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Steam Frame starts at $1059

store.steampowered.com

111–120 of 489 posts

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#111
post #15

If use for solely VR Gaming, and you don't care a ton about the privacy aspect, it is a hard sell against a new or used Q3. However, for myself personally I love the idea of it as a device I can tinker with and have full control over. I would love to also replace my laptop with it while traveling. Especially with a small wireless keyboard it has a good chance to replace my laptop for tinkering/gaming on the go. With…

Doesn't wearing a headset in public have antisocial "Glasshole" vibes? Honestly, people who cowork in public already give me the ick. Maybe immersing yourself in a headset is just a physical manifestation of the digital immersion that is already plaguing public spaces.

What's icky about taking a laptop down to the park and getting some work done while surrounded by nature?

Although, I do agree, I would find it odd to go down to the park and see someone wandering around with a VR headset tuning out the world and waving controllers around. I'm more addressing the "cowork in public spaces" part of that. I think their statement about "while traveling" is more like while seated on a several hour plane trip or relaxing at a hotel or things along those lines. Not like wearing the device while ordering a latte or something along those lines.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me a lot of the value comes from the freedom you get with frame. Valve says “it’s your PC, install what you want” and it runs an open source OS. It’s the first truly Linux friendly headset (it runs arch btw) and I don’t have to send my data to Meta. Also foveated streaming means, according to reviewers, a pretty decent wireless PCVR experience. I can’t wait to play half life Alyx without a tether. Valve is just d…

It's a compelling product niche, for sure - but still, awfully niche. I'm sure there's folks out there who will bite on the chance to have a top-line VR headset with Linux, but at the price point... gotta be a fairly small market segment. Still, I'm happy they're doing this, it seems like a cool product and I bet it would be almost as much fun as a platform to hack around on as it will be for gaming.

VR Chat often has 70k+ concurrent players across the world.

It is a niche, definitely, but one that spends a lot of money and time on their virtual third space.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#113
10 years later and VR headsets are still too heavy, hot and sweaty. Short of having brain implants or magical contact lenses, nothing will ever change that.

Can't be used more than 30min without major discomfort for most people. Any talks about it replacing monitors are lies.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#115
post #16

Half-Life Alyx is the greatest gaming experience I have ever had the pleasure to witness. I now occasionally VR golf. It's a steep price for a niche with not a lot of games.

Interesting that Alyx is still listed as "Windows only" even though the reviews say it includes a native Linux port: https://store.steampowered.com/app/546560/HalfLife_Alyx/

For good reason. Last time I checked (this year), Alyx crashes Mesa (i.e. your Vulkan layer) when the player enters an in-game load zone. This happens with native linux and the proton windows version.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#116
post #82

I think the price is very reasonable for what’s on offer (especially given the current memory crisis), and given that Valve doesn’t subsidize the cost of anything, it really shows how much Meta values your privacy and biometric data for advertising purposes (~$600 in subsidies). One thing I keep seeing reviewers skip over is VR Chat, which is weird since it’s a core VR experience that continues seeing average player…

For VRChat it has even more benefits - built in eye tracking out of the box and and expansion port for which rumoredly there should be an official project Babble lower face tracker under development. :)

I'm really hopping for a combined face/vive tracker, because calibrating the Frame to Vive trackers is going to be annoying without it.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#117
post #15

If use for solely VR Gaming, and you don't care a ton about the privacy aspect, it is a hard sell against a new or used Q3. However, for myself personally I love the idea of it as a device I can tinker with and have full control over. I would love to also replace my laptop with it while traveling. Especially with a small wireless keyboard it has a good chance to replace my laptop for tinkering/gaming on the go. With…

Doesn't wearing a headset in public have antisocial "Glasshole" vibes? Honestly, people who cowork in public already give me the ick. Maybe immersing yourself in a headset is just a physical manifestation of the digital immersion that is already plaguing public spaces.

I don't really get the ick about wearing these kinds of things in public, but, having tried to wear XR glasses in public has shown me that the bigger issue is that these things are at a whole other level of distracting compared even to phones. It'd probably be worse with a full face headset, since at least with glasses you have your full field of view.

Even despite pinning the display in a corner, I noticed I was very distracted when crossing streets. Made me stop wearing them like that, instead prefering to carry them in my backpack and use them on train rides or flights.

At least with my phone I can just slip it back in my pocket when I need to pay attention to my surroundings.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's already true for most PC VR headsets. Edit: I missed the point here, see reply.

Standalone? No. Most PC VR headsets require a PC. The Steam Frame will let you play 2D games (and some VR games), with no phone or PC attached.

Thank you for the correction.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#120
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is missing maybe the biggest point - this isn't just a VR device. You can run some/many (depending on your library) of your regular Steam games on a 'flat screen' inside the VR environment, which makes this much more like a SteamDeck with a giant private screen for a lot of people.

That sounds like a worse experience to me.

When sitting, the optimally comfortable angle to look, and the optimal place to hold a controller are very far from each other. The Deck is basically only fun for long sessions if you can play it laying down. VR is more flexible in this regard.
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