This is the first standalone headset with an open ecosystem. That's a big deal.
Meta Quests & Apple Visions require developer verification to run your own software, and provide no root access, which slowed down innovation significantly.
Wow this is perfect timing! I've dusted out my old Valve Index tuesday so my kids could try The Lab. It now shows a green pixels line on the right. Also the headset is too heavy for them and not easy to adjust, and I had to hold the cable so they don't trip over it. This new headset will be perfect for them.
Frame is obviously the main headline here, but they've also launching a new SteamOS mini-PC and a new controller.
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamcontroller
No prices listed for any of them yet, as far as I can tell.
This is going to be an instant buy for me, and my first VR device ever. I've used the previous Steam VR headset over at a friends' place many times, but never bit the bullet to get one myself.
The fact that this can run standalone, doesn't have a bunch of wires dangling from it, and is pretty much a fully working Linux box makes this am almost on-brainer for me.
I do _hope_ the price is reasonable though, if it ends up being like Apple VR I might not buy into it immediately, but I'm hoping for a reasonable $1000 max price.
YouTube just happened to show me Gamers Nexus Lossless Scaling & Lossless Frame Generation video just now. [1]
Which, I can't help but wonder. If this ran on the Frame... To aid in streaming from your desktop... In conjunction with Foveated Streaming...
What's even more bonkers to me is the idea that this could really be baked in to the streaming, if you think about it.
Server generates 100 beautiful frames in one second.
The streaming hardware reminds the server that with the current network conditions, that it can only handle X bits per second.
The Frame says, "Hey, here's where the eyes were looking, here's where they are looking, here's where they're projected to look."
The Server knows how many actual frames it can send in a second.
But the Server can run the same Lossless Scaling & Lossless Frame Generation that the client will run.
The Server can then compare the predicted frames against the actual frames, and it can send the delta needed to correct the predictions. Especially in areas close to where the eyes are looking.
The Client consumes the stream, predicts frames, applies the delta, and ends up with better framerate and quality...
Can you do this all low latency, too? I suspect so.
Add it all up, and this is pretty bonkers. I mean, it's kind of obvious that that's how streaming "should work," but I think I hadn't really put it all together yet in my mind. My mental model was too "off the shelf." It didn't include how much effort the client could do... And that the server could then also do, to help the client... It's really a beautiful pairing, when you think about it.
What's really bonkers is that Steam could learn what final images are supposed to look like, for a given game, and train AI specifically for that game. Update the server and the client, and bam, everyone gets better quality. With zero developer interaction.
Such a miss not having good full-color AR included. I’m a VR enthusiast with a Meta Quest 3, and it’s a shame that this headset is better than the Quest in every way except the most important one.
In my opinion, VR gaming never becomes more than a gimmick. It adds a questionable improvement in graphics and immersion at the incredibly high cost of excluding yourself from the real world. Right now it’s not worth it, and I don’t think it ever will be, no matter how good the graphics get. That’s assuming they even solve the motion sickness problem, which doesn’t seem solvable to me at this point.
The motion controls in VR will also always be severely limited by the fact that you can’t see your surroundings. You can’t meaningfully move around or swing your arms fast in any realistic home environment when you’re in full VR. You’re constantly at risk of punching something or breaking something, or both. So the controls have to become really stiff and avoid requiring wide movement, at which point you might as well just push buttons on a gamepad.
But AR is a completely different thing. No motion sickness, no risk in any movement, you can move around without silly threadmills, and no exclusion from the world. It’s truly amazing. The AR boxing, pickleball, ping pong and golf are so much closer to real thing then to a videogame adaptation, even the shitty Quest graphics don't ruin the magic. Those AR experiences don't work on videogame rules and really deserve their own name and category - they're as different from gaming as books are from movies. If VR headsets don’t die out, AR is going to be the thing that brings them to the mainstream. I just wish it had more attention, more apps, and more non-Meta mainstream platforms. Not this time, sadly.
The dedicated communication dongle between the PC and the headset sounds like a real game changer.
