Gaming communities have been engaged in discussions about Half-Life: Alyx being partly playable without a VR headset for the past month or two. The team behind the NoVR modification project has, as of late week, announced that the game's story experience - from start to finish - is totally VR free. This news should satisfy many excited fans who have been anticipating Half-Life: Alyx's campaign being displayed on the small/medium screen. Previous entries in the long running Half Life series have always been two-dimensional traditional monitor affairs.

The GB_2 Development Team cheerfully introduces its latest iteration of NoVR: "This is our biggest update yet and we have no plans on slowing down! With thousands playing Half-Life: Alyx NoVR we are happy to announce our largest update yet! As the titles state the entire game can now be played from start to finish, with the Gravity Gloves fully implemented along with combine fabricators providing weapon upgrades. Also since we are now updating the final parts of the game there may be spoilers! We will do our best to not spoil anything while ensuring we communicate these late game areas have been updated along with their gameplay mechanics."

AMD today released the latest version of its Adrenalin graphics software. Version 23.2.2 WHQL works with all GPU generations dating back to the RX 400 series. This release adds optimization for "Atomic Heart," the much awaited survival horror FPS, as well as "Company of Heroes 3." Some display corruption observed with window-switching for the Netflix app, has been fixed. Maximum video encode bitrate being limited to 100 Mbps for some applications, has been fixed. AMD Bug Report Tool pop-up or system hang on some hybrid graphics notebooks, has been fixed. An application crash noticed with "Hitman 3" with RT enabled, has been fixed. Valve Index VR headset showing a blank screen with 144 Hz on GPUs such as the RX 7900 series, has been fixed. A performance drop observed on RX 6000 series + Ryzen machines, has been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.2.2 WHQL

In a recent driver update for the Oculus Quest references to the upcoming "Oculus Jedi" controllers were discovered by Gerald McAlister. The "Oculus Jedi" controllers are expected to complement the next-generation "Del Mar" standalone VR headset. In an analysis of the drivers UploadVR discovered several key changes in the new design.

When the new "Oculus Jedi" drivers are compared to the existing Oculus Touch controller firmware it is revealed that new controllers will retain the original inputs and layout of the Touch controllers with a thumbstick, index trigger, grip trigger, A/X button, B/Y button, and a system/menu button. The Jedi controller may receive a tracking update with faster controller polling and a new ICM-426-series TDK chip. The updated IMU should greatly reduce noise and improve resolution of tracking to allow more precise positioning of the controller. Other improvements may include updated an updated haptics driver and analog finger sensing like what is found on the Valve Index.

Rebuff Reality a virtual reality accessory company have reached their funding goal of $30,000 USD for their latest product the VR Ears in its first day and is currently sitting at $51,000. The VR Ears are an audio addon for several popular VR headsets including the Rift CV1, Rift S, Quest, original Vive (only with DAS), Vive Pro, Vive Cosmos, PSVR, Valve Index, and some Pimax headsets. The off-ear headphones clip onto the VR headset headband and attach via a 3.5 mm audio connector. The VR Ears are powered by an internal battery with a reported endurance of 8 hours and can be recharged via the onboard USB-C port.

The VR Ears are available via Kickstarter for an early bird price of $89 USD and are estimated to ship in December 2020. Stretch goals exist for $100,000 - $1,000,000 and include free headstraps, carry cases, cables and mics for all backers if reached. The campaign has 29 days to go and will end on May 22nd. As with any Kickstarter make sure your aware of the risks and proceed accordingly.

Valve's Index VR headset is expected to go back on sale on Monday, March 9th, when Valve will again re-fill its stock of Index VR headsets, according to Engadget. Just in time for the Half-Life: Alyx launch, Valve has decided to supply all of the gamers with a stock of the headsets so everyone can experience the new Half-Life game with Valve's Index VR. Considering that Half-Life: Alyx is dropping on March 23rd, Valve thought of everyone in need of a new VR headset and decided to offer it on Monday. Valve is expecting the headset to sell out completely, so its best to be early if you want to get one too, for $999. The sale will begin at 1PM eastern time.

AMD late Tuesday posted its latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition. Version 19.7.2 adds optimization for "GEARS 5" beta. It fixes a number of issues, beginning with Facebook being unavailable with Radeon ReLive. "Star Wars Battlefront II" textures appearing pixellated or blurry with the DirectX 11 API has also been fixed. Radeon Overlay flickering in DirectX 9 apps with Radeon Image Sharpening enabled, is fixed. Valve Index HMD experiencing flickering when launching SteamVR on machines with Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards, is fixed.

Radeon WattMan auto-tuning global settings not applying per-game has also been fixed. WattMan showing max values instead of increased values in auto-tuning results screen has also been fixed. The WattMan memory clock gauge now correctly auto-updates. Texture corruption on enemy models in "Doom" (2016) has been fixed. A bug that caused Radeon display drivers to fail to uninstall in hybrid graphics configurations has been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.7.2

We knew this was coming, given Valve's own teaser confirmation from March, and then a faux pas that resulted in an incomplete Steam store page ending up public for a short time. Valve had promised more details would come in May, and here we are with a lot of information available about the Valve Index headset, the controllers, the base stations, as well as retail pricing + availability.

Name aside, the Valve Index specs that leaked before end up holding true with the retail product. The headset uses dual 1440x1600 RGB LCDs which Valve claims helps provide 50% more subpixels relative to an OLED display. This in turn should result in higher effective sharpness for the same rendering horsepower, and is further accentuated via a 3x better fill factor to mitigate the dreaded screen-door effect. The headset runs at 120 Hz with full backwards compatibility to 90 Hz to work with VR titles built around that specification and, more interestingly, also supports an experimental 144 Hz mode. PC gamers have long known the benefits of higher framerates, and this is especially valid with VR, but time will tell how the rest of the ecosystem works around this. Equally important to VR gaming is the illumination period, which allows on-screen imagery to remain sharp while you are in motion just as well as when at rest. Valve claims up to a 5x reduction here, with a rated illumination period of 0.33 to 0.53 ms depending on the real time framerate. More to see past the break, so be sure to do so if this interests you!

When we first covered Valve's own teaser about their first-party VR hardware ecosystem under the Valve Index moniker, we were not expecting to hear much more until May. Thanks to an error on their part, product pages for the headset, base stands, and controllers were all published prematurely on Steam for a few hours yesterday, and that was enough time for all the information to be saved online by others. The product pages were not complete, and lacked details that we expect to get sooner than later, but Valve has since confirmed that all information inadvertently leaked are accurate and we now more about the retail package now.

To begin with, May 1 is targeted as the official announcement date which will also bring with it pre-order options for those going this route in PC VR. The complete package will contain the headset itself with integrated headphones, of which we have a better render available now as seen below, a tether cable using DisplayPort 1.2 and USB 3.1 Gen 1 connections (and not the VirtualLink standard we were hoping to see), a region-specific power adapter and plug(s), and two face gaskets (narrow and wide). Interestingly the now-renamed Index Controllers are not included and are an optional, separate purchase. This is also the case with the Index base stations, which all leads us to assume that existing HTC Vive controllers and base stations will be compatible with the headset, or there will be another, more complete package to choose from. No pricing information available yet, and Valve says they are still finalizing this as well as actual shipping detail- with an aim to hit it in June.