Quest build v31 release notes

[Ryanality]

These features and enhancements will become available starting the week of July 20, 2021.

Invite to Game

• We’ve created multiplayer APIs for developers to use with their apps. For any app that opts into this feature, you’ll be able to invite friends or people you’ve recently played with to your game sessions directly from the Quest Universal menu.
• You will be notified when your friend takes action based on your invite.
• When you’re invited to join someone through this method, you’ll receive a notification with info about who sent the invite and what app you’re being invited to.
• You can now view and manage the group of people you’re playing together with right from the Universal menu without leaving the app or experience you’re currently in.

Invite Link

• We want to make it easier to get your friends into VR with you. One way we’re doing this is by allowing you to create an invitation link which will take anyone who uses it to the same location in VR.
• The link is created and shared using the Oculus Mobile App. You can then use that invite link to text or post to your friends and communities.

Air Link

• Improved the dynamic bitrate to reduce the occurrence of stalls and high latency, while also improving visual quality.
• Added the ability to access the Oculus menu (press Oculus button) during a connection timeout (3 dots screen).
• Identified and fixed a bug that caused Air Link to crash.
• Fixed an issue where some AMD drivers could crash when running Link/Air Link.

Messenger

• You can now send Reactions to messages in VR similar to how you would on mobile.
• You can now see the status of the messages that you send (Send receipts), as well as how much of the conversation other participants have read (Read receipts.)

USB-C Audio

• You can now use USB-C headphones with your Quest 2. For the list of supported USB-C headphones and adapters, see our support article here.
• If both 3.5mm and USB-C headphones are plugged in, then the audio will play on the 3.5mm headphones.
• If your 3.5mm or USB-C headphones have mics, they will be disabled as headphone mics are not supported on either the 3.5mm or USB-C ports.

Universal Menu

• We’ve made the Library, Settings, Notifications, and other menus larger for improved ease of use.

Security Settings

• We’ve created a dedicated security settings page in headset where you can set/reset your unlock pattern and access other security settings.

Save your passwords on Oculus Browser

• You can safely save and autofill your passwords on Browser. Now you’ll only have to type your password once before letting Browser auto-fill your password. And you can seal it behind your unlock pattern for added security.

Fixes

• This update includes a security fix to prevent third-party apps running in the background of people’s Quest devices from accessing their motion data, including controller and headset movement. Apps that run in the foreground-- meaning apps you actively play and engage with when using your headset -- are not affected by this fix and may collect real-time information about the current position of your headset and controllers to translate your movements into the virtual world; for more, see our support article privacy support article.
• Fixed an issue with wireless that caused degraded WiFi performance.

[DarkJaqb]

Is this update region locked? As I am still on v30, with headset telling me no new updates are available (desktop app is v31.1)

[nalex66]

Not region-based, it just gradually rolls out to more and more users. I’m still waiting too. I used to get updates within the week, but lately I seem to often wait two weeks or longer. I’m not sure if the roll-out is slower because there are so many more Quests out there, or if it’s just luck of the draw.

[nalex66]

Finally got v31 (actually, went straight to v31.1). I went to play with my Q2 during my lunch break, and the battery was fully depleted, so I knew it had updated at some point during the last 24 hours (it's annoying that the headset still stays on after updating--I guess it's due to my lens cover).

Anyway, I like that the middle menu window got bigger, I think that's an improvement. I'll test AirLink over the weekend and see how that feels with the update. I've been using tethered Link more often (to keep my battery charge up and so I can use a higher encoder bitrate), but I do find the cable a bit annoying.

[nalex66]

So I played a bit with AirLink... I set it to dynamic bitrate, with the max up to 200 Mbps, and it seemed to work pretty well. I'm not sure if this changed with v31, but I noticed that the image quality at the edges of view seemed to be more aggressively degraded. Previously I only ever noticed it in a thin border along the rims of the lenses, but now I can see it outside of a rectangular area at the centre. It's not specific to AirLink, because I also saw it when I switched back to tethered Link. Maybe it was just the game I was playing--I was in the Lone Echo in the Processing Line area, and there is a diamond pattern in the glass walls that makes the quality drop-off very obvious. I had turned off TAA last time I played this game, so that may have also contributed to me noticing it.

Edit: This was not a Link issue, but a setting in Lone Echo. When I turned off Multi-Resolution Shading, the image quality was back to normal.

Anyway, my only complaint about AirLink versus tethered Link is that I can see some loss of image quality with the lower encoder bitrate. There's a spot in my Home environment where I can always see colour banding if I use a bitrate lower than 350. With AirLink at 200, I can see it in the area circled (although it doesn't show in the picture). Other than that though, I didn't feel any difference going back and forth between wireless versus wired.

 

[TomCgcmfc]

Main thing I'm noticing now is that there is not as much difference between Link and Air Link.  Maybe thanks to my rtx3090 gpu but I can now run Air Link at 200mbps Fixed Bitrate and this looks/works very well for me with 90Hz refresh rate, 1.2x slider (4480x2256) and 1.20xSS, ASW = off, with OTT.

In order to get the same result with Link I need to use at least 350mbps bitrate.  I can move this to 500mbps and this further improves things a bit.  Overall, I still prefer to be wireless with Air Link.

I feel that both Link and AL have lost some performance/clarity since v29.  With v29 I was easily able to run 120Hz refresh rate at 1.4x res slider and 1.2xSS.  Now, I seem to get some stutters which are completely fixed by dropping the refresh rate down to 90Hz.  Currently, Virtual Desktop does a much better job at 120Hz but I prefer Air Link because I like its colours better.  VD colours always look washed out to me and adding colour vibrance gives everything too much of a reddish tint.  Plus, not all my apps (esp. VivePort apps) are compatible with VD and/or some controller actions are a bit off.

[Calimero_Oeuf]

V31 doesn't fix any bug 😠

Guardian area doesn't save, I must recreate area each time I restart headset

com.facebook.spatial_pe... always crashing !

Please, we need a fix !

[TomCgcmfc]

@Calimero_Oeuf  This is a user forum mate so if you need a fix you are best to contact Oculus Support and start a ticket.  They will review your recent log files and see if they can identify the problem.  If you manage to find a fix after doing this please share this with the rest of us users.  Thanks mate, good luck and cheers.

[AlexiTQ]

Still no fix for Oculus Link. When are you going to adress the issues?

[Calimero_Oeuf]

Factory reset solved all my problems !

Guardian not saved ... solved

com.facebook.spatial_pe... crash ... solved