[HN Gopher] Steam Frame
___________________________________________________________________
Steam Frame
Author : Philpax
Score : 805 points
Date : 2025-11-12 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (store.steampowered.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (store.steampowered.com)
| jsheard wrote:
| 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.
| marcosscriven wrote:
| Real shame it's only 60Hz at 4k. There's a gap for good
| 120Hz@4k streaming.
|
| Hoping the next Apple TV will do it.
|
| Edit - updated specs claim it can do this, but it's limited to
| HDMI 2.0
| jsheard wrote:
| (rewriting this comment because the spec sheet has seemingly
| been updated)
|
| Looks like it can do 4k 120hz, but since it's limited to HDMI
| 2.0 it will have to rely on 4:2:0 chroma subsampling to get
| there. Unfortunately the lack of HDMI 2.1 might be down to
| politics, the RDNA3 GPU they're using _should_ support it in
| hardware, but the HDMI Forum has blocked AMD from releasing
| an open source HDMI 2.1 implementation.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hdmi-forum-to-amd-
| no...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| ... but isn't it using a wireless dongle to connect to the
| headset to the PC so HDMI doesn't get involved?
|
| It seems to me the wireless is pretty important. I have an
| MQ3 and I have the link cable. For software development I
| pretty much have to plug the MQ3 into my PC and it is not
| so bad to wander around the living room looking in a Mars
| boulder from all sides and such.
|
| For games and apps that involve moving around, particularly
| things like _Beat Saber_ or _Supernatural_ the standalone
| headset has a huge advantage of having no cable. If I have
| a choice between buying a game on Steam or the MQ3 store I
| 'm likely to buy the MQ3 game because of the convenience
| and freedom of standalone. A really good wireless link
| changes that.
| jsheard wrote:
| > but isn't it using a wireless dongle to connect to the
| headset to the PC so HDMI doesn't get involved?
|
| I'm talking about the Steam Machine here. In theory you
| could pipe 4k120 to the headset assuming there's enough
| wireless bandwidth, yeah.
| OGWhales wrote:
| It seems it supports DP 1.4 as well, so perhaps you could
| get an adapter if your display only supports HDMI 2.1
| skeaker wrote:
| Where are you getting this number? I'm not seeing it on the
| specs page.
| marcosscriven wrote:
| This is for the steam machine, not the headset. Mentioned
| in the CPU & GPU section.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| it's confusing rn because on the steam machine post people
| are commenting on the frame and vice-versa here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45903404
| srjek wrote:
| So, in the specs for the mini-pc, it claims the video out can
| do 4K @ 120Hz (even faster if displayport). I assume the 4K @
| 60Hz you saw is from the "4K gaming at 60 FPS with FSR" line.
|
| I reckon it can probably stream at 4K@120 if it can game at
| half that.
| marcosscriven wrote:
| Interesting. I also saw HDMI 2.0 - I guess it's technically
| possible but with subsampling?
| constantcrying wrote:
| This is not true, from the specs:
|
| HDMI 2.0
|
| Up to 4K @ 120Hz
|
| Supports HDR, FreeSync, and CEC
|
| I have zero doubts the device can do 4k @ 120Hz streaming
| Hardware wise. In the end it is just a normal Linux desktop.
| torginus wrote:
| Considering how much they talk about Foveated rendering, I
| think it might not be constrained by the traditional
| limitations of screens - instead of sending a fixed
| resolution image at whatever frequency, it'll send a tiny but
| highly detailed image where your eyes are focusing, with the
| rest being considerably lower resolution.
|
| Or that's what I think I may be completely wrong.
| phantasmish wrote:
| Oh _hell_ yes. There was a leak of specs (via a benchmarking
| database) of an upcoming machine from Valve and I had my
| fingers crossed that it was a mini PC and not some VR thingy,
| saw this thread, and was sad for a moment before I spotted this
| post.
|
| 6x as powerful as the Steam deck (that I use plugged in anyway
| 98% of the time--I'd have bought a Steam Deck 2, but I'm glad I
| get the option to put money toward more performance instead of
| battery and screen that I don't use) is great. Not a lot of
| games I want to play won't run well at least at 1080p with
| specs like that.
| torginus wrote:
| Snapdragon doesn't really have a good history of supporting
| proper desktop games. Windows for ARM had kinda bad
| compatibility. It seems the aim is to have most games just be
| playable like with the Deck. Fingers crossed but I have some
| reservations.
| phantasmish wrote:
| Their new mini PC isn't ARM (the Frame is, though), it's
| AMD hardware like the Steam Deck. Appears to be x86, should
| play basically anything in my library at 1080p or higher as
| long as it works under SteamOS.
| torginus wrote:
| I know but the Frame supports regular x86 games as well
| in standalone mode.
| klohto wrote:
| you run FEX, not direct ARM games
| torginus wrote:
| That doesn't magically fix the Qualcomm GPU or the
| drivers.
| klohto wrote:
| I don't think you will be on latest nightly. LTS are good
| and stable, if FEX is targeting those specs I don't see a
| stability issue.
| scheeseman486 wrote:
| The GPU is fine and the drivers Valve are using, if their
| past hardware is any indication, will be open source.
| Doesn't magically fix them, but it does allow for Valve
| to fix them.
| andoando wrote:
| What is the draw of the Steam machine though? They say the
| price is comparable to similarly specced PC. So why not just
| buy/build any mini PC? There's plenty of options for that
| baggachipz wrote:
| A good while back I abandoned PC gaming because I was sick
| of driver issues, compatibility, and always having to
| update hardware to play the next game. Instead, I embraced
| consoles and haven't considered PC gaming since then. This,
| however, has me reconsidering that. I want it to "just
| work". When I want to play games, I don't want to deal with
| all of that other crap. I'm old, ain't nobody got time for
| that.
| theshackleford wrote:
| It's wild how experiences can vary so wildly. That's the
| nature of PC's though I suppose that you are trying to
| avoid.
|
| I've had no driver or compatibility issues in longer than
| I can remember. Maybe Vista?
|
| I also rarely upgrade because playing at console level
| settings means I can easily get effectively the same
| lifetime out of my hardware. Though I do tend to upgrade
| a little earlier than console users still leaning a bit
| more towards the enthusiast side.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Some people really don't want to spend time exchanging
| parts when the memory they buy turns out to be incompatible
| or that the GPU doesn't fit the sleek mITX case. There's a
| lot of research to ensure all parts are compatible and
| optimal when building a PC - for some it's time that could
| be better spent on using the PC instead of building one.
| remir wrote:
| It's a console basically. It comes ready to play without
| much maintenance needed from the user.
| JBiserkov wrote:
| A bit of topic, but I was wondering how much bigger is the
| steam machine compared to the mac mini m4, since that's what I
| have and is my frame of reference. Obviously comparing apples
| to oranges and only talking about physical volume, not
| features, compatibility, price, personal preferences, etc.
|
| Mac Mini m4: 127 x 127 x 50 mm = 0.8 L
|
| Steam Machine: 156 x 162 x 152 = 3.8 L
|
| That's 4.76 times more volume.
| latexr wrote:
| > Obviously comparing apples to oranges
|
| Or is it "comparing apples to steam engines"?
| bakies wrote:
| It's only a little bigger than Mac Studio.
|
| 9.5 x 19.7 x 19.7 cm = 3,687 cm3
|
| and half the size of my SFFPC @ 8.3L
| taeric wrote:
| 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.
| reactordev wrote:
| These links open Steam app on my phone and crash immediately.
| archi42 wrote:
| Same here. Also happens when navigating there from within the
| all.
|
| Open the website in your browser instead.
| reactordev wrote:
| Crashes in the browser as well. Good job Valve.
| Ciantic wrote:
| What the, this link also crashes KDE Plasma, when opening this
| link with Google Chrome. I had to reboot two times, just
| clicking this frame link.
|
| Both times, first journalctl entry in the crash time is:
|
| [drm:__nv_drm_gem_nvkms_map [nvidia_drm]] _ERROR_ [nvidia-drm]
| [GPU ID 0x00000100] Failed to map NvKmsKapiMemory
| 0x0000000070a84e8b
|
| Then KWIN dump etc.
|
| Reminding me to buy AMD next.
