Meta Quest 3's new chip could improve graphics of VR ports
Team Beef has ported 2D classics like Half-Life and Doom 3 to standalone headsets. Meta Quest 3 could bring a graphical upgrade to these ports.
Meta Quest 3 was announced last week. The device, which will be released in the fall, will have a new SoC that is more than twice as powerful as the Snapdragon XR2 used in Meta Quest 2. This will open up new possibilities for VR developers, such as more open game worlds and better graphics.
I spoke with Grant 'BaggyG' Bagwell, one of the three developers at Team Beef, which has created high-quality VR ports of Doom 1-3, Quake 1-3, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and most recently Star Wars Jedi Knight II for Meta Quest 2. I asked him what the team hoped to gain from the extra power and if fans should expect any new features.
"I wouldn't say there are necessarily going to be any new features, as in gameplay features, as it is fundamentally the same setup. But we are looking forward to increased performance across the board, which will allow us the room for things like increased resolution, dynamic lights and shadows and other graphical improvements," Bagwell says.
New SoC will help with new projects
It may even be the case that some ports not previously viable due to performance, will become viable.
Team Beef is currently working on a VR port of Wrath: Aeon of Ruin for Meta Quest 2, and two particularly ambitious projects are planned for the future: Morrowind and Quake 4. In both cases, the added power of Meta Quest 3 will benefit the developers.
"It's definitely going to help with OpenMW (Morrowind), which we have planned but were a bit worried about performance. Same goes for Quake 4," Bagwell says.
Which isn't to say those titles won't come for the older hardware. "Generally we can scale our apps down to get them working on most headsets, so there isn't a clear cut "playable" and "not playable", but these are the two big ones that are pushing current hardware."
Should you wish to support Team Beef, you can do so via Patreon. You can also find more information about each VR port there. You'll need the original games on Steam, Sidequest, and a PC to install the VR ports.
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