Viveport President on HTC’s New VR Subscription Service
April 4th was the one-year anniversary of the HTC Vive, and HTC released the subscription service for Viveport for $7/month to try out five new VR applications per month. I had a chance to catch up with Viveport president Rikard Steiber at GDC to talk about the genre differences between Viveport and Steam, future support of VR headsets beyond the Vive, their support for delivering content to China, as well as some of their arcade licensing options.
Understanding Pixel Density & Retinal Resolution, and Why It’s Important for AR/VR Headsets

While most of us are used to dealing with resolution figures that describe pixel count (ie: a 1920×1080 monitor), pixel density stated as pixels per degree is a much more useful figure, especially when dealing with AR and VR headsets. Achieving ‘Retinal resolution’ is the ultimate goal for headsets, where at a certain pixel density, even people with perfect vision can’t discern any additional detail. This article explores those concepts, and takes a look at how far today’s headsets are from retinal resolution.
Inexpensive GTX 1050 Ti Gets Official Thumbs-Up for Oculus Minimum Spec
Following the launch of the more powerful GTX 1060, 1070, and 1080, NVIDIA revealed the latest in their low-end GeForce GPUs, the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti in October 2016. While not the first in line for a premium VR experience, the more powerful 1050 Ti now officially meets the Oculus Minimum Specification.
Apple Points to VR as One Reason Why Next Mac Pro Needs to be More Powerful
At present, modern VR headsets are for the most part unsupported on Apple computers, largely because many of the company’s computers do not meet the recommended hardware specifications. Apple may rarely hint at it, but the company is thinking about VR… and so are its customers. Recently Apple has admitted that the current Mac Pro isn’t standing up to the needs of some of its customers, and VR is one reason why.
‘Forestry’s’ Procedural Mesh System Offers Unique VR Crafting & Destruction
Procedural mesh destruction and construction underpins Decoder VR’s first title, Forestry, which just launched on Steam. Built for Vive, Rift and PSVR, the game’s fully destructible world presents a vast forest for the player to cut to pieces, which can then be used to create new objects.
Steam VR Anniversary Sale: ‘Raw Data’ & ‘Tilt Brush’ Free-play, Deep Discounts on 224 VR Titles
With the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive shipping one year ago this month, Valve is getting in on the ‘VR Anniversary’ action with deep discounts on more than 200 VR titles and free-play access to Raw Data (2016) and Tilt Brush (2016).
Preview: Visually Dazzling VR RPG ‘The SoulKeeper VR’ Plans For a Full Story With Deep Lore
VR gamers have longed heavily for deeper titles that go beyond the surface-level experiences that make up a large portion of today’s VR content. They’ve longed for games with depth and complexity; developer HELM Systems plan to offer exactly that with The SoulKeeper VR, a forthcoming action adventure VR RPG for Vive and Rift with spell casting. The developers have shared new details with Road to VR leading up to the game’s release in Early Access on SteamVR this Spring.
‘COMPOUND’ Demo Hits SteamVR, Puts You in a VR World of Lovingly Detailed Retro Graphics
COMPOUND is a VR hobby project from developer ‘NotDead’ which aims to immerse you in a world of lovingly crafted pixel art, retro-styled first person shooter.
‘Robo Recall’ Update Brings Additional Improvements to 360 Degree Tracking
One of the slickest titles on the Rift right now, Epic Games’ arcade shooter Robo Recall has received an update which addresses one of the bigger criticisms the title received at launch, 360 degree tracking for the Oculus Touch.
Hands-on: ‘EVE: Valkyrie’ Groundrush Update Drops Daring Dogfights to Dangerous Altitudes
Fanfest is upon us again, CCP’s yearly festival in Reykjavik for all things EVE Online, but to go along with the round table discussions and announcements surrounding the massive multiplayer universe is a new update to the studio’s sci-fi VR arcade dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie (2016). Coming April 11th to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PSVR is an expansion called Groundrush that promises to deliver even more of that Star Wars-esque spaceship experience with planet-based maps (and one that looks awfully like the planet Hoth) among a host of other updates.
New ‘EVE: Valkyrie’ Update ‘Groundrush’ is Bringing Planet-based Dogfights
EVE: Valkyrie (2016), the arcade dogfighter from EVE Online studio CCP Games, is about to get a big update that promises to take the game in what lead game dev Andrew Willans says via an official Sony blogpost “new and exciting directions.” Called Groundrush, the new update—launching April 11th—will include tweaks to existing systems and a brand new map, Solitude, that brings the dogfight to the surface of a snowy planet.
New HTC Vives Weigh 15% Less Than They Did at Launch
While the Vive is often criticized for its front-heavy weight, the headset has actually managed to slim down over time thanks to manufacturing improvements. HTC has managed to shave 15% off of the original 550 grams (1.21 pounds), bringing the headset’s weight in line with the Oculus Rift.
HTC Wants to Bring Its First-party Game ‘Arcade Saga’ to PlayStation VR
Arcade Saga, a futuristic sports action game from HTC’s internal Vive Studios development and publishing group, could be coming to PSVR. Launched for the Vive headset in December 2016, the game quickly received Oculus Rift support, and recently saw further optimisations for Oculus Touch. Now wanting to bring the game to PSVR, HTC is going a step above to demonstrate their commitment to platform agnostic VR content.
It’s Ok to Be Jealous of This $25,000 VR Racing Rig, We Are Too
What do you do when you want to push VR racing simulation to the limit of immersion? This.