Microsoft pulled out the plug last year with support for the entire WMR platform on Windows 11, officially ending the company’s foray into PC VR headsets. Now, the unofficial SteamVR drivers want to get it back.
Microsoft denounced the Mixed Reality Portal App, SteamVR’s Windows Mixed Reality and Steam VR beta when the Windows 11 24H2 update was rolled out last October, creating a fleet of PC VR headsets from Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP and Samsung.
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Certainly, if you haven’t updated to Windows 11 24H2 or are still in Windows 10, Microsoft says that you can play SteamVR content until November 2026 before the plug is pulled forever. Still, it’s a bitter medication to swallow for users of the HP Reverb G2, WMR’s most modern headset released five years ago.
Currently, Reddit user Mbucchia claims that an unofficial SteamVR driver is in the works. all The WMR headset will return to fold this fall. See the action below for the first HP Reverb (2019).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhnziognm4o
Mbucchia, known as the “Oasis” driver, says that SteamVR drivers “don’t need a Mixed Reality Portal.”
“This means it works on Windows 11 24H2 and above. It supports full 6DOF tracking along with the motion controller,” says Mbucchia.
“As mentioned in another post, there are no all the WMR headsets to test. You can also see that it works on the original Acer AH100. In theory, it should work with any brand/model,” says Mbucchia.
Mbucchia said the driver’s work remains behind closed doors. It says that Oasis will be limited to Nvidia GPUs due to the SteamVR interface with GPU drivers.
But what’s more interesting is that no one is taking on Oasis. Mbucchia claims they are now Microsoft employees and previously worked for the company’s Mixed Reality Division.
“I am bound by NDAS and other duties. I want to make it clear that while working on this project, I am not paying attention to not breaching these contracts. In particular, I am using SteamVR for a lot of heavy lifting and not borrowing Microsoft’s knowledge property,” says Mbucchia.
For these reasons, Oasis will not feature beta or similar early access before its release in fall 2025. It will also not be open source.
“Most of the code is the result of deep reverse engineers. If shared, it could be interpreted as exposing the internals of programs such as SteamVR and Nvidia GPU drivers,” explains Mbucchia. “(e) Here, it’s not that I’m not violating my own/intellectual property. I respect both Valve and Nvidia so I won’t reveal any codes that are not publicly available.”
Mbucchia says he will reveal more about the Windows Mixed Reality Subreddit project leading up to its fall 2025 release.