Oculus is killing off its proprietary PC VR APIs in favor of OpenXR
Moving the industry toward the accepted open standard.
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What you need to know
Facebook announced today on theOculus developers blogthat it’s finally deprecating its old proprietary Oculus APIs in favor of using the OpenXR standard moving forward. This move has been building steam since the Oculus Questbegan supportingthe OpenXR platform last July and is now in line withSteam’s move to the OpenXR platformlast year.
To simplify what’s happening, here’s a breakdown of the process. An application programming interface, or API, is a piece of software that connects software and hardware together. In this case, Oculus APIs allow developers to create VR games and applications for Oculus-branded headsets, supporting the unique features that those headsets might have. Starting with Oculus software v31 — which launched this week — new Oculus features will be developed via OpenXR instead of Facebook’s own Oculus language.
Going forward, this is very positive news for the industry, as a whole. A move from a proprietary platform to an open one is almost never a negative and it generally means that developersshouldhave an easier time developing for all of thebest VR headsetsinstead of having to target a specific one. The OpenXR standard was designed by the Khronos Group — the same non-profit group that’s responsible for the Vulkan programming language that offers performance benefits for games likeValheim— and was meant to connect the dots between all the VR headsets and gaming engines that are on the market.
What’s not known at this point is how older games and headsets will be affected by the move. Facebook is moving these proprietary APIs to “Compatibility Support” on August 31, 2021. Furthermore, Facebook is officially ending support for proprietary Oculus APIs just one year later — that’s August 31, 2022. This likely means that developers will need to move their existing games to the OpenXR API over the course of the next year or face possible incompatibilities with new headsets, moving forward.
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Nick started with DOS and NES and uses those fond memories of floppy disks and cartridges to fuel his opinions on modern tech. Whether it’s VR, smart home gadgets, or something else that beeps and boops, he’s been writing about it since 2011. Reach him on Twitter or Instagram @Gwanatu
