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title: Monado: Multi-application support with XR_EXTX_overlay
description: Monado, the open-source OpenXR runtime, now supports multi-application compositing via the XR_EXTX_overlay extension. Building on earlier work including...
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# Monado: Multi-application support with XR_EXTX_overlay

**[Collabora Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/collabora)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Monado, the open-source OpenXR runtime, now supports multi-application compositing via the XR_EXTX_overlay extension. Building on earlier work including out-of-process compositing and multi-layer rendering from v0.2, this implementation allows multiple XR applications to run simultaneously. A demo shows Blender's VR view and the xrgears demo composited together, with Monado handling both OpenGL (Blender) and Vulkan (xrgears) graphics APIs concurrently. Enabling the extension in xrgears required only a small code change. The work was made possible with support from Pluto VR.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/monado-multi-application-support-with-xr-extx-overlay.html>

## Questions this post answers

### How do I enable XR_EXTX_overlay in an OpenXR application using xrgears?

Enabling XR_EXTX_overlay in xrgears requires two things: activating the XR_EXTX_overlay extension and passing the XrSessionCreateInfoOverlayEXTX struct into the graphics bindings `next` field. This was accomplished in xrgears with a small, targeted code change. The Monado runtime then handles compositing multiple application sessions, including mixing different graphics APIs like OpenGL and Vulkan simultaneously.

_Developers integrating OpenXR overlay sessions track Monado runtime changes on daily.dev._

### Can Monado composite XR applications using different graphics APIs at the same time?

Yes, Monado can composite XR sessions that use different graphics APIs simultaneously. A demonstrated example shows Blender's VR view rendered with OpenGL and the xrgears demo rendered with Vulkan both composited together as overlay layers using the XR_EXTX_overlay extension, with Monado handling the cross-API frame submission transparently.

_Teams building multi-app XR platforms keep up with Monado's graphics API support on daily.dev._

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---

Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#openxr](https://daily.dev/tags/openxr), [#vr](https://daily.dev/tags/vr), [#vulkan](https://daily.dev/tags/vulkan)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/monado-multi-application-support-with-xr-extx-overlay-t6sxxhxly)

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