| skeaker wrote:
| 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.
| taeric wrote:
| Well, that and being squarely focused on gaming.
|
| I also trust the Steam ecosystem far more than I probably
| should...
| crooked-v wrote:
| Vision Pro wants to be an iPad on your face. The hardware's
| just not good enough (in the sense of general manufacturing
| capabilities, not lack of investment from Apple) to make that
| an enticing product yet.
| stetrain wrote:
| This isn't likely to be a compelling spatial computer.
|
| The pass-through video is monochrome and the screens have about
| 40% of the pixels compared to the Vision Pro.
|
| The Samsung Galaxy XR is much closer to being a Vision Pro
| competitor.
|
| The Steam Frame is very focused on playing games locally and
| streamed from a PC.
| Philpax wrote:
| I'd be willing to take the L on the hardware in order to be
| able to actually run the software I care about. (I own a
| Vision Pro and barely use it because the pejorative
| description of "an iPad on your face" is more accurate than I
| would like to admit.)
| stetrain wrote:
| I don't know exactly how open the Android XR system on the
| Galaxy XR is, but it is likely better than the Vison Pro in
| that regard.
| mavamaarten wrote:
| I would agree, but I'm a bit sad about the resolution. I either
| want a mediocre resolution for cheap, or a can-do-it-all
| machine with great resolution for more money. I'm fearful that
| because of its great computing specs it's going to be
| expensive, but it's not going to be good enough for me visually
| to be used a lot.
|
| I mean, I have a Quest 2 and it'd be a step up but not a huge
| one. I've seen the Apple Vision and that did wow me. The vision
| is just in a weird corner inside a closed ecosystem and a tech
| demo for apple. No thanks. Valve will absolutely do that ten
| times better. But will it be visually so much better than a
| quest 2? I doubt it.
| ark4n wrote:
| That mini pc... one more nail in the coffin of the xbox hardware
| business. Ouch.
| 30minAdayHN wrote:
| I bought all my sim racing setup for my xbox. It was short-
| sighted but optimized for a quick decision. Now I feel like I'm
| stuck with it and can't upgrade the setup forward. Everytime I
| see these comments, it's one more nail in my wallet :)
| rowanG077 wrote:
| This explains why alyssa rosenzweig (from asahi linux) was paid
| for so long by Valve. She worked on FEX.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| What's fex? I wasn't able to google search it (didn't try too
| hard admittedly)
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| https://fex-emu.com/
| Tankenstein wrote:
| x86 to arm compatibility layer they are using to run windows
| games on the machine/frame
| tym0 wrote:
| Steam Machine is x86_64
| srjek wrote:
| 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.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| They'll need that either way if they want to get back onto
| macOS, even if it's separate binaries and not a translation
| layer. At this point I think Steam basically doesn't work on
| Mac? Since the x64 Macs are legacy and the new ones are aarch64
| preisschild wrote:
| I doubt fex-emu works on macos.
|
| But isnt that what Rosetta2 is for on mac anyway?
| fallingmeat wrote:
| any idea on price?
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| 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.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| There is a LTT video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU3ru09HTng
|
| Linus says he cannot tell it is actually foveated streaming.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I believe in Linus very little. I'll keep my eyes peeled to
| see what others say. It's certainly possible though, Valve
| has the chops to pull it off.
| stetrain wrote:
| Norm from Tested said the same in his video.
|
| https://youtu.be/b7q2CS8HDHU
| potatolicious wrote:
| The Verge reports similarly - can't tell foveated
| streaming. Seems like Valve really cracked the code with
| this one.
| nabakin wrote:
| I don't think a lot of people realize how big of a deal
| this is. You used to have to choose between wireless and
| slow or wired and fast. Now you can have both wireless
| and fast. It's insane.
| stetrain wrote:
| Yep, that basically guarantees this as a purchase for me.
| It's basically a Quest 3 with some improvements, an open
| non-Meta OS, and the various WiFi and Streaming app
| issues fixed to make it nearly as good as a wired
| headset.
| nabakin wrote:
| I haven't bought a VR headset since the Oculus Rift CV1,
| but this might do it for me
| birdman3131 wrote:
| Thats not what he said. What he said was even rapidly moving
| his eyes around he could not spot the lower resolution part.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| If you are going to be pedantic then at least do it right.
| Because that's also not what he said. He said that no
| matter how fast he moved his eyes he wasn't able to catch
| it.
| archon810 wrote:
| Same with Dave2D https://youtu.be/356rZ8IBCps.
| stetrain wrote:
| How is that meaningfully different than not being able to
| tell that it's foveated?
| nabakin wrote:
| Also mentions 1-2ms latency on a modern GPU
| pixelpoet wrote:
| There's an awesome shader on shadertoy that illustrates just
| how extreme the fovea focus is:
| https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4dsXzM
|
| Linus the shrill/yappy poodle and his channel are less than
| worthless IMO.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| When you full screen this, it's crazy how tiny the area that
| spins is. For me it's like an inch or inch and a half on a 32
| inch 4k display at a normal seated position.
|
| (If I move my head closer it gets larger, further and it gets
| smaller)
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Imagine if we could hook this into game rendering as well.
| Have super high resolution models, textures, shadows, etc
| near where the player is looking, and use lower LoDs
| elsewhere.
|
| It could really push the boundaries of detail and efficiency,
| if we could somehow do it real-time for something that
| complex. (Streaming video sounds a lot easier)
| scld wrote:
| Game rendering is what they're talking about here. John
| Carmack has talked about this a bunch if you'd like to seed
| a google search.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Foveated rendering is already a thing. But since it needs
| to be coded for in the game, it's not really being used on
| PC games. Games designed for Playstation with the PS VR 2
| in mind do use foveated rendering since they know their
| games are being played with hardware that provides eye
| tracking.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| As a lover of ray/path tracing I'm obligated to point out:
| rasterisation gets its efficiency by amortising the cost of
| per-triangle setup over many pixels. This more or less
| forces you to do fixed-resolution rendering; it's very
| efficient at this, which is why even today with hardware
| RT, rasterisation remains the fastest and most power-
| efficient way to do visibility processing (under certain
| conditions). This efficiency starts to drop off as soon as
| you want to do things like stencil reflections, and
| especially shadow maps.
|
| While there are some recent'ish extensions to do variable-
| rate shading in rasterisation[0], this isn't variable-rate
| visibility determination (well, there is stochastic
| rasterisation[1], but it's not implemented in hardware),
| and with ray tracing you can do as fine-grained
| distribution of rays as you like.
|
| TL;DR for foveated rendering, ray tracing is the efficiency
| king, not rasterisation. But don't worry, ray tracing will
| eventually replace all rasterisation anyway :)
|
| [0] https://developer.nvidia.com/vrworks/graphics/variabler
| atesh...
|
| [1] https://research.nvidia.com/sites/default/files/pubs/20
| 10-06...
| modeless wrote:
| Foveated streaming should be much easier to implement than
| foveated rendering. Just encode two streams, a low res one and
| a high res one, and move the high res one around.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| I'm super curious how they will implement it, if it's a general
| api in steam vr that headsets like the Bigscreen Beyond could
| use or if it's more tailored towards the Frame. I hope it's the
| first as to me it sounds like all you need is eye input and the
| two streams, the rest could be done by steam-vr.
| ynx wrote:
| If you use a Quest Pro and use Steam Link with a WiFi 6E access
| point, that should accurately represent the experience of using
| it.
|
| It's close to imperceptible in normal usage.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| 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.
| Diti wrote:
| Not to mention the insane precision (I believe it's something
| like 1 or 2 mm).
| starkrights wrote:
| Per the LTT video [0], the new Steam Frame controllers will
| have a (separately purchasable) accessory pack which includes a
| knuckles-like strap. Supposedly the controllers have enough
| capacitive-sensing ("on every input surface, and on the grips")
| for knuckles-like five finger tracking.
|
| Linus says "just like" the valve knuckles a couple times, but
| who knows how they'll feel comparatively. I've personally never
| used the knuckles, but they seem like they'd have a different
| enough feel from these to maybe make a difference.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/dU3ru09HTng?t=246 - timestampped @
| controller section.
