256 GB model: $1,059 USD
1TB model: $1,299 USD
Preorder list randomized, goes out Sept 17th
Power supply not included, costs $29 (same as Steam Deck power supply)
3rd party addon available for color passthrough, Arcturus Vision Camera, $149
I would get it if the battery life didn’t suck.
~1.5 hours when streaming from PC at 144hz, and a full charge time of around 3 hours, meaning you probably can’t even get unlimited playtime if it’s plugged in the entire time and solely streaming from a PC instead of computing the game itself.
Man, I really hate this economy. This AI bubble cannot pop fast enough, but I fear we have at least till the end of this year, possible Q2 of next year to see it happen. Even then, it’s not like it will be instant, and capacity won’t just instantly switch over to normal consumer components. Assuming even more tech idiocy doesn’t happen, we’re still years away from a ramp up to “normal” capacity.
I’m even more scared that the era of personal computing is in it’s last days. The combination of drastic cost increases, and the dominance of corpo-tech working 24/7 to destroy ownership completely, might be too much to overcome.
We’ll see a return to the era of computing similar to the 80’s and early 90’s. Building your own PC will require lots of money and technical skills. Pre-builts will be a distant memory. PC builders will be spoken of in similar terms as HAM radio people are now, hermitic nerds who are hardcore into their ancient, dark, tech wizardry.
but I fear we have at least till the end of this year, possible Q2 of next year to see it happen.
Considering at the start of August, I was already seeing stories that all the fabrication capacity for RAM has been completely spoken for and booked through the end of 2027, I would expect it to keep going quite a bit longer still.
You’re not wrong, but the whole thing is also a bit of a house of cards. If the buyers don’t have the money the contract won’t be fulfillable.
We have a data center planned not too far from my house. It was approved by the city council last December despite a lot of public skepticism. The developers aren’t moving because they don’t have the money. They’re waiting to have someone on contract to lease capacity from them before taking out a loan. In the best case that will simply never happen.
Sure, but with production stuff at scale like that, even if contracts fall through, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be able to switch right over to running consumer RAM down the lines. Unless the AI bubble bursts hard and soon enough for them not to have contracts to fulfill by March, I wouldn’t count on them being able to get meaningful production going during Q2. Switching over from producing one SKU to another can be a crazily time intensive problem on its own, and that’s leaving aside whether they have enough raw materials on hand to keep the lines busy producing those products. If they have some stupid Just in Time inventory system in place, we’ll get to follow their supply lines as we see where new logistical bottlenecks are emerging in the process.
Well, considering all thats an incredible price. Youre getting 16 gigs of ram in it, thats actually like half of its price 💀. This is very heavily subsidized, theyre not making a penny of of it. Still as i said before im looking for a car right now and a used car is about 5 steam frames so i dont think i will have money for it for a while. Whelp. Also i have to tune up the car so thats prolly another 3k…
Does anyone have an educated guess on my odds of getting picked from the list for a 1TB?
No idea but I did sign up for the 1TB in the hopes that it is less popular so my odds are better but it could also be the case that they produced way less so who knows. Luckily my wife has her own steam account so I had her sign up for the 256 model just to increase my odds. Only planning on buying one so if I somehow get picked for both I will just let it drop to the next person in the list I suppose.
For the steam machine you could sign up for multiple SKUs and they’d offer you the one you came first in the list for. Is it different this time?
Yes, signing up for one then trying to sign up for the other removes your initial selection. They are mutually exclusive lists
I wish it was cheaper but I would rather have VR without Meta at the wrong time and not great price than VR with Meta and the right time and great price.
Same here, I did love that the gamers nexus video opened with a comparison of the terms and privacy policy of meta and valve just to show how buying a Quest may be cheaper but it costs a lot more than the money you exchange for it.
Ughhh. Guess im not getting one of these either.
VR playing people - how much space do you need to use it? I have a place behind my PC where i can stand and move my arms around with hands out (barely) but that’s about it. Feels like I should wait till i get a bigger gaming area to think about getting anything like this.
Valve recommends “For Room Scale VR, you will need at least 2m x 1.5m (6.5ft x 5ft) of free space.”
I set mine up in the living room with a little bit larger area, about 6 x 8 feet and it’s plenty
You can play games like X4 or Elite Dangerous, which don’t need a okay space.
As long as you can reach out in all directions without hitting anything, you can do stationary VR and/or just use in-game locomotion (aka, move with analog stick or teleports.) Stuff like Beat Saber, pistol whip, racing sims, flight sims, any kind of cockpit game is fantastic here.
