No prices yet. I may never financially recover from this.
let’s hope they sell these globally this time.
Been waiting for this vr headset to release for years, only to find they’ve used lcd’s instead of OLED screens. I’m so disappointed and pissed.
VR is the most expensive toy you will use for a couple of hours before getting bored of it.
If Valve makes ARM Linux work properly as a gaming/desktop OS, I will uhh hmm.
I will buy this thing.
I wonder if they’re still using Arch for the basis of this. Its ARM version is kinda not so great, although not terrible either.
Yes but …
no hand tracking no color passthrough no hardware upgrade no WebXR no new VR proper contentStill, it’s good obviously, not having to rely on BigTech. This was also possible before though as I pointed out in https://lemmy.ml/post/38899489/22202786 with e.g. Lynx XR1, as a rooted Android standalone HMD with no account required.
Anyway IMHO the big questions for VR on Linux more broadly is what changes upstream on KDE in terms of immersive UX? Is KDE Plasma becoming a VR graphical shell? Does it have 3D widgets? Does it impact freedesktop in any way?
(copy of https://lemmy.ml/post/38899489/22202838 as I posted there first)
Price will make or break this thing. Rumors going around its gonna be around 1k which is a tall ask for the listed specs. 500, I’d buy it without any promise of any Valve backed VR game and I’m not even big on VR. For the rumored price, I’d need to see more commitment from Valve and latest news right now are saying they aren’t developing a VR title.
Sadly agree. I’ve been waiting for years, claiming I’d buy whatever they sell… but honestly right now this would feel like a donation more than something I eagerly want, even less need.
FWIW I’m also NOT the market, I have … I don’t actually know how many but at least 5 XR headsets.
@[email protected] @[email protected] seems like there’s more potential for hardware upgrades than with any other headset since the system has separate modules for compute/optics+display/tracking and audio/strap/power but sure, no XR headset is going to be very upgradable given the harsh constraints on size and weight.
Yeah, in theory that’s great but reminds me of my Corsair One proudly featured on my desk right now. It’s a standard PC… but that thing is so well done, so compact, it’s hard to find ways to change anything.
Also it reminds me of the frunk of the Index, super cool in theory, couple of neat projects… but I personally didn’t use it much so we’ll see.
Sad about the monochrome passthrough but otherwise pretty hyped for more VR hardware. The Index was a disappointment to me so glad to see it’s more in line with the Quest 3, especially the controllers. They look perfect.
I’ll buy the VR headset if, as well as streaming games, you can also play video/mirror your desktop. I know that’s not the market they’re going for, but it seems to me that those are the main use-cases of VR headsets aside from gaming and to my non-tech way of thinking it doesn’t seem harder than streaming a game.
I wish we had a pricing-point for the VR headset. I’m still considering getting a Quest III and break it open a bit, since the hardware is so damn good. This seems marginally under it (monochrome instead of full-color etc) but running SteamOS instead of Android sounds amazing.
But I’d need more information on it first - and granted, knowing if ever it releases over here. 😅
I’ll definitely get the new controller if possible though. Still rocking my original, and it’s still the best way to play mouse-centric games on the couch, I prefer it over a lapboard with an actual mouse.
Gamers nexus said the price category can be assumed to be around the index. Which i find a bit excessive, but maybe i misheard.
I’m bracing myself for the Steam Frame to be around $700-800. The monochrome pass through might seem like a downgrade, but mixed reality is also not part of what valve wants to do with the headset, i.e. focus on VR. Everything else seems like they might be pricey upgrades, especially with the eye tracking and streaming tech. They also shifted manufacturing to the US due to tariffs.
I will buy the VR headset immediately
I wonder if the Steam Frame is the codename deckard. I was really excited for that because it was supposed to have Steam Deck performance, but with an Arm processor that will be hard since most games need an emulation layer.
It is Deckard, from the looks of it won’t be as powerful as the steam deck but not because the ARM chip is slow. They said it is just because the effective TDP of the ARM chip (after subtracting all the work it is doing to track the headset and controllers and do the rendering) is like 7 watts, compared to the 15 watts of the steam deck. So you will probably still be able to run some of the more indie games on it. The translation later is also a 10-15% slow-down for CPU bound games, but they said should be negligible for GPU bound games.
From early reviews it seems penalty for emulation is in single digits. Also honestly I am considering one just to watch movies but my intereat would depend on the price of course. So wait we must.
