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

Okay, so let me try to piece this together. Microsoft hit the brakes on their WMR thingy—wait, it stands for Windows Mixed Reality, right? Anyway, it kinda fizzled out with Windows 11. I mean, they just stopped showing it any love.

Now, there’s this new player stepping into the ring, sort of. A guy named Matthieu Bucchianeri, for reasons only known to him, is whipping up something called ‘Oasis.’ No, not the band—can you hear that guitar riff though? Anyway, Oasis is this unofficial driver that’s supposed to make everything hunky-dory between WMR headsets and SteamVR. Buckle up, folks, ‘cause he’s eyeing August 29th for the release—unless, of course, Valve decides to play hard to get.

Here’s the rub: Oasis is set to fill the shoes of that Mixed Reality Portal thing from Microsoft. It’s all about offering the full shebang, like 6DoF tracking—six degrees of freedom, if you care about acronyms—and those motion controller doodads. Imagine waving your hands like you just don’t care, but in VR. Sounds neat.

Oh, and for those rocking anything but an Nvidia GPU, it’s a bit of a bummer. The tech only buddies up with Nvidia, ‘cause SteamVR has its quirks with drivers. Matthieu’s tried to knock on AMD’s door for permission, yet the whole thing feels like trying to hug a cactus.

Matthieu grumbled a bit on Reddit—who can blame him? Sounds all technical and confusing, something about AMD playing hard to catch when their LiquidVR makes a move on the device. Gotta love tech jargon, huh?

Take a trip back to October, and Microsoft basically shuttered the WMR show with Windows 11 24H2. Poof, no more support for a bunch of headsets from big names like Acer, Asus, and a gaggle of others. They packed it up, just like that.

Side note: Bucchianeri used to be part of Microsoft’s mixed reality gig before hopping over to the Xbox crew. Xbox gang, unite! Nonetheless, Oasis is his passion project, almost like his VR manifesto. Swears up and down that it doesn’t step on Microsoft’s toes or borrow anything sneaky.

Now, was that chaotic enough, or did I just leave you scratching your head?