Got my Steam Frame yesterday and had a chance to play with it a bit. Figured I’d leave some details here since I haven’t seen much.
Some background: My last headset was the OG Vive with Index Controllers. I’ve never used another headset other than a Quest 3 at a museum exhibit for a few minutes. So for me, the jump in quality is huge, but if you’ve kept up with the hardware it might not be.
So far, I’m really enjoying the Frame though it’s not without issues. The headset is really comfortable and the initial setup was mostly pretty smooth. I did run into a bug where the keyboard input just stopped working while I was entering my wi-fi password, but a reboot fixed that.
I haven’t been able to get streaming working (more on that later), but installing games on the headset worked well. I played Eleven Table Tennis (supported) and Maestro (not supported, but works) without any real issues. Neither of those games requires moving around the room so it was nice to be able to stand in the living room and just set my location instantly to start playing. No full room setup like the Vive so I’ll definitely be using this more often. I’ve seen some complaints about the passthrough camera, but it worked great for me. I can’t read text in that mode, but I was able to walk around the house without bumping into stuff just fine.
The streaming was the only real problem I had. I run Fedora 44 and was able to get the Frame to connect using the wifi dongle and give me the option to stream from my computer, but it would always fail. If you don’t have SteamVR running on the host PC it just fails silently, but when I had it running I would get an error about video compression not being supported by my graphics card. I have a RX 9079XT so I doubt that’s actually the problem, however I still haven’t been able to figure out what I need to install to get it working. If I manage to fix it, I’ll report back.
I got about an hour and a half of gameplay before the battery died on my but I expect that to be a bit better when streaming. You can play while plugged into power but the power supply that you can buy from valve doesn’t have a super long cord.
Happy to answer any questions if you have them. I’m overall satisfied with the purchase and hope to see some software updates to fix the issues I did run into.
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My guess concerning the streaming from Linux is that they haven’t got Wayland capture to work perfectly yet. I remember seeing several issues about that. You also currently cannot stream the game mode screen.
You could try X11.
Hope it doesn’t take too long to fix it. I will get mine on Monday.
got about an hour and a half of gameplay before the battery died on my but expect that to be a bit better when streaming.
I haven’t run through a whole battery standalone yet, but don’t expect streaming to have significantly more battery life than playing on the device. Standalone defaults to a lower frame rate, I saw 72, not sure if that’s game specific, and streaming defaulted to 120
I think they’ve acknowledged that streaming isn’t working on Linux yet, including with the Steam Machine. It sucks that they didn’t finish that feature before launch, but I’m sure they’re still working on it.
Yeah, they mention here that Windows is the only officially supported platform but they do add some details for Linux users to try it out: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2668-0B6E-79E0-A85B#os
Oh dang, streaming from my PC was one of the main reasons why I jumped for the Frame after having skipped all the other brands.
That should honestly be very clearly communicated before people can buy.
Their ads all show their devices working together.
AFAIK streaming from Linux isn’t supported yet.
It reportedly works as long as you aren’t using gamescope session (i.e. the mode that launches the OS directly into Steam) on the host PC but YMMV by desktop/WM etc. I’m hoping for a quick wivrn port as SteamVR on desktop Linux has always been a bit undercooked, although you’d hope Valve is finally addressing that.
does it say anywhere what it needs to charge? a usb powerbank in your back pocket could probably work for longer sessions.
also, any eye fatigue?
The specs shown for the official charger are
PD3.0 Type C power supply, 45Wso I bet a decent power bank would work.I did experience a little eye fatigue but nothing too crazy. When the battery ran out I still felt like I could have gone at least another hour.
It runs fine on a power bank. It’s happy charging and playing simultaneously. I clocked about 15W when it was on but idling, with 50% battery.
is that better than on the vive? i’ve used an index before and my eyes started hurting after like 20 minutes.
With the index I found I was always trying to get my eyes positioned perfectly, and things outside the center of my vision were still blurry. The frame has much less positioning, and is much clearer when reading text.
I’m not sure. I never had any issues on the Vive and so far the Frame seems ok, but I’ve never used an Index before. From what I’ve heard, the Frame’s display is very similar to the Index though.
How is Beat Saber on the headset? I’m planning on getting one and want to run it on hardware.
I played it on mine yesterday and it ran perfectly fine. Still trying to figure out how to install mods for the game. Things are slightly complicated by the ARM architecture with compatibility.
Someone on YouTube tested the PC version and supposedly it ran perfectly. That should also work with all the mods I guess.
Yeah I could probably fall back to that, but I’m trying to get as much as possible running natively on it so it’s more portable.
I meant, that they played the PC version directly on the headset. I guess they selected Proton and FEX in compatibility, so it downloaded the Windows version.
It runs perfectly, best I can tell. I did have some setup issues streaming it from my computer. I wanted a repeat view for others to watch.
I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but that one is officially supported so it should be fine. Planning on testing it tonight so I can let you know for sure later.
