Valve Unveils Steam Frame VR Headset to Make Your Entire Steam Library Portable

Nov 12, 2025

Valve has finally unveiled its long-awaited standalone VR headset, Steam Frame (aka ‘Deckard’). While pricing and release date are still pending, the company says we’re due to learn more “in early 2026” following the release of developer kits.

Steam Frame is a compact standalone VR headset running a Qualcomm Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3 (2023) CPU ARM processor, which natively runs SteamOS, Valve’s Linux-based operating system featured on the Steam Deck handheld.

Like Deck, Frame has wide compatibility to run most Steam content, including flat or PC VR games. That means you’ll be able to run modern flatscreen games, like Hades II (2025), as well as some PC VR games like Ghost Town (2025) directly on the headset itself—provided they’re x86-based, which most are.

Granted, performance will be constrained by the standalone processing power of Frame’s Snapdragon chipset, although it marks the first big step in making PC VR content truly standalone.

The obvious wrinkle right now is that the most demanding PC VR games probably still need developer intervention to be truly compatible, which we’d expect to see with some sort of ‘Frame Compatibility’ badge on Steam like Deck has now, indicating the game (VR or otherwise) is both compatible and runs reasonably well on the headset. More on that below.

Featuring dual 2,160 × 2,160 LCD displays, which offer 72-120Hz refresh (144Hz experimental), Frame boasts a field of view (FOV) of “up to 110 degrees” in addition to eye-tracking, pancake optics, and a rear-mounted battery attached to the headset’s detachable headstrap.

Notably, the display, optics and computing ‘core’ of Frame weighs in at 190g, or 435g in total, which also includes the headstrap, rear-mounted battery, dual speakers, and facial interface. That ‘battery strap’ comes in the box, although an optional top strap piece will also available for purchase, which the user can add for more stability.

Passthrough is monochrome, which is a bit of sore spot. Still, Frame comes with a user-accessible expansion port than can support two 2.5Gbps cameras via a gen4 PCIe slot, which ought to leave room for hackers to do ever wilder things.

As for content, similar to how Deck has a ‘Proton’ layer, which seamlessly allows most Windows (x86) based games to run on the Linux (x86) based SteamOS, Frame’s Proton layer allows Windows (x86) games to run on its Linux (ARM) version of SteamOS.

That said, Valve says Frame is primarily designed to stream content from a more powerful PC (including the newly announced Steam Machine). To do this, Frame includes a Wi-Fi 6E dongle that creates a direct connection between the PC and the headset for optimal streaming performance. The headset comes with a dual Wi-Fi antenna; 6GHz for streaming through the dongle/PC, and a 5GHz antenna for simultaneously fetching data from your Wi-Fi router.

Additionally, the company has created a foveated streaming technology (similar, but applied broadly to all video streams) which uses the headset’s eye-tracking to dedicate most of the available bandwidth to the image in the center of the user’s vision. Essentially, the user shouldn’t notice when Frame is saving bandwidth, since your fovea is always served up the highest resolution. What else eye-tracking will be used for is still a mystery, as Valve hasn’t indicated anything else beyond foveated streaming.

Battery life figures aren’t tacked down either yet, it seems. Valve says it’s still optimizing battery life of Frame’s 21.6 Wh lithium ion battery for streaming to be as efficient as possible. The company notes that standalone battery life “will be much more variable, depending on the game and its settings.”

Besides the headset and headstrap, in the box is also a pair of motion controllers, which appear to be the very same leaked in November 2024, which feature input parity with traditional gamepads—putting all four action buttons on the right controller, and a directional pad on the left.

The idea is to allow traditional games to work seamlessly out of the box, while VR games may need some minor configuring to put input back at parity with Touch/Index controllers. Controllers include full 6-DOF tracking, capacitive finger sensing, magnetic thumbsticks, haptic feedback, and replaceable AA batteries, which are quoted at a 40-hour life.

As for min-spec, Valve tells Road to VR that if the host PC can run the game performantly, it will be “a good experience streaming to Steam Frame.” That’s well and good for traditional flatscreen games, but at least for PC VR content, you’ll want something pretty beefy. Click here to find out if your PC is VR-ready.

Moreover, Valve says it’s continuing to improve its Frame-flavored Proton layer and SteamOS to maximize compatibility. The ultimate goal is for games to run out of the box without developer work, although Valve will be shipping out developer kits in the meantime so studios can test their games on Steam Frame and provide feedback. That part is crucial for PC VR developers to ensure their games work on Frame, or what sort of optimizations/user settings people need to make, since PC VR gaming is so resource intensive.

And sadly, because Valve is going the dev kit route, that means Frame doesn’t have a price or release date yet. Valve says we’re slated to learn more “in early 2026.” Additionally, the company says it doesn’t have any first-party VR content in the works.

Steam Frame Specs

Weight	190g core, 435g (core, headstrap, incl. facial interface, rear battery)
Chipset	Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3 (SM8650), 8 core CPU ARM processor (4nm)
RAM	16GB Unified LPDDR5 RAM
Operating System	SteamOS
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi 7, 2×2 – Dual 5Ghz/6Ghz streaming for simultaneous VR and Wi-Fi
Storage	256GB / 1TB UFS storage options
Expanded Storage	microSD card slot for extended storage (up to 2TB)
Optics	Pancake optics
Display	2,160 × 2,160 LCD (per eye), 72-120Hz refresh rate (144Hz experimental)
FOV	up to 110 degrees
Tracking	4x outward facing monochrome cameras for controller & headset tracking
Dark Environment Tracking	Outward IR illuminator for dark environments
Passthrough	Monochrome camera passthrough (1,280 × 1,024 resolution)
Eye-tracking	2x interior cameras for eye tracking
Foveated Streaming	Eye-tracking drives video stream, sending highest resolution to where you’re looking
Other	Wireless Adapter included, Wi-Fi 6E (6Ghz)
Audio	Dual speaker drivers (per ear), integrated into headstrap
Mic	Dual microphone array
Port	USB-C
Expansion Port	User accessible expansion port – (2x 2.5Gbps camera interface / gen4 PCIe)
Battery	21.6 Wh Li-On Battery

Steam Frame Controllers

Full 6-DOF tracking and IMU support
Capacitive finger sensing
Magnetic thumbsticks (TMR) for improved precision, responsiveness and reliability
Haptic feedback
Input parity with traditional game pad
Replaceable AA battery (40hr life)
Optional straps

More Steam Frame Announcement Coverage

Hands-on: Steam Frame Reveals Valve’s Modern Vision for VR and Growing Hardware Ambitions: We go hands-on with Valve’s latest and greatest VR headset yet.

Steam Frame’s Price Hasn’t Been Locked in, But Valve Expects it to be ‘cheaper than Index’: No price or release date yet, but Valve implies Steam Frame will be cheaper than $1,000 for the full Index kit.

Valve Says No New First-party VR Game is in Development: Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx (2020) a few months after releasing Index, but no such luck for first-party content on Steam Frame.

Valve is Open to Bringing SteamOS to Third-party VR Headsets: Steam Frame is the first VR headset to run SteamOS, but it may not be the last.

Valve Plans to Offer Steam Frame Dev Kits to VR Developers: Steam Frame isn’t here yet; Valve says it needs more time with developers first so they can optimize their PC VR games.

Valve Announces SteamOS Console and New Steam Controller, Designed with Steam Frame Headset in Mind: Find out why Valve’s new SteamOS-running Console and controller will work seamlessly with Steam Frame.

Steam Frame vs. Quest 3 Specs: Better Streaming, Power & Hackability: Quest 3 can do a lot, but can it go toe-to-toe with Steam Frame?

