ALVR v20.0.0

ALVR v20.0.0 contains the long awaited OpenXR support and a new dashboard! Both of these features were years in the making.

Changes

• New OpenXR-based client, add support for Vive Focus 3/XR Elite, Pico 4/Neo 3 and YVR 1/2. Worked on by:
  • @zarik5 #1321
  • @galister #1321, #1442
  • @deiteris #1434, #1439, #1445
• New egui (OpenGL) dashboard
  • The launcher is replaced by the new dashboard executable.
  • by @Kirottu #1247 #1274, @zarik5, @m00nwtchr #1292, @TheComputerNerd88 #1574 #1575 #1576 1582
• Add position and rotation recentering modes (by @zarik5 #1321)
  • Defaults to local floor and local yaw.
• Add support for eye and face tracking (by @zarik5 #1577)
  • Currently supporting VRChat Eye OSC, VRCFaceTracking support coming soon
• Add support for semi-automatic installation on Linux using Distrobox (by @Meister1593 #1662)
• Reduce game rendering latency (by @zarik5)
• Apply some settings in real-time (by @zarik5 #1635)
• New more consistent controller prediction algorithm (by @zarik5 #1561)
• Controller input fixes (by @zarik5 #1560)
• Soft-toggle controllers at runtime (by @galister #1600)
• New wiki hosted in the main git tree (by @m00nwtchr #1309)
• Send client log to streamer (by @zarik5)
• Encoder improvements (by @nowrep #1562 #1565 #1568, @deiteris #1403 #1422 #1400 #1402, @zarik5 #1564)
• Remove Forward Error Correction (by @zarik5: #1384, #1389; @deiteris: #1386, #1387, #1390)
• Unified code for NAL parsing (by @deiteris #1403, #1422, #1400, #1402)
• Some tweaks for alvr_client_core compatibility (by @ShootingKing-AM #1580 #1578 #1586 #1624 #1621)
• Fix server build with clang (by @nowrep)

ALVR v19.1.1

Changes

• Relax discovery protocol for future ALVR versions

ALVR v19.1.0

This release fixes many issues with encoders on Linux and adds a new Vulkan server compositor to support FFR and color correction on Linux, pushing it at feature parity with Windows.

Changes

• Encoder improvements and new Linux server compositor:
  • @deiteris #1227, #1252, #1281, #1287, #1302, #1304, #1318, #1331, #1336, #1368, #1393, #1367, #1397
  • @Vixea #1227, #1254, #1412
  • @nowrep #1251, #1261, #1253, #1267, #1264, #1266, #1273, #1272, #1277, #1280, #1279, #1278, #1282, #1265, #1294, #1295, #1312, #1314, #1316, #1325, #1328, #1326, #1330, #1334, #1338, #1329, #1346, #1350, #1357, #1352, #1348, #1365, #1349, #1361, #1370, #1372, #1393
  • @m00nwtchr #1347
  • @galister #1428, #1429
• Disable Wi-Fi scans (by @zarik5)
  • This fixes stutter experienced by some users (in particular Quest Pro users)
• Show client IP in the headset and dashboard (by @zarik5)
• Add trigger/grip threshold (by @sctanf)
• Controller fixes (by @Timocop #1236 #1241)
• Vulkan layer fixes (by @nowrep #1291, #1293, #1324, #1339, #1376)
• Reduce lag after loading screens (by @zarik5)
• Fix server debug builds (by @nowrep #1288)
• Don't spam stdout on Linux (by @nowrep #1317)
• Fix recentering on Linux (by @nowrep #1353)

Compatibility note

You need to update your Nvidia driver to version 520.56.06 or greater.

