Steam Frame

[flegg]

No discussion about this yet?? Coming out soon!
Could be Quest killer? Basically looks like a Quest but with Steam access and better streaming. Sounds like gg to me? I'll be buying one ASAP.

 

[pendragon1]

its in an odd section
https://hardforum.com/threads/the-steam-frame-thread-facts-speculation-theories-etc.2043529

or waiting for a thread rename
https://hardforum.com/threads/is-de...n-its-condition-was-upgraded-to-alive.2035870

 

[reaper12]

No discussion about this yet?? Coming out soon!
Could be Quest killer? Basically looks like a Quest but with Steam access and better streaming. Sounds like gg to me? I'll be buying one ASAP.

It's not really a Quest killer, it's aimed at a completely different market and will be a much higher price.

The Quest headsets are primarily standalone headsets that can connect to a PC. they are aimed at those people without a PC and more for the mainstream end of the VR market.

The Steam Frame is a PCVR headset with standalone capabilities. It's aimed at the VR enthusiast who already has a PC and a Steam account.

Will you be getting one no matter the price?

 

[4saken]

No discussion about this yet?? Coming out soon!
Could be Quest killer? Basically looks like a Quest but with Steam access and better streaming. Sounds like gg to me? I'll be buying one ASAP.

Same. I've not been sold on VR after having, and eventually selling, many headsets over the years, and technically this one looks to be the easiest from a convenience standpoint to use with PC, without the quest 3 jank, and acceptable enough visuals. I outright refuse to give up a DP or deal with swapping DP just for VR(still no killer apps/games), so this one intrigues me.

 

[reaper12]

Same. I've not been sold on VR after having, and eventually selling, many headsets over the years, and technically this one looks to be the easiest from a convenience standpoint to use with PC, without the quest 3 jank, and acceptable enough visuals. I outright refuse to give up a DP or deal with swapping DP just for VR(still no killer apps/games), so this one intrigues me.

The Steam Frame has no Display port. It's wireless only and roughly the same resolution as the Quest 3. Actually first impressions at the press release were talking about visual SDE. It will have pancake lenses, so that's a plus, but if you have any decent PCVR headset already, the Steam Frame will probably be a step back in both resolution and picture quality. To put it another way, some people prefer the Quest Pro and the PSVR 2 over the higher resolution of the Quest 3 for PCVR because of the OLED/MiniLED screens. If you outright refuse to give up DP and prefer the deeper blacks of OLED screens, then the Steam Frame is a non runner for you. And if it's priced at $1000 or more, then surely you would be better off saving a bit more and getting the BSB 2.0 or the Pimax Dream Air.

 

[Accursed]

I really wish they would have used OLED displays, But I'll be buying one anyway. Cordless game play and some stand alone use hopefully make up for it.

 

[sharknice]

I really wish they would have used OLED displays, But I'll be buying one anyway. Cordless game play and some stand alone use hopefully make up for it.

Full on wireless is an actual game changer for VR. OLED is just nice.

I hope they come out with an OLED model later though. Maybe they will a year or two later like what they did with Steam Deck OLED.

The main problem right now is OLEDs aren't bright enough to make sacrifices like higher persistence or an extremely dim overall screen. But the tech keeps improving, samsung just showed a micro oled prototype that does 40k nits. That's almost 10X brighter than what is the app vision pro.

 

[4saken]

The Steam Frame has no Display port. It's wireless only and roughly the same resolution as the Quest 3. Actually first impressions at the press release were talking about visual SDE. It will have pancake lenses, so that's a plus, but if you have any decent PCVR headset already, the Steam Frame will probably be a step back in both resolution and picture quality. To put it another way, some people prefer the Quest Pro and the PSVR 2 over the higher resolution of the Quest 3 for PCVR because of the OLED/MiniLED screens. If you outright refuse to give up DP and prefer the deeper blacks of OLED screens, then the Steam Frame is a non runner for you. And if it's priced at $1000 or more, then surely you would be better off saving a bit more and getting the BSB 2.0 or the Pimax Dream Air.

Correct...i use all of my DP ports on my GPU, specifically why I want wireless VR....so guess misunderstanding there? Also stated it wouldnt be up to par, but for PC and wireless, it checks the boxes i care about. $$ figure, we will just have to see. I'm not in a must have mind-set, but unless it is just unreasonable, I will likely pick one up.

 

[flegg]

It's not really a Quest killer, it's aimed at a completely different market and will be a much higher price.

The Quest headsets are primarily standalone headsets that can connect to a PC. they are aimed at those people without a PC and more for the mainstream end of the VR market.

The Steam Frame is a PCVR headset with standalone capabilities. It's aimed at the VR enthusiast who already has a PC and a Steam account.

Will you be getting one no matter the price?

if it does everything the quest3 can do, then, personally yes. but i understand the sentiment

 

[Accursed]

The main problem right now is OLEDs aren't bright enough to make sacrifices like higher persistence or an extremely dim overall screen.

Doesn't Sony make the Pimax OLED displays, couldn't Steam have used those for the same way Pimax does? I always wonder if you couldn't mod a Quest or Frame with the same displays.

