Quest / Go Build 18.0 Release Notes

[ShowbizDonkey]

These features and enhancements will become available throughout the week of 06/29/2020



Universal Menu and Multi-Browser Support

• We’ve continued iterations and updates on the redesigned universal menu that was released as an opt-in feature of v15. These include:

• Design updates to streamline usability and improve discoverability of system apps (Store, Library, Browser, etc)
• Combined Library and Apps into a single panel
• The universal menu will now be accessible as an overlay from within a number of Quest apps.
• Improved the multi-browser experience that allows you to have multiple windows open when browsing the internet in-VR.

Introducing VR tooltips

• We’ve made it easier for you to find and learn how to use new and popular VR features. Look out for tooltips that help guide you through your journey in VR.

Keyboard

• The Oculus in-VR keyboard will now utilize predictive text to make typing in-VR more efficient.

Guardian

• You’ll now be able to change the color of your Guardian Boundary. You can enable this feature by selecting Settings > Guardian > Guardian Boundary.

Notifications

• We’ve made updates to in-VR and in-app notifications. These include:

• You can now fine-tune your in-VR notification preferences from the Settings panel. To do this, select Settings > Device > Notifications.
• Added the ability to interact with notifications
• Ex: Screenshot saved. Press the Oculus button to view your photos.
• Added additional info within the notification to help you understand why you’re seeing it
• Ex: Check out [X app], because you tried [Y app].
• Updated notification styling.
• Please note that these features may only be available to a percentage of users at this time.

Social

• You can now share in-VR content or ask a friend to join you in an app or experience in-VR via Messenger. This can be done by selecting Share > Messenger and then choosing who you’d like to share with.
• Now, when you save a VR post on Facebook, it will show up in your notifications panel the next time you put on your headset.
• If the post includes an app link and you already have the app installed, you’ll be able to open the app directly from the notification. If you don’t have the app installed, you can select the app link to download the app from the Oculus Store.

Voice Commands

• Voice Commands (Beta) is now available to all US English speaking users.
• If you have the redesigned universal menu, you can find it in Settings > Quick Actions > Voice Commands. The Voice Commands icon is located next to the Microphone icon. Otherwise, you can find it directly in your Oculus home menu.
• You can activate Voice Commands (Beta) by clicking on the icon in the Oculus menu or enabling the controller shortcut which allows you to double press the Oculus button to activate Voice Commands (Beta).
• You can change your Voice Commands (Beta) settings by selecting Settings > Device > Voice Commands (Beta).
• Voice Commands (Beta) has been re-designed with sleeker visuals. It also supports a wider breadth of commands.
• Try saying, “Take a photo” to take a screenshot while you’re in an immersive experience, “Start casting” to mirror your headset to another screen or “Turn off” to quickly shut down your headset. You can also ask, “What can I say?” to see more examples of commands available to you.

Known Issues

• Sideloaded 2D applications may not be visible within your library and, as a result, may not be able to launch from the main menu. As a workaround, you should be able to view and launch these sideloaded 2D applications from within Oculus TV.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused some first party apps to show incorrect dates below Library thumbnails.
• Fixed a bug that caused multi-tasking browser windows to merge into a single window when the headset was restarted.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the wrong notification to be shown when a controller battery is low.

[ThePiquedGeek]

this may seem like a really dumb question, but am I on V18?

[nalex66]

ThePiquedGeek said:

this may seem like a really dumb question, but am I on V18?

Yes.

[Mettulus]

Got my quest a couple of days ago. I didn't think anything about the blurriness until I played Half-Life: Alyx. The issues the Quest has with rendering far distances aside, it was bad  --  couldn't even get passed the first level because the lack of sharpness was so distracting bad. Menus are blurry, text is difficult to read.

It's possible that this is normal and the problem is with me. I'm not sure though, I've fixed sharpness on the Quest side with the adp thing, but the Link still looks awful. That fix doesn't work with the Link at any rate, so I'm kinda stuck. Running it in VD with PC wired to 5mghz wifi is a bit noticeably better, but not by much. It runs smoother for sure, but I don't notice any huge leap in graphics.

I've tried everything you can think of to fix it. Supersampling, graphics settings, sideloading Steamvr advanced settings to change resolution stuff on the fly. Nothing. Nada. If I beef up textures they look noticeably better. Doesn't matter when everything a grainy mess.

Is that something anyone else is dealing with or am I just crazy?

[ThePiquedGeek]

nalex66 said:

ThePiquedGeek said:

this may seem like a really dumb question, but am I on V18?

Yes.

ok, the reason I ask is because prior to the V18 roll out, I was using the Preview of the New Universal Menu. But when I was updated to V18, That went away with no way to get it back. I know this is a known issue and has been mentioned on here, but what is unclear is if that was the only change that those users had. Bottom Line: I lost my New Menu, haven't had any issues with contrast, but also haven't gotten any of the new features except 1. I can change the color of my Guardian. I've only had the Quest for a month... is this normal for updates? Does oculus update the firmware on release date, but then slowly dole out the features over time?

[Anonymous]

Mettulus said:

Got my quest a couple of days ago. I didn't think anything about the blurriness until I played Half-Life: Alyx. The issues the Quest has with rendering far distances aside, it was bad  --  couldn't even get passed the first level because the lack of sharpness was so distracting bad. Menus are blurry, text is difficult to read.