Right now getting fast enough and reliable wireless connection means either tweaking to death one's setup or spending car money on the entire setup. In particular normal people usually don't realize how crappy their wi-fi and assume it's all the same, which would end in blaming the poor perf on the headset.
The whole "foveated streaming" sounds absolutely fascinating. If they can actually pull off doing it accurately in real time, that would be incredible. I can't even imagine the technical work behind the scenes to make it all work.
I'd really like to know what the experience is like of using it, both for games and something like video.
It really cannot be understated how big of a deal this is. The tech here is impressive AND they're not trying to lock you in. Practically speaking it's the only VR headset that holds real-world appeal for the vast majority of gamers, because it plays the games they're already playing.
Now that they've ported Steam to Android with FEX + Proton [0] (what this is running), the question is will they release it for the rest of Android devices? There is a ton of Android gaming handhelds and people are already experimenting with things like Winlator [1] but having well supported way could be awesome.
This being a whole system that will allow you to put whatever software you want onto it makes me think that it might actually succeed at being what the Vision Pro wanted to be.
This is fantastic!
A while ago I bought the Quest 3 and set it up with WiFi 6 for streaming games. It's a decent setup, but I only bought it cause I was tired of waiting for the "rumored new headset by Valve".
And it seems everything on my wishlist is here:
- foveated rendering based on eye tracking - this is excellent, and was I think only available in the Quest Pro until now
- a dedicated wireless streaming dongle, with multiple radios on the headset - awesome, tuning WiFi 6 got me to a good-enough state, but I'm looking forward to a dedicated out-of-the-box solution
- pancake lenses
- inside-out tracking
In general, having had the Valve Index previously, and then using the Quest 3, it's a night-and-day difference to play something like Alyx wireless. Much better clarity with pancake lenses, too.
Main surprise here is their usage of a Snapdragon chip and not AMD, didn't expect this. I thought it would effectively be a steam deck hardware wise. Curious to see how well that works, esp. for standalone gaming. In practice though you'll likely want to be streaming any "pc-first" titles anyway.
I've actually just recently started using my Quest 3 again through virtual desktop. I found the sharpening feature to actually make text look good enough that I'm able to work in it for hours uninterrupted, mostly writing papers and coding.
I'm super excited for this launch and for all the crazy open source builds, mods, and fun that are going to come from an open VR system (or at least that's my hope).
At last! I really enjoyed my time with the Oculus Quest 2, but could not stomach having Meta in my house/on my network. I sold it and resolved to either wait until I could get a good deal on an Index or Valve came around with something new, and now I can look forward to VR again!
Whoo - first party support - including a graphics stack on ARM!
I hope this means the GPU and drivers is advanced enough to run fully featured modern video games.
Windows for ARM was kinda sunk by the fact that the GPU wasn't compatible enough due to the crappy drivers and outdated GPU uArch optimized for mobile games.
I'm still kinda on the fence about VR, but I hope ARM + Linux succeeds in a big way and this'll make a truly handheld Steam Deck possible.
It felt like the headset hardware had reached a sweet spot for the moment, but with this announcement the software situation is now also going to be reaching a similar place. Now we have a continuity of freedom with a PC OS on the headset away from home as well as the full mobility of a untethered headset display with the full power of a stationary PC at home. Can't wait to see what dev's do with this.
Brilliant, I'm anxiously awaiting Australian pricing details (and release dates...) but could definitely seeing myself getting one of these as my first VR device, and the controller looks great too.
Being able to run games on device (and on ARM) is very cool, but I wonder if there is a cheaper/lighter/longer-battery-life version of this that is stream only? That's probably a better fit for me personally, I can't imagine not having a streaming device nearby when I would be using it.
Also hate to be picky, but looks like the frame controllers pair directly to the headset so maybe can't be used on their own? Would be nice to use them standalone too.
This feels like a really great headset. It was going to be an instant buy for me until I realised it has LCDs instead of OLEDs. I'll wait for reviews. I don't really want to buy these if they release another OLED version down the line.
