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I unsubscribed from wishlist discount emails last weekend just to avoid getting my hopes up whenever I got a notification. Just now, I got a notification about an email from Steam, and I was 100% sure it’s finally the long-awaited purchase email.
You have sold an item on the Community Market
Oh, come on! The listing for some profile background for 5 cents had been sitting there untouched for a year. What are the chances that someone just happens to buy it this exact week?!
Someone is going to get bumped up on the 1 tb version… I can’t justify the purchase right now.
We salute your sacrifice <o
Did the same this weekend, re queued myself because I thought I was going to have more time to scrap together cash before I got the notice.
I’d like a cheaper gutted version. I just want the dedicated wifi dongle and an ar screen with 3DfoV so I can play games from my steam deck or PC wirelessly on virtual big screen. I don’t need the device as it stands with play alone features and all the built in ram and storage and vr 6dfov or even the passthrough camera.
For them to have things like:
- high quality wireless video that is decoded on the headset
- decent tracking without anything external (as opposed to using Lighthouse base stations, as used on the Index)
- eye tracking, which enables the foveated streaming (and allows for a significant perceived quality boost)
- on-device compositor with async reprojection (reducing simulation sickness from low frame rate or missed frames)
There needs to be a decent amount of onboard processing, a full OS, and some memory/storage. Before prices exploded (which was certainly after the hardware was mostly/entirely finalized), it would have been only a small price increase (proportional to the rest of the hardware) to bump the RAM and storage a bit to allow for more games to work standalone.
The passthrough cameras are really not a focus of the headset, they are a semi-convenient side effect of the tracking cameras. The actually-decent-quality passthrough is a separate add-on.
If you want an AR screen and only need 3 DoF, would something like the XReal glasses line up better for you?
You vastly overestimate the amount of ram and storage and OS required for data exchange and foveated streaming.
I own xreal one pro glasses. They show that your 2nd and 4th point are non issues that can be done with extremely limited on device processing power and no cameras or extra head tracking. The xreals do a fantastic job of those.
The only issue with the xreals is that they aren’t wireless. Still fantastic for games using my steam deck, but not much of a point in using them to sit right in front of my desktop.
Thanks for your perspective on this. I am going to go into a bunch of detail on why I disagree.
Streaming video
I didn’t say that streaming video requires a lot of RAM or storage, I said that streaming video, decent tracking, eye tracking, and the on-device compositor combined require “a decent amount of onboard processing, a full OS, and some memory/storage.”
It is true that decoding a relatively low bitrate H.265 video doesn’t require a lot of RAM or storage on its own. It does add a bit to the processing requirements across the whole package, though.
Tracking
The XReal One Pro has 3 DoF unless if you add a single camera (XReal Eye) to do 6 DoF SLAM. It does benefit from hardware acceleration of the tracking.
Still, the single tracking camera produces less data that needs to be processed, and limits the tracking quality. This limited quality is reflected in reviews:
With the XReal Eye, the XReal One and One Pro can do the same thing, in a very loose sense. Anchoring the virtual screen in front of my TV, I could indeed move closer to the screen and step around it. The picture would constantly move with me to some extent, though, making it shift back and forth a few feet when I walked around my living room. It felt like a half-step between 3DOF and 6DOF, where the head tracking is more accurate than without the Eye, but the position of the screen is taken as a suggestion more than a fixed point. This isn’t surprising, though, considering its calculations are based on the input of a single camera.
However, the real magic of the Eye comes with its ability to infuse the One Pro with spatial 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) tracking. With this capability, the virtual screen stays in place while you move around your environment. This feature is usually enabled by using multiple forward-looking cameras, but Xreal is implementing it with just one (monocular SLAM), which limits its performance. In other words, tracking isn’t as steady or jitter-free as devices like the Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3s.
It may be that you don’t need the higher quality tracking with your needs and in AR glasses. This doesn’t work so well in VR.
In comparison, the Steam Frame has 4 SLAM cameras (also used for tracking the controllers) and 2 eye tracking cameras, and doesn’t have dedicated hardware to accelerate the tracking. This means the tracking is implemented in software, where it must process 6 cameras (among other sensors) at low latencies and high refresh rates to keep the tracking quality relatively high.
Compositor
The XReal One Pro has hardware to smooth motion when displaying a relatively low resolution, 2D image in an apparent fixed position. Like with tracking, this is probably enough for AR glasses.
