SteamVR will inject frames to guarantee 90fps

SteamVR has received basic support for “asynchronous reprojection” in a beta update. The function serves as a counterpart to the asynchronous time warp of the Oculus Rift and for now only works in combination with Nvidia video cards.

The addition will be announced in the changelog of the update. To use the feature, the computer must have an Nvidia video card with driver version 372.54 or later. AMD video cards are not yet supported. Users can turn the feature on or off with a button in the SteamVR settings.

Asynchronous reprojection should serve as a safety net for moments when a video card cannot achieve the 90 fps required for VR. Based on the two past frames, it is calculated what the next frame should look like. This is a lot less heavy for a video card than actually rendering a new frame.

Earlier this month, Oculus showed a more advanced version of the asynchronous timewarp technology already present from the beginning, under the name asynchronous spacewarp. That company is so convinced of how the technology works that it has lowered the minimum specifications for a VR-ready computer from a GeForce GTX 970 to a GTX 960. Sony uses reprojection to upscale the frame rate from 60fps to 120fps.