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Steam Frame starts at $1059

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#631

Post by simoncion »

Stevvo wrote: post #591
simoncion wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

All of the components are out of stock in France. i.e. there are 10 different Out of Stock buttons on the page.

> All of the components are out of stock in France...

Ah, this announcement from the end of 2025 explains the recent dreadfully spotty availability: [0]

What a shame you never used any of the "alert me when this shit is in stock" buttons, which are what I used to get one of my own.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/news/817967/valve-index-vr-headset-...> [1]

[1] If you're inclined to emit some "How dare they sell something that they're not making anymore!" froth, do spare me. They're not taking your money and leaving you in limbo, they're very clearly indicating what is and is not in stock and not accepting money for the parts that are out of stock.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#632

Post by Craftyawesome »

moffkalast wrote: post #230
LarsDu88 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally I made a vehicle based game in VR ( https://roguestargun.com ), but currently I have no idea how to upload the APK to Steam to run on-device for the steam frame.

SteamOS doesn't use APK files afaik, it's just desktop linux. Probably an AppImage executable? Ought to be explained in Steamworks somewhere.

The Frame can, presumably to allow easier porting of Quest games. It uses lepton, which is a fork of waydroid.

Potentially related, IIUC Unity only has linux arm64 support for the embedded linux version. And to use that you have to contact sales.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#634

Post by baby »

terribleperson wrote: post #623
baby wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to replace your desktop with this? I keep hearing things like that, but anyone who has tried VR knows that it's just never going to happen. VR's killer app is gaming, and that's it.

Once the resolution is there (which is taking an awful long time), you could have whatever 'monitor' setup you want in a small space. Personally I wouldn't want to replace my desktop, but replacing my monitor? I'd do it if I could.

You want to stick your monitor in front of your eyes?

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#635

Post by wolvoleo »

wolvoleo wrote: post #612
corysama wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, now you can play through the second half in VR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXho2LdD1qo A flood of VR mods for popular games have been coming out lately.

Sorry I thought you were talking about the half-life ports. I played the original "Luke Ross" Cyberpunk port but it was pretty horrible due to his mediocre alternate eye rendering and the lack of controller support. I saw the new mod (dariulone?) but I didn't yet install it because it comes with a huge list of dependencies of other mods to install and I haven't had time for all that. I'm kinda hoping he makes a quick…

Actually there seems to be one on nexusmods: https://www.nexusmods.com/games/cyberpunk2077/collections/bp...

I'll try that soon. Right now it's still a bit too hot to be in VR anyway. It's more of a winter activity for me.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#636

Post by gamblor956 »

WithinReason wrote: post #565
gamblor956 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misunderstanding. The Pimax headsets with foveated eye tracking start at $1599.

You don't need $300 of ram and a $200 CPU to perform eye tracking, otherwise the Steam Frame would be able to do nothing else

I understand that thinking is difficult now that everybody offloads their thought to LLMs, but the math is very simple.

The cheapest comparable device with the same (or better) level of eye tracking is $1500 (i.e., 50% more than the Steam Frame)...and that was the price before the tariff war and Iran conflict jacked up prices.

While the ram may currently be $300, the CPU is not $200 unless you're including the custom processing units Valve is using to handle the eye tracking, which are (a) industry leading, and (b) made to spec in relatively small quantities and therefore more expensive (and given the limited chip capacity also affecting chip manufacturing, also significantly more expensive than they would normally be).

If foveated rendering was cheap, it would already be standard in every VR device.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#637

Post by hgoel »

m4rtink wrote: post #416
hgoel wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ver…

I don't think using a display when walking around is a good idea or even just safe to do. On the other hand, I think it makes perfect sense to have something a like a fighter jet HUD - important information in static places (time/location/notification status/etc.) with possibly some highlights (showing where is the next bus in AR, annotating things when you look at them, seamless translation of text, etc.).

Yeah, I used to think that it'd be fine if the content was pinned off screen but turns out it's worse because I find myself looking away from where I'm walking.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#638

Post by apatheticonion »

terribleperson wrote: post #622
apatheticonion wrote: post #318

I know everyone is singing the praises of the Steam Frame's wireless capabilities but honestly, I just want my wired VR experience back. I had a Rift 2, Reverb G2, then Quest 2 and eventually Quest 3. Despite the Quest 3 having a resolution similar to the G2, it looked more like the Rift 2 than the awe inspiring G2. Wireless gaming never looked as sharp and streaming over USB was also a very poor experience, with inp…

Wireless gets better if you mount a dedicated AP on your wall, but that's a pretty big ask when an appropriate AP isn't cheap. Steam Frame is solving this with a dedicated dongle, if I recall, which I think is a good choice.

I had a dedicated router plugged directly into my PC's second ethernet port. That was the best wireless experience I had - but it still wasn't a great experience. Again, my Quest felt like a hot, heavy Rift 2 rather than a wireless G2.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#639

Post by Akronymus »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #570
willis936 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM isn't really the story with Valve. Their business model is offer good service. Part of that is not being hostile to users. Users don't want to be spied on and have their data sold, so Valve doesn't do that. People want autonomy over their hardware, so they give them that. It's even in their marketing material for the steam machine. The frame is a computer running arch. If you want to 100% opt out of Steam and wri…

There is a real danger if Valve ever gets sold in bad hands - the only hope is Gabe Newell living long enough or find a good successor who can continue having a majority stake in the company.

one of his sons is slated to take over the business, afaik. Specifically the racecar driver one.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#640

Post by utopiah »

modeless wrote: post #625
utopiah wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean by monitor resolution but if you mean comparing the screen real estate you have in e.g. 32" flat area in an HMD versus a modern monitor it's both correct and irrelevant. Yes a relatively affordable modern monitor will have way better resolution compared to even the most expensive HMD but ... that's not correct since you can have whatever surface, even multiple layers, you can use as screen…

Angular resolution, not "screen real estate". It limits information density. Yes, the VR headsets have much higher FoV than a monitor, but it hardly matters for desktop work. Angular resolution is much higher on a monitor. Swiveling your head constantly to look at low-res windows floating all around absolutely sucks compared to having one monitor in front of you with higher information density. Varjo is the exception…

No I don't think angular resolution does justice to the comparison either because you are in 6DoF, not in 3DoF. It is a used measure and sure it's better than just resolution but it does not capture the actual situation of the user. Screen real estate means how much screen you can actual use and is resolution independent, meaning if you have a tiny screen but use a huge resolution, you can manipulate a lot of content, vice versa, big screen but low resolution, not a lot of content. Unfortunately I don't know of any metric right now that properly does the comparison which is why I initially asked if you actually tried. Anyway you did and it's just not good enough for you now it seems. I still don't know for which use case but that's fine, hopefully it will reach a sufficient point for you if that's something you find useful.
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