It's possible that this is normal and the problem is with me. I'm not sure though, I've fixed sharpness on the Quest side with the adp thing, but the Link still looks awful. That fix doesn't work with the Link at any rate, so I'm kinda stuck. Running it in VD with PC wired to 5mghz wifi is a bit noticeably better, but not by much. It runs smoother for sure, but I don't notice any huge leap in graphics.

I've tried everything you can think of to fix it. Supersampling, graphics settings, sideloading Steamvr advanced settings to change resolution stuff on the fly. Nothing. Nada. If I beef up textures they look noticeably better. Doesn't matter when everything a grainy mess.

Is that something anyone else is dealing with or am I just crazy?

There is something very wrong if Link looks worse and Alyx is running smoother on VD. If you are running Link with an actual Link cable or a suitable aftermarket solution using USB 3 and not 2.0 it should be much clearer and smoother - there is absolutely no comparison. However, if you are expecting the kind of clarity you would get from 2D PC gaming that might be an unreasonable expectation. I'd check the obvious first - is your Quest adjusted/fitted properly? Do you need glasses to see clearly at approximately 6 feet distance? What kind of Link cable are you using and what is the throughput when you test it?

edit: I've found that a lot of new users see demos of games like Alyx on youtube and expect that kind of clarity with their headsets - that footage is captured from the PC and will NOT match what you see in reality. It's much clearer than what even an Index can produce.

[nalex66]

ThePiquedGeek said:

nalex66 said:

ThePiquedGeek said:

this may seem like a really dumb question, but am I on V18?

Yes.

ok, the reason I ask is because prior to the V18 roll out, I was using the Preview of the New Universal Menu. But when I was updated to V18, That went away with no way to get it back. I know this is a known issue and has been mentioned on here, but what is unclear is if that was the only change that those users had. Bottom Line: I lost my New Menu, haven't had any issues with contrast, but also haven't gotten any of the new features except 1. I can change the color of my Guardian. I've only had the Quest for a month... is this normal for updates? Does oculus update the firmware on release date, but then slowly dole out the features over time?

It's always a good idea to do a full shutdown and reboot of the Quest after an update--otherwise, the new features don't always activate right away. Sometimes new features do roll out slowly, separate from the update. That said, the new Universal Menu should still be available as an experimental feature. You could try resetting all experimental features (you should see that option in the Experimental Features menu). Do a reboot after that and see if the option comes back.

[Anonymous]

@ThePiquedGeek
Yep , Second one down  " Version " 18.0.0 etc

[matty_phelps]

shakkis said:

Oculus, in case you're reading, some quick feedback on the v18:
- I really don't understand why you would make the battery indicators white. It was already unfavorable that it just showed dots instead of the percentage, this is a step back. 

- The menu is too high contrast. Not sure if it's a bug.  

- The brightness adjustment is now gone, which, again, I don't understand. 

- I can't access the voice commands even though I have my headset on US English. 

im having the same problem. i tried restoring back to factory settings but that didnt help, i hope they patch this soon with another update

[leeonl]

MayaMiracle said:

So I only got my Quest yesterday, and thus never was able to
experience a pre-v18 version of the Quest. But so far I have spent
countless hours trying to get ANY kind of streaming/casting to work, to
no avail.

When I cast to virtual Chromecasts like
AirReceiver on Win10 or AirScreen on Android, there is immiedately an
error "Casting/Livestreamining error. There was an error and the
streaming has stopped." According to other responses on this forum, the
v18 update broke Chromecast compatibility - mostly for virtual
Chromecasts, but maybe even some real ones.

When
I try casting to phone via the official Oculus Android app, it also
doesn't work though. At first I didn't get a connection at all, but
apparently that was caused by being connected to 2.4 GHz instead of 5
GHz network. So I switched to 5 GHz (giving a seperate SSID for the 5
GHz network, so it definitely doesn't roam to 2.4 GHz) and tried again,
and then my phones were usually able to connect fine. But then after
just a few seconds, the image completely freezes and doesn't return,
unless I completely restart the streaming.

I
have tried with two different phones, a top-notch, up to date Pixel 3
and an older Android 8.1 phone (Umidigi One Pro). I have tried with two different 5 GHz
Wifi routers, making sure to give the 5 GHz network a separate SSID so
both the phones and the Quest definitely connect over the same 5 GHz
wifi. I have even tried via tethering (=connecting the Quest
*directly* to the Wifi of my phone) but can't even get it to connect there.

Is
there any other method to get streaming/casting to work? Or is this
just plainly broken for pretty much everyone on v18? Is there any
acknowledgement of Oculus that this problem even exists, and that
they're working on a fix? Because like this, I'll probably go back to my
PSVR, where all of this works without any sort of issue right out of
the box. I thought the Quest was technically superior, but it seems like
it isn't after all.

the same here.

[JERisBRISK]

boris.novikov said:

Jogimus said:

tewmes said:

I noticed that after the update of the Oculus Quest towards (version 18) on June 30, 2020, the menu became too dark and the image of less good definition than before ... I hope that they will settle quickly because it ruins the use of the VR headset

Sadly same here, too dark menus and texts in those menus are blurry. How this is slippid through quality control!!!!

Not every device is affected. I guess it is the reason it wasn't caught. Maybe only new hardware revision is affected. I got mine in june, month ago, and have this problem. People who got it in winter or earlier reports no problem. When have you got your quest?

I just received mine on July 1 and it has had the "dark browser text" issue since I set it up (v18). Hoping they fix it soon.