I have seen a lot of people argue you must use a 45W output power bank, probably because it’s the charger output Valve recommends for continuous play.
I have yet to pass 30W during play (admittedly I play with 100℅ brightness, not 120%). It will charge at a miserably slow rate, but if I start a session at full battery, I also end the session with a full battery.
If you own a 30W power bank already, it is not some strict requirement to upgrade it for the frame, just make sure to use the right output port.
The discussions around the Steam Frame’s battery/charging have really highlighted how little people know about power delivery, even in tech enthusiast spaces.
Like, of course you don’t need 45W. The Frame draws 27W at its peak. However 45W is capable of charging it even as you play, which may or may not be important to you.
Saw some guy on YouTube claim the Frame draws 90W too based on it draining the battery in an hour, so it was obviously DOA because no battery bank could keep up and you’d never get good playtimes. Been a while since I’ve encountered someone so confident and yet so wrong over basic technical details.
21Wh battery, around one hour lifetime. Yes, it must obviously have a 90W draw!!
Good to have a number on the max draw. Honestly, assuming a slight loss at the buck converter I think at peak consumption a 30W charger might actually struggle. It will be a close call at any rate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you went down to 99℅ after using it for a while. The horror!
Why does brightness go over 100%? That’s … Not how it works
Cool info!
Well, it’s brighter, isn’t it? It’s not 100%. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at 100%. You’re on 120% here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on 100% on your brightness. Where can you go from there? Where?
I don’t know…
In case you missed the reference.
lol I was carrying on the bit
Both Index and Frame have a brightness setting that goes from IIRC 60% to 125%.
100% is the default, because it is where white and black are most “balanced”. Going lower makes white seem kind of dim, and going higher, makes black seem even less black.
Going up or down can look better depending on the game, but it being in VR is why going above and below 100% makes a bit of sense.
Going above 100% is also good when you’re in bright light and you simply can’t see the shadow regions. Kinda like turning up a brightness in certain games.
For the Deck, at least.
Same with the Steam Deck. I’ve actually been using an 18W charger as my travel one for ever since I got it, and as the highest power draw I’ve seen is 26 Watts (BG3 at Act 3 at full brightness), the difference is 8 Watts and the 40Wh LCD battery allows playing for over 5 hours straight before empty.
But most of the time you are playing something lighter, and it gets you enough life that you’d be able to play the entire day no problem, and have it charge back up during the night.Same experience.
I did get a 65W bank, but only because it’d be useful for charging my laptop and Deck as well as the Frame. By my math, even 20W should be sufficient to keep playing, if not charge the Frame.
There is a caveat though, PD voltage profiles mean that any two devices may not transfer the maximum theoretically possible wattage between them, depending on how their modes line up.
For example, a PB that is rated to do 30W, may not achieve that on the Frame, if it lacks a 15V mode. (Which is what the Frame and Deck seem to prefer.) You also need a suitable cable to use some of the modes at higher amperages.
Thanks. I’m glad I’m not the only one pissed at the lack of a standard PD sequence for the power negotiation.
There is a standard. A power source only needs to provide sufficient voltage to reach it’s rated power, given the maximum current of 3A on a non-eMarked cable, given voltage steps of 5V, 9V, 15V, 20V. Offering higher voltages than is neccesary is optional. This means that only adapters greater in power than 27W are required to support 15V, and only adapters greater in power than 45W are required to support 20V.
IMO, this is not unresonable. Would you prefer manufacturers be forbidden from offering voltage profiles higher than is necessary for their power rating?
(This is not neccesarily true for powers above 60W, and ignores PPS, EPR, and AVS. Above 60W you need eMarked cables and it gets a bit more complicated)
Fair point, I’m not really sure on the exact power profiles the Frame supports tbh. I’ll take a look a bit later.
I have exceeded 20W during standalone play, and right now my game of choice is the vr mod for half life 2, which works fine in standalone.
Even with a 20W supply and 5W from the onboard battery you will extend the lifetime by a lot.
Even if you exceed 20W it doesn’t matter. The only real thing that matters is the average draw and the total duration of a session. If you spend most of the time drawing 10W and peek at 50W for a minute then you can run off a 20W powersupply forever.
But a faster power supply does offer you more benefits. You can play unplugged until the battery is low, plug it in and continue. It will charge sooner letting you unplug it again sooner. If the wires bother you then that can be a big advantage.
How is the VR mod?
I was about to start alyx for the first time, and realized I never finished HL 2.
Should I do it in VR?
It almost feels like the game is native vr. The only awkward thing is that you need to use a controller button for opening doors and such.
Whether you should play depends on your vr legs. Alyx is definitely a more beginner friendly experience, while half life 2 vr is way more fast paced.
Hmm, I’m very new to VR. The frame is my first VR.
I’m worried about spoiling myself playing Alyx first
