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Steam Frame starts at $1059

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#281

Post by SXX »

andybak wrote: post #265
SXX wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question here is whatever Steam Frame displays resolution is sufficient to work with text. So far only mass produced device that was really suitable is a Vision Pro. So far all reviews I've seen been centered around gaming and not work.

I work on a Quest 3 no problem. This is sharper.

Honestly I'be tried Quest 3 and it was not enough for me to consider it anything more than just a toy.

How many hours a day you spend in it? How often do you use it?

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#283

Post by TiredOfLife »

terribleperson wrote: post #212

The Steam Frame looks like a heck of a device. At the cost, though, I question why they didn't include a better pass-through camera. A device with onboard processing and a good pass-through camera would be very neat. If they were trying to make this an affordable device I'd understand, but it's over a thousand dollars.

They use a generic phone chip so have to do camera processing using CPU and not dedicated accelerators.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#285

Post by moffkalast »

andybak wrote: post #273
moffkalast wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I'd say it's ridiculous to even mention it as a feature, it's more like a compatibility fallback. A shitty monitor showing an even shittier monitor while you have a fat brick strapped to your face. Maybe this gen is better, but from what reviewers say the practical hardware changes are very minimal. What's more interesting is that it's a linux desktop open for tinkering. Maybe lots of virtual desktops all aroun…

You don't need 4k in the headset panels to simulate a 4k monitor. The virtual screen isn't glued to your head.

No, you need a much higher res screen to do so. A 4k screen a meter away will have ridiculously higher pixel density per degree of vision than a 2K screen directly in front of your eye that will only ever be able to do very partial coverage. The effective angular res of the virtual screen would probably be comparable to 1080p at best. In Norm's review it's said that the default render res for flat screen is 720p.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#286

Post by stouset »

sheepdestroyer wrote: post #192
rwz wrote: post #186

I've never been interested in VR headsets and am not very educated about it. Can someone explain why you'd want to actually run things on it instead of having a much lighter screens-and-headphones-only unit that plugs it into a more powerful machine that renders things for it? What's the benefit of having to strap all this extra hot hardware and batteries to your face. Is it just about it being wireless? Surely there…

It is designed to stream wirelessly from a powerful computer too

I’m shocked that this is performant enough to work in practice. Isn’t the timing window for VR responsiveness extremely tight?

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#287

Post by simoncion »

Stevvo wrote: post #21

Wish Valve would make enough of something so that everyone that wanted one could get one. I wanted to get an Index headset when they launched that. I would check the Steam store page every few months, for 5 years. Every time it said "Out of Stock". It's still out of stock in France today. They design great products, but are useless at getting them produced in quantity.

> It's still out of stock in France today.

You might look at why it's out of stock. Here in the US, it looks like they're out of stock of the base stations, the right controller (but not the left!) and replacement face gaskets. [0]

> They design great products, but are useless at getting them produced in quantity.

shrug I've little doubt that there were a great many periods between the Index release and now that you could have gotten a full set of equipment. I'm very suspicious of the claim that you never found a time when you could purchase one from the Steam Store.

The Index had the misfortune of being released during the start of The Global Plague when everyone with a sizable chunk of disposable cash found themselves with a great need for new toys to play while stuck at home... and global manufacturing got turbofucked by said plague, which didn't make it especially easy to ramp up production.

The Steam Frame has the misfortune of being released in the beginning of The Great Abandonment of The Consumer PC Market, which has just screwed the availability of parts and their price.

I'd say that neither of those things are Valve's fault, but what can I really know? They're a secretive private company, so maybe they engineered both catastrophes. ;)

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1059530/Valve_Index_Heads...>

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#288

Post by anonymars »

Apes wrote: post #205
rwz wrote: post #186

I've never been interested in VR headsets and am not very educated about it. Can someone explain why you'd want to actually run things on it instead of having a much lighter screens-and-headphones-only unit that plugs it into a more powerful machine that renders things for it? What's the benefit of having to strap all this extra hot hardware and batteries to your face. Is it just about it being wireless? Surely there…

The real question is why did they release this as a standalone unit for $1049 and then claim they couldn't sell it for less due to the RAM shortage - when that implies they could have released a dumb unit that depends on the Steam Deck or Steam Machine for far less?

You're asking why they couldn't completely change the product from a full-fledged VR machine into a headset in roughly a year, especially when they already sell a regular VR headset for $1,000?

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#289

Post by wafflemaker »

Waterluvian wrote: post #84
njovin wrote: 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.

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.

Not bed, a stasis biochamber. Taking care of all your needs during a long fleet fight in EvE online.

Finally no need to let people leave for a 5 min bio every 1.5h.

Though with the current direction things are evolving towards, the biochamber might get replaced with the torment nexus.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#290

Post by solid_fuel »

Apes wrote: post #205
rwz wrote: post #186

I've never been interested in VR headsets and am not very educated about it. Can someone explain why you'd want to actually run things on it instead of having a much lighter screens-and-headphones-only unit that plugs it into a more powerful machine that renders things for it? What's the benefit of having to strap all this extra hot hardware and batteries to your face. Is it just about it being wireless? Surely there…

The real question is why did they release this as a standalone unit for $1049 and then claim they couldn't sell it for less due to the RAM shortage - when that implies they could have released a dumb unit that depends on the Steam Deck or Steam Machine for far less?

They've doing inside-out SLAM to map the environment and tracking your eyes for foveated rendering at the same time. That's fairly heavy - I think the compute required would necessitate a much higher speed connection with a desktop and a fair bit of CPU time, so it's probably cheaper and easier to put the compute right in the headset instead of scaling up the connection.

Also, they probably landed on this rough design a few years ago - before the AI hyperscalers bought up all the RAM - so the economics changed a lot under their feet.

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