Summary
Then came the Meta (previously Oculus) Quest, a low-powered, low-cost headset that proved the vast majority of VR-curious gamers didn’t want to bother with being literally tethered to a bulky, expensive gaming PC. As the Quest line carved out a modest niche through the 2020s, Valve seemed more or less satisfied to let its earlier VR hardware and software ambitions wither on the vine. Those years of Valve’s benign neglect of VR make the imminent release of the 1,299 Frame version that upgrades the internal storage from 256GB to 1TB). Valve stole from the best when it mimicked the Meta Quest controller design, then added a few buttons for good measure. Kyle Orland Valve stole from the best when it mimicked the Meta Quest controller design, then added a few buttons for good measure. Kyle Orland VR controller design has come a long way since the HTC Vive… Kyle Orland VR controller design has come a long way since the HTC Vive… Kyle Orland Valve stole from the best when it mimicked the Meta Quest controller design, then added a few buttons for good measure. Kyle Orland VR controller design has come a long way since the HTC Vive… Kyle Orland Unfortunately, those good-on-paper specs start to run into literal in-your-face annoyances when you use the headset for a bit. For one, the unit’s self-contained head-tracking system isn’t quite as rock-solid as it should be, leading to noticeable juddering and image “ghosting” when you move your head quickly. It’s not as bad as the old camera-free, three-degree-of-freedom headsets, but it’s just annoying enough to be noticeable in many situations. The Steam Frame’s limited battery life is a much bigger issue. The headset barely manages to crawl past an hour and a half on a full charge when playing most VR titles in the graphics-maximizing “Performance” mode. Much of that quick battery drain no doubt comes from the unit’s hefty internal fan, which tends toward blowing a constant stream of hot air up and away from your forehead and which causes a persistent audible whine when playing most VR games. Close-up of the handy IPD-adjustment dial and the vent for the constantly blowing fan. Close-up of the handy IPD-adjustment dial and the vent for the constantly blowing fan. Switching over from “Performance” to “Playtime” in the SteamOS settings ameliorates the battery life issue somewhat, pushing the average unplugged play session well above two hours in our tests. But that extension comes at a significant cost to the unit’s graphical power, pushing down rendering resolutions and forcing a barely tolerable 72 Hz refresh rate in most cases. That leads to notably blurrier objects in the distance, clear “stair step” patterns along the edges of nearby objects, and much more jittery animations when you move your head quickly. “Playtime” mode is very hard to recommend over the relatively smooth and sharp graphics of “Performance” mode. To max out both graphical performance and battery life, the best option for many Steam Frame owners will be wireless streaming of VR games running on a nearby PC with a full-fledged graphics card. The Steam Frame comes with a dedicated 6 GHz Wi-Fi USB dongle that works with your Wi-Fi setup to make wireless streaming as consistent and latency-free as possible. As someone who has tried many in-home game streaming solutions in the past, I was skeptical that a wireless connection could be solid enough to maintain an immersive VR experience. But I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Steam Frame’s dongle-aided streaming. The wireless connection generally had five to ten milliseconds of ping according to SteamOS’s on-screen display, a reasonable price to pay for the frame rate and resolution bumps provided by a PC graphics card. The only real issue was setting up that connection, which sometimes required restarting the stream a number of times and/or fiddling with the SteamVR app loaded on my desktop. Not the same old SteamOS Unlike previous Steam VR headsets—which more or less served as “dumb” monitors for a Windows PC—the Steam Frame is essentially its own self-contained computer, so Valve has adapted its Linux-based SteamOS to run both in VR and on the Frame’s ARM-based hardware (as opposed to the AMD chips on the Steam Deck and Steam Machine). The SteamOS interface you know and love, now in VR. Valve The SteamOS interface you know and love, now in VR. Valve A menu shows the paltry battery life you can expect in “Performance” mode. Valve A menu shows the paltry battery life you can expect in “Performance” mode. Valve The SteamOS interface you know and love, now in VR. Valve A menu shows the paltry battery life you can expect in “Performance” mode. Valve The streaming connection can automatically switch between Wi-Fi and the included USB dongle, depending on which connection is more stable. Valve The streaming connection can automatically switch between Wi-Fi and the included USB dongle, depending on which connection is more stable. Valve A handy menu lets you tinker with the resolution and frame rate on a game-by-game basis. Valve A handy menu lets you tinker with the resolution and frame rate on a game-by-game basis. Valve The streaming connection can automatically switch between Wi-Fi and the included USB dongle, depending on which connection is more stable. Valve A handy menu lets you tinker with the resolution and frame rate on a game-by-game basis. Valve That transition to a new platform and chip architecture has come with more than a few growing pains. Unlike on the Steam Deck, which could play almost every