Also, if this is arm and it has steam in it, that means we can finally run steam on arm, which means we can finally install steam "natively" on android Linux, specially now that we have the terminal app on android 16.
Can't wait for graphical acceleration to be fully merged to the terminal app and we have Linux running on android with near native performance and steam.
Steam Frame is running SteamOS on ARM, and is capable of playing games standalone, which implies ARM support in Steam. Through granted, it could be in a limited form.
Nice to finally have a hackable headset on the market. I’ve been using the dji goggles for fpv flying because of vendor lock in. I wonder I could use these with OpenIPC to fly fpv with a fully open video stack.
This is so much more interesting than the Apple Vision Pro/Quest for one main reason: An open builder-friendly platform.
One of the most interesting parts of this to me that not many people are talking about is what their approach will be to making Steam games work on ARM…
I assume they will have put a lot of work into an emulation layer (maybe an existing one like FEX) to make it usable similar to what they did with Proton? This could be really good for the Linux ARM ecosystem in general
I'm surprised no one is talking about the fact that the headset is ARM and that valve has been heavily contributing to the translation layer FEX.
I love my steam deck, but lately find myself reaching for emulation handhelds like the Retroid Pocket 5 more due to smaller size, especially when I'm leaving the house. There's already projects like GameNative that try to hack steam onto these devices, but if valve offers an official client on Android and other arm devices that would be incredible.
Edit: Some interesting insights in the FEX FAQ about why it's not a great fit for Android right now [0]. Interested to see if this ARM version of steamos is installable on other devices though. RP5 can already run alternatives like Rocknix
> Steam Frame Controllers: Powered by AA batteries (rated 40 hours)
Yes, I want to see standard batteries being used more. Too bad they didn't go with this on the Steam Controller.
Deckard at last! https://isvalvedeckardout.com/
That mini pc... one more nail in the coffin of the xbox hardware business. Ouch.
Are there any real-world tests or reviews of foveated streaming in actual gameplay? I’m wondering how it holds up in fast shooters where you depend on tiny cues in your peripheral vision. Wouldn’t the lower-resolution periphery make it harder to notice subtle movement?
The only really incredible VR experience I have had so far was Half-life Alyx. Is there anything that tier or even better these days?
Kind of weird using AA batteries, I'd imagine something else would be better suited for this?
This looks fantastic. The only negative I see so far it is only monochrome passthrough. The full color passthrough on the Quest 3 is pretty killer, it sucks to go backwards on that.
That's gonna be one expensive BeatSaber machine, but after having owned an Index (and really feeling how nice that headset was when I got my current Quest 2), there's no way I'm not gonna get one.
OK, so it's Valve's version of HP Reverb G2 just released 5 years later. It doesn't even match the best Pimax/HTC, not to mention Apple's one.
Wonder if/when prescription lenses will be available for it. I had to get some for my index since my glasses were too big to fit inside the headset.
>2160 x 2160 LCD (per eye)
Here's hoping it will be like the Deck and we get Frame OLED in a year or so.
2160x2160 in each eye for the headset
Yesss. I will never buy anything Meta so happy to see this.
Next question in my head...
Can we use one Steam Machine to drive, say, 4 to 16 Steam Frames.
Multiplayer gameplay, like Goldeneye. With the convenience that all of the state is in memory in one process, so there's no networking layer in the gameplay logic itself.
And you can't peak at the other players' screens.
Steam does a lot of things right here, but also some things wrong, which is unfortunately a dealbreaker for me.
I read the specs and got excited, until I read about the resolution. 2160x2160 is what I have now with the Pico 4, and while it's ok for entertainment, and acceptable for browsing and reading, it's far too low for professional work.
Linux would have been great, but I can't justify spending money on a headset with exactly the same low resolution as my current one.
Also, I've become used to color passthrough, and going back to monochrome would feel like a big regression.