Update: it works great
I’m using bazzite so super interested in how streaming goes for you. I’ve used wivrn and envision in the past but it looks like it will need fixes to work https://github.com/WiVRn/WiVRn/issues/1114
Do your eyes tire or does your vision get blurry after a while? I’ve never set any of these things on my head in my life, so I really don’t know. Lol
Not really. The biggest issue is motion sickness. A lot of games have you teleport around for that reason. I can personally handle it quite well, but some games still mess me up e.g. subnortica.
That said, some people do have eyes that are slightly off level with each other. That can cause interesting problems for them. It’s not hugely common however.
Some people get simulation sickness so that’s something to be aware of. If you do, I suggest stopping immediately when it happens and increasing time in sessions gradually. A cooling fan and light clothing can help as well.
Thank you. Good to know
I’ve never had an issue with that before, but I’ve only used the Vive. My eyes felt a bit dry after using the Frame for a couple of hours but I don’t know if that’s the same thing as making my eyes tired.
Thank you. I’m just really scared to be completely honest. The idea of having a screen an inch away from my eyes terrifies me.
The lenses on VR headsets make it so you’re focusing your eyes as if the screen is farther away. So much so, that I wear glasses, and VR is a little bit blurry for me because of it.
(This is based on my last headset, I’m still waiting for my frame)
Yeah that makes sense. Not sure if they have them where you live but I’ve seen a few places that let you pay to use a VR headset at the location. Could be worth trying out to see if it’s for you before committing to an expensive headset.
Just have one question, in what region are you in ? EU, US… ? I’ve been able to buy the frame day one (lucky me!) but it still hasn’t shipped yet
They seem to be going out in batches. I was lucky enough to get an early one in the UK.
just got mine today, I was just a tad bit impatient it seems! still waiting for the accessories but I know they come as a second packages.
I’m in the US and really close to one of the places they ship from. I paid last Thursday when I got the email and they shipped on Monday. Got it the next day.
I’m on the reservation list but haven’t got my order email yet. I’m also on Fedora so this is relevant to my interests. Were you using SteamVR beta as is mentioned on the support page? And have you swapped your mesa driver for the rpmfusion one that enables proprietary hardware encoders?
Fedora has a philosophy of not shipping with non-free software, it leads to stuff like the GPU’s encoders not working out of the box and is a bit of a pain point if you don’t know about it.
Right now the regular SteamVR and the beta are the same version, but I do currently have it set to the beta. The issue is almost certainly the mesa driver. I installed some of the proprietary encoders but I have a feeling I’m missing something. Going to keep trying tonight but unfortunately there’s not a lot of information on the requirements just yet.
It used to be you needed to swap the default mesa drivers for the freeworld ones, but it seems that’s changed with Fedora 44. Now you should run:
sudo dnf install libva-utils vainfoThat will show you the VAAPI profiles currently enabled. If your setup matches mine that will be profiles for JPEG, VP9 and AV1 but not H264 or HEVC. If that’s the case install the codec-enabled driver:
sudo dnf install mesa-va-drivers-freeworldRunning vainfo again should then show a bunch of new profiles for H264 and HEVC.
If you have the H264 and HEVC profiles available but are still experiencing the issue then we probably need to wait for Valve to do their thing.
Edit: also you should probably reboot before trying to stream a game after installing the driver.
Hey thanks for this! After installing the drivers I can stream 2D games but unfortunately VR streaming is still broken. Hopefully they can fix it soon.
A friend of mine also running Fedora was able to get streaming working, in its case by installing the
mesa-vulkan-drivers-freeworlddrivers from rpmfusion.
Def want to know how streaming and flat 2d gaming works in the frame for ya once you have it working. I only have an og rift so I’m on the waitlist for the 256 and also suspecting I’ll enjoy the upgrade. Also do you wear glasses? I’m probably going to splurge with the special lenses and the the kit that gives you the bracelets and top head strap for it but curious if you have either.
I don’t wear glasses, but I did get the ergonomic kit after seeing most reviewers say it’s basically a requirement. I don’t love the head strap so far but I may just need to adjust the fit. When I was using it yesterday it felt like I had to do extra work to get it to fit in a way that I could see clearly.
The bracelets are nice though and allow you to use the finger tracking more like the Index controller. It also comes with the improved plastic nose cover but I haven’t installed that one yet. The one it comes with has been fine but there’s a small gap.
Sure would be nice to get my purchase email…
Are you near or far sighted at all, if so how was that experience?
Are you using only the base horizontal strap, or did you get the ergonomic gear add-on with the overhead strap and other stuff? Some reviewers were saying that it was only bearable with the extras.
Not near/far sighted so I can’t really answer anything related to that. I did get the ergonomic kit and I’d recommend it, but I wouldn’t call it unbearable without it.
Ignoring the resolution/clarity upgrade, how does the color vibrancy/contrast compare with the Vive? I’ve been unsure about making a similar upgrade because of the industry switch from OLED to LCD, but given the ten year tech gap I’m hoping the difference isn’t actually that big.
The color vibrancy and contrast don’t seem significantly different to me. The biggest difference is definitely the higher resolution and the lack of the screen door effect. To me, the higher resolution and removing the need to set up base stations were worth the upgrade but if you’re happy with the Vive it’s probably fine.