Steam Frame vs. Valve Index Specs: Wireless VR Gameplay That’s Generations Ahead : Valve Index used to be the go-to PC VR headset, but the times have changed.

namekuseijin

right, PC flat indies like Hades run as well as "pcvr" ports of Quest games like Ghost Town

remsins to be seen about the real deal, as right now my Quest 3 can run even PC classics like Far Cry 2 or Oblivion, even in 3D

should be more than possible with that extra processing
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  The question is who will bother with creating Steam Frame ports for a HMD that apparently wants you to still use a PC for streaming VR games, with the local processing more useful to run older emulated games on a virtual screen.
  
  Porting from Quest to Pico is very easy/cheap thanks to the identical architecture, Android based OS and OpenXR. Most VR games are created with Unity, and these could again be mostly just recompiled for SteamOS on ARM, if their PC versions didn't rely on the much higher performance of a PC and desktop GPU.
  
  But the Steam Frame as a VR HMD will probably be a tiny fraction of the already small PCVR market which is only a minor player in the by itself very limited VR niche. So pretty much the only chance for the Steam Frame to become a desirable target for VR game developers would be Valve selling tons of them to flat gamers, creating a large install base that might also buy the occasional older/simpler PCVR conversion to run locally.
  - Arno van Wingerde
    
    But stand-alone VR is just one of four modes: 2D games plus PCVR games on either Steam machine or game PC. The latter two do not require changes to the game. I‘d Valve will try to create HA for stand-alone, other older PCVR or Quest games might get ported as well. But stand-alone is always limited. I would say that the typical Valve user has a PC to do the heavy lifting.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      The main drivers will no doubt be VR streaming from a PC/Steam Machine and flat gaming, either locally as a Steam Deck for your face or again streamed to a large virtual screen. But the hardware in Frame is a lot more powerful than the one in Quest 3, and the x86 emulation expensive, so native ports could make it a lot more attractive. Valve showed games like Moss in standalone, but these already ran on Quest 1, not exactly utilizing modern hardware.
      
      There is a chance that future game release will come with either Frame versions or at least release OpenXR based APKs that would run natively on all ARM based HMDs from Quest over Pico to Play for Dream and Frame. But with Steam already listing 5K+ titles with VR supported, they could really benefit from many of them just being recompiled for ARM to make them run on Frame at decent speeds. I assume Valve worked with Unity to make Frame just another ARM/Linux target, so this would be technically possible, though a lot of the older VR supporting titles have long been abandoned or were created with older Unity versions and would therefore require significant effort (not likely to happen) for a native Frame re-release.
      
      After my initial disappointment I'm now warming up to a combination of Steam Frame and Steam Machine as a kind of portable way to play most of the PCVR Steam library, as I doubt that frame will see a lot of technically possible native ports of existing games due to small sales numbers. According to Valve, the Steam Machine itself is six times as fast as the Steam Deck, and should be roughly as fast as a PS5, with a clearly faster CPU, but maybe slightly slower GPU. And lacking some of Sony's tricks like in-storage pipeline texture decompression, but on the other hand benefiting from all the SteamOS optimizations Valve already implemented on the Steam Deck.. Real world tests will be interesting. According to Valve 70% of Steam users currently game on a weaker PC than the Steam Machine, while VR users will typically have a faster one. So for a lot of people that aren't already into VR, native Frame ports would still be very interesting, because their current PCs aren't all that powerful.
sjefdeklerk

2k * 2k? Sounds dead on arrival
- flelvers
  
  Meta Quest 2: 1832 × 1920 pixels per eye.
  Meta Quest 3: 2064 × 2208 pixels per eye.
  Valve Index: 1440 × 1600 pixels per eye.
  Bigscreen Beyond 2:
  2560 × 2560 pixels per eye at 75 Hz in native mode.
  1920 × 1920 pixels per eye (upscaled) when running at 90 Hz.
  
  Your comment only makes sense if for some reason you are a Pimax user.
  - xyzs
    
    His comment make sense for a Hardware coming in 2026, being compared to hardware released 3, 5, 7 years prior in your list. Why not including the Oculus DK1 while you're at it ?
    
    LCD 2k for 2026 is unacceptable!
    The closest hardware is the Quest 3, and it is over 2 years old as of today already.
    If it was OLED, that 2k res could be ok, but LCD is such a spit in the face.
    - Mike
      
      If all the other specs were great, 2160 could be forgiven. But, no. Not at all.
    - ZarathustraDK
      
      Conveniently skimming over the Q3's 1.0 render-scale resolution, the default, is not 2064×2208 (the panels native resolution) but 1680×1760.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        There is a lot of misconception how much raw specs actually matter. There are good reasons why the by now low resolution LCD Index still holds at 15% of the used VR HMDs on the Steam hardware survey. An Index paired with a powerful PC can still deliver an experience unmatched by anything a standalone like Quest 3 can do on its own, no matter how often people point out how great Red Matter 2 looks, achieved with clever level design and baked lighting. And supersampling has a very serious impact on perceived resolution. It's not just the (pixel) size, it's how you use it.
  - remosito
    
    HP reverb had 2160×2160 per eye.
    
    bloody 5 years ago!
    
    in 2025 that res is a sad joke and utter fail.
  - Cless
    
    Bruh, my hmd I bought for 1400E has pancake moleds at 3840×3550 per eye
    - NicoleJsd [She/Her]
      
      Name of this hmd?
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        Cless uses a Shiftall MeganeX 8K tethered HMD.
  - Andrew Jakobs
    
    You forgot Pico 4: 2160*2160/eye same as the valve frame, but appearantly the Frame has a much more visible SDE, and lesser binocular overlap.
    - foamreality
      
      Poor binocular overlap is the worst thing for VR immersion and yet its rarely mentioned by reviewers. I would take lower FOV and lower resolution over poor binocular overlap. At least SDE can be looked past with practice.
- lilkwarrior
  
  Not if it's chasing the segment the Quest has attracted which is well within Valve's right to target.
  
  Not for me, but I can totally see that making sense as a fair serious alternate to the Quest that has sold millions targeting casual gamers.
  
  Some may prefer Valve's ecosystem of hardware and storefront over Quest's in addition to Valve's more PC-first-oriented approach
xyzs

LCD, 2k, 110 FOV ?

It better be very cheap like quest 3 level, because this is such a disappointment.

The positive part is how light it is though.
- Mike
  
  Bigscreen Beyond 2 and MeganeX are lighter, and much better otherwise.
  - Blaze
    
    And much more expensive.
  - philingreat
    
    the Bigscreen does not have inside out tracking, isn't standalone, has no passthrough and doesn't come with controllers. And it doesn't have a battery, so of course it's lighter.
    - Mike
      
      Looks like Play For Dream XR is best overall – wireless high-res OLED.
      
