Valve continue rapidly iterating on SteamVR, as they attempt to push the limits of what VR can do both on the hardware and software side with SteamVR 1.10 out now. Not a Beta release either, a proper new version.
Quite a big update too, giving a huge revamp to the Dashboard that Valve claim "gets you into your games quickly". It has a new curved design that's closer for increased clarity, and presents a recent games list for jumping in right away. Looks pretty nice too.
This new launcher comes with a ton of other improvements too. There's the ability to quickly change volume, more settings have been added to toggle UI elements, a nicer/more refined keyboard appearance, performance improvements and some fixes. Additionally SteamVR Desktop View, SteamVR itself, SteamVR Home and SteamVR Input all got major improvements too.
On the Linux side of things, Valve gave it a little attention too as they also noted these fixes:
- Fixed a case where the dashboard would disappear.
- Fixed a vrwebhelper crash on shutdown.
- Fixed the 'Restart SteamVR' and other URL based shortcuts that are part of the new settings interface.
Full SteamVR 1.10 release notes here.
On the subject of VR: sadly, we've had silence out of Valve on a Linux release of Half-Life: Alyx since the initial message to us (at the bottom of this article), we did reach out again quite recently but got no reply. So currently it seems to be a Windows-only game. While sad, VR is still an incredibly new thing for the industry as a whole and hopefully as it improves (on Linux especially it can be rough), maybe Valve will port it in future like they did with their other games.
Very appreciated.
I have to admit, I'm very disappointed by the silence of Valve concerning this.
Why not communicating that they probably work on it and it's a technical thing for now.
Or if they really put the focus on the Windows release - why not telling *us* that?
It'd be sad but I can ofc respect that.
Looks like they've been so busy cleaning up SteamVR before the HL:Alyx release, that they didn't do anything for Linux this time.
Then again, they said more than a month ago that HL:Alyx is basically done and in an extremely good shape (which has to include SteamVR obviously).
Doesn't sound like crunch-time panic to me. :)
That's why I had some hope, they could find the time to wire up Linux (and Mac).
But I guess that is sadly out of question now.
It would be hilarious if they just came out and said everyone would have to switch to Linux to play it. Just to see how many actually would. I mean if there were a game franchise that would make people switch to both VR and Linux, it would be this one.Looks like they've been so busy cleaning up SteamVR before the HL:Alyx release, that they didn't do anything for Linux this time.
Then again, they said more than a month ago that HL:Alyx is basically done and in an extremely good shape (which has to include SteamVR obviously).
Doesn't sound like crunch-time panic to me. :)
That's why I had some hope, they could find the time to wire up Linux (and Mac).
But I guess that is sadly out of question now.
Sadly not even the SteamVR Home destinations for HL:A work on Linux :'(Update: The Half-Life Alyx SteamVR Home environments are getting fixed linux support with the next SteamVR beta release: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues/304#issuecomment-595790309
Sadly not even the SteamVR Home destinations for HL:A work on Linux :'(Update: The Half-Life Alyx SteamVR Home environments are getting fixed linux support with the next SteamVR beta release: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues/304#issuecomment-595790309
Hmm, that's promising.
Maybe we'll see Alyx get an unannounced beta release on Linux too?
Crap communication nevertheless, though.
Sadly not even the SteamVR Home destinations for HL:A work on Linux :'(Update: The Half-Life Alyx SteamVR Home environments are getting fixed linux support with the next SteamVR beta release: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues/304#issuecomment-595790309
Hmm, that's promising.
Maybe we'll see Alyx get an unannounced beta release on Linux too?
Crap communication nevertheless, though.
Valve fixed it today. Sadly no news on Linux support for Alyx.
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