helps menus and text overlays on objects render correctly.
As well as that, fast motion to photon support is included, which means 3D images buffer more quickly and should reduce latency by 50%. Latency is one of the biggest issues facing VR as it can make people feel ill.
Lastly, the SDK helps with power management of devices with the aim to make sure VR experiences use less of your battery life.
Right now this SDK will only allow developers to work on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. That means any work done here will only work with the LG G5, some Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge handsets as well as future phones that choose to include the processor.
Rumor is the HTC 10 will include a Snapdragon 820 processor, so it may be that the HTC phone gets a lot better with VR in the near future.