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| This is my main concern with the new headset.. hopefully they
| have a way to support lighthouse.. maybe as an "upgrade" to the
| tracking if you already have a lighthouse setup. I play a game
| called VTOLVR and it's atrocious on the quest with inside-out
| tracking, because the game VERY often has you looking in a
| direction where your arm is behind your back or behind your leg
| (from the VR's perspective) and it completely loses tracking..
| literally killing you in game sometimes. Think "looking up and
| behind you for threats" while your hand is in the
| throttle/stick for a combat plane.
| tart-lemonade wrote:
| It does have IR tracking, so presumably it could be made
| compatible with lighthouses, but if they don't make it
| compatible (and currently the page makes no mention of it) I
| don't know how well it could track objects out of frame
| considering the cameras are still mounted on the headset.
|
| The controllers also have gyros, but from what I've read dead
| reckoning from gyros small enough for mobile devices really
| isn't reliable for extended periods.
| craftkiller wrote:
| 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.
| marcosscriven wrote:
| Personally I much prefer OLED, especially for VR, and haven't
| had any burn in issues with OLED in any form for years.
| craftkiller wrote:
| Even modern OLED experience burn-in (despite them announcing
| every year that "this time we solved the burn-in issue!"):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whuHuM9h88M
|
| VR is particularly bad for this because, on OLED, higher
| brightness = greater burn-in and VR headsets generally
| significantly over-drive their tiny displays.
|
| Naturally the solution to all of this is MicroLED which will
| have the benefits of OLED without the downsides. But until
| then, the only device I'm using OLED for is my phone (and
| only because I no longer have a choice).
| 0x457 wrote:
| > Even modern OLED experience burn-in (despite them
| announcing every year that "this time we solved the burn-in
| issue!"):
|
| Yes, but it's not degrading as fast as OLED haters makes
| you think. I spent days playing the same games (so HUD is
| in the static place) on multiple OLED screens I owned for
| years. No noticeable burn-in and still looks better than my
| only IPS screen.
| AndroTux wrote:
| OLED only burns in if the content is static for hours. If your
| head is that stable while using VR, I give you $5.
| craftkiller wrote:
| Do your VR games not have static HUDs / UIs? It has been a
| long time since I picked up a VR game since I no longer have
| the room.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| Not really, most HUDs are fixed to thigns like your hands,
| guns, etc. or don't exist at all.
|
| Static objects in your view are VERY nauseating (at least
| in my experience).
| rft wrote:
| I have seen different options of "HUDs" in VR games, not
| all are actually "heads up". Adding them to the proper
| context sometimes makes more sense than having them
| floating in mid air like in pancake view. Examples I have
| seen are 1) ammo count on the weapon directly, 2) score and
| score board to the side or projected onto the "floor", 3)
| attached to cockpit elements in space/flight sims and 4)
| somewhat affected by physics so they rubber band a bit with
| movements. I can't come up with an example of fully static
| HUD elements, but I am sure I have seen some.
|
| And even if fully static contents were a problem, I guess
| the foveated streaming would introduce enough noise to
| counter burn-in.
| t-writescode wrote:
| OLED is always burning in as a feature of it. It's just much
| less noticeable when it's: * cooled
| aggressively * constantly changing colors (more even
| wear)
|
| But it is still always losing durability in a steady way.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| I used colorcontrol to enter the service menu of my LG C2
| and disable all anti-burn-in features. No auto dimming, no
| auto picture level, no anti-logo, etc. The only one I kept
| is pixel shift because it's only noticeable if you're
| looking at the edge of the screen when it moves, it's a
| tiny movement. I skip the "pixel cleaning" prompt every
| time it wants me to wait. When I'm gaming in HDR, I use
| filters to increase the exposure to get the maximum
| brightness range of the panel. Been using it like that for
| ~8hrs/day for over 2 years now. Zero detectable hint of
| burn-in.
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| If you want a different anecdote, I have a LG C1 that got
| burn in after a year of use, playing FFXIV. I can see a
| blue outline of where my minimap and hotbars are. HUD
| burn-in. The only thing I disabled was the dimming
| feature, because it's outright annoying to use, where
| every time i'd scroll it'd make the text on a page
| illegiblly dark. (Dark mode pages, white text becomes
| dark gray while scrolling then back to white when
| stopped... sometimes not!). I moved that TV to the living
| room and got a non oled samsung instead which is what I
| use now.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I'm just not convinced it's really much of an issues now-a-
| days. We have an OLED in our main space and it's on nearly all
| day (I like keeping sound on while I work from home).
|
| Zero sense of burn in.
| Pfhortune wrote:
| 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!
| woile wrote:
| 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
| mmis1000 wrote:
| It seems the controller on steamdeck on windows detects as such
| when steam or whatever companion program is not running.
| Although in this state. You can only right click or left click
| by pressing against the pad itself.
|
| Although on Linux side. As far as i remembered, it's up to how
| kernel driver developer to map the device input into different
| class. It would be up to valve to decide what to do in this
| case.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| Wow was absolutely not expecting this. I need this.
| dev0p wrote:
| WHAT'S THE PRICE
|
| GABEN
|
| GABEN DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING WHAT IS THE PRICEEEEEEEE
| boriskourt wrote:
| And like the Steam Deck it will never be available in my region
| :) So much for globalization!
| xandrius wrote:
| Kind of weird using AA batteries, I'd imagine something else
| would be better suited for this?
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| I swapped all my AA and AAA batteries for Enelooops. The
| cheaper white ones are the best for most applications.
| archon810 wrote:
| I'm frustrated by the error rate on my Eneloops over the
| years. I have dozens of them and I swear every other time I
| recharge them, one more starts blinking and refuses to
| recharge.
|
| Also I would recommend switching to the IKEA rechargeable
| batteries which are supposedly the same thing except cheaper.
| t-writescode wrote:
| AA means they don't have to handle battery replacements; and
| it's not too-too hard to get rechargeable batteries.
|
| I would prefer batteries in machine, too; but this does have
| some sustainability and repairability (by not needing it)
| advantages.
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| The (now original) Steam controller used AA batteries as
| well. I can't say it was my favorite feature but I did
| appreciate that it made "battery replacements" a cinch.
| slg wrote:
| You're right that it's "not too-too hard" to get them, but
| it's also "not too-too easy" to actually use them in
| comparison just plugging a USB-C cable into the device. The
| process you will have to go through to recharge this will
| become incredibly annoying for something that will eat
| through batteries as quickly as a VR headset. Think of all
| the criticisms Apple has received over the years due to the
| Magic Mouses charging port being on the bottom and that only
| needs a charge every couple months, this will need to be
| charged after a few hours of use.
| Tade0 wrote:
| There are 1.5V AA li-ion batteries on the market. I bought
| a few to power children's toys and they have comparable
| capacity to alkaline batteries. At high currents they
| actually perform better.
|
| Cost is about 10x that of their non-rechargeable brethren,
| but obviously there's return on that investment.
| slg wrote:
| I wasn't denying their existence. I was comparing the
| process of opening your device, taking out the batteries,
| finding their proprietary charger or hooking each
| individual battery up to a USB cable depending on the
| specific variety of battery, and them putting them back
| into your device is more annoying than just plugging the
| device into one of the half dozen USB-C chargers we all
| have scattered around our homes.
|
| I doubt this would be a dealbreaker for most people, but
| it's a choice that will provide a consistent small
| annoyance for users.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The controller is the only part that uses AA. The
| computer/headset portion uses USB-C recharging.
|
| I would hazard a guess that the battery in the controller
| will have a life measured in weeks if not months.
| stetrain wrote:
| > this will need to be charged after a few hours of use.
|
| I think you're mixing up the controller and headset
| batteries. The controllers use AA batteries and should last
| for potentially months of use.
|
| The headset itself uses a rechargeable 21.6 Wh Li-ion
| battery with 45W charging over USB-C.
| slg wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. Still annoying, but obviously
| less so.
| t-writescode wrote:
| AA's are only used for the controllers and they've got a
| claimed 40 hours of battery life on those AAs.
| lopis wrote:
| Batteries in machine leads to having to wait 30 minutes for
| them to charge. Replaceable rechargeable batteries means you
| can instantly get a full new set. This is ideal
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Makes me happy. Instant swap when you run out of power.
