John Carmack’s new software gives Gear VR’s Oculus Home a big resolution boost

On the list of things I thought I would be seeing when I showed up to a meeting with Oculus last week to demo the new Gear VR, doubled resolution was not one of them. Increasing the resolution of virtual reality headsets is at the very top of many people’s “Problems to Solve” list including my own. I assumed it would take a significant jump in hardware to get to that next level of image fidelity, but apparently Oculus CTO John Carmack had other ideas.

Halfway through my demo, Oculus head of mobile product, Max Cohen, told me that a new piece of software designed by Carmack will be included in the brand new Oculus Home redesign releasing for Gear VR. This new approach will reportedly provide “twice the pixel resolution” in Oculus Home for Gear VR.