Meta XR Audio SDK

Meta XR Audio SDK
Information
Type	Software development kit
Industry	Virtual reality
Developer	Meta Platforms (predecessor Oculus Audio SDK by Oculus VR)
Supported Devices	Oculus Quest, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S, PC VR
Release Date	February 7, 2023 (Unity); March 5, 2015 (Oculus Audio SDK preview)
Website	https://developers.meta.com/horizon/downloads/package/meta-xr-audio-sdk/

The Meta XR Audio SDK is a spatial audio software development kit from Meta Platforms for virtual, augmented and mixed reality applications. It renders sound with head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), plays back ambisonic audio and simulates room acoustics, and it is distributed as plugins for Unity, Unreal Engine, FMOD and Wwise. Meta's documentation describes it as the "successor to the Oculus Spatializer plugin", providing the same core functionality under the Meta XR brand.

The SDK's lineage goes back to the Oculus Audio SDK, which Oculus VR previewed in March 2015 and released out of beta in December 2015 with spatializer plugins for game engines, audio middleware and digital audio workstations. Meta launched the new Audio SDK for Unity on 7 February 2023 and later declared the older Oculus Spatializer end-of-life. Version 85.0, released in February 2026, is the final version: Meta placed the SDK on feature freeze with no further updates planned, while keeping it available for download.

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Checked every dated event, version, quote and engine/device compatibility claim against the cited Meta release pages, documentation, blog posts, press articles and the ArtsIT 2020 paper record. About review dates.

History

Oculus Audio SDK (2014-2022)

At Oculus Connect 1, its first developer conference in 2014, Oculus announced that it had licensed the RealSpace 3D Audio engine from VisiSonics, a company whose technology was based on ten years of research at the University of Maryland. Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said at the time that "Audio is an essential ingredient for immersive virtual reality." At CES in January 2015, Iribe told Road to VR that an Oculus Audio SDK would reach developers for the Oculus Rift DK2 and Samsung Gear VR before the consumer Rift launched. The Crescent Bay prototype shown at that event had integrated headphones carrying HRTF-based 3D audio, and Iribe said the team had taken a snapshot of the licensed implementation and was building it into the Oculus SDK.

Oculus released a preview of the Audio SDK on 5 March 2015, with 3D audio plugins for Unity, Audiokinetic Wwise, Firelight FMOD and VST-compatible digital audio workstations. In May 2015 Oculus described the Oculus Spatializer Plugin for DAWs, which lets sound designers preview spatialized sound inside VST hosts such as Nuendo, Cubase, Ableton Live and Reaper, or AAX hosts such as Avid Pro Tools, before the audio reaches middleware or a game engine. The plugin is inserted on a mono track and exposes gain, near and far distances, 3D position, reverb and reflection controls.

A 1.0 beta followed in November 2015. It added the Oculus Native Spatializer Plugin for Unity 5, built on Unity's Native Audio Plugin framework, while the original Oculus Spatializer Plugin (OSP) was kept for Unity 4 projects. On 10 December 2015 Oculus moved the SDK out of beta as a free download. The release had spatialization plugins for Unity and Unreal and for audio middleware, an AAX plugin for Pro Tools and a VST plugin for Windows and OS X, and it supported spatialization and environment modeling on the then upcoming Oculus Rift, the DK2 and the Gear VR. UploadVR identified the release as version 1.0.1, and Road to VR reported that Oculus also released a library of more than 500 sound effects designed for VR.

Audio SDK 1.34, reported in February 2019, added a beta feature called Audio Propagation. It generates reverb and occlusion in real time from an app's geometry: developers tag meshes and assign each one an acoustic material such as plaster on brick, ceramic tile or carpet, and the system handles indoor, outdoor and asymmetrical spaces as well as moving geometry such as doors. Road to VR wrote that it replaced the earlier "shoebox model", which placed a standard-sized cube around the listener, and that Oculus provided guides for both Unity and Unreal.