|
| I just buy rechargeable batteries and keep a charger nearby.
| When batteries die, they come out and straight into the
| charger. Always ready to go.
| greycol wrote:
| I expect it does help with MRP and weight as well as making
| them more robust with no usbc drive to be worked free
| (especially if people try playing cabled up as inevitably
| happens when controllers run out of power halfway through
| playing). I'd expect there will be third party options to
| replace the cover/battery exactly how your thinking with a nice
| dock to put them down in for people who prefer it.
|
| Realistically though if the cover for the battery is nice to
| remove/insert then it wouldn't surprise me if having a battery
| charging station and hot pairs of batteries to swap out is
| actually the nicer usability option vs cording or dock downtime
| (if you leave them sitting on the couch with a low charge then
| need to charge halfway through).
| hadlock wrote:
| User replaceable batteries are... fine? Expected; preferred
| even? 40 hours on a single charge is more than adequate, imo,
| and if the controllers were too light that might actually
| bother some players.
| kalaksi wrote:
| I was actually glad they went with AA batteries for the
| controllers. They are easily replaced, of course, and I already
| have a charger on a shelf with AA/AAA batteries always ready to
| go. I tend to avoid internal batteries if I can also so that I
| don't have to manage them so much or wait for charging. Had my
| DS4 controller internal battery go bad after a year probably
| because the battery got deeply discharged a few times. Not
| buying that again.
| AaronAPU wrote:
| 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?
| JulesRosser wrote:
| Driving Sims, PavlovVR was a must play for a counterstrike
| shooter with great modding scene. Of course Skyrim VR, it's
| unplayable without mods but with voice recognition and QOL mods
| it's incredible,
| tianreyma wrote:
| On my own system I've played a lot of modded Beat Saber.
| Arizona Sunshine was good but not very long. Other than that
| mostly just mini game type things like The Lab.
|
| One of my friends also has a KAT Walk C2 and I've played Skyrim
| VR on that. It takes a bit to get used to but it's a lot of
| fun.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| There are some games yes but in my opinion right now the best
| VR experiences are simulators. Assetto Corsa, iRacing, DCS,
| MSFS etc.
|
| I bought a Bigscreen Beyond 2 + 5090 gpu basically just to play
| DCS (Digital Combat Simulator, a flight sim with full fidelity
| figher jets that you can even fly in PvP multiplayer) and it's
| the coolest thing VR has to offer for me. All my relatives and
| friends who tried it were stunned too.
| riskable wrote:
| Beat Saber is the ultimate VR game, IMHO. It's what enabled me
| to create this masterpiece:
|
| https://replay.beatleader.com/?scoreId=20010657
|
| :D
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I totally agree with you, I'm actually doing another Alyx run
| after only playing it on my Index. It actually please extremely
| well on the Quest 3 with the Steam Link app. Seamless.
|
| This guy on X gave me some suggestions of top tier VR games:
|
| Hubris, Into The Radius, Wanderer, Blade & Sorcery, RE4 Remake,
| Modded Skyrim VR, Modded Minecraft, Vertigo 2, Arken Age, Half
| Life 1 & 2 VR, UNDERDOGS, Hitman VR, Pixel Ripped Series,
| Walking Dead, Propagation Paradise Hotel
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of the "I Expect You To Die" series. They're
| basically a series of small escape rooms. The game's designed
| to be played seated.
|
| You play James Bond, except that for various silly reasons you
| find yourself stationary, and you have psychic powers to reach
| far away stuff because, again, stationary. "They've trapped
| Bond in a bathysphere!" "You're in a car in a jet ful of
| poisonous gas that's going to explode!" Each level will kill
| you quickly and hilariously over and over until you figure out
| a sequence of steps to survive.
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| Driving sims with the right setup are truly breathtaking gaming
| experiences. For driving, especially, even things like the
| weight of a headset almost add to the experience since in the
| real thing you are wearing a helmet. But it is a way to have a
| legit, e-sports level gaming experience with real-to-life
| controls with total VR immersion.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Is this built by HTC, like the Vive is/was? Either way, RIP HTC.
| vadansky wrote:
| >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.
| archi42 wrote:
| Last time I read up on OLED in VR, it was said that pancake
| lenses dissipate too much light. Might be dated of course, and
| iirc there is now at least one OLED+pancake HMD on the market.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Several. Vision Pro, Galaxy XR, and Meganex 8K, and more
| coming like Crystal Super / Dream Air.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| I have the Bigscreen Beyond 2 which is OLED + pancake fine.
| But only if you have the perfect light seal that the BSB face
| gasket ensures. Your eyes just adjust to it and I never
| thought about it while using it. The upside of having perfect
| blacks is sooooo worth it in my opinion. Flight sims in VR at
| night are an amazing experience
| charcircuit wrote:
| That is micro OLED and is more expensive than regular OLED.
| torginus wrote:
| 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.
| modeless wrote:
| 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.
| xeonmc wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Question, what is the criteria for deciding this to be the
| case? Could you not just move your face closer to the virtual
| screen to see finer details?
| modeless wrote:
| Not only would it be a chore to constantly lean in closer to
| different parts of your monitor to see full detail, but
| looking at close-up objects in VR exacerbates the vergence-
| accommodation mismatch issue, which causes eye strain. You
| would need varifocal lenses to fix this, which have only been
| demonstrated in prototypes so far.
| Fernicia wrote:
| Couldn't you get around that by having a "zoom" feature on
| a very large but distant monitor?
| wongarsu wrote:
| Yes. You can make a low-resolution monitor (like
| 800x600px, once upon a time a usable resolution) and/or
| provide zoom and panning controls
|
| I've tried that combination in an earlier iteration of
| Lenovo's smart glasses, and it technically works. But the
| experience you get is not fun or productive. If you need
| to do it (say to work on confidential documents in
| public) you can do it, but it's not something you'd do in
| a normal setup
| rtkwe wrote:
| For a small taste of what using that might be like turn
| on screen magnification on your existing computers. It's
| technically usable but not particularly productive or
| pleasant to use if you don't /have/ to use it.
| potatolicious wrote:
| Yes but that can create major motion sickness issues -
| motion that does not correspond top the user's actual
| physical movements create a dissonance that is expressed
| as motion sickness for a large portion of the population.
|
| This is the main reason many VR games don't let you just
| walk around and opt for teleportation-based movement
| systems - your avatar moving while your body doesn't can
| be quite physically uncomfortable.
|
| There are ways of minimizing this - for example some VR
| games give you "tunnel vision" by blacking out peripheral
| vision while the movement is happening. But overall
| there's a _lot_ of ergo considerations here and no
| perfect solution. The equivalent for a virtual desktop
| might be to limit the size of the window while the user
| is zooming /panning.
| whycome wrote:
| This all sounds a bit like the "better horse" framing.
| Maybe richer content shouldn't be consumed as primarily a
| virtualized page. Maybe mixing font sizes and over sized
| text can be a standard in itself.
| potatolicious wrote:
| There's no precise criteria but the usual measure is ppd
| (pixels per degree) and it needs to be high enough such that
| detailed content (such as text) displayed at a reasonable
| size is clearly legible without eye strain.
|
| > _" Could you not just move your face closer to the virtual
| screen to see finer details?"_
|
| Sure, but then you have the problem of, say, using an IMAX
| screen as your computer monitor. The level of head motion
| required to consume screen content (i.e., a ton of large head
| movements) would make the device very uncomfortable quite
| quickly.
|
| The Vision Pro has about ~35ppd and generally people seems to
| think it hits the bar for monitor replacement. Meta Quest 3
| has ~25ppd and generally people seem to think it does not.
| The Steam Frame is specs-wise much closer to Quest 3 than
| Vision Pro.
|
| There are _some_ software things you can do to increase
| legibility of details like text, but ultimately you do need
| physical pixels.
| giobox wrote:
| Even the vision pro at 35ppd simply isn't close to the PPD
| you can get from a good desktop monitor (we can calculate
| PPD for desktop monitors too, using size and viewing
| distance).
|
| Apple's "retina" HiDPI monitors typically have PPD well
| beyond 35 at ordinary viewing distances, even a 1080p 24
| inch monitor on your desk can exceed this.
