FractalXR 0.10.0 preview 1 (Quest 3)

A preview build for Meta Quest 3, installed by sideloading. Free, unofficial and not in any store.

What it is

FractalXR puts a fractal in front of you that you can take hold of. Grip it to move it, grip with both hands and pull them apart to scale it up and fly through the middle. Everything you see is computed live on the headset's own GPU. None of it is a video or a pre-made model, so new detail keeps appearing as you get closer.

There are five modes, picked from the strip along the top of the wrist menu:

• FLAME: 13 fractal flames, glowing clouds of up to about a million points, each one melting into the next.
• BULB: 21 Mandelbulb-style 3D fractals. They arrive hand-sized and you can scale one up until it's a room.
• GROUND: an endless fractal landscape under your feet, in eight families, that you can walk across and zoom into.
• TREE: a forest of fractal trees. Plant your own or walk down an avenue of them.
• IFS: a mirror-frame sculpture you reshape with your hands. Its echoes can fill the room.

There are 26 colour themes, and passthrough is available, so the fractal can hang in your actual room.

Which headsets

• Quest 3: this is what it was built and tested on.
• Quest 3S: the app says it supports it, but it has never been run on one. It should work, since the 3S has the same chip as the Quest 3, but nobody has checked yet.
• Quest 2 and Quest Pro: not supported and never tried. The app is written for the Quest 3's GPU and is unlikely to run well on either, if it runs at all.

Keep the headset's system software up to date. The build needs a recent Horizon OS (v69 or later).

How to install it with SideQuest

You only do steps 1 to 3 once.

1. Turn on developer mode. This needs a free Meta developer account. Make one at developers.meta.com, where you'll be asked to create an "organization" (any name will do) and to verify your account. Then, in the Meta Horizon app on your phone, open your headset's settings and switch on Developer Mode. Restart the headset.
2. Install SideQuest on your computer. Get the Advanced Installer for Windows, Mac or Linux from https://sidequestvr.com/setup-howto.
3. Connect the headset. Plug the Quest into the computer with a USB-C cable that carries data. Put the headset on and accept Allow USB debugging. Tick "Always allow from this computer" so it doesn't ask every time. The dot in SideQuest's top-left corner turns green when it's connected.
4. Download the APK from the Assets list at the bottom of this release.
5. Install it. Drag the .apk file onto the SideQuest window, or click the Install APK file from folder on computer button in SideQuest's top bar (a box with a down arrow) and pick the file. Wait for SideQuest to say it's finished.
6. Find it in the headset. Open your Library, change the filter at the top to Unknown Sources, and FractalXR is there. Have both controllers on and awake when you launch it. If the Quest asks for controllers, pick them up and it carries on.

Controls

The first time you open it, a card shows both controllers and what every button does. Pull either trigger to put it away. HELP in the wrist menu brings it back at any time, and it changes to match whichever mode you're in.

The basics:

• Grip with one hand: grab and move the fractal.
• Grip with both hands: pull apart to scale it up and fly through, push together to shrink it.
• Turn your left wrist toward your face: the wrist menu appears. Point at it and pull the trigger.
• A and B: previous and next fractal.
• Click the left stick: passthrough on or off.
• X: put things back where they started.

Known limits

• It's a preview. Things will break. Tell me what broke and which mode you were in.
• Performance changes as the headset warms up. The Quest slows itself down to manage heat after 5 to 15 minutes, and the app may drop some detail to keep up. GROUND and BULB are the heaviest modes and may not hold a perfectly smooth frame rate.
• Comfort. Grabbing moves the fractal, not you, but flying through a large one moves the whole world past your eyes. If you're sensitive to motion, start small.
• Updates. This build is signed with a development key. Future builds signed with the same key will install over the top of it. If a later build switches to a permanent release key, Android will refuse to install it over this one. Uninstall FractalXR first (in SideQuest, or in the headset under Library > Unknown Sources), then install the new one. All you lose is the "seen the help card" flag.
• No store version, so no automatic updates. New builds will appear on this releases page.

Privacy

FractalXR doesn't collect anything. The app doesn't request the internet permission, so it can't connect to the network at all, and there's no analytics, account or sign-in in it. The only thing it saves on your headset is a note that you've seen the help card. The headset's own system software still does whatever Meta's software does. That's outside this app.

FractalXR is a personal project. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Meta.