Unlike the Steam Frame, XReal glasses aren’t capable of compositing arbitrary 3D scenes with depth buffers and/or motion vectors that are used to reproject the image with reduced artifacts compared to a naive implementation.
The Steam Frame, again, isn’t benefiting from dedicated hardware for this. It does do some fun tricks to reduce latency of the compositor in the GPU.
Overall package
Combined, this is a lot of data to crunch that less powerful hardware like is found in the XReal One Pro cannot handle. The most popular headsets with similar needs use the Snapdragon XR series SoCs, which have hardware acceleration for SLAM tracking with many sensors, and basically requires a full OS (in practice, Android) to function as expected (requiring more storage and RAM as a result).
The Steam Frame has similar needs to the other wireless VR headsets (with some different trade-offs), and is using a smartphone SoC without dedicated tracking hardware. It could be that it could cover all of its needs (outside of standalone functionality) with bespoke hardware that is a lot less powerful, but this would certainly be more expensive than an off-the-shelf solution, as the requirements are too great and the volume too low.
It also makes sense to reuse SteamOS and SteamVR, which already had a lot of the functionality they need, instead of creating bespoke firmware. These add some overhead relative to the firmware running on XReal glasses.
Since it is already using an older high end smartphone SoC to be able to handle all of this, plus all the other components (like displays, optics stack, cooling, audio drivers, IPD mechanism, modular strap, etc.), a bit more memory and storage wouldn’t have been a big price increase before prices exploded. Valve said as much in interviews, including this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ag2S8yvVak
Early on, before we had a sense of the compute capabilities, we were picking a lower spec, but as more and more of the catalog came online, it turned into a scenario where we’re like, “well, this chip is powerful enough to run these- this level of game- if we had 16 gigs,” right?
They landed on having the standalone capability because it was already in reach after choosing a SoC that met their other needs, and adding extra memory was an easy decision to make at the time. It makes sense, then, to increase the storage a bit, too. They could not have predicted that prices would explode, and the resulting pricing is their biggest regret with their latest hardware (as stated in the same interview).
Few issues. One, as stated explicitly. Don’t need 6dfov. Only 3dfov. Also, your reviews are old as heck. Firmware updates have completely changed how well they work. If I screen lock in place it stays fantasticly. You’re looking at reviews and data from before firmware version 1.9.
The ram could be cut in half and the storage could drop to 16GB. Would have saved probably $350 at this point.
You need all those gubbons even to stream. You might as well add a couple extra bits and bobs and have standalone play too.
They won’t build a cut down version, it just doesn’t make sense.
You definitely do not. How much processing power do you think is in a Chromecast dongle? Lol
Streaming highly compressed video one way at 60 FPS is not the same as streaming less compressed video at 144hz while tracking your eyes for foveated rendering and tracking the cameras and accelerometers and and controllers and sending it all back to the computer with milliseconds of delay.
I’m not saying it can’t be done with more dedicated hardware, but the jump from one to the other is smaller than you think from an initial design perspective, while simultaneously being different enough that you’re basically starting from scratch if you wanted to make both types of devices.
And they definitely want a device with onboard arm capabilities, because they’re building out fex.
What you’re asking for is therefore kind of difficult and probably not going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately.
In one of the interviews valve even state it’s. They put in hardware to just stream. But found out it was powerful enough to also have a standalone version. So they did.
Steam is not a company would walk backwards and port old hardware into a new HMD. They just won’t release (HL3 plz)
No they did not.
I did get a notification for Steam… that I’m on the waiting list, yay :(
Overall it’s a tiny bit underwhelming (not even talking about the price) when you look at all the mixed reviews of the most popular VR titles. I still want to mess around with it, but I guess now I just wait.
If you’ve never tried VR before its properly exciting, the first few days you feel like this is the future. This is the big leap we’ve been waiting for since 3D or Physics Engines.
After a few days though moving the table to the side and putting the headset on just seems like more effort than its worth.
You should be excited, but don’t be too disappointed that you’re missing out.
The nice thing about PC VR is that you have more seated experiences like flight and racing sims. But you can also play Alyx seated and all the myriad VR mods of flat games.
I feel like this is the experience with most people, either that or immediate nausea/motion sickness.
They see it as a novelty and inconvenience when sitting down and playing a flatscreen title takes much less effort because all of the friction has been virtually eliminated in the last 10+ years.
As someone who has now over 4,000 hours in VR, it is entirely situational to the person. If you’re someone who can see themselves getting truly lost in immersive 3D worlds, sweating in them, living in them, tolerating discomfort and things strapped to your body and/or head for a transcendental experience, then it’s for you.