|
| For me personally, 35ppd feels about the _minimum_ I would
| accept for emulating a monitor for text work in a VR
| headset, but it 's still not good enough for me to even
| begin thinking about using it to replace any of my
| monitors.
|
| > https://phrogz.net/tmp/ScreenDensityCalculator.html
| potatolicious wrote:
| Oh yeah for sure. Most people seem to accept that 35ppd
| is "good enough" but not actually at-par with a high
| quality high-dpi monitor.
|
| I agree with you - I would personally consider 35ppd to
| be the _floor_ for usability for this purpose. It 's good
| in a pinch (need a nice workstation setup in a hotel
| room?) but I would not currently consider any extant
| hardware as full-time replacements for a good monitor.
| andybak wrote:
| Most people in what age group?
|
| I'm 53 and the Quest 3 is perfectly good as a monitor
| replacement.
| froggit wrote:
| Are you saying ppd requirements for comfortable usage
| vary with age?
| gruturo wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. Due to my vision not being perfect
| even after correction, a Quest 3 is entirely sufficient.
| whycome wrote:
| We get by with lower resolution monitors with lower pixel
| density all the time.
| giobox wrote:
| I'm not sure most of us do anymore - see my 1080p/24 inch
| example.
|
| No one who has bought almost any MacBook in the last 10
| years or so has had PPD this low either.
|
| One can get by with almost anything in a pinch, it
| doesn't mean its desirable.
|
| Pixel density != PPD either, although increasing it can
| certainly help PPD. Lower density desktop displays
| routinely have higher PPD than most VR headsets - viewing
| distance matters!
| big_toast wrote:
| I think part of getting by with a lower PPD is the IRL
| pixels are fixed and have hard boundaries that OS
| affordances have co-evolved with.
|
| (pixel alignment via lots of rectangular things -
| windows, buttons; text rendering w/ that in mind; "pixel
| perfect" historical design philosophy)
|
| The VR PPD is in arbitrary orientations which will lead
| to more aliasing. MacOS kinda killed their low-dpi
| experience via bad aliasing as they moved to the hi-dpi
| regime. Now we have svg-like rendering instead of screen-
| pixel-aligned baked rasterized UIs.
| jayd16 wrote:
| It's just about what pixel per degree will get you close to
| the modern irl setup. Obviously it's enough for 80 char
| consoles but you'd need to dip into large fonts for a
| desktop.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I did the math on this site and I'd have to hunch less than
| a foot from the screen to hit 35 PPD on my work provided
| Thinkpad X1 Carbon with a 14" 1920x1200 screen. My usual
| distance is nearly double that so my ppd normally is more
| like 70 ppd, roughly.
|
| https://phrogz.net/tmp/ScreenDensityCalculator.html#find:di
| s...
| monocasa wrote:
| Foveated streaming is wild to me. Saccades are commonly as low
| as 20-30ms when reading text, so guaranteeing that latency over
| 2.4Ghz seems Sisyphean.
|
| I wonder if they have an ML model doing partial upscaling until
| the eyetracking state is propagated and the full resolution
| image under the new fovea position is available. It also makes
| me wonder if there's some way to do neural compression of the
| peripheral vision optimized for a nice balance between
| peripheral vision and hints in the embedding to allow for nicer
| upscaling.
| cube2222 wrote:
| They're doing it over 6GHz, if I understand correctly, which
| with a dedicated router gets you to a reasonable latency with
| reasonable quality even without foveated rendering (with e.g.
| a Quest 3).
|
| With foveated rendering I expect this to be a breeze.
| monocasa wrote:
| Even 5.8Ghz is getting congested. There's a dedicated
| router in this case (a USB fob), but you still have to
| share spectrum with the other devices. And at the 160Mhz
| symbol rate mode on WiFi6, you only have one channel in the
| 5.8GHz spectrum that needs to be shared.
| esseph wrote:
| Not so much of an issue when neighbors with paper thin
| walls see that 6ghz as a -87 signal
|
| That said, in the US it is 1200MHz aka 5.925 GHz to 7.125
| GHz.
| monocasa wrote:
| More of an issue when your phone's wifi or your partner
| watching a show while you game is eating into that one
| channel in bursts, particularly since the dedicated fob
| means that it's essentially another network conflicting
| with the regular WiFI rather than deeply collaborating
| for better real time guarantees (not that arbitrary wifi
| routers would even support real time scheduling).
|
| MIMO helps here to separate the spectrum use by targeted
| physical location, but it's not perfect by any means.
| cube2222 wrote:
| IMO there is not much reason to use WiFi 6 for almost
| anything else. I have a WiFi 6 router set up for my Quest
| 3 for PC streaming, and everything else sits on its 5GHz
| network. And since it doesn't really go through walls, I
| think this is a non-issue?
|
| The Frame itself here is a good example actually - using
| 6GHz for video streaming and 5GHz for wifi, on separate
| radios.
|
| My main issue with the Quest in practice was that when I
| started moving my head quickly (which happens when
| playing faster-paced games) I would get lag spikes. I did
| some tuning on the bitrate / beam-forming / router
| positioning to get to an acceptable place, but I expect /
| hope that here the foveated streaming will solve these
| issues easily.
| monocasa wrote:
| The thing is that I'd expect foveated rendering to
| increase latency issues, not help them like it does for
| bandwidth concerns. During a lag spike you're now looking
| at an extremely down sampled image instead of what in non
| foveated rendering had been just as high quality.
|
| Now I also wonder if an ML model could also work to help
| predict fovea location based on screen content and recent
| eye trackng data. If the eyes are reading a paragraph,
| you have a pretty good idea where they're going to go
| next for instance. That way a latency spike that delays
| eye tracking updates can be hidden too.
| cube2222 wrote:
| My understanding is that the foveated rendering would
| reduce bandwidth requirements enough that latency spikes
| become effectively non-existent.
|
| We'll see in practice - so far all hands-on reviewers
| said the foveated rendering worked great, with one trying
| to break it (move eyes quickly left right up down from
| edge to edge) and not being able to - the foveated
| rendering always being faster.
|
| I agree latency spikes would be really annoying if they
| end up being like you suggest.
| monocasa wrote:
| Enough bandwidth to absolve any latency issues over a
| wireless connection is not really a thing for a low
| latency use case like foveated rendering.
|
| What do you do when another device on the main wifi
| network decides to eat 50ms of time in the channel you
| use for the eye tracking data return path?
| cube2222 wrote:
| I believe all communication with the dongle is on 6GHz -
| both the video and the return metadata.
|
| So again, you just make sure the 6GHz band in the room is
| dedicated to the Frame and its dongle.
|
| The 5GHz is for WiFi.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Pretty funny to me that you're backseat engineering Valve
| on this one. If it didn't have a net benefit they
| wouldn't have announced it as a feature yet lmao
| esseph wrote:
| MU-MIMO is very nice.
| cyberax wrote:
| The One Big Beautiful Bill fixed that. Now a large part
| of this spectrum will be sold out for non-WiFi use.
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| Oh goody! I hope some of it can be used for DRM encrypted
| TV broadcasts too.
| esseph wrote:
| Different spectrum. They're grabbing old radar ranges.
|
| Also talking about adding more spectrum to the existing
| ISM 6GHz band.
| zamadatix wrote:
| You're talking about "Wi-Fi 6" not "6 GHz Wi-Fi".
|
| "6 GHz Wi-Fi" means Wi-Fi 6E (or newer) with a frequency
| range of 5.925-7.125 GHz, giving 7 non-overlapping 160
| MHz channels (which is not the same thing as the symbol
| rate, it's just the channel bandwidth component of that).
| As another bonus, these frequencies penetrate walls even
| less than 5 GHz does.
|
| I live on the 3rd floor of a large apartment complex. 5
| GHz Wi-Fi is so congested that I can get better
| performance on 2.4 in a rural area, especially accounting
| for DFS troubles in 5 GHz. 6 GHz is open enough I have a
| non-conflicting 160 MHz channel assigned to my AP (and
| has no DFS troubles).
|
| Interestingly, the headset supports Wi-Fi 7 but the
| adapter only supports Wi-Fi 6E.
| omneity wrote:
| It was hard for me to believe as well but streaming games
| wirelessly on a Quest 2 was totally possible and surprisingly
| latency-free once I upgraded to wifi 6 (few years ago)
|
| It works a lot better than you'd expect at face value.
