Oasis WMR Driver Set to Revitalize Microsoft’s PC VR Headsets This Month

Oh boy, let’s dive into this whirlwind of a story. So, Microsoft decided to kind of, well, pull the plug on their whole Windows Mixed Reality thing on Windows 11. Sad trombone, right? I mean, their headset adventure just sorta fizzled out. But hang on—there’s this new kid on the block called ‘Oasis.’ It’s not just some mirage; it’s an unofficial SteamVR driver swooping in to save the day. Or, at least, that’s the plan when it shows up later this month. Fingers crossed, though, because Valve still has to give it the thumbs up.

You know, Oasis is a brainchild of Matthieu Bucchianeri. God bless him and his ambitious tech tinkering. He’s penciled in August 29th as the day of revelation. Yep, mark those calendars—but, like, in pencil. Valve’s seal of approval is still a wild card. Oasis is all set to let those Windows Mixed Reality headsets crash the SteamVR party without needing Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Portal. Sounds like a tech soap opera, right? And just to geek out for a second, Bucchianeri’s promising full-on 6DoF tracking plus some snazzy motion control action.

Now, let’s pump the brakes for a sec. If you’ve got anything but an Nvidia GPU, you might be out of luck. Something to do with SteamVR and GPU drivers only playing nice with Nvidia. AMD isn’t joining this dance because, apparently, they’ve ghosted Bucchianeri’s calls. He’s tried getting their nod, but all he got was radio silence or, as he put it, the whole thing is “dead in the water.” Can you feel the frustration? Classic unreturned text vibes here.

Let’s rewind to last October, when Microsoft essentially hit the self-destruct button on the WMR platform, right after the whole Windows 11 24H2 shindig. Boom—sayonara to a lineup of headsets from big shots like Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Samsung. Just gone, like that. Anyway, Bucchianeri’s got some street cred, having dabbled in Microsoft’s mixed reality world as a software engineer. These days, he’s wrangling firmware at Xbox Gaming Devices Ecosystem—but Oasis, man, that’s his passion project after hours.

Oh, and to keep the legal eagles at bay, Bucchianeri’s crystal clear that he’s not stepping on any toes. No way, José. He’s not spilling any secret sauce from past gigs at Microsoft or borrowing their brainy stuff. Just a guy with a dream of bringing headsets back to life, like some VR whisperer or something. Now, let’s see where this ride goes…