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Steam Frame

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Frame

#471

Post by usefulcat »

bigiain wrote: post #339
modeless wrote: post #60

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 bro…

> Foveated streaming! That's a great idea. Back when I was in Uni, so late 80s or early 90s, my dad was Project Manager on an Air Force project for a new F-111 flight simulator, when Australia upgraded the avionics on their F-111 fighter/bombers. The sim cockpit had a spherical dome screen and a pair of Silicon Graphics Reality Engines. One of them projected an image across the entire screen at a relatively low resol…

That’s reality cool. My first job out of college was implementing an image generator for the simulator for the landing signal officer on the USS Nimitz, also using SGI hardware. I would have loved to have seen the final product in person but sadly never had the chance.

Re: Steam Frame

#472

Post by baq »

remir wrote: post #305
andoando wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a console basically. It comes ready to play without much maintenance needed from the user.

One can argue consoles are pcs that the manufacturers try super hard to not allow you to root them.

This steam machine here is a PC with steam preinstalled for a console-like setup and direct boot to your game library - but it’s still a pc.

The point is, computers are computers I guess ;)

Re: Steam Frame

#473

Post by piperswe »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #453
arnaudsm wrote: post #269

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.

sorry, maybe i missed it. But how do you know the ecosystem is open? from the link we don't know if the OS can be changed (might be locked like many Android phones) or if a connected machine is required to run their DRM/Steam. The drivers may also not be open source

It's SteamOS and SteamVR - you can run arbitrary aarch64 Linux binaries that talk to SteamVR and they should just work

Re: Steam Frame

#474

Post by zeroq »

somenameforme wrote: post #465
zeroq wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll share a childhood story as well. Somewhere between '93 and '95 my father took me abroad to Germany and we visited a gaming venue. It was packed with typical arcade machines, games where you sit in a cart holding a pistol and you shoot things on the screen while cart was moving all over the place simulating bumpy ride, etc. But the highlight was a full 3D experience shooter. You got yourself into a tiny ring, 3D…

That sounds like you're describing dactyl nightmare. [1] I played a version where you were attacking pterodactyls instead of other players, but it was more or less identical. That experience is what led me to believe that VR would eventually take over. I still, more or less, believe it even though it's yet to happen. I think the big barrier remains price and experiences that are focusing more on visual fidelity over…

It is precisely that! My version was wireframe and I can't recall the dragon, but everything else is exactly like I remembered it!

For me this serves as an example.

Few years later VFX1 was the hype, years later Occulus, etc.

But 3D graphics in general - as seen in video games - are similar, minus recent lumen, it's still stuff from graphics gems from 80-90s, just on silicone.

Same thing is happening now to some degree with AI.

Re: Steam Frame

#475

Post by baq »

rbits wrote: post #319
andoando wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's tiny. It runs SteamOS which is built to be used with a controller on a TV. And it will probably be a performance target for many developers. But I think the biggest feature might be the quick suspend and resume. Every modern console has that, but not PCs. You can try to put a computer to sleep, but many games won't like that.

My Windows desktop doesn’t like that. It wakes instantly, no idea why.

Not to mention windows laptops waking up in bags or backpacks in the middle of the night seemingly for the only purpose of burning themselves up.

Re: Steam Frame

#476

Post by baq »

archagon wrote: post #353
andoando wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I love SFF PCs, but you can’t get the same density as a manufacturer doing a fully bespoke design. Just look at those innards: no space is wasted.

Yeah the heatsink filling the whole silicon-less volume is… something.

Re: Steam Frame

#477

Post by dyauspitr »

Insanity wrote: post #70

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…

At 2.5x fewer pixels vs the Vision Pro it doesn’t make sense. That’s 12 million pixels per eye vs 4.5 million pixels. Feels like a much more inferior product. The games aren’t going to look great.

Re: Steam Frame

#478

Post by baq »

cesarb wrote: post #361
SchemaLoad wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that would work. From what I can tell, the adapters are basically dumb straight through cables, they aren't converting anything. And it's the actual GPU that's outputting a HDMI signal over the Displayport connector, which the adapter than rewires in to a HDMI shaped connector.

> And it's the actual GPU that's outputting a HDMI signal over the Displayport connector, which the adapter than rewires in to a HDMI shaped connector. There are two kinds of DP to HDMI adapters. The passive ones are like you said, they need special support on the GPU (these ports are usually labelled as DP++), IIRC they only do some voltage level shifting. The active ones work on any DP port (they don't need AFAIK a…

Caveat: the good active ones aren’t exactly cheap.

Re: Steam Frame

#479

Post by vardump »

somenameforme wrote: post #469
m463 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a guy I know went to japan/asia around 1985ish and came back with a watch. It had hands, but also a small LCD display. You could draw numbers on the face with your finger, like 6 then X then 3 then = and the LCD would show the values, and finally 18 This is completely uninteresting now, but this was 40 years ago EDIT: I think Casio AT-552 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aQHnyZdgF4

It was a really interesting and weird time growing up when Japan was the king of tech. I had a friend who's dad was often over there and bringing all sorts of weird stuff back. There was this NES/Famicon game where you played with a sort of gyroscope. I have no idea how you were supposed to play the game, but found the gyroscope endlessly fascinating. Then of course there were the pirated cartridges with 100 in 1 typ…

Special games? I thought NES was controlled by Nintendo?

Re: Steam Frame

#480

Post by baq »

jjcm wrote: post #266
Insanity wrote: post #70

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…

> 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.

Can it run the terminal and vscode comfortably is what I’m very interested about. Not having high hopes due to it being only 2160px, but… a man can dream
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