Otherwise, the Steam Frame might be a massive waste of money (for you) that’ll collect dust on the shelf next to the Apple VR.
It’s possible (for most people) to desensitize one’s self to motion sickness: the key is to stop immediately as soon as you get the slightest hint of feeling sick. Repeated exposure taken slowly can lead to improvement.
The issue is people try to push through it to the point they feel sick, and in doing so sensitize themselves to VR induced motion sickness. Getting over that is much harder to do.
It’s no different from feeling nauseousness from trying to eat something that made you violently ill in the past.
I actually have a horror game on Steam developed for the Valve Index (we had several 10 years ago in university). Never was impressed enough back then to actually purchase one for myself (so I also didn’t have much playtime). Bad display quality, especially for texts, uncomfortable, stumbling over the cable, …
That’s why I was really looking forward to the Steam Frame for a year now. Barely over an hour of battery life dampened my enthusiasm already :-/
A power bank in your pocket can extend the battery life significantly; it’s more comfortable to carry a big battery in your pocket than strapped to your head anyways.
But that’s one more cable you have to route through your shirt (which annoys me sensation wise). They always skimp out on batteries.
They’ve already announced a battery+sound pack (without any release estimate). Until then I bet we’ll get several third party suppliers.
Why route it through the shirt if the sensation upsets you? A short cable shouldn’t be able to get in your way on the outside (the USB port is at the back). With a power bank in your back pocket it won’t be like tethered VR where you can turn around and touch the cable.
If you have a 3D printer you could also do what I’ve done and print a holster for a power bank. It gives me rear options for pants without back pockets.
Oh wow turns out I was yappin to the capn
Nah, I’ve never had a VR headset at home, so when it comes to actually playing games I’m a newbie. Though I heard the only really ‘good’ VR game is Half Life Alyx. Plenty of warnings that if you play that one first, all the other games will feel like crap :-/
Also curious about Blade and Sorcery.
Truly, one hour? I’ve got Quest 2 and that was up to 2. With the head strap powerbank that doubled very ergonomically (for me at least).
It’s a bit more complex than that. But for streaming at 120hz from a PC to the Frame it’s barely over an hour in “quality mode”. They do have a “playtime mode”, but it’s like 72hz with worse visuals, so not really worth using.
The price is fucking wild. I won’t touch it for quite some time.
My index is fun, but I hardly ever use it.
We could’ve had Bernie.
Just completed my purchase! Now to wait some more.
Is this an actual Larry David sketch or are the using unrelated performances?
IKR, my wishlist is not that long and games in it don’t go on sale often but somehow it seems like half of them decided to have a sale this exact weekend lol
I got lucky it seems.
I signed up almost immediately when it became possible. I got the order link this friday.
Delivery says my Frame is “packaged and waiting for courier pickup”.
No-one else I know signed up, so hard to say what supply is like in EU.
I assume today or tomorrow a bunch more people will get the order email, as people miss their 3 day purchasing window and the units go to the next person.
Same here. Waiting for it to get shipped.
Still nothing 🥲
My wife ordered the Frame yesterday. 1 TB, EU. Great timing for my birthday.
It generally seems they only managed to send ~16% of the emails out on Friday, and none in the weekend. So the window has not started yet for alot of people
2% of people for whom they have a unit, or 2% of people on the waitlist?
What is that figure based on?
Just move somewhere they don’t sell and it won’t annoy you!
This has been my exact Sunday.
I got a notification today for a steam machine. Hah… not even sure why I signed up for that
I was put in the waitlist -.- but thats ok anyway, financially the next months are a lot easier than this one.
I had my polycule and 2 friends submit orders so we had 5 chances at just one. Two actually got the order! Can’t wait to get it in. Y hands soon!!
Is your polycule accepting new members?
You’re still waiting on an email!?
The one to actually order, yes. I got the reservation one.
Ooohhh haha same
Glad to hear it’s not just me. I was starting to worry that I had missed it or something.
Got my reservation email, still waiting on the order email.
i can’t confirm because i’m in the waitlist, but i’ve heard if you haven’t gotten your email, you can try checking the frame store page and be able to order anyway
It only shows “Cancel Reservation” on that menu, so guess we need wait for the mail (in in the reservation que waiting for the order mail)
Can confirm, once the email has been sent, you can order from the steam app too.
