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cookiejar2's avatar
cookiejar2
Protege
5 months ago

Oculus fork still necessary?

Hi,

I'm coming back to Quest development with Unreal, tinkering around again with my pet-project.
When we started that a few years ago, 4.27 was the version one would use, and if you wanted to use things like Application Space Warp, using the Meta fork was a must.

(maybe I should say that I'm targeting Standalone VR, not PC-VR.)

Does this still hold true, though? Or did the changes Oculus made to Epics source code also find their way back into Epics code? What would I be missing out if I went with "plain-vanilla" from Epic instead of the Oculus-fork? Having to build from source is really a PITA, especially if you want to use Linux as a dev environment and not Windows.

Would be happy to hear your comments!

Hauke

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  • innit's avatar
    innit
    Adventurer
    5 months ago

    Sorry I don't no much about the Linux situation.

    When it comes to Meta vs Vanilla, it’d be nice if Meta XR weren’t needed, but there are features you only get through Meta’s OpenXR path: Passthrough (XR_FB_passthrough), Scene/Plane understanding (XR_FB_scene), Spatial Anchors with persistence/query/sharing (XR_FB_spatial_entity/_storage/_query), foveation controls (XR_FB_foveation), Application SpaceWarp, color space selection (XR_FB_color_space), display refresh control (XR_FB_display_refresh_rate), enhanced hand-tracking aim/mesh (XR_FB_hand_tracking_aim), and tracked keyboard (XR_FB_keyboard_tracking). Vanilla UE 5.5/OpenXR covers core VR; if you need those features, you’ll want Meta XR or your own extension bindings.

    Also consider Meta Platform integrations (friends list, presence, achievements, matchmaking).

    Lately the downside of Meta XR is that support seems to be lagging; the team appears more focused elsewhere. Hopefully the core plugins get an update now that Meta Connect is over -or with UE 5.7 in developments.

    Personally, I’m leaning toward going all-vanilla for now. Things feel unstable, and I’m still in asset-creation/design, so there’s no rush to target Meta-specific features yet.