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| I worked on a foveated video streaming system for 3D video
| back in 2008, and we used eye tracking and extrapolated a
| pretty simple motion vector for eyes and ignored saccades
| entirely. It worked well, you really don't notice the lower
| detail in the periphery and with a slightly over-sized high
| resolution focal area you can detect a change in gaze
| direction before the user's focus exits the high resolution
| area.
|
| Anyway that was ages ago and we did it with like three
| people, some duct tape and a GPU, so I expect that it should
| work really well on modern equipment if they've put the
| effort into it.
| monocasa wrote:
| Foveated rendering very clearly works well with a dedicated
| connection, wiht predictable latency. My question was more
| about the latency spikes inherent in a ISM general use band
| combined with foveated rendering, which would make the
| effects of the latency spikes even worse.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The real trick is not over complicating things. The goal is
| to have high fidelity rendering where the eye is currently
| focusing so to solve for saccades you just build a small
| buffer area around the idealized minimum high res center and
| the saccades will safely stay inside that area within the
| ability of the system to react to the larger overall
| movements.
|
| Picture demonstrating the large area that foveated rendering
| actually covers as high or mid res: https://www.reddit.com/r/
| oculus/comments/66nfap/made_a_pic_t...
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| At 100fps (mid range of the framerate), you need to deliver a
| new frame every 10ms anyway, so a 20ms saccade doesn't seem
| like it would be a problem. If you can't get new frames to
| users in 30ms, blur will be the least of your problems, when
| they turn their head, they'll be on the floor vomiting.
| cedws wrote:
| Why hasn't Meta tried this given the huge amount of R&D they've
| put into VR and they had _literally John Carmack_ on the team
| in the past?
| modeless wrote:
| They prioritized cost, so they omitted eye tracking hardware.
| They've also bet more on standalone apps rather than
| streaming from a PC. These are reasonable tradeoffs. The next
| Quest may add eye tracking, who knows. Quest Pro had it but
| was discontinued for being too expensive.
|
| We'll have to wait on pricing for Steam Frame, but I don't
| expect them to match Meta's subsidies, so I'm betting on this
| being more expensive than Quest. I also think that streaming
| from a gaming PC will remain more of a niche thing despite
| Valve's focus on it here, and people will find a lot of use
| for the x86/Windows emulation feature to play games from
| their Steam library directly on the headset.
| robotnikman wrote:
| It will be interesting to see how the X86 emulation plays
| out. In the Verge review of the headset they mentioned
| stutters when playing on the headset due to having to
| 'recompile x86 game code on the fly', but they may offer
| precompiled versions which can be downloaded ahead of time,
| similar to the precompiled shaders the Steam Deck
| downloads.
|
| If they get everything working well I'm guessing we could
| see an ARM powered Steam Deck in the future.
|
| Despite the fact it uses a Qualcomm chip, I'm curious on
| whether it retains the ability to load alternative OS's
| like other Steam hardware.
| girvo wrote:
| > Despite the fact it uses a Qualcomm chip, I'm curious
| on whether it retains the ability to load alternative
| OS's like other Steam hardware.
|
| I think it should: we have Linux support/custom operating
| systems on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 devices right now today,
| and the 8 Gen 3 has upstream support already AFAIK
|
| https://rocknix.org/devices/ayn/odin2/
| jayd16 wrote:
| What do you mean? What part have they not tried?
| cube2222 wrote:
| If you mean foveated streaming - It's available on the Quest
| Pro with Steam Link.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > Roughly equivalent resolution to Quest 3 and less than Vision
| Pro. This won't be suitable as a monitor replacement for
| general desktop use.
|
| The real limiting factor is more likely to be having a large
| headset on your face for an extended period of time, combined
| with a battery that isn't meant for all-day use. The resolution
| is fine. We went decades with low resolution monitors. Just
| zoom in or bring it closer.
| krzyk wrote:
| 2k X 2k doesn't sound low res it is like full HD, but with
| twice vertical. My monitor is 1080p.
|
| Never tried VR set, so I don't know if that translates
| similarly.
| potatolicious wrote:
| Your 2K monitor occupies something like a 20-degree field
| of view from a normal sitting position/distance. The 2K
| resolution in a VR headset covers the entire field of view.
|
| So effectively your 1080p monitor has ~6x the pixel density
| of the VR headset.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The problem is that 2k square is spread across the whole
| FOV of the headset so when it's replicating a monitor
| unless it's ridiculously close to your face a lot of those
| pixels are 'wasted' in comparison to a monitor with similar
| stats.
| bluescrn wrote:
| VR does need a _lot_ of resolution when trying to display
| text.
|
| Can get away with less for games where text is minimized (or
| very large)
| refulgentis wrote:
| Whether or not we used to walk to school uphill both ways,
| that won't make the resolution fine.
|
| To your point, I'd use my Vision Pro plugged in all day if it
| was half the weight. As it stands, its just too much nonsense
| when I have an ultrawide. If I were 20 year old me I'd never
| get a monitor (20 year old me also told his gf iPad 1 would
| be a good laptop for school, so,)
| wat10000 wrote:
| The battery isn't an issue if you're stationary, you can plug
| it in.
|
| The resolution is a major problem. Old-school monitors used
| old-school OSes that did rendering suitable for the displays
| of the time. For example, anti-aliased text was not typically
| used for a long time. This meant that text on screen was
| blocky, but _sharp_. Very readable. You can 't do this on a
| VR headset, because the pixels on your virtual screen don't
| precisely correspond with the pixels in the headset's
| displays. It's inevitably scaled and shifted, making it
| blurry.
|
| There's also the issue that these things have to compete with
| what's available _now_. I use my Vision Pro as a monitor
| replacement sometimes. But it 'll never be a full-time
| replacement, because the modern 4k displays I have are
| substantially clearer. And that's a headset with ~2x the
| resolution of this one.
| dagmx wrote:
| Foveated streaming is cool. FWIW the Vision Pro does that for
| their Mac virtual display as well, and it works really well to
| pump a lot more pixels through.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I think it works really well to pump the same amount of
| pixels, just focusing them on the more important parts.
| Psillisp wrote:
| Always PIP, Pump Important Pixels
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > Mouth tracking?
|
| What a vile thought in the context of the steam... catalogue.
| rtkwe wrote:
| They're probably thinking of it in comparison to the Apple
| Pro which attempts to do some facial tracking of the bottom
| of your face to inform their 'Personas', it notably still
| fails quite badly on bearded people where it can't see the
| bottom half of the face well.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I gathered as much, but still.
| nabakin wrote:
| And foveated streaming has a 1-2ms _wireless_ latency on modern
| GPUs according to LTT. Insane.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Wow, that's just 1 frame of latency at 60 fps.
|
| Edit: Nevermind, I'm dumb. 1/60th of a second is 16
| milliseconds, not 1.6 milliseconds.
| bspammer wrote:
| Much less than, 1 frame is 16ms
| sph wrote:
| 60 fps is 16.67 ms per frame.
| redrblackr wrote:
| No, thats between 0.06 and 0.12 frame latency on 60fps.
| It's not even a frame on 144Hz (1s/144[?]7ms)
| archon810 wrote:
| Have a look at this video by Dave2D. In his hands-on, he was
| very impressed with foveated streaming
| https://youtu.be/356rZ8IBCps.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I guess there's a market for this but I'm personally
| disappointed that they've gone with the "cram a computer into
| the headset" route. I'd much rather have a simpler, more
| compact dumb device like the Bigscreen Beyond 2, which in
| exchange should prove much lighter and more comfortable to wear
| for long time periods.
|
| The bulk and added component cost of the "all in one"
| PC/headset models is just unnecessary if you already have a
| gaming PC.
| modeless wrote:
| You can get a Beyond if that's what you want, it's a great
| device that is not obsoleted by this one at all. Valve has
| supported them in integrating Lighthouse tracking, and I hope
| that they continue that support by somehow allowing them to
| integrate the inside-out tracking they've developed for this
| device in the next version of the Beyond.
