Where are the old VR headset options?

[Turnip Dash]

When I go into the VR Titles section, no games have a list of compatible VR headsets and now there is no way to search by my owned system. What happened to those option? And unless somehow all Steam games are now cross compatible with all VR headsets, how is one to even know what games/software to buy anymore? Seems like a terrible idea.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Even the regular/old search page doesn't have them. Odd.

[Stratum42]

I'm wondering about something similar. The Steam Store used to show the compatible headsets for games. Now it doesn't. This is a big issue as many games, especially new ones are lacking Index compatibility but people aren't finding out until after buying the game.

[Turnip Dash]

i'm currently talking to Steam about it. If I learn anything I'll post it here for you

[Martas]

Thats very bad, now we do not even see what games are VR only / VR compatible / no VR ...seated or room scale... thats crazy.
I am buying games outside Steam (in bundles) and cant just test game and refund it...

[Turnip Dash]

You're not wrong there. If you were to buy a VR bundle from Humble Bundle, you sure wouldn't know what games are for what anymore. Steam said they are passing on my message to another department so we'll see what happens. Prolly nothing. They did suggestion hitting up the Suggestion Thread too.

[Turnip Dash]

Hey, found something.
Found this in the deep way back of Steam. It says:
Full Update Notes
SteamVR:

SteamVR Input bindings can now configure compatibility modes. Compatibility mode emulates a different controller’s properties, and can even return a different render model. This lets games that were targeted towards specific controller types be accessible to all controllers.
So apparently most VR games will crossplay with other VR sets now.

So it appears that games can be remapped through SteamVR to be cross compatible with other controllers now.
and this from Twitter:

SteamVR (@SteamVR)
You may have noticed that we moved VR details from the store page sidebar to the "system requirements" section alongside other hardware requirements. VR has come a long way since the Vive and Rift were first released and many games now work with a huge variety of headsets.
Likes
533

Twitter•12/07/2022 8:27 PM

[Stratum42]

That must be why it's now labeled as 'Tracked Controller Support', meaning it has this feature much like controller configs. As long as those games allow me to use my Index controllers natively I'm OK with that.

[Turnip Dash]

i hope that's how it's working now. It'd be a big boost for various VR libraries. I'm gonna buy some cheap Oculus game and see if I can make it work with my headset. Fingers crossed this is what Steam is doing.

[Martas]

Nice, so controlling should probably work, but play area is very needed too. I am ignoring those seating only, because room scale or standing is much better in VR.
And also VR compatible/ VR native should be there too... Now we do not even know if it is VR game :-(

[Stratum42]

Originally posted by Martas:

Nice, so controlling should probably work, but play area is very needed too. I am ignoring those seating only, because room scale or standing is much better in VR.
And also VR compatible/ VR native should be there too... Now we do not even know if it is VR game :-(

We can still tell if a game is VR or not. The Store page has games flagged with a red/orange box stating that a headset is required or optional. If it's not there then it doesn't have native VR support.

Originally posted by Candy Cane:

i hope that's how it's working now. It'd be a big boost for various VR libraries. I'm gonna buy some cheap Oculus game and see if I can make it work with my headset. Fingers crossed this is what Steam is doing.:MMDead:

Let us know how it goes. I have a couple of games that I was going to refund after finding out they didn't have Index support. Two from the same developer and both games came out in the past two months which is insane that something that new doesn't.

[Turnip Dash]

Originally posted by Candy Cane:

i hope that's how it's working now. It'd be a big boost for various VR libraries. I'm gonna buy some cheap Oculus game and see if I can make it work with my headset. Fingers crossed this is what Steam is doing.

{{ { FROM: Stratum42: Let us know how it goes. I have a couple of games that I was going to refund after finding out they didn't have Index support. Two from the same developer and both games came out in the past two months which is insane that something that new doesn't. } }}

I will. I just bought two games that I know for sure aren't supposed to work with my controller setup. It'll probably be sometime tomorrow but I'll post the results.

[Turnip Dash]

TL:DR>>Appears to work cross platform.

Well it appears to work. I bought Timelock 1 and Timelock 2 both were set up for the Vive and I was able to run and play both with my WMR headset and controllers. Now... that said, they did display the Vive controllers instead of my WMR controllers so it took a bit of figuring to see what buttons did what exactly but once figured it was fine.

There is a new menu that can be brought up in game where the controller can be remapped and shows it's current default mapping for the game. So any tweaks can be made there plus if the game has been mapped for your controller by another Steam member it can be downloaded instead. Or...in the case of these games no one has mapped it for WMR so I could map it and publish my controller setting for other players (I didn't, not ready for all that yet).

This all seems very promising but it would appear Steam is doing a terrible job telling anyone about it. Their SteamVR Twitter thread is filled with all the hate right now. LOL. Maybe they should explain themselves a smidge better. And as new games come out I suppose the Reqs will get more specific about each VR reqs.

[Stratum42]

One of the biggest issues is that play spaces are defined now. Many people have smaller play spaces or seated room only.

[Turnip Dash]

Originally posted by Stratum42:

One of the biggest issues is that play spaces are defined now. Many people have smaller play spaces or seated room only.

You're not wrong there for sure. I'm lucky enough to have a full room scale to play in. Steam is definitely gonna need to refine the descriptions plus the devs are responsible for entering the reqs and the biggest gripe for sure has been about old and abandoned games. Who's gonna update those? But at least for now, controllers might be solved, however, I'm am seeing complaints by some devs about OpenXR not playing nice for permanent controller remaps. Once out of the game it default resets every time.

[Turnip Dash]

Originally posted by Ice Mountain:

Valve decided in their infinite wisdom to remove everything but "tracked motion controllers" and automatically enter in "SteamVR" and/or "OpenXR" in the system requirements. Many developers are not happy with that change, and I am pretty sure many VR fans are not happy with this change either.

You can no longer search by headset nor by play area for VR.

Part of that may have been solved. The headset and controllers, by all outward appearances, is no longer a requirement. (ie: all games work on all headsets now, so the specific brand doesn't matter any more. Controllers may need remapping for your specific system. See above posts)

That said, you're not wrong on play areas not being listed and they will need to be.

I'm going to experiment a bit more with games that have SteamVR as the only req, just to avoid any issues with OpenXR, then branch out. Not sure yet about the Oculus PC req, so definitely avoiding that for now.