I'm unreasonably excited on all things Steam nowadays. I still like my PS5. And the PSVR2 is quite amazing for the games it has. But Steam has been amazing in getting back into games for me in ways that I did not anticipate.
kudos to them for using AA batteries for the controller.
will help the hardware last longer. cz non-removable lithium batteries suck.
Extremely impressive that they were able to ship inside-out tracking, pancake lenses, and eye tracking + foveated rendering. Each of these is a serious engineering challenge. Very few organizations could pull this off.
If it all launches with Half-Life 3 that works seamlessly across all 3 Steam platforms then we're living in the best timeline...
It is unfortunate that it doesn't have a strap that goes over the top of your head. It is extremely irritating that almost every headset does this, then charges extra for an actually usable strap that takes the pressure off of your face.
The IPD range is a bit on the lower side, which is unfortunate knowing it can make a VR headset unusable and that it is just a matter of design and not technology
Stupid links insist on opening in the steam app on mobile. I do have it installed but my login expired years ago and I’m not renewing it.
Guess I won’t find out what this is about any time soon…
It's interesting to see them putting more attention on playing traditional games with this. I have long thought that the most broadly viable use for VR headsets in gaming is giving users a big screen to play their regular games. There just doesn't actually appear to be much market for true VR games considering all the complicating factors like motion sickness or requiring a big play area. It reminds me of the Nintendo Wii. Taking turns playing Beat Saber with a few of your friends is fun just like Wii Sports was, but in the end people are going to spend a lot more time sitting on their couch to play something more traditional like Mario Kart.
This will probably make me vomit as hard as any other vr headset i tried, right?
I’m holding out hope that this could be utilized in a similar fashion to the Apple Vision Pro’s Remote Desktop. I’d love the chance to work in a coffee shop or plane and not need to look down for prolonged periods of time. I’m hoping that that dongle is able to be used as video pass through.
Probably a dumb question, I might've missed it in the description somewhere, but I assume the onboard PC is mostly to facilitate the streaming functionality, and it will stream from your main machine to the headset right?
I'm very curious about the latency if that's the case. This might be the trigger for me to get into VR finally, but I'm worried that if there's noticeable lag in the stream that I'll basically cover myself in vomit from motion sickness lol
A resolution of 2160@110° is kind of low normally, effectively being around 20 pixels per degree. I wonder if they could pull off something like what the engineers behind the Simula VR headset did, where they shift the outer resolution to the centre of the lens, up to 35.5 PPD, higher than the Apple Vision Pro. Last I checked, it was difficult to find off-the-shelf VR displays suitable for pancake lenses with a resolution above 2160, so this might be the best option.
The main thing I dislike about VR is how uncomfortable it is on my head and how hard it is to adjust that comfort. Too much friction to enjoy. If I can just easily slip these on that would be perfect.
I also never got used to the feeling of being completely detached from my own world. I know that's the point of VR, for it to be completely immersive but it felt very jarring not knowing what was going on around me.
Will SteamFrame ARM support paired with Alyssa Rosenzweig's work - large amount of Steam games are very close to be able to run on mac hardware, right?
I am wondering about this "dedicated 6 GHz dongle". So, I am gathering that this thing, just like the quest will be able to run things locally but is also supposed to be able to stream pcvr stuff from a connected pc where steam is running.
I would have thought they give you a wired connection for that. you know, like the quest. but with the option to do it wireless.
My question would be: given that the wireless solution in the quest apparently is a peer-to-peer pairing of the headset and the pc through the local networks wireless router, just much of a difference will this dedicated 6GHz dongle make?
Would I be kidding myself if I assumed using this dongle would give me the analog experience of when I am using a dedicated dongle to connect my xboy controller to my pc? I mean, I plug it in, the dongle automagically comes pre-paired with the headset, I start steam on pc, hit play on a VR title and I get to play right away? Because that is my current experience with my controller that is connected via a dedicated wireless dongle. I hated the bluetooth connection. But using this dongle is really making a difference here.