      And Samsung Galaxy XR is runner-up. Borderline-good wireless, supposedly getting better with software updates.
  - Andrew Jakobs
    
    Nope, the are tethered and no tracking/controllers out of the box.
    - Mike
      
      Looks like Play For Dream XR is best overall – wireless high-res OLED. And Samsung Galaxy XR is runner-up – borderline-good wireless, supposedly getting better with software updates.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        Yes, it's a shame they both cost so much money. But it shows those components are still very expensive to use . But as standalone they now seem to be already old by nit using the same chip as tye Valve Frame.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  No the positive part is the OS/soc used.. but without proper displays it still a waste. Main problem I have is the profound SDE visibility according to many who already tried it.
Stephen Bard

Those staunch Valve devotees still clutching their obsolete Index headsets can finally purchase another Valve headset with double the resolution, which is the same as the Quest 3. Suddenly they no longer see the need for OLED, Display Port or even color passthrough. There will undoubtedly be a special kit to graft the old Index speakers onto the Steam Frame. It will only cost them twice as much as the Quest 3 to not be able to do any Mixed Reality.
- foamreality
  
  Honestly, I actually can't believe this. I had to check it wasn't april 1st. UNLESS its dirt cheap, ie LESS than the price of a quest 3. That is the only thing that can save it from going down as valves biggest flop ever.
saintkamus

FML. LCDs in 2026? We had OLEDs in 2016 for crying out loud.
- flelvers
  
  OLED panels have a problem with light intensity when using pancake lenses.
  If they used micro-OLED, mini-LED, etc, the headset would be pricier.
  - xyzs
    
    Don't care, it's their problem to push RnD and prepare the future of technology, not up to consumers to cope with their cheapskate tradeoffs.
    LCD is an immersion breaker, so they will sell 1 unit less at least.
    - polysix
      
      2 I'm never buying LCD HMDs again. Would prefer to use even my old rift CV1 oled over even the best current LCD that's how important OLED is for VR immersion.
      - Mike
        
        And CV1 had horrible binocular overlap.
      - foamreality
        
        The original VIVE OLED is my headset of choice and possibly nothing around today can beat it. ts the only OLED headset with a decent FOV and great binocular overlap. Res is less important than OLED and binocular overlap for immersion. LCDs don't touch it, sadly microOLEDs in BSB2 has terrible overlap and tiny FOV so I prefer vive even to that. I'd consider the PSVR2, that could be better but hear the PC dongle/ software is terrible.
      - foamreality
        
        Or put another way, to keep the headset cost low, I think the best option for valve would have beem to use a normal OLED screen with good binocular overlap and decent FOV by using freznels. Similar PSVR2. That would have been a better trade of than grey LCDs and poor overlap (which I am guessing it has due to pancakes). OLED and good overlap is crucial for immersion.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        Aspheric lenses are actually a pretty great alternative for the use with OLED panels, allowing for similar clarity as pancakes without the massive loss of light. A lot of people hacked the aspheric lenses from Gear VR into the OG Vive for increased clarity with its OLED panels.
        
        Aspheric lenses also allow for some nice tricks, like Varjo's XR-4 using lenses with varying magnification, leading to a much higher PPD at the center, up to 51PPD, way more than a 4K display at 120°*105° should allow. I don't know how low the PPD goes towards the edge, but such a lens pretty accurately matches our eye that also see the sharpest when looking straight forward, causing humans to turn their head to whatever they want to read.
        
        The problems with aspheric lenses are color aberration, pupil swim, high weight, long lens-screen distance and high cost. The first two can be somewhat managed with better lens design, weight and required distance pretty much make it impossible to use them in a very light and tiny HMD, and cost somewhat excludes them from consumer HMDs. Fresnel lenses are much easier and cheaper to create with the wanted optical features. But technically you could eat your high clarity OLED cake and keep it, esp. for properly balanced HMDs intended for spatial computing without a lot of sudden head movements. It's just unlikely that someone will release such an HMD.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      No amount of RnD will break the laws of physics anytime soon. Pancakes lose 90% of the light, so your options are very expensive microOLEDs with special microlenses, or LCD with/without dimming zones. iPad Pros now use dual layer OLED panels to work around the lacking brightness of OLED, but they have to neither deal with 90% loss nor with low persistence requiring higher peak brightness, flashing the displays only shortly to increase comfort in VR.
      
      So right now OLED panels mean either Fresnel like in PSVR2, which many consider a deal breaker, or rather heavy aspheric lenses that come with some other problems. A couple of years down the road, microOLEDs may become very cheap, so you can get pancakes clarity and OLED contrast in a budget HMD, but not today. Of course we'll have to wait and see how budget friendly Steam Frame will actually be.
      - saintkamus
        
        One way to claw back a lot of light from OLEDs is to stop throwing it away with heavy BFI. In theory you could push the panels to around 1,000 Hz, which gives ~1 ms persistence without having to strobe them black.
        
        The game itself wouldn’t need to run at 1,000 fps – you’d render at something like 90–120 fps and use reprojection / frame generation so the panel updates head-tracked views at the full refresh rate. You keep low-persistence motion clarity, but without nuking brightness.
      - Mike
        
        Bigscreen Beyond 1 and 2, and MeganeX all solved the OLED pancake brightness problem. Valve has NO excuse – and not even released until sometime next year??? And only 2160p? I see no compelling reason to get this over one of those.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        microOLED ≠ OLED panels
        
        Bigscreen uses 2.5K microOLED displays from BOE, MeganeX 3.5K/3.8K microOLED. Current microOLED feature an array of individually controllable while OLEDs with RGB filters in front of them topped by a tiny collimating microlens for each pixel that focuses the light in one direction, usually a pancake lens. They are expensive and barely bright enough for use with pancakes.
        
        PSVR2 uses an OLED panel similar to those used in phones, with self-illuminating RGB OLEDs radiating in all directions, which is great for large viewing angles on phones, and horrible in combination with pancakes.
        
        So no Bigscreen Beyond/Shiftall MeganeX did not solve the OLED pancake brightness problem, instead they picked the expensive microOLED option exactly like I described in my post. You can ask why Valve didn't go with microOLEDs too, and the reason is most likely money.
        
        Another reason might be that even with the directional micro-lenses on microOLED they are still very dim, and esp. the Beyond 1/2 pretty much only work because their custom fitted face pads prevent light leaking, so their low brightness microOLEDs still look okay thanks to the total darkness inside. Apple uses microOLED with dual white OLED backlights to add extra brightness, resulting in lower yields and very high prices. It is much easier to increase the brightness of white non-organic LEDs used as backlights in LCD, which would make them usable with an open frame HMD, and the Steam Frame is very modular to allow exactly that as one use case scenario.
      - Blaze
        
        Not to mention, what are the prices of the Bigscreen and MeganeX headsets? And is that with or without controllers and standalone?
      - xyzs
        
        Ever heard of economy of scale?
        If it's expensive but somehow manageable for a 20 people company, it's easy to get the components at a very big premium for a multi-billion dollar company such as Valve.
        The issue with Valve is that they think like Apple, they want very high margins straight away, but since they can't sell at Apple price range, they sell lower quality products. The second problem is that since they never update their products, if you buy that, you are stuck forever with your LCD HMD for a decade, and after years and years of copium regarding a potential Frame 2 that never comes, you will have to give up and go with another brand and ecosystem because you will be tired of you complete obsolete HMD. That's what will happen with Valve consumers. And That's why OLED screens were a totally mandatory choice for me to even consider it.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        In 2024 Valve was a 336 people company:
        – 35 administration
        – 41 hardware developers
        – 79 work on Steam
        – 181 work on Valve games, incl. Dota, CS and TF
        
        They don't have their own display or research capacities, they partner with companies like eMagin to create prototypes for them. Not even Apple with 164K employees created their own microOLED displays, they bought them from Sony, with Meta releasing HMDs that are very close to the reference platforms of their hardware partner Qualcomm. And these two are trillion dollar companies, while Valve value is estimated to be somewhere between USD 10B-20B.
        