ALVR v19.0.0

Changes

• Fix UDP stutter and image corruption in most circumstances (by @zarik5)
  • This is fixed by increasing the receive/send buffer size of the socket. Advanced options available in the Connection tab.
  • Huge thanks to @xytovl for the idea!
• Reduce image jitter (by @zarik5)
  • Increase maxBufferingFrames (Settings -> Video -> Enable advanced options) to reduce jitter caused by network and transcoding, at the expense of more latency. It cannot mitigate frame drops on the server side.
• New more accurate latency and FPS statistics (by @zarik5 #1061)
• New AppImage packages on Linux (by @m00nwtchr #1181)
• Better audio support on Linux (by @makomk #1065 #1066, @zarik5, @m00nwtchr #1068)
  • Audio on Linux is still hard to make it work. There is ongoing work to change this
• Add Oculus foveation options (by @zarik5 #1079)
• New advanced controller tracking options (by @zarik5 #1103)
• Improve controller support (by @Solexid #1076 #1078)
• Add 10 bit encoding support on AMD (by @deiteris #1223)
• New advanced encoder settings for Nvenc and AMF (by @zarik5, @deiteris #1220)
• Add “Force Software Encoding” option (by @Vixea /formerly @ColdIce1605 #1073)
• Reorder encoder initialization tests (NVENC->VAAPI->SW) (by @m00nwtchr #1032)
• Improvements to adaptive bitrate (by @sctanf, @GryPr #1141)
• Do not disconnect client when an audio device is unplugged (by @algologarithm #1124)
• Force dark mode on the client (by @zarik5)
• Fix some sources of crash in the client (by @thisleo #1064, @Solexid #1110 #1163)
• Extensive refactoring of the client (by @zarik5)
• Set TCP_NODELAY (by @korejan)

Thanks also to @daggintosh, @ImUrX, @toomuchcodehelp, @HookedBehemoth, for some other smaller changes.

Caveats

• Some users report issues with controller tracking. If you feel tracking does not feel right you can tweak a few parameters to get the exact feel you need. Go to Settings -> Enable Advanced Options -> Headset, the parameters to tweak are clientControllerPredictionMutlitplier, trackingLatencyOffsetMs, steamvrHmdPredictionMultiplier, steamvrCtrlPredictionMultiplier. Changing these values requires a headset sleep/wake cycle (press the power button two times) but not a restart of the server.

Headsets support

• The Meta Quest Pro is supported without any particular changes on our side. Eye/Face/Body tracking is currently unsupported; support is planned.
• The Oculus Go support is dropped. Due to internal changes, ALVR now only supports Android >= 8.
• New GearVR and Google Cardboard ALVR clients are almost ready. We need your help with bug fixing and testing. Nightly builds are provided.
• The nightly builds include a alvr_client_core SDK to create new ALVR clients! If you are a developer and you are interested in helping support new headsets tell us in the ALVR Discord Server.

ALVR v18.2.3

• Fix missing x264/5 shared libraries for xtask --bundle-ffmpeg/portable builds (by @korejan)

ALVR v18.2.2

• Enables v2.0 Hand Tracking on Oculus Quest (by @Incuh)

ALVR v18.2.1

Changelog

• Revert force controller connection. This caused lag on Linux (by @sctanf)
• Add Extra->patches settings section with a flag for disabling the sync popup on MS Edge (by @zarik5)

ALVR v18.2.0

Changelog

• Add portable linux tarballs for stable releases (by @m00nwtchr)

ALVR v18.1.1

Changelog

• Fix wgpu panic message (by @zarik5)
• Fix Debian script (by @Trae32566)
• Connect virtual controllers at startup (by @sctanf)
• Fix battery levels not getting sent to SteamVR properly (by @sctanf)

ALVR v18.1.0

Changelog

• Add support for the Oculus Go controller (by @zarik5)
• Enable async reprojection setting by default, but ignored on Nvidia GPUs (by @zarik5)
  • This ensures the best compatibility on every hardware by default. AMD users will still have jitter but only on the void room and SteamVR menu.
• Fix software encoder crashing on Windows (by @ev1lbl0w)
• Fix server accepting mismatched client version if the client was already trusted previously (by @zarik5)
• Add FFmpeg GPLv3 license in the server folder (by @zarik5)