macOS Spatial Rendering Sounds Like Apple’s Take On PC VR

visionOS 26 will also bring support for “macOS spatial rendering”.

According to Apple, this will let you “use the power of your Mac to render and stream immersive content directly to Vision Pro”.

While the company hasn’t yet said how this will work, it sounds like it will be the Apple equivalent of wireless PC VR, leveraging the power of your Mac for rendering.

ALVR: SteamVR Streaming For Apple Vision Pro Now On App Store

ALVR, the SteamVR streaming app for Apple Vision Pro, has graduated from TestFlight to the visionOS App Store.

The open-source tool ALVR already lets you use Apple Vision Pro as a SteamVR headset, but SteamVR doesn’t support macOS, having dropped support for the platform in 2020.

As well as supporting Apple’s own desktop operating system, macOS spatial rendering sounds like it will be deeply integrated into the company’s technology ecosystem.

Apple Vision Pro’s M2 chip is more powerful than what’s available in any other standalone headset, but that chip is only the base of Apple’s offering, with the M2 Pro, M2 Max, and M2 Ultra offering progressively greater performance. And of course, the M2 series has since been superseded by M3 and M4, with Apple’s M3 Max offering 3x the multithreaded CPU performance, more than 5x the GPU performance, and up to 512GB of unified memory.

Thus, macOS spatial rendering could allow for rendering significantly higher fidelity virtual experiences with deeper simulation and interactivity, leveraging this extra power.

As well as its potential for enthusiast prosumer gaming, we expect enterprise companies will have particular interest in macOS spatial rendering, allowing them to for example render photorealistic 1:1 recreations of products and components they’re developing. Thus, macOS spatial rendering could be significant competition for companies like Varjo.

visionOS 26 To Bring PS VR2 Controllers, Photorealistic Personas, Spatial Scenes & More

Just announced, visionOS 26 will bring PS VR2 controllers & Logitech Muse stylus support, much more realistic Personas, spatial Widgets, volumetric Spatial Scenes, local SharePlay, and much more.

For more about visionOS 26, read our article covering the many changes set to arrive in Apple’s biggest Vision Pro software update yet.