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Steam Frame starts at $1059

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Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#131
post #18

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…

Yeah, I've been Linux-only on the desktop since the early aughts and trying to get the Valve Index working was so frustrating and inconsistent I eventually gave up. It sits collecting dust and I've still never played more than the first fifteen minutes of HL: Alyx (because no game is worth installing Windows for). Very much looking forward to maybe actually being able to use VR on my gaming computer.

I love the Steam Deck because it is almost entirely a consumer electronics experience. I mean, maybe for 10% of the games I have to edit an .INI file to have a perfect experience, but for the most part I can pick it up and play and not fight with configuration files and shell scripts the way I do at work and with my hobbies. I've seen Windows-based devices that compete with it at Best Buy and I'm kinda shocked that, for a demo, they drop you on an ordinary Windows desktop with visual scaling appropriate for a 20x bigger screen and it is not obvious how to play a game -- such a fail!

Overall I like the experience of installing and running games on the MQ3, I can very much see a Steam-based device that is just as nice or nicer.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#132
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do it, but the resolution isn't high enough for it to be a good experience. (2160x2160 per eye sounds like a lot, but with a 110 degree fov it's only ~19 pixels per degree. Which is like sitting very close to a 27" 720p monitor.)

For comparison, Apple’s Vision Pro has 3660x3200 pixels per eye.

Yep, across a smaller fov too (100 degree horizontal).

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#133
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Im not too familiar with the term Glasshole, but on long dark plane rides, if I want to use my laptop I feel like a lighthouse, even with lowest screen brightness. If I look like a dork with it on while doing some light gaming or movie watching, that is an OK price to pay to not disturb others around me. But if you are talking about just general out in public, then it absolutely gives dorky vibes. On the train, or in…

The Glasshole thing comes from when Google Glasses were new (sort of the ancestor to the modern Meta pervert glasses). When you saw someone wearing Google Glasses, you could see the camera pointed at you and that the screen was on and doing stuff. It made a lot of people uncomfortable.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#134
post #47
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.

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.

This machine runs Linux, it comes with KDE. This is the open Apple Vision Pro alternative that you can use as a real computer.

It comes with a black and white passthrough camera but you can add on a 5K color one.

There's ongoing work for a full Plasma XR mode, so you aren't restricted to a "virtual desktop" experience: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8671

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#135
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not cinema size, and not with your poor eyes focused on "infinite". And not any of this on a plane, or a train, or a self driving car, or an RV.

I like that you specified that the car was self driving, but didn't specify the RV was.

In my head the RV was parked and the VR provides a virtual office in the small space :)

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#137
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.

I have a recommendation in a similar vein: Gran Turismo 7 in VR on PS5. I have a headseat graveyard and never really used my headsets except for that game. I've heard good things about Half-Life Alyx and now your comment has me absolutely intrigued.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#138
post #78
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2x GPU performance[1] and RAM, along with it being your machine instead of a locked down Meta android device is worth 2x the price for many. Eye tracking is also huge, both as an additional input device, and lifting GPU performance even more with foveated rendering. [1] https://shattered.io/steam-frame-vs-quest-3/

Is there an example of foveated rendering implementation?

Quest Pro has eye tracking, and Red Matter 2 used it.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#139
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to proselytize an opinion here, but every time I think about VR Goggles + a virtual flat screen, I think about how entire industries exist to make us comfortable while we watch our real flat screens. A VR option would allow me to just lay comatose-like in my bed, goggles affixed to my face, as I watch whatever. It terrifies me, partly because of how good I bet it could feel.

Honestly, with apps like Immersed, custom two-hand keyboards, and trackball mice, it is already feasible to lie comatose in bed with a VR headset strapped to your face and get through an entire day of software development.

Just like nature intended.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#140
post #7

At basically quest 3 levels of on device performance, this thing better have amazing software. This price is way too high. Our expectations have been warped by Meta's decade long subsidization of VR hardware

Not having to faff about with Meta's developer program or whatever to side load my own homebrew stuff, and then get locked out, then have to do whatever hoop jumping six months later, is a huge bonus. I have an OG Quest 1 and the damn thing needs a new copy of meta quest ...whatever, installed every 2 weeks if I want to use it. It's exhausting.
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