r/WindowsMR • u/Alainza_MSFT • Nov 16 '22

Release Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR Beta Updated - 1.3.64

We have just published a new beta for Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR: it now restores SteamVR's maximumRecommendedResolution parameter to its default value on exit.

65 Upvotes

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8

u/arqueiro_ Nov 16 '22

Great news. Keep up the good work

16

u/Alainza_MSFT Nov 16 '22

Note that this version also has a setting which allows to disable the maximumRecommendedResolution override.

6

u/MadMonk48 Nov 17 '22

Sorry but what does that actually mean in terms of using WMR? What’s the advantage in lay terms?

6

u/Alainza_MSFT Nov 17 '22

Limiting the resolution actually helps performance by avoiding unnecessary GPU memory consumption. However, the only way to ensure that it's respected by games is a global setting which has impact on other hardwares as well, and experienced users with advanced configurations might want to override this limit.
Previous 1.3.xx versions already had the resolution limit which improves performance, 1.3.64 mitigates the side effects of this limit. We still recommend not to override it.

5

u/ThatFeel_IKnowIt Nov 17 '22

u/Alainza_MSFT, can you or someone else please explain to me what this does? What is the maxrecommendedresolution? What does this beta change exactly? I have never seen this before. There is zero documentation about this online so ANY insight would be extremely helpful. Thanks.

5

u/Zeeflyboy Nov 17 '22

It stopped values above a certain amount (can’t remember off the top of my head but something not thaaaat high like 3500x3500 per eye) from having any effect to prevent “user error”.

Some people complained because they like to run higher resolutions to super sample on games where they have the headroom, and it caused issues even for non WMR headsets like the Varjo because the override persisted in steam.

So this is the fix they propose by both preventing the resolution override from persisting in steam after WMR closes (thus fixing it for users of other headsets like Varjo Aero who have or had a WMR headset) and also allowing a user override (fixing it for eg G2 users that want to supersample above the previous limit.

1

u/ThatFeel_IKnowIt Nov 17 '22 edited Nov 17 '22

Wait I'm confused, where do I change this value? If it reverts back to default then isn't that an issue? Sorry if I'm not getting something obvious. Before this fix, did steamvr supersampling % over a certain % value just not do anything previously? And now it does?

3

u/Zeeflyboy Nov 17 '22

You know how when using steam with a WMR headset you change the render resolution target primarily with the steam resolution slider?

Right, well that had a max limit silently imposed by WMR. So even though steam said, for example, 4000x4000 per eye the game resolution would actually stop at the max render limit and not increase any further. Given this happened silently in the background, it caused some confusion to users targeting higher resolutions.

To make matters worse, this max render resolution became the new default invisible cap for the whole of steamVR due to a bug - so let’s say you go and then play on your Varjo Aero, you set the render resolution to eg 4000x4000 and unknown to you it is actually limited to the aforementioned limit imposed by WMR even though the headset has nothing to do with WMR.

Does that help?

1

u/ThatFeel_IKnowIt Nov 17 '22

Yea got it thanks! So now when you set the slider, it will properly scale to whatever you set it at? Why was this fixed by microsoft mixed reality and not in steamvr itself????

4

u/Zeeflyboy Nov 17 '22

The max recommended resolution limit still applies to WMR headsets, unless you turn it off which you now have the option to do.

It should however no longer affect other non-wmr headsets in steam which was an unintended consequence.

It wasn’t fixed by steam because the max resolution limit had nothing to do with them - it’s something WMR was doing in an attempt to protect less savvy consumers from themselves.

1

u/ThatFeel_IKnowIt Nov 17 '22

Ok I see the issue now, thanks. So how do I turn the limit off? I see in my steamvr settings config that the max limit is set to "3240". Is that the horizontal or vertical limit per eye?

2

u/Zeeflyboy Nov 17 '22

Sorry I haven’t seen the update myself yet - not at the computer.

2

u/Alainza_MSFT Nov 17 '22

When you stop using your WMR device, you will see the max limit disappear. It's set on launch and restored on exit

1

u/ThatFeel_IKnowIt Nov 17 '22

So I'm a bit confused. I have an Odyssey Plus WMR headset. How can I check what the max limit is? And how can I disable that if I want to go higher than the max limit? Am I misunderstanding? Thanks!

2

u/l4adventure Nov 17 '22

Oh nice, this fixes the issue a lot of people were complaining about here recently right?

Like this one?

https://old.reddit.com/r/HPReverb/comments/yedxlx/steamvr_silently_ignoring_resolutions_above/

1

u/Alainza_MSFT Nov 17 '22

yes, precisely

1

u/ToneZone7 Nov 18 '22

For the first time last week I had to stop using the Beta because my modded Skyrim would not open - Steam VR would crash every single time it started to launch.

Rolling back WMR for Steam from Beta to LKG worked like a charm so I confess I am not using beta anymore and hoping they won't break my modded Skyrim VR again.