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.
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.