Steam game well when it first launched, many existing SteamVR games had trouble running natively on the Frame. That includes games that outright refused to launch (Doom VFR, I Expect You To Die 3), games that exhibited frequent extreme graphical glitches (Fruit Ninja, Valve’s own The Lab), and games that simply crashed the entire device suddenly, requiring a restart (six separate occurrences across various games during my test period). Following the Steam Deck Verified program, Valve has crafted a list of “Great on Frame” games it says should run without issue on the headset. But that list thus far includes only a few dozen of the thousands of SteamVR games, yet it still lists at least one (I Expect You to Die 3) that I was unable to load on the Frame at all. You haven’t really played Lumines Arise until you’ve played it with a bunch of VR crap flying around. Enhance You haven’t really played Lumines Arise until you’ve played it with a bunch of VR crap flying around. Enhance 2D games like Hollow Knight: Silksong look and play great on the Frame’s big virtual screen. 3D titles are another matter… Team Cherry / Valve 2D games like Hollow Knight: Silksong look and play great on the Frame’s big virtual screen. 3D titles are another matter… Team Cherry / Valve You haven’t really played Lumines Arise until you’ve played it with a bunch of VR crap flying around. Enhance 2D games like Hollow Knight: Silksong look and play great on the Frame’s big virtual screen. 3D titles are another matter… Team Cherry / Valve You may notice that “Great on Frame” list also includes a number of non-VR games you can play on a virtual flat screen when inside the Frame. But the relatively weak Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor in the Frame means the games are limited to relatively undemanding 2D titles or older 3D titles (Portal 2, anyone?) Even a game like Returnal, which can hit a “Playable” 30 fps on the aging Steam Deck, managed a paltry 9 fps in benchmarks on the Frame at 720p “Low” graphics settings. Streaming these games from a Windows PC rather than relying on a Linux conversion layer on a low-powered headset once again ameliorates most of these problems. And the VR version of SteamOS should improve as Valve releases new updates over time. But I expected more from the company’s first attempt at virtual reality in the SteamOS era. Late to the party For most players, it’s hard to recommend the 599 Meta Quest 3 (or even a $349 Quest 3S for the more budget-minded). Sure, Steam Frame owners will be able to point to the more comfortable lightweight design of their headset. The Frame’s dongle-powered wireless streaming stability is also a nice touch, though a decent Wi-Fi network lets you stream well from a SteamVR desktop to a Quest 3 headset these days. Other than that, the core, moment-to-moment VR experience on the Steam Frame is much too similar to that of the years-old Quest 3 to justify spending hundreds of extra dollars on Valve’s late device. And the stability of Meta’s platform after years of iteration compares quite favorably to the early stumbles of SteamOS on a new hardware platform. Steam Frame owners can at least revel in Half-Life: Alyx, which is included with every Frame purchase and is as close to a “killer app” exclusive as Valve has in the VR realm. Valve says squeezing the full Alyx experience onto the Frame “required over a year of extra software work within the Vulkan drivers and SteamVR,” as well as a lot of Alyx-focused software optimization and hardware-based foveated rendering. That work has paid off, as the “standalone” version of the game offers relatively few compromises when compared to its Windows cousin (which you can still stream to the Frame from a desktop for better graphical fidelity). Half-Life: Alyx looks surprisingly decent on the low-powered Frame headset. Note: the blurred resolution on the edges is a result of the “foveated rendering” that heightens resolution where the player is looking. Credit: Valve Half-Life: Alyx looks surprisingly decent on the low-powered Frame headset. Note: the blurred resolution on the edges is a result of the “foveated rendering” that heightens resolution where the player is looking. Credit: Valve As impressive as that technical achievement is, a “portable” version of a state-of-the-art VR game from over five years ago feels less impactful at a time when big-budget games from 2024 are getting Verified for Steam Deck (Assassin’s Creed Mirage won’t even load on the Steam Frame, for what it’s worth). Frame owners should also be aware that they could be missing out on some Quest-exclusive VR experiences that Meta has built up on its platform over the years. For some, the biggest selling point for the Steam Frame will be the opportunity to use a capable standalone VR headset without giving money to Meta or signing in to a privacy–inconsiderate Meta account. Tinkerers will also likely appreciate the ability to load right into a Linux desktop from SteamOS rather than registering for a Meta “Developer Mode” account to get access to features like sideloading on the Quest. For most VR-curious gamers, though, avoiding Meta’s platform lock-in isn’t worth the hundreds of extra dollars Valve is seeking for its unsubsidized VR hardware. If you already have a lot invested in Steam VR titles or want to finally see what Half-Life: Alyx is all about, the Steam Frame might be worth some consideration. Otherwise, it feels like Valve is a few years late and a few hundred dollars short here. Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper.