AR brought to Steam Deck thanks to clever XReal plugin

A developer on Reddit has been working on a plugin that allows AR and XR glasses to work with the Steam Deck handheld.

The Steam Deck has been an amazing success for Valve, prompting an explosion in other handheld PC gaming devices. One thing that the Steam Deck couldn’t do, however, was support VR or AR devices. That has now changed, however, thanks to the work of a developer on Reddit who has created a plugin that brings XR/AR features to the Steam Deck.

Reddit user WaterCanHydrate has been working on the plugin for some time and has recently announced the latest version of the plugin on the r/XREAL subreddit. The plugin uses the sensors in XR glasses to provide XR gaming features to the Steam Deck, without the need for any additional hardware. All that is required is a Steam Deck, a pair of supported XR glasses, and the latest version of the plugin.

Stereoscopic AR gaming for the Steam Deck

As suggested by the choice of subreddit, the project was originally supporting XReal branded XR glasses, such as the XReal Air 2 AR glasses. The plugin allows users to play games in stereoscopic 3D by connecting a set of AR or XR glasses to the Steam Deck. The most substantial effect occurs with games that use the 3D Vulkan API.

The latest version of the plugin has been officially named the XR Gaming plugin, as it now supports AR/XR glasses outside of the XReal series of products. The developer now recommends the Viture One AR glasses, praising the support received from the Viture team, and the creation of an official Linux SDK. This is a significant step since the Steam Deck OS is based on Linux.

WaterCanHydrate posted a video guide that highlights all the features of the plugin and asked users to post any questions or suggestions they might have. A full list of compatible XR glasses is also available on the Reddit post, and more devices are planned to be added, such as those from Rokid. Other plans for future improvements include introducing 3DoF (3 Degrees of Freedom) movement controls to games that do not support the 3D Vulkan API, and introducing more productivity options.