 

[sharknice]

Doesn't Sony make the Pimax OLED displays, couldn't Steam have used those for the same way Pimax does? I always wonder if you couldn't mod a Quest or Frame with the same displays.

It's not something the average person could do. The bulk of engineering for the headsets is put into getting the lenses and displays to work as well as possible. You would be pretty much making your own headset at that point.
It would be the equivalent of replacing your engine and suspension in a car.

 

[reaper12]

Correct...i use all of my DP ports on my GPU, specifically why I want wireless VR....so guess misunderstanding there? Also stated it wouldnt be up to par, but for PC and wireless, it checks the boxes i care about. $$ figure, we will just have to see. I'm not in a must have mind-set, but unless it is just unreasonable, I will likely pick one up.

Ah, when you said you wouldn't give up DP, I thought you meant you wouldn't give up a wired connection when using a VR headset. My bad.

What is unreasonable in your eyes?

 

[reaper12]

if it does everything the quest3 can do, then, personally yes. but i understand the sentiment

It's better in most ways. Which is to be expected, it's a much newer device. It's worse in some areas though. As a purely PCVR device, it should be better. As a Standalone device, it's much harder to call.

 

[4saken]

Ah, when you said you wouldn't give up DP, I thought you meant you wouldn't give up a wired connection when using a VR headset. My bad.

What is unreasonable in your eyes?

$1200 is the max ill spend on principle. Prefer a $7-800, but with component costs etc these days, I'm not sure if that reality exists anymore.

 

[Nobu]

Maybe they'll make one that's not a PC too later on. Unlikely, I guess, since you pretty much need everything that a PC has for something like this to work anyway (exception being so much RAM, and maybe cpu power), but maybe...

 

[sharknice]

Maybe they'll make one that's not a PC too later on. Unlikely, I guess, since you pretty much need everything that a PC has for something like this to work anyway (exception being so much RAM, and maybe cpu power), but maybe...

I highly doubt they will.

To get really good wireless you do need all of that hardware.
You need hardware to do space warping so the movement isn't janky with any wireless hiccups, to be able to do that you need head tracking on the headset itself, to be able to do that you need to do a bunch of other stuff, etc.
Then of course you need hardware for the stream decoding, a whole OS and interface for being able to connect to different host PC, set up your boundries, etc.
A bunch of complicated stuff that basically requires at minimum smart phone hardware. So you might as well make it stand alone capable at that point.

So it would have to be a wired only version to not be also standalone, and I think they really want to push full wireless because it really is a game changer for actual VR games where you actually stand up and turn around.

 

[reaper12]

$1200 is the max ill spend on principle. Prefer a $7-800, but with component costs etc these days, I'm not sure if that reality exists anymore.

Well, I actually don't think the Base model will be more than $1000, unless things have gone seriously downhill in the last few months. Back in February Valve said they still plan on hitting that "cheaper than the Valve Index" price point. They didn't make any promises but I think it will look bad for them if they don't price it lower. I think it will probably be in the $900 to $979 range. If it's cheaper, great!! If it's more expensive, disappointing but not surprising.

My limit is lower than yours, $800 is my max budget.

 

[Accursed]

It doesn't seem THAT much different than a Quest 3 and that's $600, I get that Meta isn't' incentivized by the profits of the hardware, but I don't think they're loosing money. So my guess for the Steam Frame is $800-900. The price where I tap out is over $1200.

 

[sharknice]

It doesn't seem THAT much different than a Quest 3 and that's $600, I get that Meta isn't' incentivized by the profits of the hardware, but I don't think they're loosing money. So my guess for the Steam Frame is $800-900. The price where I tap out is over $1200.

The biggest distinction is the Frame has eye tracking. This improves streaming performance because you can do foveated streaming, and it can also improve standalone performance because you can do foveated rendering.
It also comes with a wireless dongle for PCVR streaming.

Basically it's optimized for wireless PCVR.

 

[reaper12]

It doesn't seem THAT much different than a Quest 3 and that's $600, I get that Meta isn't' incentivized by the profits of the hardware, but I don't think they're loosing money. So my guess for the Steam Frame is $800-900. The price where I tap out is over $1200.

The Frame has Eye tracking, newer SOC, Expansion slots/ports, more advanced controllers, smaller form factor, wireless dongle and double the Vram. Even if Valve did the same as Meta and sold at break even, the Steam frame would still be more expensive.

What everyone forgets though is that the price that Meta sells the Quest 3 for is break even on BOM only, i.e. just the cost of manufacturing. The Quest 3 price doesn't include all the other costs of getting a product to market like warranty replacements, R&D, marketing, Shipping etc. etc. Valve isn't subsidising the Steam Frame like Meta is with the Quest 3. Valve are going to be including all those other costs in their final price.

So all these things are adding up to a product that is going to be at least $200 more expensive than the Quest 3, and that's not including whatever margin Valve is going to add on.

 

[reaper12]

The Steam Machine price has made me doubt that Valve will release the Steam Frame at a lower price than the $999 Index.

 

[sharknice]

The Steam Machine price has made me doubt that Valve will release the Steam Frame at a lower price than the $999 Index.

Yeah, they said they wanted it to be cheaper than the Index, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is more.

At least with the Frame memory and storage are a smaller fraction of the cost, so there is hope.