Really excited for this and hopefully that means steamvr on Linux will actually start working better! The current Beta build is much better but still lots of work to do.
I’m definitely getting the frame as upgrade from quest 3 which I rarely use due to it being attached to Meta. The controller is no brainer considering that old steamdeck controller is still one of the best controllers on the market. Not sure about steam machine mostly because I just built my own PC - would have totally waited for it if I knew it was coming but it looks so slick.
Very excited for Linux in 2026!
I mean I think better Linux SteamVR is a given since they are selling the new steam machine as an option for streaming to the Frame.
I wonder why only HDMI 2.0 on the Steam Machine, 'cos RDNA3 is capable of HDMI 2.1 and you need it to go over 4k 60Hz (I know it says 4k 120Hz for the Steam Machine’s HDMI but I suspect that’s either 4:2:2 color or DSC if it is really HDMI 2.0).
amdgpu (the Linux driver) does not support HDMI 2.1 because the HDMI Forum does not allow them to open source their implementation.
Valve would have to provide their own solution and I assume they have not been able to deal with the crooks at the HDMI Forum yet either.
The HDMI Forum doesn’t allow opensource HDMI 2.1 drivers, AMD has the drivers ready but they aren’t allowed to release them. Yes, it’s that stupid
I think malicious is the correct word for it.
I believe they mentioned that it is basically HDMI 2.1 but some features weren’t supported maybe 4:2:2 color, I don’t remember. I think they also mentioned they are working on fixing it so they can call it HDMI 2.1 but they aren’t sure if they can so they are just calling it 2.0 right now to be safe.
Valve remains committed to an open PC ecosystem
happy noises
Did Valve just announce THREE of something?
Second steam machine (not deck!), Second VR headset, and second controller ( I actually don’t know if that’s totally true)
I believe this is their third VR headset.
The first one was a collaboration with HTC I believe.
Holy shit you’re right.
How big a deal is this eye tracking that then only shows higher resolution stuff where you’re looking? Is it legit and works well, or is it a gimmick VR uses to say its’ better than it is?
legit and works well
legit works well… but also not a magic wand. It doesn’t transform a low-end rig in a powerful machine.
Valve has only made mention of streaming bandwidth, nothing about the game being rendered (like how PSVR2 does it). As it stands it won’t do anything for the GPU performance.
Maybe there’s some sort of API games will be able to hook into, I seriously hope so.AFAICT for the Frame it’s only foveated streaming, not foveated rendering.
Foviated rendering is a massive thing, usually only done in the expensive stuff.
It gives you a pretty big FPS boost because the device doesn’t have to render stuff the human eye can’t see anyway
This is foviated streaming. The PC still renders everything at full, but the streaming compression is optimized for where you’re looking
Does that mean there’s no forviated rendering in standalone mode?
I imagine there will be for some games, but it relies on the game developer implementing it. Whereas foviated streaming works for all games.
Does every game need to support it in a way, or would this be done on an OS level? Because I don’t know, from my experience, the game tells how detailed anything has to be rendered in a frame.
The games that will play natively on the steam frame will have to support it on a game level, but for streaming it’s handled at the os level through “Foveated Streaming”. So the PC isn’t getting an fps boost from it but it does allow the latency to be very low through streaming.
I’m not sure that the eye tracking data will be passed through for foveated rendering from the PC side though I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t. In that case you get both render and streaming which would be incredible
Thanks for your insight :)
it’s a huge thing
Apple vision pros do it and it is pretty great
Where’s my Steam Phone Gabe ?
It’s coming right after the GabeCube
the deck can be a phone, if your pockets are big enough
With GameHub lite you can run steam games on high end android phones right now. GameHub lite is based on the work valve has been doing to get games running on ARM. I won’t be surprised if valve announces official steam for android in the next few years. (Steam for android as in an app that can run your games not just browsing the store).
It would be cool to see Valve actually release a Linux phone with the direction Google has been going, and maybe helping to lead to companies like Asus deciding to also move into Linux phones if Valve Linux phone is a decent success.
Don’t android me, I want KDE plasma steam phone dude.
Introducing: The GnomePhone
The headset runs on an ARM processor with Steam OS that uses KDE in desktop mode. It’s really just missing a cell modem.
Oh boy Unreal Engine 5 titles at 0.1 fps instead of 10
