Oasis drivers for Windows Mixed Reality headsets breath new life into a once dead product, unless you are on AMD graphics

As one who plays a good deal of VR, I've always had a soft spot for Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Coming out using inside out tracking, thus not relying on external sources such as Valve's Lighthouses, these VR headsets had some great features and some companies did some really great things with them.

Samsung used OLED panels, which produced great colors and deep blacks. HP pushed for better resolution that benefited those who played sim games. The older WMR headsets only needed a USB cable and a display cable so you could use them on the go on laptops like a Surface Book from Microsoft.

When Microsoft decided to kill support for Windows Mixed Reality in Windows 11, a lot of great headsets were relegated to being e-Waste. It wasn’t until a developer by the name of Matthieu Bucchianeri decided to create a SteamVR native driver for WMR, which you can grab for free on Steam, that we are now able to use these headsets again.

I have two Windows Mixed Reality headsets on hand, a Samsung Odyssey+ and a HP Reverb G2. On two different machines, I loaded up the Oasis drivers, went through a quick unlocking process, and off I went into VR world using the once dead peripherals.

The HP Reverb G2 is still a solid headset for sim gamers and I was really happy to be able to use it again. No longer do I have VR headsets that don’t do anything, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Bucchianeri. As a developer myself, it’s great to see someone use their time to provide for a community without asking for anything back. While there aren’t a large number of Windows Mixed Reality users out there, it’s still great to be able to use them and you can find some that are inexpensive these days if you want to just try out VR without breaking the bank.

There are two caveats though if you want to use the Oasis driver. First off, if you don’t have Bluetooth built into your computer, you’ll need a dongle. That’s because the drivers aren’t able to use the built in Bluetooth of the headsets for the controllers to work. That’s an easy fix as the dongles are pretty cheap.

The bigger one though is that this only works with NVIDIA cards. Those with AMD cards are left out. The reason is the driver support that’s necessary for the drivers to work is missing from AMD. Technically, AMD doesn’t allow for EDID overrides and Direct-to-Display LiquidVR hasn’t been worked on in a very long time. VR headsets do work with AMD graphics cards, but the specific items needed for the Oasis driver to work with Windows Mixed Reality headsets aren’t functional. Microsoft originally baked in WMR support into the operating system, but has since removed them so the only way for WMR headsets to function now on current versions of Windows is by the Oasis driver. It sounds like the developer has reached out to AMD along with a few other users, but there's been no traction in getting this to work.

Hopefully, AMD will see this and maybe provide some support to enable users with WMR headsets and AMD cards to be able to run them again without having to install an older Windows version. One great thing about PC gaming is the ability to use a lot of different types of hardware available and it would be a shame if owners of WMR headsets and AMD graphics cards weren’t able to experience this.

I've followed up with AMD and if I hear anything, I'll be sure to update this post.