I started Half Life Alyx in a similar space to yours, just the area behind my desk with my chair pushed in, teleporting for movement (analog movement makes me motion sick, that’s why teleporting is a popular workaround), It was fine and playable, but I found myself wanting to strafe and lean around corners.
So I moved my PC to the living room and had a ~20x11 foot space to play Half Life Alyx in, with my couches stood up on end and pushed the the wall. I ended up walk 20ft > rotate 180 > walk 20ft for almost the entire game and it was amazing. My feet were sore by the end, though. Roomscale just hits different.
I’d definitely take the 256GB model, if it was available in my country… 😢
What country? I’m on the list. I don’t necessarily need it but if someone really wants it and will pay for the whole thing and the insane shipping costs…
Cheaper than expected given the economic hellscape, still more than the Index. Oh well. Glad they are attempting to prevent scalping, sad that it means that there’s a random draw to be able to buy them. Still trying to buy one. I figure the 256GB model will be entirely fine, especially with the SD card expansion slot. Pity that you can’t upgrade the storage like the Deck, but oh well.
Less than the index once you account for inflation.
The index would cost 1300$ in today’s money, give or take.
The price I expected for the main unit, but I’m kinda pissy with them wanting an extra $60 for a few straps. That price seems kinda bullshit.
Unless you’re using it entirely as stand alone I’m not certain of needing the 1TB version truthfully.
Nice to see you finally being honest.
Well, I thought it was funny.
Stalker vibes much?
To be fair theres like 12 of us on Lemmy
There are dozen
sof us!dozen*
Hence the strike through markup
I like your shirt today but yesterday’s was fine too.
Cheaper than expected given the economic hellscape
I expect this is why the accessories are so expensive. The ergo kit really should not cost that much, but they may have just increased the price of that so they could keep the base price of the Frame itself lower.
I’m hoping third parties have accessories out by the time it drops. I’d rather buy a boboVR kit at half the cost or something
My intended use case is 100% streaming from my PC so the fixed/low storage doesn’t even bother me.
Considering theres not many games and im assuming the bulk of the game devs are going to release a modified apk of their meta quest version, or scale back the PC port so it rubs via fex (less likely IMO)
Most good games on the quest tapped out at around 8-12 gigs, and im assuming that’s what a bulk of people are going to running considering most vr games made games where either made for, or designed for the quest first and foremost.
That and its the same hardware just running through valves version of waydroid which I can only assume is more performant than running a x86 pc game through fex, and using something like fsr to upscale it? Maybe foviated tracking comes in a lot more clutch than I think it will. But I don’t know honestly im just assuming.
I don’t get why people say “theres not many games” about VR. Have you looked on Steam?
I have, its still the same games I played like 2-4 years ago now, the only real big change is a lot of games I already own became vr compatible.
I’m sure theres a bunch of small indie games, or racing Sim kind of stuff that got added but just pure quantity isn’t what i mean. Otherwise I would just point at the meta quest store and say look how many clones of gorilla tag theres tons of stuff to play.
At one point we had medal of honor making vr games, and there where active lobbies for many games. We had many many growing YouTube channels dedicated around vr that where growing, and now sit stagnent at around 10k views.
If you are looking for a large back catalog of games then sure steam has a ton and many great titles. But they’re often much shorter experiences, ot lesser of a game. Thats much different from when theres actual momentum going and there’s hype around new releases of games, and people are actually there to make mods or be in lobbies for said games.
I’m not saying this because I’m saying vr sucks or theres only 5 vr games. I’m saying this because I am worried its not going to make a bump like how I wanted. In some other universe the steam frame was sold for 700 USD and everyone rushed to buy one, and devs rushed to make friendslop games for vr and it all kept getting bigger.
Yeah, but think of all the VR porn!
How could I forget the whole reason we as a species probably even tried to make vr.
Any word on VR streaming from Linux? I have yet to watch and read most reviews, but I can’t seem to find anything about it being exclusive to Windows like the Short Circuit leak claimed
Last year’s announcement trailer for Valve‘s new hardware mentioned that Steam Machine would be a great option for streaming games to Steam Frame. So it‘s pretty safe to assume that Linux support for streaming is coming.
It’s safe to assume, but from GN video - it’s not there.
Yes, something that is coming is typically not there yet.
Given how much valve has been advertising running the steam frame with the steam machine if it doesn’t already work now it will be a priority to make it work. I trust valve’s fairly consistent marketing more than a leak
I can almost guarantee you that if valve doesnt get it working, someone will via moonlight, ALVR, and/or WiVRn
Pretty much every existing streaming method is complicated and had poor results. Not to mention the lack of foveated streaming.