Meta XR Audio SDK (2023-2026)

Meta announced the new Audio SDK on 7 February 2023 as part of its Presence Platform tools. It launched on Unity only, with Unreal, Wwise and FMOD support planned. Meta said apps built with it could run on "almost any standalone mobile VR device", on PC VR and on headsets from other manufacturers, and that the spatial audio, room acoustics and voice directivity features demonstrated in Horizon Workrooms were now available to developers. The existing Oculus Spatializer would continue to be supported for Unreal, FMOD, Wwise and native API users, but "Starting with v49, any new functionality introduced will be included exclusively in the new Audio SDK." In UploadVR's description, the switch from the Oculus Audio SDK to the Meta XR Audio SDK was "essentially just a rebrand" until the HRTF changed later that year.

In July 2023 Meta introduced the Universal HRTF in version 55 of the SDK. Meta wrote that its previous HRTF had been "created from publicly-available data" and that its researchers had captured "nearly 150 high-quality HRTFs" in anechoic chambers to build a model for the general population. In Meta's own testing with nearly 100 participants, the average subjective preference score rose from 37 to 52 points and elevation accuracy improved by 81% on average. Developers only had to upgrade to v55 and recompile. Version 57 (October 2023) introduced the FMOD plugin and a directivity intensity control for the Unity plugin. From v59 the Unity version was distributed as a Unity Package Manager (UPM) package instead of the earlier download. That package, com.meta.xr.sdk.audio, can be installed from the Unity Asset Store or as a tarball from the Meta Horizon Developer Center.

Meta added Acoustic Ray Tracing to the SDK for Unity and Unreal on 30 July 2024, with support for FMOD and Wwise. Meta named Batman: Arkham Shadow, developed by Camouflaj, as a game using these features. Version 74.0 (March 2025) raised the minimum Unity version to 2022.3.15f1 and added a per-source Medium Absorption option for Acoustic Ray Tracing, which applies frequency-specific attenuation over distance based on the medium the sound travels through. On 9 July 2025 Meta announced that the Meta XR Audio SDK plugin was available for free inside Wwise. Meta's documentation now states that the Wwise plugin "is now only supported via the Wwise Launcher and AudioKinetic website" and no longer receives updates on the Meta Developer Center.

Version 85.0, dated 10 February 2026, added Unity 6 compatibility and fixed a diffraction calculation issue that could cause artifacts or silence. Its release notes state: "This will be the final version of the Meta XR Audio SDK." Meta lists Unity 6 (minimum 2022.3.15f1), Unreal Engine 5.6, FMOD 2.03 and Wwise 2025.1 as the last known-compatible versions, and says it cannot guarantee compatibility with later releases of those engines and middleware. The Unreal page for the same release adds that the SDK remains available for new and existing projects and that bug reports will be acknowledged but fixes are not guaranteed.

The legacy Oculus Spatializer documentation now carries an end-of-life notice: "The Oculus Spatializer Plugin has been replaced by the Meta XR Audio SDK and is now in end-of-life stage." It will receive no support beyond v47, and Meta states that it strongly discourages its use. The Oculus plugins for Pro Tools and other DAWs are marked deprecated.

Release history

Version or event	Date	Notable changes
Oculus Audio SDK preview	5 March 2015	Plugins for Unity, Wwise, FMOD and VST DAWs
Oculus Audio SDK 1.0 beta	November 2015	Oculus Native Spatializer Plugin for Unity 5
Oculus Audio SDK 1.0.1	10 December 2015	Out of beta; Unity, Unreal, middleware, AAX and VST plugins
Oculus Audio SDK 1.34	February 2019	Audio Propagation (beta), geometry-based reverb and occlusion
Audio SDK (Unity)	7 February 2023	New SDK for Unity; Oculus Spatializer kept for other engines
v55	July 2023	Universal HRTF
v57	9 October 2023	FMOD plugin; directivity intensity control in Unity; UPM packages for Unity from v59
Acoustic Ray Tracing	30 July 2024	Geometry-based reflections, reverb, occlusion, obstruction and diffraction
74.0	14 March 2025	Minimum Unity 2022.3.15f1; Medium Absorption option
85.0	10 February 2026	Unity 6 support; final version, feature freeze

