Valve at GDC 2015

This post is outdated, go to our recap post instead!

Valve is attending GDC 2015 in full force! Valve has announced that they are bringing the final version of the Steam Controller, some Steam Machines, new living room devices and the HTC Vive SteamVR HMD to GDC. Developers can request an appointment to try out the HTC Vive dev kit on the GDC floor. Valve will be presenting the glNext session in which they might or might not talk about Source 2. Valve is also presenting a talk about game physics on Tuesday.

We have top men (just one person, really) at GDC to bring you the latest on whatever Valve will be showing off. Hopefully he'll also be able to get some hands-on experience with the HTC Vive devkit. Throughout the event we'll be updating our Twitter feed and this blog post with the latest news. Be sure to follow us for the latest.

HTC Vive

HTC (in a partnership with Valve) just announced the HTC Vive VR headset at their Mobile World Congress press event.

Here's what we currently know about it:

Built on the SteamVR platform
90Hz low persistence global display
1080x1200 resolution per eye, framebuffer of 2160x1200
"Custom" ergonomic dual-wield controllers with position tracking made specifically for VR
110° field of view
360° rotational tracking to a 1/10th degree accuracy (the lasers HTC mentioned are not on the headset)
(Optional) base stations for accurate positional tracking in a (up to) 15 by 15 feet (4.5 meter) room.

Steam Controller

We're expecting Valve to show final controller design at GDC. We believe this might be the final design:

Valve's announcements at GDC

We have a separate post detailing all the announcements (Source 2, SteamVR, Steam Link) Valve just made at GDC here.

Valve's GDC Schedule

Unless Valve starts doing press releases/interviews, there probably won't be anything on Monday (today).
There might be some news on Tuesday, but Wednesday is when the actual expo starts and when people get hands-on experience with the stuff Valve is bringing.

This page updates automatically so just check in once in a while to see if there's any news.

All times are in PST.

Monday

Nothing Valve related.

Tuesday

We don't have a person on the ground on Tuesday. Liveblogs will consist out of information that comes in through third-parties (Social media, forums, etc.) just like our Steam Dev Days liveblogs early 2014.

11:15am-12:15pm: Physics for Game Programmers: Robust Contact Creation for Physics Simulation by Dirk Gregorius (Ended)

3:00pm-4:00pm: Physics for Game Programmers: Physics Optimization Strategies by Sergiy Migdalskiy (Ended)

Wednesday

10:00am-6:00pm: GDC expo: Valve doing press demos of HTC Vive, showing off new Steam Controller/Machines etc. (Live blog)

5:00pm-6:00pm: Advanced VR Rendering by Alex Vlachos (Ended)

Due to the late time (in our EU timezones) of the VR talk we won't be liveblogging it.

Check out Road to VR's liveblog instead here. You can find a short clip of the Portal (probably on Source 2) VR tech demo here.

Other sites and/or Twitter accounts that will be reporting on it:

For Valve specific news, check out our friends over at @ValveTime

Thursday

10:00am-6:00pm: GDC expo: Valve doing press demos of HTC Vive, showing off new Steam Controller/Machines etc.

Our GDC Expo live blog is here

10:00am-11:00am: glNext (now named Vulkan): The Future of High Performance Graphics (Presented by Valve) (Live blog)

Talk description:

A technical preview of the Vulkan API, with advanced techniques and live demos of real-world applications running on Vulkan drivers and hardware.

Gabe Newell on Vulkan:

Valve and the other Khronos members are working hard to ensure that this high-performance graphics interface is made available as widely as possible and we view it as a critical component of SteamOS and future Valve games. (source)

Friday

10:00am-3:00pm: GDC expo: Valve doing press demos of HTC Vive, showing off new Steam Controller/Machines etc.

Livestreams

According to Gamespot no Valve talks will be broadcasted by them during GDC. They say it's unlikely they'll be broadcast at all. We'll have to rely on people on the ground. Videos of the talks will be available (as is normal with GDC) in the (paid) GDC Vault after GDC.