| preisschild wrote:
| That would probably add a lot of extra weight and it would
| need to make the device bigger.
| modeless wrote:
| I don't think it would be too bad. Cameras are tiny. The
| processing would still happen on the PC, and you could
| delete the lighthouse tracking sensors. I guess the
| hardest part would be sending that much camera data back
| to the PC over the cable.
| preisschild wrote:
| I agree. Hopefully Bigscreen continues making hardware. I
| still have the original bigscreen beyond and im very happy
| with it besides the glare.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| I'm personally quite hyped to see the first commercially
| available Linux-based standalone VR headset announced. This
| thing is quite a bit lighter than any of the existing "cram a
| computer in" solutions.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| They crammed a computer into the headset, but UNLIKE Meta's
| offerings, this is indeed an actual computer you can run
| linux on. Perhaps even do standard computer stuff inside the
| headset like text editing, Blender modeling, or more.
| pierrec wrote:
| 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.
| lopis wrote:
| Meta and Apple smothered VR almost to death. Valve is coming to
| set VR free.
| lostmsu wrote:
| 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).
| Melonai wrote:
| Pretty sure the OS is just the same old Steam-flavored Linux
| distro "SteamOS" with ARM support and some new graphics
| pipeline stuff for the VR portion, though we don't know until
| it's actually out.
|
| Though Valve has put a focus on developer ease and very low
| software lockdown in the recent years with their hardware, so
| I'd say the chances on direct rendering are quite good!
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Wondering what window/desktop manager will valve ship with
| the new steam frame. Is there even a desktop/window manager
| work with 3d space currently? Will that be a mod of kde or
| something?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Is there even a desktop/window manager work with 3d space
| currently?
|
| The best known is perhaps
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass but
| there's many others, at varying stages of development. It
| will be interesting to see if custom OS/UX development is
| made available for this device. We'd also need quite a bit
| of custom development to make the OS comprehensively usable
| with gamepad-like controllers alone (no mouse or keyboard
| required). The existing work on "10-ft." media center
| interfaces can provide a useful starting point for this but
| it's far from covering all possible uses.
| marknutter wrote:
| 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?
| starkrights wrote:
| I think it depends on whether or not you have good 6ghz
| connectivity. The headset comes with a 6ghz usb dongle
| pluggable to your rendering PC for locales without a 6ghz
| router or good 6ghz penetration, but due to 6ghz lack of wall-
| penetrating capability, that's probably going to be more/less
| line-of-sight. The LTT video [0] does explicitly mention the
| ability to use either mode of connection though- over your
| existing wifi network, or via their 6ghz dongle. It's somewhat
| unclear if the headset would function over a non 6ghz
| connection (regardless of quality- supposedly 2.4/5ghz VR-over-
| wifi is pretty rough due to channel congestion and maybe
| bandwidth limits)
|
| The headset is also capable of being its own renderer, ie, it
| can do 'mobile' vr games (android apks like on the quest, eg).
| That functionality wouldn't need a connection to your PC at
| all.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/dU3ru09HTng?t=445 - timestamped at
| wireless segment
| ranger207 wrote:
| It's both standalone and streaming. It comes with a 6GHz Wifi
| dongle; 6GHz has low penetration so using it in different rooms
| is iffy. But if you have a good 6GHz mesh setup it might work?
| 0x457 wrote:
| > But if you have a good 6GHz mesh setup it might work?
|
| That's my experience streaming games to steam deck. I have
| central 2.4/5/6Ghz AP and 6Ghz-only APs in other rooms. Any
| sort of wireless streaming at my place is snappy.
| Insanity wrote:
| 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.
| vunderba wrote:
| I can't imagine it exceeding ~1k USD - they've got to at least
| keep it reasonably competitive with the Meta Quest which is
| around half that.
| aljgz wrote:
| Meta Quest 2 owner here, with all the damage to UX after
| Oculus was acquired by Meta, I'll lean towards something from
| steam, even with a 2-3x price tag.
|
| I don't think I'm the norm, but probably neither an exception
| hadlock wrote:
| I realize this might not be the case for everyone, but for
| me, $600 premium is easily worth it to "jailbreak" the meta
| game store. Steam was here for ~25 years and I expect it to
| be around in another 25 years. My Quest 1, an absolute
| Dinosaur of the VR world now, 2019, barely works at this
| point, is out of support and Meta still haven't open sourced
| the firmware for it.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| I imagine there are a non-negligible amount of us here who
| looked at the Apple Vision Pro with interest, despite its
| $3,500+ price tag, only to find out it can't meaningfully be
| used as a standalone development device.
|
| Only question is if 2160px is enough.
| daemonologist wrote:
| I'm also very interested in this use case, however I
| suspect 2160 square is going to be great for gaming but
| insufficient for serious work. It's very comparable to the
| Quest 3 (lenses too), which is kind of on the level of a
| giant 1080p monitor.
| esskay wrote:
| They've cut some fairly shallow corners, like mono vs color
| cameras so I imagine getting it within a decent price range has
| been of high importance. I really doubt it'll be any thing
| close to $1k.
| lopis wrote:
| Not to mention this comes from a company that I respect and
| that has a proven record of trying to respect its users, unlike
| literally every other company making VR headsets. The fact that
| they are trying to making this an open device, and that the
| controllers have user-replaceable batteries is almost unheard
| of in any consumer device these days.
| daemonologist wrote:
| Word is they're aiming for less than the full Index kit (which
| was $1000), so good news there. I suspect it'll be fairly high
| up in that range though given the hardware.
|
| See "cheaper than index": https://www.uploadvr.com/valve-steam-
| frame-official-announce...
| andoando wrote:
| I bought the original Steam Index and pretty much never used it
| again cause its such a mess to have around. That plus the
| motion sickness. For applications where you're moving around in
| game though Id really want to try it again.
| RyJones wrote:
| from your keyboard to GabeN's ears. I've spent a lot of
| dollars supporting my local startup; it was mostly wasted.
| jjcm wrote:
| > The fact that this can run standalone
|
| Just make sure to wait for reviews on this front - it almost
| certainly can't run AAA games at the native resolution + fps.
| Likely it'll only be able to run lower req games on device.
| LukaD wrote:
| This looks really cool, but USB-A on the wireless adapter?
| Really?
| phantasmish wrote:
| Pretty sure the vast majority of device ports on plugged-in
| devices in my house are still USB-A. And the only non-
| phone/tablet devices I have that are C-only are Apple, I'm
| pretty sure. Everything else has at least one A port.
|
| It's only just getting to the point that if I search for USB
| peripherals (mice, flash sticks, whatever) in a non-Apple
| online computer hardware store without specifying I want USB-C,
| _some_ of the first page results _might_ be USB-C.
|
| USB-A appears poised to remain the safe choice that least-often
| demands your customer also buy an adapter for another couple
| years, minimum.
| krzyk wrote:
| It is my second laptop I got from my employer (replacement
| every few years) and it also has just usb c ports. I hate
| plugging in usb-a adapter. I would at least expect adapter
| included for usb c.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| I'st much less likely to break a usba dongle compare to usb c
| though.(the area is much mcuh bjgger) And I don't think the
| dongle really need the 40gb potential of a usbc port.
