Hey all,
We’ve been getting a few questions about stand-alone VR headsets lately, and I thought I’d take a moment to clarify which are supported by Notch and why.
Notch exports Windows executables for VR (Steam VR, to be precise), which means that the Oculus Rift (and Rift S) as well as the HTC Vive series are the ones supported by Notch. They are connected to a PC running Windows with a cable, and therefore have access to the full powers of the GPU in these computers.
Oculus also have their series of stand-alone, un-tethered VR headsets, such as the Oculs Go, Oculus Quest, and other vendors have their own variants as well, such as the Google Daydream and more. Notch does not support these devices for a few reasons: they are based on Android, not Windows, and they all use a mobile GPU without much power. Yes, they are enough to play Beat Saber etc, but not enough for designing the types of interactive, real-time experiences that artists use Notch to create.
With that said — Notch is a great platform for creating and rendering 360 video, also known as VR video (or “immersive video”, depending on who you ask), and these types of exports run great on any kind of VR headset.
On the technological fringes, there are some users experimenting with using the VR headset sensors to render on a proper PC or media server and stream that content back to the headset in the form of video. While inventive and actually a nice idea, it’s not something we would recommend novice users venture into.
Some useful science bits…