        And Valve stated during the hand-ons that the reason they went with LCD is that these are brighter, which was very important for the high frame rates they are aiming for. You may believe in miracles, but neither Apple nor Sony nor Samsung nor Meta nor Qualcomm nor Valve do. They picked whatever is currently feasible that matches the given job, which means low brightness, high contrast 4K microOLEDs for USD 2K+ standalones, 2.5K microOLED for USD 1K tethered HMD, OLED panels plus Fresnel for USD 450 tethered, LCD plus pancake for USD 500 standalone and LCD plus Fresnel for USD 300 standalone. Valve picked from what was available in current reality, not the future or fantasy land.
      - Mike
        
        I meant OLED as a blanket category of things that are x-OLED and have the associated contrast. Higher price doesn’t mean the problem isn’t technically solved. Just not entry-level. Bigscreen 1 was bright enough in my experience, and Bigscreen 2 is even brighter.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        A lot of people do, but you really can't. As far as we know microOLEDs are still f&ˆ%ing expensive, probably still more expensive than I thought, as I fully expected Valve to go with microOLEDs for Frame. They are also running hot, though everything with pancakes will generate a lot of heat due to the need for very bright displays, which again means extra cost and weight for heatpipes, fans, larger battery etc. The Quest Pro had two fans, each sitting directly behind one of the two displays, just to get rid of their heat.
        
        So you might end with something like USD 500+ extra for using 2560p microOLEDs instead of 2160p LCDs. OLED panels would only add ~25% on top of rather cheap LCD panels, but aren't bright enough for pancakes. And Valve has now stated during the hand-on that the reason to go with LCD was in fact that they are significantly brighter, which was important for the high frame rates they were aiming for. The Frame is very much a wireless Index 1 with super low latency, very high visual fidelity and very fast and precise tracking, all in a very comfortable package. And for these design goals, and targeting a lower than Index price, the tech they picked is probably the right choice.
        
        I would also have preferred at least 2.5K microOLEDs, and would have been willing to pay USD 500 more. But I understand that such a price range would be unacceptable with the Frame also serving as a Steam Deck for your face with an integrated large virtual display. And I love my Steam Deck and would absolutely love a Frame offering the same on a screen that wouldn't require me to wear reading glasses to see fine details.
      - david vincent
        
        PSVR2’s Fresnel lenses aren’t a deal breaker—mura is.
  - david vincent
    
    OLED panels + great Fresnel lenses like those on the Pico Neo3 Link and I would be happy
- Sonyboy
  
  TTheres already several prototype for a upper tier down the road.
  - foamreality
    
    can you prove it?
Octogod

Price will be everything here.

Fun fact: an ongoing troll both Meta and Valve engage in is placing the other's logo on the backend. Quest has the Vive triangle and Meta has the Oculus oval.
foamreality

What a joke.
foamreality

Monochrome passthrough, no cable/displayport, no native x86 (compression and CPU overhead for streaming) , x86 emulation overhead will be enormous, , and worse of all no OLED. Why on earth would anyone buy this unless its less than 400 quid. Literally any other headset from the last 3 years (none of which are great) would be better than this. Not even a VR game in the works to launch it. Valve have lost their way. Disappointment of the decade.
- flelvers
  
  lol vr enthusiasts are never happy
  they didn't want to make a "bigscreen beyond"-like cause that would be way more expensive.
  they're aiming in another direction
  - FRISH
    
    What do you mean they're never happy. What does this have that enthusiasts would want that they couldn't get elsewhere? If someone is an enthusiast they have better options. This seems like a quest 3 with some nicer QoL which unfortunately isn't enough for 2 year tech, but I do hope that their developments still help the industry out. However as a product, if you're a VR enthusiast, you've already experienced most of what this has to offer.
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  I've written lots of comments on what would technically be possible and what IMO would make sense for a Deckard/Frame. And that based on what they delivered with the Steam Deck, I'd be willing to pre-order one as soon as they become available.
  
  I'm still trying to figure out what group they are targeting with this, but apparently everything I considered interesting didn't make into the headset with the sole exception of running Steam OS. And my level of interest instant-dropped from "pre-order blindly" to "ignore".
  - Mr. Fox
    
    I honestly thought that the ability to play flat content in 3D (quite sure you were also talking about that) would be its killer app but that feature seems to be completely missing.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      I thought that the main point would be a standalone capable of running the existing Steam PCVR library, and that most certainly won't work. Playing flat content in 3D as in UEVR would be even more challenging. Steam Frame would probably be able to run an ARM version of HL:A, if Valve bothered to create one, but that really doesn't seem to be what they are targeting here. If you want PCVR, you still need a powerful PC, now somewhat aided by ETFR.
      
      My sole alternative thought to "PCVR standalone" was Valve primarily targeting flat gamers, and that seems to be what they are doing. The SD8 Gen 3 plus x86 emulation plus DX8-12 to Vulkan translation might put it somewhere close or above the performance of the x86 Steam Deck, plus extra performance from more tricks like ETFR for virtual screens. So the killer app may be this being a Steam Deck with an integrated 150" display at a similar price, that as a side effect can also work as a cheap PCVR wireless streaming HMD with similar specs to the PSVR2, trading OLED contrast for pancake clarity.
      - flynnstigator
        
        Running 2D games on a big screen is a good feature, but I feel like that's yet another reason the Frame needed color passthrough. I might consider playing a 2D game if I could see part of the world outside the virtual screen and look over when my wife is talking to me like I can when I'm playing using a TV. If I don't have good perception of the room around me, forget it. Maybe the black and white sensor will be so good that I won't mind, but this just seems like a massive oversight, and I can't imagine that they saved any significant cost, weight, etc. by failing to include it.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        That's actually one of my main concerns. My guess is that Valve went with the b/w passthrough because this both requires no extra cameras and avoids the compute heavy depth correction required to turn two flat images into something that looks correct in VR. Something Quest 3 still struggles with, despite Meta probably having more people working on that than the whole Frame development team. The hardware cost for extra color cameras should be mostly negligible, the added weight only a few grams. Which might add up to a noticeable percentage of the only 190g core module, but nothing that would drive the design decision.
        
        The main reason is very likely the processing required for good passthrough. The SD8 Gen 3 is fast, but emulating x86 games on ARM will be expensive, so spending a significant amount of the compute for properly showing the background may be disadvantageous. As the room tracking will still run non-stop, they could come up with something like a stylized guardian that gives you something similar to the shape of your environment as the background for your virtual screen, which then gets replaced with the actual b/w passthrough the moment something moves.
        
        It would be interesting to know how many people watch movies on a large virtual screen on AVP while having passthrough enabled vs those that instead watch them while sitting on the moon or on the beach of a virtual lake. AVP offers exactly that "automatically switch to passthrough once someone approaches you", reducing the need to keep awareness of one's current environment, so switching off the passthrough becomes more feasible. Nonetheless a lack of good color passthrough is a bummer.
  - foamreality
    
    I love the software aspect, like running a desktop locally , but even that great feature will be awful because the screen resolution is way too low for that sort of thing. You wont eb able to read text. Such a shame.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      You could read large text on a 640*800/eye DK1. You still cannot achieve the same PPD as a 4K display even on AVP with 3.5K displays, but your eyes won't be able to discern single pixels on a 4K display at arms length anyway, so there is no way you could tell.
      
      Using VR HMDs just as virtual monitors is a very braindead idea, and the sole reason this is discussed is a) a serious lack of imagination and b) a current lack of useful VR aware window servers. But AVP shows how to do this right with iPad apps running on the device, each getting its own space instead of being crammed in a streamed rectangle. And the free SimulaVR window manager has allowed placing Linux apps wherever you want in VR for years, at whatever size you want. So Valve will be able to come with something better, and if they don't someone else will thanks to the openness of SteamOS.
      
