SteamVR, brings the behemoth PC gaming distributor up to speed

While the likes of Oculus made a song and dance about their marches into the realm of virtual reality, the R&D bods over at Valve HQ have been quietly working on the Half-Life maker’s own entry into this innovative gaming space for years. Despite only being announced at GDC in March, the device they came up with, built in conjunction with smartphone purveyor HTC, manages to pioneer the tech in ways other headsets haven’t quite managed yet.

For starters, the refresh rate of the images beamed into your eyes across the 1200×1080 pixel displays rolls at an impressive 90Hz. Left your jargon hat on the peg? Then all you need to know is that this remedies much of the motion sickness experienced by some while using other headsets boasting lower refresh rates. Another area of innovation is Valve actively exploring ways to get gamers standing up and moving around while bedecked in its VR getup. For instance, approach a wall in the real world and a grid will appear inside your virtual one to let you know how close you are to to it. It’s a contemporary and cool breakthrough. A set of dual controllers comes included with the Vive, and are used to represent your hands in the virtual world. Much like PS Move controllers, each comes with a sensors to detect your movement. We’d be keen to see the final wireless versions, though – currently you need an additional belt around your waist to keep the rampant cables in order.