So, I wonder just how "painless" this will all be with the new headset. I held out on buying a quest because the wireless connection through my router would not be possible simply because I cant change my router at the moment and while it is fine for everything i use it for, it would not be enough to stream the quest data. Therefore I would have always wanted a "wired" connection, simply because my router wouldnt be able to do it.
Therefore I was a bit miffed when I learned that this new headset would not come with a wired option. But if this dongle can do everything a wired connection can do without having to go through my router then this would be absolutely game changing for me.
They mention tracking the new Steam Controller, too.
Which makes me wonder if they'll make a new Steam Deck that has the IR emitters in it, so the Frame could track the Deck?
I wonder if the two working together could work well?
i wonder if foveated streaming combined with foveated rendering could be used in the cloud gaming space?
if latency is low enough, then you could get a super high fidelity experience on a thin client VR display with low cost rendering server side.
Nvidia GeForce Now is already very impressive for streaming games at full field of view 4k.
thin client VR gives you longer battery life, lighter devices, lower entry cost. and with a cloud gaming service rendering the game, an even lower barrier to entry
Is the steam controller registering as a joystick and a mouse? It could be amazing to manage my current media center! As I cannot make KDE detect my current controller as a mouse
It's the first VR device I consider buying.
It was so thoughtful of them to use IR tracking. Bed time gaming becomes much easier. I wonder if there was a choice between color passthrough and IR tracking and they chose the latter. Good choice!
Valve just defeated Meta and Xbox in one go. nice.
So are we getting a Steam Phone? If not, why not?
Cool to see Valve committing to the ecosystem like this
> Steam Frame is a PC: ... Just like any SteamOS device, install your own apps, open a browser, do what you want: It's your PC.
Always glad to see this.
I'm disappointed it seems to have dropped lighthouse tracking with the previous Valve Index. Especially because with the Valve Knuckles controllers are my favorite with how they strap to your hand.
Trying to decide if Steam Frame is going to be better than Apple Vision Pro + ALVR + lighthouses... AVP has higher resolution and OLED displays with higher PPD but obviously weighs a lot more.
Anybody know the limiting factor to providing lower IPDs on VR headsets? My wife had always struggled with this with an IPD in the 50s when we were exploring early gen VR headsets. The Frame bottoms out at 60.
Interesting they went with the 8 Gen 3 instead of something like the X Elite. From what I’ve seen, the 8 Gen 3 actually outperforms the Elite in emulation and running PC games. I wonder if that factored into the decision.
Excited to see that it uses LCDs instead of OLED! One of the things holding me back from head-mounted displays is the short lifespan / burn-in issues of OLED. Also loving the replaceable batteries on the controller.
From the spec sheet:
> Large FOV (up to 110 degrees)
Sigh. More than a decade later and we're still stuck at "submarine periscope" Field of view level. As somebody who's used the Pimax (~180-200 FOV), your definition of "large" may vary.
> Headstrap includes integrated dual audio drivers and and rechargeable battery on rear.
Freaking thank you. Apple failed hard to learn the lesson of - it's not necessarily the weight that matters, it's the distribution of the weight.
I would've never bet on an Arch being the one that won the gaming market, but here we are. Wild.
Finally, a modern VR headset that doesn't hate you.
Will the eye tracking data be directly available to developers?
Also, can I hack the OS? Specifically interested in direct VR rendering (other headsets don't allow to bypass compositor).
I use glasses. Can I use it?
This explains why alyssa rosenzweig (from asahi linux) was paid for so long by Valve. She worked on FEX.
I have a Quest 2 that I don't care for, so it's caught me somewhat offguard how much I want this. The whole set please. I thought I'd just want the controller, but everything here looks exciting to me.
LinuxVR on this + the Steam Machine will be awesome.
These links open Steam app on my phone and crash immediately.
Little disappointing its not got colour passthrough. I am not convinced this generation of headsets will really be the ones that AR breaks through but still its a bit disappointing and has been useful with the latest Quest headsets. Other than that it looks fairly solid.