      If needed, you can enlarge/zoom everything up to the point where you can read it on a DK1, potentially requiring to turn your head, so in VR physical resolution is much less of a breaking limit than on physical displays. Higher resolution would of course be better, and allow for braindead solutions like streaming a non-VR aware rectangle of pixels. But there are a lot of alternatives once the brain is used to actively search for solutions.
    - Allure
      
      Hi
      
      Just wanted your your help, I’m not good with any of these VR stuff and the tech aspect. My 9 year old wants one, mind you I don’t haven’t pc or gaming station. Which vr are good that don’t require that. Thanks a lot. One that not it’s heavy, easy to use, and good overall
      - Arno van Wingerde
        
        Get the Quest3S which is currently around $200 or so and can run the latest Quest (Meta/Facebook) at full speed. The Quest3 has better lenses, with always a sharp picture, but is also twice as expensive, so start with the Quest 3S
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  Missing DP isn't a problem, wireless gas become on par with DP already, certainly with foveated streaming. And don't underestimate the X86/x64 emulation of the used snapdragon soc, it's not software only, so yeah it won't be as fast as native, but it will be fast enough to run most older games at regular speed.
  but the displays sure as hell is where they dropped the ball, it should at least not have SDE so visible (quest and Pico 4 don't have it as prominent).
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    TL;DR: AFAIK Valve so far hasn't allowed anyone to run any compute heavy VR games in standalone mode, and the most likely reason is that x86 emulation on ARM is very inefficient. Translating graphics from one library to another is much more efficient, which will hopefully help, and Valve can improve the perceived resolution by combining ETFR with very high supersampling for the foveated area.
    
    Don't overestimate the x86 emulation either. Apple was in the perfect position for this and they added special commands to their M1-M5 SoCs just for efficient handling of x86 command flags that are otherwise very expensive to emulate. And emulated x86 MacOS apps reach 1/3 – 1/2 the speed of the matching ARM version. And they have all the advantages that Valve has, with the Proton layer mapping Windows to Linux calls not being as efficient as Apple simply having MacOS compiled for ARM, and FEX for x86 emulation not benefiting from special crucial SoC optimizations like Rosetta 2 on Macs.
    
    Valve said the emulation is very efficient, but relative to what? So far FEX plus Proton has been useful to run older games on ARM Windows notebooks at bearable speeds, useful for people that bought these for their long battery runtime, not something one would recommend for gaming. Valve's saving grace may be that a lot of games are mostly GPU bound, and the translation from DX8-12 to Vulkan works with very small performance losses compared to x86 emulation, so they will be able to mostly utilize the GPU in the SD8 Gen 3.
    
    The real issue will be games with high CPU requirements for physics like HL:A, and the core configuration of the Snapdragon isn't really targeting such constant loads, it is a smartphone SoC after all, and this won't be saved by render optimizations through ETFR etc. Hopefully SteamOS with very fine grained management will allow Valve to avoid the heat/throttling issues that come with a phone SoC core configuration, causing all other standalone HMD to go with Qualcomm's XR SoCs optimized for constant load applications. ETFR may help with compensating for the low resolution though, if Valve has done a proper job and not only renders the areas outside of the current gaze at lower resolution, but also applies something like 200% supersampling in the small area that is rendered at full resolution, which would allow for a perceived sharpness much higher than a 2K at native (or 130% to compensate for lens distortion) render resolution would.
  - foamreality
    
    only because the screens are low res. If it had a good screen with higher res it probably won't work. I don't have high hopes for other vendors offering the steamOS /frame streaming tech because if they want to sell a better high res microoled screen I suspect the streaming tech won't be good enough, to do so, I don't see this headset as pushing the envolope later on even. The microOLED version of this is not actually possible, at any price, because of the streaming limitations which is why they put in a low res screen door.
    - Andrew Jakobs
      
      Guess again with the Play for Dreams headset already supports SteamLinkVR 2.0, with perfect visuals and Samsung XR will follow soon, wouldn't even be surprised if Valve would release it on AVP too. Pimax air will also support it.
  - david vincent
    
    "wireless has become on par with DP already"
    You should stop spreading that fake news and lying to yourself. Wireless VR has huge latency—much more than the recommended 20 ms. And that’s not even counting compression haze and the artifacts that show up during fast & complex scenes. If Valve built in foveated streaming, it’s because those issues actually exist.
    - Andrew Jakobs
      
      You should stop spreading fake news. It's actually due to things like foveated streaming that wireless has become on par with DP already. But even current steamlink 2.0 already showed on Play for dream headset that it's on par with DP. It's all about perception, not needing every single pixel you don't see anyway. But you have it in your mind that if it isn't showing every single pixel of the original rendered image it isn't on par with DP, but it's all about every single pixel you actually perceive that counts.
      and also you come from the closeminded view of when you are actually looking for any artifact, not from the view when you are actually just focusing on playing the game when you aren't examining every single pixel.
      or maybe when you tried it, you just had a crappy connection.
      don't underestimate the latest new hardware and advancements in encoding/decoding, as I said, it's not about every single pixel in the frame, it's about every single pixel you see.
      and even if it still would have some minor artifacts, I still take it over any freaking awful cable. But to me the current wireless connection with a highend PC and a Pico 4 ultra or a Quest 3 is already at a state where I am very satisfied with the image compared to that awful cable, and knowing that headsets like play for dreams already show an experience just as good as native DP, I'm in the camp for not having an unnecessary DP connector and needed hardware (as current socs don't support it natively) on my standalone new headset.
namekuseijin

you had one job, Valve

you didn't want to take the mantle of savior of VR…
eadVrim

I would have preferred it OLED, even with frensel lenses. Than LCD with pancake lenses.
Rudl Za Vedno

I’m genuinely disappointed. No native DisplayPort or USB-C wired option? Seriously? That’s such a massive letdown for anyone who actually cares about PCVR quality. And those LCD panels — 2160×2160 per eye — we had that exact resolution with the Reverb G1 back in 2019! It honestly feels like we’re stuck in a time loop when it comes to display tech.

Just imagine if they’d gone with micro-OLED panels around 2.5K per eye, or even something like the Crystal’s mini-LED panels with local dimming. Even without DisplayPort support, that alone would’ve made it an instant-buy headset for probably 90% of PCVR users — myself absolutely included (as a long-time G2 owner).

But as things stand now, the Pimax Air SE — at a similar price — is starting to look like the more tempting upgrade option… if they don’t screw it up again, that is. And that’s the real shame here: everything else about this headset looks so good. The design, the tracking, the features — all of it’s really impressive. But those dated panels and the lack of a proper wired connection completely kill the excitement for me. Such a wasted opportunity. :(
- ZarathustraDK
  
  There is a USB-C power/data port in the back so wired is an option.
  - Arno van Wingerde
    
    Particularly for people with compression fear… and much cheaper than seeing a shrink!
    Why not wait to see how well this wireless connection really is, before using cables at all… ?
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    The data port is only USB2 and intended to connect experimental peripherals. It is not really suitable for streaming, and certainly not a replacement for DP-in. But the actual improvements Valve apparently achieved with foveated streaming and their own low latency WiFi solution may convince some of the remaining tether fans that streaming is now a valid alternative.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  Stop bitching about DP, the latest standalone headsets already proven wireless us on par with DP these days, and now definitely with foveated streaming/rendering.
  
  I do agree the Pimax Air SE seems like a better option at this point, visually wise, but now the used SOC by the Pimax Air SE seems outdated (and knowing Pimax, they'll announce a new Air with a better soc right before even shipping the Air SE).
  
