Developers rave about Meta Quest 2's upcoming performance upgrade
Meta Quest 2 is about to get a big performance upgrade. Some developers have already tested it and are impressed.
With the next firmware update v55, Meta will unlock more performance for Meta Quest 2 and Pro.
The headsets will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro, according to Meta
A pleasant surprise for VR developers
Some VR developers have already tested the new firmware and are pleased with its benefits. Here's what VR developer Robert Aldridge wrote on Twitter:
Just got v55 for the Quest pro. That new performance bump is no joke!! Our new combat system for Heartlands was running around 40-50 fps because we hadn't optimized it at all yet. After the update it never dropped below 65fps. Pretty crazy!
AdAd— Robert Aldridge (@RobertJALA) June 9, 2023
IRL Studios (Gym Class Basketball VR) CEO Matthew Harris thinks Meta Quest 2 now feels smoother throughout:
v55 is so good. Everything is so much smoother on Quest 2 with the CPU/GPU performance increase. Excited to play with the new compute. Well done @neelbedekar and team! https://t.co/O3XzUQ3tM5
— Matthew Harris (@HatthewMarris) June 9, 2023
Feedback from Combat Waffle Studios (Ghosts of Tabor) PR director Mikaël Dufresne is along the same lines:
Tested v55 with some games. In some games I noticed better image clarity (rendering at higher res), in other I noticed less frame drops. But the one thing I love the most is a smoother UI, smoother hands tracking and my notifications are back after 2 versions not working.#VR
— Mikaël Dufresne (@purplemikey) June 9, 2023
New firmware waiting in the wings
In addition to higher CPU and GPU clock speeds, Meta is introducing a new feature called Dynamic Resolution Scaling (DSR). This automatically increases the render resolution of the VR app depending on how much the GPU is being used. The frame rate is not affected.
In a Twitter thread, Meta engineer Neel Bedekar explains to developers exactly how VR games will benefit from the performance upgrade and DSR. To get an idea, you can also read my article What does Meta Quest 2's performance boost mean for VR games?
Very excited about both the Quest 3 reveal, and our Quest 2 CPU/GPU performance increase.
The perf increase has been my(and a few coworkers') main project recently. And a perf increase is only useful if you can *utilize* the extra perf!
Here's everything devs need to know.🧵
— Neel Bedekar (@neelbedekar) June 2, 2023
Meta typically releases a firmware version every month, so v55 could be rolled out to users as early as this or next week.
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