Features

The SDK spatializes mono sound sources with HRTFs, which apply the filtering of the head, outer ear and torso so that a sound appears to come from a direction in 3D space. Meta's documentation warns that only monophonic sounds should be passed to the spatializer and that binaural output needs headphones or a head-mounted display. Meta describes the spatialization as highly optimized and notes that real-time audio runs on a thread separate from the graphics render thread, though there is some overhead; and it recommends the SDK over the built-in 3D panning of Unity and Unreal, which it says suffers from front and back ambiguity, elevation ambiguity and hard panning at the sides.

Feature	Description
HRTF spatialization	Places monophonic point sources in a direction around the listener; since v55 uses the Universal HRTF
Near-field rendering	Approximates acoustic diffraction for sources within about 1 meter of the listener's head
Ambisonics	First-order ambisonics in AmbiX format (ACN channel order, SN3D normalization), decoded binaurally with spherical harmonics rather than virtual speakers; Meta recommends it for music and ambience
Room acoustics	Early reflections and late reverberation; Meta's documentation calls the basic model Shoebox Room Acoustics
Distance attenuation	Keeps the direct-to-reverberant ratio correct even with a custom attenuation curve
Acoustic Ray Tracing	Simulates early reflections, reverb, occlusion, obstruction and diffraction from scene geometry and acoustic materials
Experimental	Volumetric sources with a radius, source directivity and an HRTF intensity control

Acoustic Ray Tracing is the heavier alternative to the shoebox model. In Unreal, developers add Meta XR Acoustic Geometry and Meta XR Acoustic Map components to actors and set acoustic materials in the project settings. UploadVR reported that developers assign materials such as metal, brick, carpet, glass and wood and bake the static geometry so the SDK can represent it. Meta said the system can handle "arbitrarily complex geometry" and was built to run on mobile hardware such as Quest headsets, in contrast to PC and console solutions it described as too resource-intensive for mobile VR.

The legacy Oculus Spatializer offered a similar core set: HRTF spatialization with head tracking, near-field rendering, volumetric sources, first-order AmbiX ambisonics, the Oculus attenuation model and Audio Propagation. Related legacy tools included the Oculus Audio Profiler and the Oculus Loudness Meter, which measures an app's mix loudness in LUFS.

Supported engines and devices

Integration	Notes
Unity (native)	First supported engine (February 2023); UPM package com.meta.xr.sdk.audio
Unreal Engine (native)	Download package; last known-compatible version Unreal Engine 5.6
FMOD	Plugin introduced in v57; last known-compatible version FMOD 2.03
Wwise	Plugin available inside Wwise from July 2025, now supported through Audiokinetic

Meta documents separate guides for Unity and Unreal with each middleware, and advises Unity developers who use FMOD or Wwise not to install the Meta XR Audio SDK Plugin for Unity. For devices, Meta's Unity documentation states that the spatialization features support PC VR as well as Quest, Quest 2, Quest Pro, Quest 3 and Quest 3S development.

Notable uses

Meta demonstrated the SDK's spatial audio, room acoustics and voice directivity in Horizon Workrooms before releasing it to developers. Batman: Arkham Shadow was named by Meta in July 2024 as using Acoustic Ray Tracing; UploadVR reported Meta's statement that it would be Meta's first major title to use the technology.

Research

The Oculus Spatializer has been used as a comparison point in academic work on sound localization in VR. In a paper presented at ArtsIT 2020 and published by Springer in 2021, researchers at Aalborg University compared the Oculus Spatializer, Unity's default engine, Unity's reverb engine and the AM3D spatializer in a VR task in which participants located invisible sound sources in a virtual room. They reported statistically significant differences between the four engines "under specific circumstances".

See also

• 3D audio
• Head-related transfer function
• Ambisonics
• VR audio
• Steam Audio
• Oculus SDK
• Meta Spatial SDK