  Yep, Valve sure dropped the ball in the displays, but who knows, maybe they'll ship an improved version to customers early 2026 and fix the SDE problem.
  - Rudl Za Vedno
    
    Streming Vs native DP is just not the same. I use 6E dedicateted wifi a meter away from Quest 3 still can see compression in blue sky in DCS/MSFS in shadows in Asetto corsa/F12025 and in foggy games like Silent hill 2 while being played in VR via UEVR injector. Maybe Valve can solve this by foveated streaming, but seeing with my own eyes is believing until then DP still rules the day when it comes to picture quality and stability.
    - Cadenza
      
      I'm assuming Valve acknowledged the downsides of streaming and how it can cause compression artifacts. I have a quest pro and quest 3 and I can understand what you mean. But they've stated that they negated this by using foveated streaming that could likely remove all artifacts because it's using most of it's compression data on a small point on where your eye looks in which could eliminate any artifacts since your peripheral vision doesn't require full resolution just like foveated rendering does. I might be wrong though, but hopefully Valve has developed it enough to eliminate most if not all artifacts because of foveated streaming.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      Valve has apparently done a very good job with esp. bringing down latency at very high frame rates with foveated streaming and their own WiFi dongle. Interestingly creates the network on the Linux driven handheld and has the PC connect to it as a client, working around the knowingly bad Windows Wifi Stack. And foveated rendering allows for a higher render resolution in just a small area, driving up image quality/stability.
      
      This of course has to be tested further, but Frame may indeed solve the issues with streaming that made a lot of people still stick to tethered HMDs and asking for DP input. Your approach of "seeing with my own eyes" seems very reasonable though.
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    The streaming quality is a bit like FPS. A lot of people were fine with 30FPS on consoles or now 60FPS, often involving some kind of frame generation, while some people consider anything below 144Hz unbearable, asking for 240Hz monitors and more.
    
    You may be fine with the quality and latency of streaming over Wifi 6, but a lot of people had bad issues until switching to Wifi 6E/7 with the added 6GHz band, and the encoder/decoder quality on both the GPU and HMD have been limiting factors for image quality. And some of the first hand-ons hint that Valve has made some serious improvements here.
    
    Linus from Linus Tech Tips, who has always been an Index fan because he disliked the lower than 144Hz and less precise inside-out tracking on other HMDs, loved the Frame ["Seeing this (foeated streaming) in action blew my flipping mind"] because it delivers a high frame rate, low latency, high precision experience that so far only the wired Index with Lighthouse could delivered. The guy is an an extremist Beat Saber player, so resolution is less of an issue than speed, and apparently the pancakes in Frame are excellent in avoiding visible artifacts from internal reflections. None of these may matter for someone more interested in graphically rich narrative experiences, but for those that do, Valve's improvement to streaming on Frame are apparently very noticeable.
    - Andrew Jakobs
      
      Yeah, but the great lenses are ruined by SDE visible.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        I really hope that this is mostly an artifact on the current early developer devices, and that they improve this with the ones they actually ship to customers.
benjamin ross

Wait I can't plug this into my computer? What's the point? lol
- Sofian
  
  Not needed with foveated streaming.
  - benjamin ross
    
    Streaming is ass, give me proper PCVR or don't even bother lol
- Blaze
  
  You can stream wirelessly from your PC. And with foveated streaming to avoid a loss of performance.
- ZarathustraDK
  
  You can? There's a USB-C 2.0 data/power port in the back.
Christian Schildwaechter

After a first shock about the underwhelming specs, I can only conclude that the main design objective was low weight. 195g for the HMD itself is very light, and to get there you have to reduce the hardware as much as possible. The minimalistic Bigscreen Beyond 2 weighs 107g, and into the 88g difference Valve squeezed a SoC faster than the XR2+ Gen 2 in Galaxy XR/Play for Dream, RAM, flash, 6DoF inside-out controller/room tracking cameras, and an audio solution with integrated speakers.

In addition the battery is at the rear of the fixed strap. So while the Beyond relies on its low weight and custom made face padding, the Steam Frame uses a counter-balance, which combined with the very light front might allow for near perfect balance.

If their aim was primarily to make it comfortable to wear for long sessions, targeting flat gamers at least as much or more than VR gamers, the specs sort of make sense. Not at all what I wanted for VR, more like a nice virtual display for my Steam Deck. For this the comfort might be great and the rest okay-ish.

The tracking cameras are b/w, but higher resolution than on Quest 2, giving you a similar passthrough resolution as on PSVR2, usable for orientation, but not for MR. The integrated eye tracking should of course help with PCVR performance, but maybe even with flat x86 games being emulated on the ARM processor. The costs for that are brutal, with even Apple with best-case-conditions only achieving about half the performance compared to native code. We'll have to see how much Valve magic and efficient translation of at least the graphics to Vulkan can achieve. The Steam Deck was designed to run AAA, but most people end up playing more indie titles, which would also be more suitable for a Steam Frame based on locally run emulation. So maybe the standalone part is really intended as a Steam Deck for your face, with the VR part being a cheap and comfortable wireless streaming HMD with eye tracking.

The big mystery is of course the price, but as there is apparently no fancy tech whatsoever inside, it might be very cheap to produce. It depends on what kind of deal they got for the SD8 Gen 3, which according to rumors Qualcomm at launch two years ago sold for USD 160, but they usually drop the price when the successor appears a year later. Valve pretty much have to underbid the Quest 3 to give the Steam Frame a chance to gain any traction as a PCVR streaming HMD.
- Mike
  
  Bigscreen and MeganeX are lighter, and better. Not wireless, but other than that.
  - Blaze
    
    More expensive, lower refresh rate, and not standalone. Also no controllers. It certainly has some advantages, but you really do pay for them.
- Sofian
  
  The idea that a soft strap can balance anything is rather weird to me.
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    I haven't seen enough hand-ons yet, but the strap looks very wide. So even though it will wrap around the head, it should give some torsion stability, so it could in fact help with balance, even without an over-the-top strap. Apple's new dual knit strap is also technically a soft strap with a counter-weighted rear, which in theory shouldn't work, but there is enough rigidity in the textile to keep it from simply sliding/bending down in the back.
    
    A soft strap doesn't have to equal the Quest rubber bands that only allow for some rigidity by strapping the HMD tightly to your face. As so far pretty every solution with the battery on the rear relied on a fixed strap with possible comfort issues for those with non-matching skulls, I'd assume that Valve has found a solution to make their soft-strap both rigid enough to make a counter balancing solution feasible while keeping the universal fit of soft straps. How well it actually works remains to be seen.
- Dragon Marble
  
  If "being in the game" isn't appealing enough for the flat gamers, I don't think "being cut off from the real world while looking at a flat screen" will bring them over — regardless of the weight of the headset.
  
  I have a simple explanation of what happened. Valve is just too slow. It's not up to the task in a fast moving industry. The Steam Frame would've been a great headset if it had released before Quest 3.
  - XRC
    
    Look at the tortuous development of their previous hmd original Vader then finally a cut down consumer version "Frank" known as index. The display resolution was slightly dated by release which has always been it's Achilles heel
Maxime Pare

This looks like a failure waiting to happen
polysix

nope
NicoleJsd [She/Her]

And I thought I made a bad move buying myself piano instead of frame a week before the expected announcement…

Quest 3 then until 4 probably or 5. Really got a lot of mileage out of it. Great exercise gear for a price of Zuck watching you

I predict though it will be amazing entry level headset and huge success. I also predict higher end model in a year
- Mike
  
  If it's the typical low-contrast LCD that ends up in VR headsets, people will get bored quickly.
- foamreality
  
  not for 800 it isn't. Much cheaper and better options around. I don't think new VR users would choose to spend 800 on this instead of 400 on a quest 3 which does AR too.
Oxi

My main concern is: Does it come with the top strap and controller straps or are those an additional purchase? They need to include those, seriously.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  Those are sadly additional purchase as 'the comfort pack'.
  - Oxi
    
    That’s silly. Look at it, it’s so thin and it doesn’t even have padding as far as I can see.
    - Andrew Jakobs
      
      I agree, the straps should be default on these controllers.
      - Oxi
        
        I meant the top strap but yes that too, developers will build for what is standard.
Cless

The only thing I expect from this shitty hmd is better software for my real vr hmd.

