CrossVR’s Revive, the software that allows HTC Vive users to play games from the Oculus platform, today announced it’s joining one of the leading initiatives in creating an open standard for VR and AR apps and devices, otherwise known as OpenXR.

Lead by the Khronos Group, OpenXR aims to eliminate industry fragmentation by creating a standard, royalty-free API that enables applications to target a wide variety of AR and VR headsets. Those already involved in the initiative include the likes of Oculus, HTC, Samsung, Valve, Epic Games, Unity, AMD and NVIDIA to name a few. Khronos has already helped create several open standards including WebGL, Vulcan, and OpenGL.

image courtesy Khronos Group

Jules Blok, the creator and driving force behind Revive, announced on his Patreon early this morning that CrossVR would be officially joining as an Associate Member, something he says will “represent your interests to help ensure that the next generation of VR headsets will have a truly open standard.”

SEE ALSO
Immersed Visor's First Big Showing Heightened Concerns About Deliverability

Blok initially stated that, upon reaching the $2,000 per month donation mark, he would invest the $3,500 it took to join as an Associate Member, a non-voting position in the group that allows for full participation in OpenXR’s development.

Having recently reached his goal, in large part due to the help of a $2,000 monthly recurring donation by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, Blok contacted the the Khronos Group to confirm he had the $3,500 membership fee and was ready to join. To his surprise, Khronos waved the fee, giving him free entrance into the working group.

Blok says the money originally earmarked for the membership fee will be spent on the Revive project instead. Learn more about Revive (and how to install it) on CrossVR’s GitHub.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • J.C.

    Wait, why is Oculus part of this group?

    • psuedonymous

      They, along with Valve, are founding members. Both OVR and OpenVR are closed single-vendor standards (i.e. both are controlled entirely by a single company). Both companies know this situation is temporary, as we saw in the past with the development of graphics accelerator APIs and sound card APIs for example. Both want to be ‘in at the ground floor’ for creating a multi-vendor standard, and both know that standard is worthless if it comes too early and does not incorporate the rapid development that will occur with new devices. We will see a few years of OVR and OpenVR independently adding new features along with new hardware, then once a ‘minimum viable featureset’ has mostly settles across the industry OpenXR can be ratified and take over from both.

    • Justos

      Your fanboy is showing.

      • J.C.

        Heh, can’t make a joke without someone getting all defensive. Pseudonymous actually had a real response, which was…surprising.

  • NooYawker

    It’s great the waived the fee for Blok, he’s proven to be a real asset for the VR community.

  • Lucidfeuer

    OpenXR would also greatly benefit from the Vorpx and Riftcat/Vridge devs…