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Posted by bsimpson 2 hours ago

Steam Frame starts at $1059(store.steampowered.com)
139 points | 69 commentspage 2
othomp 1 hour ago|
Hopefully it's possible to use eye tracking as a pointer in desktop mode. I'd like to connect only a keyboard and use binds to emulate clicks.
MomsAVoxell 1 hour ago||
I want this for one reason and one reason only: DCS.

Anyone know how well it works/doesn't work yet?

I've waited for years to get a VR heads for DCS (its a flight simulator folks) .. and now, maybe, this is it.

kikkia 1 hour ago||
For DCS only, I wonder how this slots between a Q3 and a bigscreen beyond. The beyond with no controllers is probably about the same price all in as the 1TB, but would be better screens and lighter. If you dont care about the standalone stuff it might be another good option. The frame does bring more versatility, but at the cost of battery/weight. Wireless VR in sims is unbeatable in terms of immersion though.
0xfeba 1 hour ago|||
I used a Rift for DCS and it was amazing graphically. Hard to go back to playing on a screen and using a HOTAS hat to capture your view (or head tracker).

But you better have your HOTAS controls memorized because it's a pain not having visibility of them.

MomsAVoxell 54 seconds ago||
Yes, I would probably try to do some kind of "point webcam at HOTAS" hack to try to obviate this hassle, at least until I get the muscle memory really nailed.
_caw 1 hour ago||
I bought an HP Reverb G2 for DCS about 5 years ago and it worked great. When Windows started deprecating the Mixed Reality services random things started breaking, though.
Cockbrand 1 hour ago||
Not being very savvy about VR glasses, am I assuming correctly that this device can't do AR, as the cameras are only used for tracking?
drbscl 1 hour ago||
I think technically it can, but the cameras are black and white, so it would be very subpar for AR out of the box.

There is some chatter about using the expansion port to add a 3rd party colour camera to get over this, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

Edit: I stand corrected, there is such a 3rd party camera linked on the page!

bogwog 1 hour ago|||
> There is some chatter about using the expansion port to add a 3rd party colour camera to get over this, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

The official product page above has a link to one you can already preorder: https://arcturus.vision/

Cockbrand 1 hour ago|||
Now I see that the page reveals this:

> Four high-resolution, monochrome cameras provide controller and headset tracking

(Emphasis mine)

So it's not really suitable for real AR out of the box. Thanks for the heads up!

bottlepalm 5 minutes ago|||
I use VR a lot and have not needed AR except for getting a drink from the fridge. What am I missing?
walrus01 1 hour ago|||
At this price I don't think you can expect the high quality cameras and processing power needed to do AR.
krastanov 1 hour ago||
It can do AR, especially with this addon arcturusvision.myshopify.com
stego-tech 54 minutes ago||
I think the price is very reasonable for what’s on offer (especially given the current memory crisis), and given that Valve doesn’t subsidize the cost of anything, it really shows how much Meta values your privacy and biometric data for advertising purposes (~$600 in subsidies).

One thing I keep seeing reviewers skip over is VR Chat, which is weird since it’s a core VR experience that continues seeing average player count increases YoY compared to the boom-bust cycle of most VR games/experiences. It’s also an experience the headset seems uniquely targeted for - wandering the home or apartment streaming over 6GHz Wi-Fi, hanging out with friends or going to raves, no umbilical needed or dodgy Quest support limiting the experience.

For VRC alone, $1300 is a very respectable price for the experience on offer, especially compared to the $1k “entry point” of the Index. Common man VR this ain’t, this is targeting the VR serious as well as those who value privacy higher than what Meta offers in subsidies. The 2D support is a clever way of justifying the higher price though, and giving folks a more private way of enjoying their libraries in non-gaming spaces.

m4rtink 33 minutes ago|
For VRChat it has even more benefits - built in eye tracking out of the box and and expansion port for which rumoredly there should be an official project Babble lower face tracker under development. :)
bottlepalm 6 minutes ago|||
I'm really hopping for a combined face/vive tracker, because calibrating the Frame to Vive trackers is going to be annoying without it.
stego-tech 10 minutes ago|||
That’s a big reason I’m buying it (along with the wireless freedom of movement). VRChat has been a godsend of socialization and authenticity, and I want to immerse myself into it more with FBT, ET, and FT/MT such that it feels like a proper digital self. I couldn’t do that in my apartment layout with lighthouses a la BSB or Index, but the Frame and modern SteamVR/OpenXR suggests this will be one of the best ways to immerse into VR experiences going forward.