The it thing I think can save this HMD is being like… 500-700 bucks… AND Still would think twice before recommending it.

A disappointment tbh.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  Please stop bitching about the 'great' lighthouse tracking, it isn't perfect either and with the latest headsets/updates camera tracking has become on par with lighthouse tracking.
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    Again, this is your perception, but there are a number of people who will strongly disagree. The fact that the Steam Frame controllers use 16 IR LEDs for tracking, compared to only eight on the Quest Touch controllers, and that initial hand-ons indicate a much improved precision, strongly hint that there was still a lot of room for improvement with current standalone tracking accuracy.
  - foamreality
    
    Lighthouse has always been perfect for me, and its really not much trouble to set up, theres no pc wiring, just switch it on. its flawless never had any issues since 2016.
- foamreality
  
  what headset do you have that is native steamVR?
  - Cless
    
    The MeganeX8k! It’s been fully vr native for quite a while.
    
    I think before summer thanks to a modder, and shortly after, the devs made it too! :D
FrantaX

LOL ViRGiN was right.
FRISH

Disappointed, but local and wireless pcvr having the same library is very nice.
ZarathustraDK

Sheesh people are loosing it over the displays and no MR. Look at what you get:

– No wire
– An open OS that is tinker-friendly
– Capability of streaming, running ARM-code, apk's AND x86
– SD-card slot (hello standalone bigscreen emulator gaming)
– Eye-tracking & foveated streaming (+opening the way for apps to implement foveated rendering).-> Actual full res streaming vs the q3 standalone variable scale resolution (Standard of which was 1680×1760, not the 2kx2k native)
– No Meta, no vive-store, no extra pimaxian software or vendor X calibratiion software, no fuzz.
– Nice modularity that opens up the opportunity for core module upgrades down the line, not to mention third-party addons.
– A streaming first, standalone second HMD
– Lighter and better balanced than Quest in default config, with the possibility of completely moving the battery off head with thirdparty strap-setups in the future.

I think I'll "suffer" a lesser visual upgrade from my Quest 3 to this as compared to 2x 4K uOLED, even if it means loosing the ability to see my coffee table-legs in Demeo.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  But the most important thing about a headset IS its visuals, and that's a downgrade from the Quest 3 and Pico 4, SDE is a real problem. So in regard to visuals it isn't 'a lesser visual upgrade', it's a 'lesser downgrade'.
  in standalone it sure is a major improvement (and who knows, somebody might make a quest 3 emulator or at least make it so you can play your bought Quest games).
  if it's PCVR usage, then only if you have a not so good PC it might be an improvement, but Q3 and Pico 4 already support SteamVR link2 so most benefits of Steam streaming are already available, except for the foveated rendering/streaming as both headsets lack eyetracking (but Quest Pro and Pico 4 Pro do have it, but I don't know if those are supported by SteamLink).
- Jonathan Winters III
  
  And only 110 max degrees fov. And resolution about the same as Quest 3. Not exactly pushing the envelope technically although the eye tracking is. Sadly, this headset is not a no-brainer buy, because it great in some areas but not in others. I'm guessing it will be 2-3x the cost of Quest 3.
- foamreality
  
  Nice modularity that opens up the opportunity for core module upgrades down the line, not to mention third-party addons.
  
  Will be useless for suggested full colour passthrough, as the screen will make it unusable for spacial computing as such low res.
  - foamreality
    
    Also the index had a module thing, they never released anything for it that anyone actually used.
    - Andrew Jakobs
      
      And that will probably be the same for the Frame, except for the real hobbyists.
    - XRC
      
      Index frunk had a series of small companies offering ventilation fan modules and displays, it was left to the community which is actually a good idea so those who find value in such mods can be serviced.
      
      personally for me the frunk was perfect for installing a Vive USB dongle for 1 channel of my full body tracking (2 channels on active USB extensions)
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    TL;DR: color passthrough at much better resolution than Quest 3 is possible, though unlikely to arrive due to lacking software, but spatial computing isn't limited to virtual monitors, and there are tons of things you can do with a machine that can display locally run apps freely in a 3D space.
    
    The part about the color passthrough being unusable is nonsense. The color passthrough cameras on Quest 3 are also only FHD, much lower than the display resolution, and the main issue is the software required for turning two flat images into a depth corrected view inside the HMD, which involves a lot of geometry detection. The Frame offers two standard MIPI camera interfaces that connect directly to the SoC, and much higher resolution cameras than used on Quest 3 are dirt cheap, so a hardware add-on is feasible.
    
    The much bigger issue is the software, that is not only hard to develop, as we can see with the Quest 3 still suffering from weird passthrough distortions, but also compute expensive. So it may be possible to get color passthrough onto Steam Frame at moderate hardware costs, but it may be a challenge to run both emulated x86 games to be shown on a virtual screen and proper color passthrough to show the room at the same time. And as this is a niche device, I doubt that anybody will bother with creating a good passthrough solution unless Valve has already done 99% of the work.
    
    Passthrough isn't only useful for spatial computing, so there is no relation to the display resolution for that at all. And the low resolution on Frame is mostly an issue when used as a virtual display connected to another computer, where you won't even get close to a 1080p display. Running productivity apps directly on the HMD can pretty much resolve this, because instead of a small rectangle with all your apps on it, each app can be place freely in the room, with only the one you are currently using in front of you. And you can blow them up as large as you want.
    
    I'd also have preferred a much higher resolution esp. for spatial computing, but I started programming on a 320*200 pixel display, going to 80*25 character screens was a revelation, and I still do a lot of my work with terminals of that size, logged into some remote machine. All that will work great on a 2160*2160 Frame running SteamOS.
- foamreality
  
  Youve never used OLED headset have you ? You havnt really experience VR until you have.
  - Andrew Jakobs
    
    I have, experienced OLED, but it depends on more than just OLED. I really prefer my Pico 4 LCD/pancake lenses much more over my HTC Vive Pro(1) OLED/fresnelllenses. The image quality of the Pico is much MUCH better as the Vive Pro. But with higher resolutions like the Pico 4 or even higher would certainly be much more vibrant colors with OLED as with LCD, but I do think the colors of the LCD are also good. If it would be possible to have OLED (or something similar) I too would like to have that, but looking at all the headsets who has sometehing like that, to me it isn't worth the $1000 more then what my Pico 4 costs.
Arno van Wingerde

I think everybody disappointed by the specs should read one @disqus_grmilqr652:disqus comments below to see which advantages this set offers in ergonomics and openness, there is more to a set than just specs.

