Meta Quest 2: Green Hell uses Meta's powerful new rendering technology
Green Hell is the first VR game in the Oculus Store to use Application Spacewarp. The new rendering technology could become a game changer.
Application Spacewarp (AppSW) allows developers to squeeze up to 70 percent more CPU and GPU power out of Meta Quest 1 and 2. This is made possible by rendering VR apps at half instead of full frame rate and artificially generating every missing second frame. This saves a lot of performance. The corresponding rendering technology is called Application Spacewarp or AppSW for short.
Since the render trick has only been available since the end of 2021 and VR apps have to be optimized for it, there are only a few examples of apps and games that use AppSW so far. So its usefulness has been rather theoretical. Until now.
Application Spacewarp makes its debut
Green Hell VR is, to my knowledge, the first VR game released on the Oculus Store to benefit from Meta's powerful new rendering technology. The title was released on April 7 and although there are plenty of reports about the game, hardly anyone took notice of this remarkable fact.
Green Hell VR is the virtual reality port of the monitor game of the same name, which was released in 2019 for PC and later for consoles. The VR adaptation was handled by a secondary studio called Incuvo, which made a name for itself with VR ports of Blair Witch and Layers of Fear for Meta Quest 1 and 2 as well as PC VR.
Green Hell on Meta Quest 2: Great graphics thanks to AppSW
Green Hell VR is an open-world survival game set in the Amazon jungle. Large game maps and abundant vegetation? A game probably can't get any more technically demanding than that.
The fact that Green Hell still made it onto Meta Quest 2 is thanks to two circumstances: First, the studio scaled down the environments and simplified the gameplay. And second, Application Spacewarp helped reduce the render load.
The result is impressive, as UploadVR's graphics comparison between the Quest and PC VR versions shows. The jungle area is still quite extensive and the vegetation is mostly preserved.
Those who still want to experience the full graphics splendor can play the PC VR version, which will be released on Steam in May. This version fully corresponds to the original game and does not make any sacrifices in terms of level size and gameplay mechanics. Green Hell VR is now available for $30 in the Oculus Store.
Read more about VR Games:
- VR games: Is Moss 2 already the end of the story?
- Playstation VR 2: Well-known studio promises AAA games
- Meta Quest 2: Meta promises big games and more
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