In the support of VR developments, titans Unity Technologies and Htc Vive have teamed up. Both companies have announced that the native platform for SteamVR will be served by Unity Technologies.
SteamVR is the Valve’s technology behind the HTC Vive VR Headset. Unity serving as the native platform for SteamVR suggests that it will be convenient for developers to utilize game engine of Unity in order to design virtual reality games for HTC Vive VR Headset and similar systems that operate on SteamVR.
SteamVR platform was created by Valve as an open system, which counters the Oculus Rift’s closed system, which happens to be a Facebook-led VR division launching on March 28 while HTC Vive VR Headset is scheduled for a launch in April.
The native platform for SteamVR is regarded as a major alliance, as Unity Game Engine holds a registration of 4.5M user base. And for now, VR is the only stuff reigning the minds and hearts of developers.
In order to stay ahead of the rivals such as Amazon that launched a free 3D Game Engine of its own this week for customers of Amazon Web Services, Unity is required to make such kind of progress.
The SteamVR platform for Valve has been under a phase of constant development from the beginning. It regularly keeps pushing out various updates with latest features and bug fixes. This latest update will introduce Vive Pre with Direct Mode support.
SteamVR Beta1451970580, the latest update, is the first version, which comes with Direct Mode support that permits the GPU to directly communicate with the display of Vive. This will permit for the autonomous rendering of pictures shown on the desktop monitor and Vive displays.
According to the company, “Problems such as flashing displays upon headset detection, confused display destinations for desktop applications, and full-screen compositor warnings are all resolved by Direct Mode.”
Valve also noted that the support-Direct Mode enables the headset’s ability to go into a standby mode that will reduce the power consumption and increase display’s life.
At present, the SteamVR Beta enables support-Direct Mode on the HTC Vive Pre VR, but the company plans to make it available on every model of HTC Vive going forward for sale.
The latest version of SteamVR Beta should be installed and graphics cards need to be updated in order to implement Direct Mode.
The versions with Nvidia cards require the installation of GeForce driver 361.75 while AMD cards require Crimson 1.0.3.16.
Vive Pre-Installation Guide arrives equipped with instructions for signing up to the latest version- SteamVR Beta.
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