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| I mean.. my X670E motherboard (a high end, modern mobo!) has
| only ONE usb-c port.. it has, in comparison, 3 usb-a 10gbps
| ports and another 4x usb-a 5gbps ports. Given the headset's
| main use case to be plugged in is for PC-VR game streaming, it
| makes sense that they'd go with USB-A. Maybe in a few years
| they can switch but right now most desktop mobos barely even
| have usb-c.
| newsclues wrote:
| Good engineering discussion from gamers nexus
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ
| cube2222 wrote:
| 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.
| ge0n111 wrote:
| I think they made the right choice with Snapdragon chip... it
| will drop in and work as a dev kit for all the android
| toolchains that support quest3, devs will easily port quest3
| games etc... so it's basically a non-spyware quest3 which is
| what everyone wants at this point. Custom drivers on the wifi 6
| dongle are going to likely offer the best wireless experience,
| which again is what everyone wants.
|
| I'm curious how meta responds imo the only way to compete is on
| price/ease of use but i'm not interested in another quest the
| 'social features' are just an excuse to collect data.
| vunderba wrote:
| 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.
| dzonga wrote:
| kudos to them for using AA batteries for the controller.
|
| will help the hardware last longer. cz non-removable lithium
| batteries suck.
| foxandmouse wrote:
| 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.
| aezart wrote:
| 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.
| klipklop wrote:
| There will be.
| anonymars wrote:
| Deckard at last! https://isvalvedeckardout.com/
| skrebbel wrote:
| What a weird site. Am i getting it right that this "Deckard"
| was the code name for the Frame, it's out now, but the makers
| of the site went through all that trouble make a dotcom and a
| pedantic design but can't be bothered update it now that it is,
| indeed, out?
| drivers99 wrote:
| > it's out now
|
| It's not out, just announced.
| ethersteeds wrote:
| The timeline on the site you're critiquing says the project
| was confirmed in 2021. So they've been waiting a while.
|
| And it's _not_ out, it was "revealed" today with "early
| 2026" estimate for availability. No price yet.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware
| stetrain wrote:
| The site has been updated, it says "Announced on Steam -- not
| out yet."
|
| The headset isn't being released until early 2026.
| tym0 wrote:
| 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.
|
| [0] https://github.com/FEX-Emu/FEX
|
| [1] https://github.com/brunodev85/winlator
| zzsshh wrote:
| Google has also agreed to officially open up to competing app
| stores from the next
| version(https://www.theverge.com/policy/813991/epic-google-
| proposed-...), so the time is ideal for this. Valve, if you're
| reading this, please release Steam for Android.
| robhlt wrote:
| It's running SteamOS according to the tech specs on the store
| page, not Android.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe
| SSLy wrote:
| this has nothing to do with Android
| TGower wrote:
| Unfortunately not, at least outside of the Linux VM shipping in
| new Android versions https://wiki.fex-
| emu.com/index.php/FAQ#Will_FEX-Emu_.28Linux...
| tym0 wrote:
| It appears I was wrong about Android. The fact that they said
| you could just install APKs on it made me think what they
| called SteamOS was just Android here but your link is clear
| that FEX doesn't run there.
|
| Guess they have yet another translation layer to run these
| APKs?
| cortesoft wrote:
| 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.
| Zarathruster wrote:
| I guess we're in a minority but I'm in full agreement. Color
| passthrough really felt like a game-changer, and I've long
| wished for a more open, non-Meta alternative. Guess we'll be
| waiting a bit longer
| mavamaarten wrote:
| I have a quest 2 where the passthrough is laughable. Would you
| really use it for anything other than getting a glimpse of the
| outside world? I sure don't, but that may be because of the
| shitty camera's. But I never saw the appeal of passthrough
| anyways, isn't the point of a VR headset to see a different
| reality? Like, not the real world?
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| with the galaxy xr, you don't have to choose. sometimes it's
| good to have windows in your reality, other times you can go
| to a fully immersive mode with different environments
| madsushi wrote:
| There's an expansion port on the front with a camera interface,
| so you could add on better AR cameras.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| 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?
| slg wrote:
| 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.
| davedx wrote:
| 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?
| charcircuit wrote:
| Have you tried adding a second user on the headset with your
| own account?
| brazukadev wrote:
| Steam is becoming what Google or Apple was in the past but much
| better, I like it.
| poly2it wrote:
| A resolution of 2160@110deg 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.
|
| https://simulavr.com/blog/ppd-optics/
| StumpChunkman wrote:
| 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.
| skywal_l wrote:
| > 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.
| krzyk wrote:
| Why? It is a bummer to keep them, buy them when suddently they
| stop working, etc.
|
| While chargeable needs just a usb-c socket.
| akdev1l wrote:
| Devices with internal batteries basically have embedded
| expiration dates.
|
| Standard AAA or AA can be rechargeable so you don't need to
| keep buying more. I'd suggest buying like a 100 pack or
| something, they're not expensive.
| archon810 wrote:
| The ideal would be rechargeable AA battery support with a
| built-in USB-C that would natively support charging said AA
| battery.
| benoau wrote:
| You can also get a USB charger for them which is very
| convenient.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I actually prefer rechargeable batteries.
|
| But rechargeable lithium batteries in AA form factor are cheap
| and cheerful. Even low quality ones will get 20 hours in that
| situation. So I have no more room to complain.
|
| Valve is weirdly good at making controllers efficient. The
| original steam controller could get 80 hours out of two AAs if
| you turn off rumble.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| 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.
| vanadium1st wrote:
| 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.
| madsushi wrote:
| There's an expansion port on the front with a camera interface,
| so you could add on better AR cameras.
| modeless wrote:
| Valve is focused on making a device that works well with their
| existing game catalog. It's a Steam device first, and it needs
| to be inexpensive to compete with Quest (which is subsidized by
| Meta), so they need to prioritize which features get included.
| I wouldn't be surprised to see a first party AR camera
| attachment a while after launch. The expansion port seems
| specifically designed for this, with the inclusion of MIPI CSI
| lanes for two cameras.
| vanadium1st wrote:
| I get that there needed to be tradeoffs, I just disagree with
| this particular one. I could suggest many other ways to save
| ten bucks in hardware costs. Any other cost saving measure
| would still allow to play the same games, just with worse
| performance. But this choice cuts the stock device off from
| an entire class of apps - in my opinion the best of them all.
| delusional wrote:
| I don't think the greyscale camera is mainly a cost concern.
| I imagine the greyscale camera has better low light and noise
| performance, which is quite important for tracking.
|
| The big difference seems to be that this headset doesn't have
| AR cameras at all, but reuse the mapping camera for some
| light passthrough duty.
| modeless wrote:
| The headsets that have AR cameras don't use them for
| tracking AFAIK. They all have monochrome cameras for that.
| The AR cameras are an additional cost that is only used for
| AR.
| theshackleford wrote:
| I have little to no interest in AR and i'm glad they didnt
| waste more money or resources on it. I don't use it on my Q3
| and I wouldnt use it on this.
| hadlock wrote:
| Apparently Valve was able to use a true cell phone chip and get
| more raw performance out of it by using lower res monochrome
| cameras, whereas qualcomm's AR-capable chips use up a lot of
| the wafer for processing color AR video and DSP. Given it's
| built to a budget, and I don't ever use AR, monochrome AR seems
| like an acceptable tradeoff.
| cruano wrote:
| > It adds a questionable improvement in graphics and immersion
| at the incredibly high cost of excluding yourself from the real
| world.
|
| That's a feature for a good number of games, if not most. For
| example, Resident Evil 4/8 in VR are by far the best horror
| experiences I've had, and part of it is that you stop seeing
| your living room while playing.
|
| > The motion controls in VR will also always be severely
| limited by the fact that you can't see your surroundings.
|
| There is zero chance that aiming with a controller is more
| intuitive than point-and-shoot. What I get from your comment is
| that the movement can be awkward which is absolutely true, but
| plenty of games have neat ways around that. And then there are
| games that require no actual movement, like racing games with a
| sim setup.
| AISnakeOil wrote:
| Valve just defeated Meta and Xbox in one go. nice.
| mottey wrote:
| If it all launches with Half-Life 3 that works seamlessly across
| all 3 Steam platforms then we're living in the best timeline...
| krior wrote:
| > then we're living in the best timeline...
|
| Needs to run GNU Hurd for that.
| robbiet480 wrote:
| 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.
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| There was a lot of discussion about some work they've done to
| minimize compression artifacts... that's the biggest drawback
| for me in terms of ALVR + AVP... I suppose time will tell.
| circuit10 wrote:
| 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
| preisschild wrote:
| Apparently they are heavily funding FEX-emu now and are using
| that
| arnaudsm wrote:
| 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.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Not to mention Meta abandoned the Quest 1 very quickly. I
| bought a game when it came out and never got around to playing
| it (had kids). I tried to play it recently and it no longer
| even works! PS30 down the drain, thanks Zuck.
|
| I guess I can't complain too much given that I got it for free.
| jackhalford wrote:
| 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.
| RGBCube wrote:
| Finally, a modern VR headset that doesn't hate you.
| jdprgm wrote:
| 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?
| seabombs wrote:
| Brilliant, I'm anxiously awaiting pricing details 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.
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