SteamVR 1.21 adds support for Vive trackers in OpenXR, improves Desktop View, and reminds Quest users to install the Oculus PC software & start Oculus Link.
If you start SteamVR with a Quest or Quest 2 attached to your PC but haven’t started the Oculus app, SteamVR now prompts to start it. If you don’t have the Oculus software it prompts you to install it. Meta’s download page now calls this the ‘Quest 2 PC app’. In July Valve made SteamVR handle Oculus Link disconnections without needing to restart it. Quest headsets make up 50% of SteamVR’s monthly userbase.
The update also implements the HTC Vive Tracker OpenXR extension. SteamVR got initial support for the OpenXR industry-standard in mid-2020, with full official support arriving in February 2021.
Desktop View will no longer get stuck when a non-interactable window gains input focus, and there’s a new button to quickly minimize all windows to switch to your desktop. Last year Valve improved SteamVR’s desktop support and added new features, including pinning windows to controllers and pinning windows in space around you.
Full Update Notes From Valve
SteamVR
- Fixed a motion smoothing issue that was affecting some applications.
- Fixed a crash related to application submitted dx12 depth textures.
- Fix for depth texture handling on dx12 causing crashes in major engine implementations.
- Fixed a crash in the dashboard.
- Display Task View if a non-interactable window gains input focus in Desktop View.
- Added a button to Desktop View that allows users to show the desktop. This is especially useful when users have a single monitor and the scene app displays a full screen window.
- Fixed a crash on app startup.
Linux
- Fixed issue that would prevent some system UI from working some of the time.
- Fixed webhelper crashing in OS’s with recent versions of freetype2.
- Fixed a failure to unpack steamrt-heavy on some distributions.
OpenXR
- Implemented the XR_HTCX_vive_tracker_interaction extension.
Oculus
- When SteamVR starts, if you have a Quest or Quest2 attached to your PC but have not started Oculus Link, you will be reminded to do so. SteamVR also will notify you to install the Oculus software if SteamVR cannot communicate with the Oculus service.
