The Official Blog of Patcoola

June 18th, 2019

Use your Oculus with Steam

Did you know, you can use your Oculus Rift with Steam. When you first try to run SteamVR or a VR game from Steam with your Oculus you will be blocked. This is not because Oculus is anti-competition, it’s because Steam is a different system. Oculus will block any application (app) or game that is not from the Oculus store by default. This is primarily for quality control and safety. The Oculus requires the use of the Oculus software/store to operate. Steam uses a variant of OpenVR. Although Oculus and Steam are different, Oculus can detect and add your SteamVR apps/games to your library for quick access. Enable running apps from an unknown source to use SteamVR.

August 13th, 2016

A lot of virtual reality (VR) content on the Internet is in fact not VR. YouTube the biggest source of free VR videos currently does not support VR content. However, YouTube says they are working on it and they do currently support headsets. Many VR applications are not VR at all, meaning your headset is just a monitor. Many VR content on the Internet is flat head tracking or stereoscopic 3D.

In order for VR to be true VR, the content has to meet two requirements. First head tracking, VR has to have some ability to look around. The second requirement is side-by-side (SBS) 3D also known as stereoscopic 3D. Having both head tracking and stereoscopic 3D is what makes VR an immersive experience.

March 18th, 2016

The PlayStation virtual reality (PS VR) headset bundle has been announced by Sony (March 18, 2016). The PS VR “Launch Bundle” will cost $499.99 USD / $699.99 CAD. Pre orders will start March 22nd on the PlayStation website and by participating retailers in limited quantities. The core bundle will be available later this year for a suggested retail price of $399.99 USD / $549.99 CAD. PS VR is expected to hit stores in October this year (2016).