A developers guide for setting up your Microsoft Mixed Reality Development Edition Headset
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In this blog post, including a video, I will dive into how to set-up the Microsoft Mixed Reality Development Edition Headset. This is mainly of interest to developers, in my next post, I will write more in general about what I think of the headset. So if you are a developer and have the headset in possession… continue reading, if not, stop reading it will be very boring for you!
The first step was to set-up the headset to work with our Microsoft Windows computer. We actually do all our work on Mac devices, therefore this was an additional lengthy process of updating, and updating and a little bit of more updating. But eventually, we got the headset to work on our computer. And we even got our training application to work on it.
What we really missed was a clear explanation on youtube on not only how to set-up the device, but also how to get your first unity project to work on the device. Therefore I decided to create a webcast of how to do this.
In the video below I will explain the following:
1. I will briefly talk about the Microsoft Mixed Reality Development Edition Headset, about how it looks and feels
2. I will talk about how to set-up your computer to use the headset
3. I will talk about how to set-up Unity to Build and Run your first project on the headset.
In the video, the whole set-up process is shown. However I myself usually miss a little bit more detail in these kinds of videos. Therefore I added some additional information concerning our computer setup.
Computer Specs:
- 8 GB RAM
- Intel Core i5–4690 CPU @ 3.50 GHz
- 64 bits system & x64 processor
- Geforce GTX 980
Software Specs:
- Windows 10 Pro Insider Preview 16251.0 (rs3_release)
- For UNITY the SDK 10.0.16232.0 & 10.0.15063.0
- Unity 2017.2.0b4
- Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017, version 15.2 (26430.16)
Development Tips:
In the video, I do mention a lot of the tips that you can find below. However for those who do not like to watch a 15-minute video (that can potentially save hours ;), I also have these tips in text.
1. First, update your Windows 10 computer and all drivers (especially the graphics driver) to the latest editions:
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/install_the_tools#installation_checklist_for_immersive_headsets
2. Also, make sure you download the creators' update to your computer:
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/04/11/how-to-get-the-windows-10-creators-update/
3. Make sure you set up your computer to the newest Windows Insider preview (put your computer to the fast track). Use this link to get the insider preview version (otherwise, it can take up to 24 hours to receive the push update):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewSDK
4. Once you plug in you headset the MR platform starts. It might install a new Insider Preview version. Please be patient for it to install. This sometimes can, unfortunately, take a couple of hours.
5. Make sure you have Visual Studio 2015 uninstalled before installing the new version of Unity with the Visual Studio 2017
6. Install the following version of Unity:
https://unity3d.com/unity/beta/unity2017.2.0b4
7. Use the following link to set-up your project properly (or just watch the video for all Unity settings explained):
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/development
8. When Build and Running a project from Unity be patient. It took me between 5 & 10 minutes to build the project (it is still a developer edition ;)
9. Also, Build and Run a clean project (do not build one over an old one)
10. For questions and answers go to this forum:
https://forums.hololens.com/categories/questions-and-answers-immersive
11. For general information (about Hololens and the Mixed Reality Development edition) go to this webpage:
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/unity_development_overview
12. Do take into account that it is a developer edition headset. So what works for me might not 100% work for you. Microsoft is working hard to make their software plug and play so anyone in the world with a Microsoft computer can use their VR device. In other words, my last tip to you is do not complain to Microsoft, just show grit until it works.
I hope this blog and video will help you as a developer to set-up your first Microsoft Mixed Reality Development Edition project. Good luck with your VR projects and of course do not forget to have a lot of fun!
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