The fact I can throw it into my bag and travel with it is a bonus.

bigyabai 1 hour ago||
Also exciting, Valve has finally started shipping native ARM/FEX builds of Proton 11: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/vr/valves-latest-proton-11-bet...

Will be super interesting to benchmark various ARM chips and see where they land performance-wise!

mrpippy 1 hour ago||
AFAIK they still aren't shipping an actual ARM64 version of Steam, making it difficult to actually use those (unsupported) ARM builds of Proton. That article is 5 months old.
Venn1 1 hour ago|||
Not officially, but it's publicly available for download.

https://interfacinglinux.com/community/sbcsoftware/native-st...

chocochunks 1 hour ago|||
You can use it really easily on Android devices through apps like Game Native and some of the more powerful Android gaming handhelds have support for Steam through Linux distros like Rocknix and Armada OS.
cassianoleal 1 hour ago||
Yeah this could open up a whole new category of lightweight gaming PCs.
idontwantthis 1 hour ago||
That’s a remarkably cheap storage upgrade too. First time I’ve ever thought the upgrade would be worth the money.
sergiotapia 1 hour ago||
Brutal pricing. It would have been brutal at $600.

Having said that, there really is no other game quite like Half Life Alyx. It's so good, immersive and one of a kind. Perhaps worth the price of admission. It's so good that it kind of ruined VR gaming for me because all other games kind of felt like tech demos from that point on.

Yikes, what a terrible price. 55 minutes playing on-device Half Life Alyx. 1hr 30min streaming from a PC with dongle. 3 hours charge time. It's just pretty lame tbh. Damn :(

tpmoney 49 minutes ago||
Is it really that bad? The hardware processing and storage is effectively a S24 which retails for $800. Add the additional displays, cameras and controllers, an extra $250 doesn’t seem that out there.
Dylan16807 2 minutes ago|||
Whether it's a brutal price is separate from where it's fair for the hardware.

I don't want to buy that high end cell phone. First because I already have one (it would be great if I could have my phone handle compute from the back of my head or my pocket), second because I mostly want the headset to use with my desktop computer. $250 or $500 for a dumb headset with these features would be great.

fg137 31 minutes ago|||
Eh, I don't think that's how the maths works, especially for products that are in completely different categories. For starters, display costs relatively much more on a VR headset compared to a 6" phone screen, the unit cost is much lower for a phone that is sold in many millions, the marketing cost is different etc. There will likely be actual breakdowns that provide some perspective into this.
vadansky 1 hour ago||
I played it on my Quest 2 so that's not really the price of admission
xlayn 1 hour ago||
[flagged]
rvz 1 hour ago|
No better than the rest of the VR headsets that came before it and almost no-one wants them. These headsets will end up collecting dust with the Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest Pro.

We gave VR headsets enough time and this is just going to be a repeat failure of the previous ones.

Glasses such as the XReal on the other hand have a far better future than these VR headsets.

borisgolovnev 3 minutes ago||
The current XReal models are very underwhelming. Very narrow FOV more or less equivalent to using a 27" monitor, lots of fuss with the cable, switching sound to headphones because the built in speakers are garbage. Issues with HDR support.
bigyabai 1 hour ago||
The XReal is practically guaranteed to have sold less units than any generation of the Quest hardware.
rvz 50 minutes ago||
Which means? We should buy the Meta Quest / Quest Pro headset? I don't think so.

Maybe that's the reason why the Meta Quest Pro is in "so much demand" that Meta is no longer selling them anymore. Apple is not even bothering to restock Vision Pro either.

So much demand /s

I am saying VR had a great run. We are not in the Covid era anymore which the Quest greatly benefited from this. VR has a very limited future and it shows.