I am sure there will be third-party solutions working, but will they use foveated streaming? That is a huge selling point of the wireless streaming capabilities of the Steam Frame, but that feature seems to be proprietary to their first-party wireless streaming software. Without it, wireless streaming will be just okay.
As of now it does not work with the Steam Machine, which is kind of embarrassing. Though I expect them to fix that ASAP. Hopefully at least a beta version is available when customers get it.
steamos is a linux distro so presumably already working if its supposed to be able to stream from the steam machine. other distros will likely be within a couple days tops if it doesn’t work out of the box.
Their quick start guide confirms that it does stream from the Steam Machine.
Steam Frame includes a wireless adapater to provide the best quality streaming from your Steam Machine or VR-compatible PC.
Steam Frame: Official Overview and Quick Start Guide (@ 3:40)
Personally I am slightly concerned about their confidence in it’s performance with the Steam Machine if it wasn’t working by the time reviewers got their hands on it.
I recall it comes with a USB dongle for 6GHz Wifi streaming. That’s most likely going to be supported on Linux
Information seems to be mixed, but it’s looking like it at least works in some cases: https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality_linux/comments/1welkhs/steam_frame_confirmed_by_linustechtips_to_not/
I think what’s in question is whether the wifi dongle is widely supported. It might require some manual configuration at first.It seems odd they wouldn’t prioritise that considering how hard they’ve been pushing Linux/SteamOS.
The wifi dongle was demonstrated via the Steam Machine in the “first look” videos.
It’ll work in Linux.
They recently updated it, which seems to have at least improved stability for me. Still can’t get room configuration to run, but I can use default settings fine
WiVRn works in Fedora (over flatpak even!) since March this year, and performs better than SteamVR and possibly even Virtual Desktop - on a Quest 2. WayVR provides desktop portal and playspace dragging. Very recent update makes the interface look good and also provides USB Ethernet support for Android headsets (Quest etc.) if you prefer wired
I’ve streamed Steam games from my Linux PC to my Steam Deck. Other than increased resolution and the foveated streaming, it should be the same or similar enough technology to go to the Frame. I would be surprised if it didn’t work. Especially because this “generation” of Steam hardware so far has great interoperability between the Steam Machine and Controller, I would expect them to have thoroughly tested streaming from the Machine to the Frame.
If I didn’t have an Index and a ton of games that I’ve already played hundreds of times, I’d get this. The amount I play VR at this point doesn’t justify the $1200 expense.
Also, I thought the options were 1TB or 2TB.
I’m happy it’s here and probably will get one down the line. Equally as mad that it’s surely gone up in price thanks to all the AI and other bullshit, not only not costing less than Valve Index (as had been originally rumored, I think), but more.
Super sour about the not included PSU. Hate it about the smartphone market, too.
But as a VR enjoyer, I’m still happy.
Whatever they would have added as an PSU and have you pay for it a premium, you can buy for next to nothing online with better features and performance, while not generating a bunch of e-waste if you don’t need one (like me - i doubt they would have added a 100W charger with 3 USB-C ports).
Edit: Just saw they want 39€ for a 45W PSU with a 2.5m cable - go buy something better for cheaper, for real. If you are strapped for cash, this one delivers 100W with one port for under 17€: https://www.amazon.de/PAEBAI-Ladegerät-Netzteil-Pixelbook-ThinkPad-rosa-weiß/
Super sour about the not included PSU. Hate it about the smartphone market, too.
I have like 3k of these things, so personally I’m very happy to not have to spend another $30 on a worse one that’s just going to get chucked in a drawer anyway.
As someone who has never played with VR much but would consider a Steam Frame in the future what kind of things do you enjoy it with?
The VR game is Beat Saber, hands down. Hands up. Hands down. Hands up. Hands down.
Oh I would 100% get that one but also I’m not looking to spend $1k purely on VR novelty games
Former vive owner here. Beat saber isn’t a novelty it is legitimately something to spend dozens of hours on. I’m buying either a frame or a used index specifically for beat saber.
Dozens? 👀
I’m the number one beat saber player in the world because nobody told me these things!
I really enjoy VR chat. My IRL friends go to movie worlds there to stream anything we want and watch it together regularly, although you don’t need a headset for that just makes it more fun.
You can also do No Mans Sky and Subnautica in VR. I did it for the Forest and that was fun.
Half Life: Alyx, Beat Saber, Superhot, Budget Cuts, Space Pirate Trainer, Waltz of the Wizard etc. are all great VR games. If you like horror games, the FNAF series, The Forest, etc. also has some great VR games.