Wow was absolutely not expecting this. I need this.
Looks exciting! It would be amazing if the headset turns out to be useful for coding without a monitor. Say, in the park.
Not a single piece of footage with someone wearing glasses and the Steam Frame
I guess we get screwed over again :-(
I will buy. When is it out?
It will be strange to be playing on a big VR screen with your controller and it's colored and beautiful and everything around it is black and white.
I wonder what their solution to that is. Virtual environments?
It looks stunning, great design there
There's a devkit... I'm disappointed, that's the Sony method? I actually tried to do dev for the Meta Quest 2 the other week and was disappointed there because it's my son's, and he can't sign up for a Meta dev account (age), so there's no way for me to do anything with it without factory resetting the thing. This is more disappointing though. Why can't I dev games for the consumer headset?
This looks really cool, but USB-A on the wireless adapter? Really?
Steam is becoming what Google or Apple was in the past but much better, I like it.
The death of VR has been greatly exaggerated. The only thing that died is the hype, and the hype will not be missed. It's just nice to have so much less bullshit.
Good engineering discussion from gamers nexus https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ
And like the Steam Deck it will never be available in my region :) So much for globalization!
Annoying not to include price or release date.
Considering the quest 3 came out 2 entire years ago this feels too close in terms of hardware instead of feeling like a next generation headset.
Responses do seem fairly positive though. I wonder if this had been released as the quest 4 though would you all be reacting as positively?
So it connects to your PC via Wifi? I could use this anywhere in my house as far away from my computer as I want?
Is this built by HTC, like the Vive is/was? Either way, RIP HTC.
another slam dunk from Valve
any idea on price?
WHAT'S THE PRICE
GABEN
GABEN DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING WHAT IS THE PRICEEEEEEEE
People warn to not hold smartphones near the head for too long due to too strong signal strenghts...
Is it not a concern to strap such a powerful defive that receives super strong signals right onto the head for hours??
Saw that the Steam Frame was wireless and lost interest. Wireless is always an extra complication that never improves things. I've learned lots about framing to hardwire my home network. Sure, make it an option, but I won't pay for latency, battery life, battery weight, cost, or pairing issues of wireless solutions. Give me (replaceable, standard) cables anyday!
That said, there is hope, because if there is a wireless version and it takes off, it can't be hard to make a wired version.
Foveated streaming! That's a great idea. Foveated rendering is complicated to implement with current rendering APIs in a way that actually improves performance, but foveated streaming seems like a much easier win that applies to all content automatically. And the dedicated 6 GHz dongle should do a much better job at streaming than typical wifi routers.
> Just like any SteamOS device, install your own apps, open a browser, do what you want: It's your PC.
It's an ARM Linux PC that presumably gives you root access, in addition to being a VR headset. And it has an SD card slot for storage expansion. Very cool, should be very hackable. Very unlike every other standalone VR headset.
> 2160 x 2160 LCD (per eye) 72-144Hz refresh rate
Roughly equivalent resolution to Quest 3 and less than Vision Pro. This won't be suitable as a monitor replacement for general desktop use. But the price is hopefully low. I'd love to see a high-end option with higher resolution displays in the future, good enough for monitor replacement.
> Monochrome passthrough
So AR is not a focus here, which makes sense. However:
> User accessible front expansion port w/ Dual high speed camera interface (8 lanes @ 2.5Gbps MIPI) / PCIe Gen 4 interface (1-lane)
Full color AR could be done as an optional expansion pack. And I can imagine people might come up with other fun things to put in there. Mouth tracking?
One thing I don't see here is optional tracking pucks for tracking objects or full body tracking. That's something the SteamVR Lighthouse tracking ecosystem had, and the Pico standalone headset also has it.
More detail from the LTT video: Apparently it can run Android APKs too? Quest compatibility layer maybe? There's an optional accessory kit that adds a top strap (I'm surprised it isn't standard) and palm straps that enable using the controllers in the style of the Valve Index's "knuckles" controllers.