The first annual Steam Dev Days event doesn’t begin until Wednesday of this week, but Valve has already released SteamVR to the public, its experimental virtual reality mode for owners of the Oculus Rift who want a sneak peek at Valve’s progress on a VR interface. SteamVR allows Steam users to explore the digital platform We reported last week that Valve would be introducing a software development kit for developers who want to work with virtual reality. SteamVR is likely just a proof of concept as Valve prepares even more substantial reveals for later this week.
If you own an Oculus Rift and would like to try SteamVR for yourself, Valve programmer Joe Ludwig has outlined the steps to get the new feature working:
- Run Steam in the desktop client without the -vr option
- Find “SteamVR” under “Tools” in your library. (If you don’t have it installed, install it.)
- Bring up properties on SteamVR and opt-in to the “Beta Update” beta. Let the update download.
- Quit the Steam Client again and start it with -vr
We’ll be on the lookout for more announcements from Valve over the next few days, including a virtual reality headset from Valve itself.
