Quest 3 Compatibility

The Samsung Gear VR was, at it's core, an Android device. Starting with Android 4.4.4 on the original Note 4, and ending with Android 11 on the Galaxy S10. The Oculus Go was an Android device, this time running Android 7.0. Now, the Meta Quest, underneath it's fancy clothes, is also an Android device. At the time of writing, it's running Android 12 under the hood.

This means every single application ever written for any of Meta's standalone virtual reality devices are Android apps. This is why, despite there being no official backwards compatibility with the Meta Quest devices, we are still able to run a wide selection of the Gear VR and Oculus Go library.

Now that last statement is not 100% correct. The Oculus Quest 1 did in fact have a backwards compatibility layer for a small selection of Oculus Go apps (see "The 66 That Survived" to learn more). The Quest 2 did briefly include this functionality, but it was not implemented 100% (the back button on the original Gear VR motion controller wasn't mapped to anything on the Quest Touch controllers) and was later removed. The Quest 3 never had it.

Gear VR to Quest

The community quickly discovered that Gear VR/Oculus Go apps could be sideloaded onto the Quest with various levels of success. As part of #theGearVRcodex project we decided to find out once and for all exactly how many worked, and documented why the ones that didn't had failed.

In "Fun With Numbers" we covered the creation of the Master List - discovering just how many applications were released for the Gear VR and Oculus Go platform in the first place. Next, in "Fun With Numbers - Part Two" we testing all of the APK files we were able to obtain, discovered if they had their Entitlement Check (Oculus/Meta's form of copy protection on their platform), and finally which titles worked on the Oculus Quest 1. Despite it being a depreciated platform we choose to do the initial testing on the Quest 1 since, as mentioned above, it still had an Oculus Go compatibility layer and was also running an older version of Android. These two factors would result in the highest number of compatible titles.

With all this information in hand, we started to build The Vault. This would become home to over 400 titles and we are proud to be able to say we now hold the most complete library of early VR applications anywhere on the Internet. Of these titles, 316 of them ended up still working on the Meta Quest platform.

Quest 3 time

This was all well and good, but how many of those 316 apps would work on a Quest 2 or 3? As both run the same firmware, testing was done of the Quest 3. In theory if it works on the Quest 3, it should work fine of either a Quest 2 or a Quest Pro. We decided to stick to the most current version, and final answer was 206.

Let's quickly break down those numbers. We started with 429 apps that would run on a Gear VR without being signed in (no Entitlement Check). Of these 316 worked on the Quest 3, and 206 worked on the Quest 3.

That works out to 26% of apps that only work on their original platform, 26% that work on Quest 1, and 48% that work on all 3. To be honest, that's a better number than I think any of us could have asked for.

Bugs, Bugs and More Bugs

While testing the original 316 for Quest 3 compatibility the same issues kept occurring with both working and non-working titles. Unfortunately nobody on our team was involved with Gear/Go app development so we can only make guesses towards why these things occur.

3DOF or 6DOF
This was something we discovered during the previous Quest 1 testing, and was already widely known by the community. Some Gear/Go apps would run like they did on the original hardware, while some worked in 6DOF just like native Quest titles. What was even more interesting was a handful of titles that also gave 6DOF controls as well.

High Resolution or Low Resolution
This wasn't one we saw coming. Some titles run at a noticeable low resolution. Curiously they appeared to be running at a lower resolution than they did on the original hardware. Others appear to be running at a higher resolution and look amazing through the Quest 3's pancake lenses.

Broken Controller Support
This one we did see coming. As previously mentioned, when the Quest 2 firmware did have Oculus Go support, it wasn't implemented 100% with the back button not mapped to anything on the Touch controllers. This meant that some titles (such as the classic Darknet) would run just fine, but were not playable since the back button was a core function required. Some apps would "see" the Touch controller as a Gear VR controller (some would even see both resulting in seeing two Gear VR controllers in app, which was always a bit weird) but wouldn't respond to any button clicks. Others couldn't see the Touch controllers at all.

Another interest quirk was which controller was required. The majority use the right, and for a right handed user, feels just like using the original hardware, while others would only work with the left controller. This added another oddity as some apps that used the left controller, still had it mapped to the right hand in-app.

Magic Eye Picture
A very common issue for apps that didn't work was double vision. Both eyes would see the same image, but not in the same position and usually with a flicker just to add to a possible headache. In a handful of apps that did work, something weird was happened with the render engine as the image would distort with head movement. This didn't make the apps unusable, just a little uncomfortable.

Audio Issue
This one didn't have any impact on either the app running, or the comfort of using it, we just found it another curious quirk. If another background app was making noise (the click of an active download was where we noticed it) the audio from the Gear/Go app would cut in and out as the background sound played. At first we thought it was a bug with some apps, but then it kept happening and it clicked that it was the Download sound that was causing the issue. If no downloads were active, the app audio worked just fine.

An Amazing Library
There is only one way to say it and that's getting straight to the point: despite it's age and it's "infancy" the Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Go had an amazing app library. Granted, there was a lot of "crap" in there too, but titles like Augmented Empire, Affected: The Manor, Blazerush, the Dead Secret series, Spark of Light, The Well and Witchblood are, even today, fantastic games by extremely talented developers.

The Gear VR was very much an experimental platform, and as discussed in Part 1, the vast majority of developers from back then are no longer around. But the pioneers who are still around - are now some of the best in the industry.

What's next for #gearVRcodex?

We wanted to create a resource for Gearheads around the world. We did that.
We wanted to create a library of Gear VR and Oculus Go titles so their important place in VR history would never be lost. So we did.
We wanted to know which apps could be enjoyed on the newer Meta Quest platform. So we did that too.

But now that we've catalogued, tested, tested, tested again, tested one last time, and built this website, what's next?
That's an excellent question. When we figure out the answer, we'll let you know.