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Simulate a Mixed Reality Environment

Updated: Sep 4, 2026

Overview

Meta XR Simulator allows you to simulate mixed reality (MR) applications in synthetic environments. Your application can query the passthrough data, scene information (walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, doors, and windows), and spatial anchors embedded in each environment. On Windows, applications running on the Meta Quest 3 or Meta Quest 3S device profile can also query environment depth data.

Choose an environment

Select Choose environment in the Meta XR Simulator toolbar, then pick a room from the Environments popover. Your choice persists across simulator restarts.

Changing the environment stops and relaunches the simulator’s target platform, which drops every connected OpenXR client. If an application is connected, the simulator asks you to confirm first. With no application connected it happens immediately, without a prompt. Start your application again afterward.

If the environment fails to restart, the popover reports the failure and offers Force close. That kills whatever process is holding the port, which is the Unity Editor if a Synthetic Environment Builder project is serving the environment. Stop that process yourself where you can, and save your work before using Force close.

Hero rooms

Meta XR Simulator has three realistic synthetic environments: a game room, a living room, and a bedroom.

More feature rooms

Meta XR Simulator includes six additional feature rooms. Use them to test MR apps against a variety of room layouts.

Office

Trapezoidal room

XR Simulator trapezoidal feature room with angled walls for MR testing.

Corridor

Furniture-filled room

XR Simulator furniture-filled feature room with multiple furnishings for MR testing.

L-shape room

XR Simulator L-shape feature room with a non-rectangular layout for MR testing.

High-ceiling room

XR Simulator high-ceiling feature room with tall walls for MR testing.

Configuration notes

Note: Passthrough stylization effects (such as color maps, color LUTs, edge rendering, and brightness/contrast/saturation adjustments) are supported by the SDK but may not render correctly in Meta XR Simulator’s simulated passthrough.

Passthrough in the simulator is delivered as a texture, and the format is set by ses_texture_format in sim_core_configuration.json, in the config directory of your Meta XR Simulator installation.

Value	Behavior
`gpu_handle`	Shares a GPU texture handle.
`raw_rgba`	Sends uncompressed pixels.
`jpg`	Sends compressed pixels.

On a desktop install the shipped value is gpu_handle. Check your own configuration file rather than assuming it, because some builds ship jpg instead. Android always uses jpg whatever the file says.

The simulator treats any unrecognized value as jpg. Set jpg if passthrough fails to display. The simulator reads this value once and caches it, so restart the simulator after you change it.