Mark Zuckerberg announced the Meta Quest 3 VR headset early this month, which should offer enhanced capabilities for those looking to upgrade their Quest 2. But that higher-performance Quest 3 won’t be here until September, so in the meantime, Meta promised that a future update will improve the performance of the Quest 2 (and Quest Pro) and support the hardware for much longer.
meta is roll out now those changes in the v55 update. The Quest 2 gets a 19 percent GPU speed boost, while Quest Pro owners get an 11 percent jump. Both VR headsets also get up to 26 percent performance improvements in CPU power, according to Meta.
The performance upgrades should give users generally smoother gaming performance and a more responsive system UI, says Meta, and the company is also adding Dynamic Resolution Scaling that allows applications to take advantage of more pixel density with consistent frame rates.
Developers can also update their games and apps to take advantage of the performance improvements. Meta’s blog post includes an example video by The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners enjoy higher resolution thanks to headset performance updates.
The v55 update also has some new software experiences. The Explore tab now includes Meta’s media content, including short videos and content from your Facebook and Instagram accounts, and as previously tested, Reels. meta Horizon worlds also has new places to explore along with new digital Avatar outfits. The new Explore portion of the update is now rolling out “gradually” to users.
In version 54 of the Meta Quest software, the company introduced notifications from non-VR apps, including Messenger. Now in v55, Meta is adding a standalone Messenger app in VR so you can communicate with friends without taking off your headset and pulling out your smartphone.
Finally, Meta Quest Browser gains support for multi-touch gestures that allow you to zoom in and out and interact with elements not only with the Touch controllers, but with hand gestures alone. It’s like getting a taste of the hand controls available in another upcoming headset.
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