Granted, I am also somewhat underwhelmed by the specs, but hope this set and its “openness” will inspire other manufacturers like ASUS to come up with a Valve OLED Frames, sold to make profit on the hardware, maybe $1500 to $2000 or so, will become the ultimate Steam VR headset, just like the Steamdeck is being copied everywhere.
- foamreality
  
  No ASUS won't make a valve OLED frame The streaming tech is not the revolutionizing envelope pushing tech the reviewers are raving about unless it can' work beyond the limits of what valve steamOS steam frame does now. It can't handle more than 2160k x 2 and thats exactly why valve gave us a crap screen. INot just costs. Its an improvement to have the dongle, but its not going any further. Certainly not to microOLED resolutions.
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    Of course it could handle more than 2160p * 2, you can get that out of any streaming solution even without foveated rendering/streaming. What Valve did was bring the latency down to tethered levels, and improve the image quality due to both optimizing the compression of the stream and the actually rendered image based on eye tracking. This will allow to go for much higher resolutions than solutions like Quest Link or VRDesktop that still render/compress the full image.
    
    You may see a slight increase in latency when streaming 4K this way, but just based on the tech the limiting issue will probably again be the decoders on the HMD. And the whole foveated rendering/streaming will only work with GPUs that enable both different render resolutions and efficiently spitting the video encoding into smaller parts, and that's the only part where something like a 2160p limit might come into play, it is not something fundamental in the methods, only the currently available encoders/decoders, with the SD8 Gen 3 in Frame featuring better encoders than any currently available standalone. Valve's approach is a mix of clever software plus utilizing the 6GHz band, so it isn't revolutionary tech, just using existing tech in a much more efficient way than others have done so far. But that could mean a lot if others can adapt it too.
Nevets

It's disappointing in many respects, not least LCD. But it has a number of positive elements. If it draws in a wider crowd of flattie gamers who otherwise wouldn't have used VR, it'll be a good thing. Does the hardware advance the medium? Nah. Let's wait and see what happens.
- Jonathan Winters III
  
  Yes but at an estimated $899 or so, it's not going to draw in many of anyone.
  - gothicvillas
    
    Valve said cheaper than Index headset which is 599. Heqdset should be 499 and Steam maschine similar. Combo sub 1000
    - Andrew Jakobs
      
      I do think Valve meant the complete Index package, not just the headset alone. Because if it IS cheaper as the headset alone it will be a major hit. Seeing index controllers being $299, and this headset comes with controllers and a SOC built in, don't count on the headset being $599, but more like $999.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      I'd agree with Andrew that they probably meant lower than the full USD 999 Index package, but I'll add your interpretation to my Steam Frame hopium list of things that might turn out to be better than they initially looked.
- foamreality
  
  I don't see the appeal for flat gamers. I'd rather use a monitor, which will always be higher resolution, esp ia 4k one at a 5th of the price. Or you know, a steam deck (OLED)!
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    I have a 27" 4K monitor with a fast PC, but by now I play more on my Steam Deck with a 7" display just for the convenience. Rarely at my desk, and not because, but despite the 7" display. So the perspective of a device that does just what my Steam Deck does, but replaces the tiny 7" with a virtual 70" is actually quite attractive. And would probably lead to the 27" 4K seeing even less use for gaming.
  - lilkwarrior
    
    Yeah the Frame's screen cannot compare with a modern 4K monitor not even having HDR.
    
    However, it would've needed a screen as pixel dense as the Galaxy XR and Vision Pro which would cause the headset to be much more expensive than the Index.
    
    It seems obvious they wanted to create a modern, lower-cost direct replacement to the Index instead of creating a higher-end, more ideal or more competitive modern VR headset.
    
    It's sensibly specced for the former when the existing mainstream options aren't as embraced by hardcore gamers who may have just wanted what the Quest is by another vendor.
    
    In the short-term, I see decent money in that compared to the latter right now
  - Nevets
    
    I can see that. If they haven’t significantly advanced comfort, which looks unlikely on the face of it (pun intended) then flatscreeners are unlikely to care unless they want to play on a giant screen with a big trade off.
    
    Not sure if you’ve tried VR yourself though. As a minimum it should be a complementary medium for most gamers. I’m playing The Climb 2 at the moment which is amazing and could never be replicated in two dimensions! Also check out Alyx
david vincent

Finally some low latency, high image quality streaming than could make everyone happy.
Also input parity with traditional gamepads is a big plus for VR modding. Those new controllers could become the best out there.
No OLED panels is a joke tho
Olle

I don't know about this, I think I'll have to read reviews once it is out. It comes down to foveated rendering + the streaming capabilities + possibly customizability. I don't want to jump on the dissapointment bandwagon. A major plus is it is not made by Meta who has earned my scorn perhaps eternally. Here's hoping for 750ish bucks
Joe momma

Should I get this or the quest 3
looking to finally upgrade for quest 2
Pcvr experience is definitely important to me too, but it also comes down to the price I do want to save money this year
- Dragon Marble
  
  Definitely Quest 3. Hand tracking, mixed reality, exclusive AAA content, immersive content. live sports, 3D movies (coming soon, with the James Cameron partnership, I assume).
  
  The only advantages of Steam Frame are lower weight, and eye tracking for better streaming quality. A $50 router can solve the streaming quality issue. A lighter headset is what everyone wants, but how much more are you willing to pay for 80 grams?
- Tabp
  
  Wait until we know the price and get head to head comparisons in the wild. Quest 3 isn't that much of an upgrade over Quest 2, so I can't recommend 3 for a 2 owner who has no money.
  - Dragon Marble
    
    Come on, Quest 3 is a huge upgrade over Quest 2. Mixed reality, pancake lenses, better comfort, higher resolution, more than double the performance. More and more of the newest and best games are Quest 3 exclusive.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      Given that he asked about PCVR streaming, the Quest 3 isn't that much of an upgrade, with the main improvement being the pancake lenses. Only the graphics performance increased significantly between XR2 Gen 1 and Gen 2, with Qualcomm adding another 150%. But this was done at the cost of CPU performance, which tops out at 41% for apps that give the CPU more power than the GPU, while according to Meta graphics heavy apps like games will only see a 14% CPU improvement. The Quest 3 was basically designed to run Quest 2 class games prettier.
      
      So for someone already owning a Quest 2 and looking mostly for PCVR streaming, the USD 500 would mostly get them better lenses, a little bit of extra resolution and faster decoders that will improve the stream quality. If they care about running Quest games or are interested in MR, the cost/benefit improves. And there are probably people on this planet that love Horizon Worlds, so for those the decision between Quest 3 and Frame would be easy.
      
      The weight distribution on Quest 3 is also better than on Quest 2 thanks to the everything sitting closer to the face, but of course that weight will not only be higher than the Stream Frame, but all located in the front, while the Frame pretty much distributes it between front and rear. So there is a chance that the Frame will be way more comfortable to wear, esp. for longer sessions, and that seems to have been one of the design objectives. How well that works out in reality at what price remains to be seen, so waiting and reading more reviews seems to be the smartest solution.
      - Dragon Marble
        
        He said "pcvr is important to me too", implying that it is not the only use case.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        As the only two conditions he mentioned were price and PCVR, with "PCVR experience is definitely important", we can imply that it will be the main use case. I'm pretty sure that if his main concerns were MR or some future live sports events, he wouldn't asks whether to pick Quest 3 or Steam Frame.
        
        IMHO the only valid answer right now is "wait and see", because we will no doubt get a lot more informations about Steam Frame within the next few months that will allow for a more informed decision. I'd expect it to be more expensive than Quest 3, so the technical specs or extra features on the Quest 3 may turn out to be irrelevant anyway.
        
        Unless you already know that what you want is a 4K microOLED standalone, this is not the best moment to decide which 2K HMD you want to buy. Except for those that are fine with the Quest 3S available as an insanely cheap USD 200 Black Friday deal at Costco, for whom the moment to buy is now.
Stephen Bard

Gabe just took delivery of his $500 million superyacht, but revenue from this underwhelming headset certainly won't pay for the next one.

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