There are other tangentially fun things to do with VR, too. I watch movies in BigScreen with friends and family sitting on a virtual couch together. VRChat is fun to just meet and chat with people. This headset also plays 2D games, which I’m intrigued by, both on headset and streaming. I can stream Steam games on my Quest headset, too, but it’s lower resolution on the Quest 2.
If you’ve never tried it, Google Earth VR is tons of fun! I don’t know what it is about looking at little miniature cities, but it’s just so compelling. Also fun is when you turn on human-scale and actually have to look up at the buildings and such as you walk or fly through the city, or the Grand Canyon, or whatever!
I’m happy with the fex coming out that someone is very likely to get all the unreal engine vr mods to play nicely with Linux. So many community projects showed up on github when the steam deck came out, just having a dedicated community based around a standard piece of hardware seems to bring enough hype to get shit done. Really excited for the possibility of arch64 Linux phone distros that people make due to this.
Other than that I’m worried theres not enough vr games, and I’m highly certain the steam frame isnt going to bring a new wave of vr devs like the quest 2 did.
Most the vr games I played consistently where multiplayer and have all died off, and for me theres not much else, the other titles its more of a novelty. Majority of titles are the equivalent of walking the plank simulator and charge 20 bucks still, while still feeling like an shitty free game off the google play store.
I’d want it for all the other things like 3d modeling, or other weird applications that are more tinkering focused. I’m excited that its Linux I might be able to set up some kind of UI/HUD, or actually engage with the hardware in some meaningful way. I just don’t see vr taking off again to the point where I can justify 1k USD purchase, I pretty much only played 1 game when I had a quest and the measly 300 dollars the quest costed was hard enough to justify so I could play a single 10 dollar multiplayer game.
I think some of the best VR games are unofficial ports of flat games like Jedi Outcast or Alien Isolation. In my opinion VR is the definitive way of playing Doom 3.
I use VR primarily for seated simulation games. Flight sims, racing, space… VR brings a whole new level of immersion and situational awareness that makes these sort of sims better, and makes me better at playing them.
One of the few times I played around with VR was a racing game and it was awesome, but I’m not a big racing games person so my concern is that the $1200 headset would not add much value beyond the quick thrill of adding VR to a few games
Why are you asking if your response to every example use case is “that’s just a novelty”? All games are novelties in one sense or another. What are you looking for?
Guess I’m not True Gamer™ enough for you sorry!
“Narrative but VR”, “simulation or strategy but VR” sound like novelties to me.
I don’t think VR is for you mate, and that’s okay.
why are you so confrontational lmao I don’t interrogate your tastes
I Expect You to Die, the game series. Funny room escape secret agent story game series. Does a great job of utilizing VR controls and room layout without requiring you to leave your seat. Also has an interesting story to it.
Looks awesome thanks for sharing
Do you liek trains? Derail Valley Simulator, a game that started out as funny physics meme turned hyper realistic train engineer job simulator. You get to realistically drive big chugga chugga choo choo - or a diesel electric if you’re boring. They also have the funny pump handle cart
Lmao imagine asking someone on Lemmy if they like trains OF COURSE I LIKE TRAINS GREAT RECOMMENDATION
I’m blown away that no one has mentioned lone echo 1 and 2. IMO they are the crown jewel of the best use of the VR medium for immersive gameplay and story telling, surpassing even half life alyx.
This is exactly what I was curious about, I’d never heard of these. Thanks!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/451010/Kittypocalypse/
Pick something fun and short (not skyrim vr) for having something heavy on your face makes everything exhausting and sweaty. Beatsaber sounds dumb but its the perfect fit for the medium Hmm actually cut that, the perfect fit for the medium is porn
Minecraft should work pretty well in it via ViveCraft, if you’re comfortable modding. It officially supports Linux play
I loved The 7th Guest VR
Simracing for me. Automobilista 2 in VR is sublime.
For me at least I don’t use any of my original usb device chargers. I have a GaN charger with 2 cables by the sofa and one by my desk.
I totally use the 45w charger that came with my steam deck oled. It’s nice. This looks to be the same one.
Can the smaller model be upgraded at a later time? Is the internal storage upgradeable?
Doesn’t look like the internal storage can be though it does have a microSD slot.
Thanks! Sigh…From experience with the Steam Deck, internal storage is quite a lot faster than even a really good microSD.
EDIT: And…I got mine. 1TB. There’s no lottery in Asia, just your FCFS with a queuing kiosk that keeps failing back to a “we are in maintenance”. But for about 5mins, it was working, long enough for me to get mine ordered. I guess no nice treats for me for a while…
this is so crazy absurd. so damn expensive.
