Native Mixed Reality Compositing on Meta Quest 3: A Quantitative Feasibility Study of ARM-Based SoCs and Thermal Headroom

Abstract

The adoption of current mixed reality (MR) content creation is primarily based on external PC-centric platforms and third-party cameras, limiting adoption for standalone virtual reality (VR) users. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of integrating an enhanced LIV SDK-like MR compositing pipeline into the Meta Quest 3 hardware, enabling native first-person physical perspective (FPP) MR content creation without external infrastructure. We conducted a simulation-based feasibility study using hardware specifications, developer documentation, and benchmarking with ARM-based SoCs, including Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and MediaTek Dimensity 9300. The approach suggested Camera Passthrough Enhancement using Meta's experimental Passthrough Camera API with on-device machine learning segmentation through Unity Sentis and FastSAM, and an optimized real-time compositing engine for standalone VR. Benchmarking results show that Quest 3's Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 can support lightweight native MR compositing at 720p30 resolution using 95\% resource utilization, leaving 5\% thermal headroom for sustained runtime. Comparison with next-generation SoCs such as Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 demonstrates 34\% headroom, enabling more robust MR experiences with 1.5--2x faster CPU/GPU performance and higher memory bandwidth. While current Quest 3 hardware supports basic native MR compositing, thermal limits restrict operation to 5--10 minutes before throttling. Experimental results confirm standalone MR content creation is possible on current hardware for short recordings, with new XR SoCs offering the headroom for extended sessions and improved quality. These findings lay groundwork for transitioning MR content creation from PC-based workflows to all-in-one VR devices, enhancing MR production for content creators and researchers.