Valve's new Steam Frame VR headset enters a challenging market, marked by a scarcity of new virtual reality games and ongoing component shortages. Despite these economic headwinds, the hardware itself presents a compelling package, blending core VR capabilities with innovative engineering. The headset aims to reshape PC gaming, extending its influence beyond traditional VR experiences.
The Steam Frame makes a strong initial impression, being lighter, more compact, and easier to set up than its predecessor, the Valve Index. It operates wirelessly and is battery-powered, a significant departure from cabled, base-station-dependent systems. The headset features two 2,160x2,160 LCD lenses, offering improved sharpness and a resolution that slightly surpasses the Meta Quest 3. Prescription lens inserts are available from Zenni Optical, and the design accommodates most glasses, potentially negating the need for custom lenses for many users.
While the controllers forgo the Index's hyper-accurate finger tracking, they compensate with accurate inside-out tracking and a more conventional gamepad-style input layout. This design choice is intended to enhance the experience of playing traditional, non-VR games within the headset. The inclusion of grippy, drift-resistant tunnelling magnetoresistance thumbsticks, borrowed from the Steam Controller, is noted as a positive enhancement.
The headset's passthrough capabilities, which allow users to see their surroundings via onboard cameras, are functional but basic. The monochrome cameras provide a view suitable for simple tasks or quick checks of the real world, though they are outclassed by the Meta Quest 3's color passthrough. Valve is reportedly exploring a third-party color camera accessory, but the usefulness of such additions hinges on the broader modularity of the Steam Frame.
Modularity is a key design tenet for the Steam Frame, allowing for the replacement of components like the strap, speakers, battery, and facepad with advanced or comfortable modules. However, the extent of this feature's value is yet to be fully realized, with only Valve's own Ergonomic Accessories Kit officially confirmed at launch. This kit includes improved straps for the controllers and headset.
The Steam Frame supports both streaming and standalone VR play. PC streaming benefits from innovations like foveated streaming, which uses eye-tracking to render only the focal area in full quality, saving bandwidth and maintaining performance. Unlike many wireless headsets that rely on WiFi, the Steam Frame utilizes a USB dongle for low-latency streaming, which can seamlessly switch to WiFi if it offers better performance or range. This hybrid approach provides a stable and extensive wireless connection, with lag only becoming noticeable at significant distances from the PC and router.
For standalone operation, the headset is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 16GB of RAM, with storage options of 256GB or 1TB SSDs, expandable via microSD. Users can hot-swap game installations on microSD cards between the Frame, Steam Machine, and Steam Deck. While the Snapdragon processor is an upgrade over the Quest 3's equivalent, standalone games may exhibit lower visual fidelity or animation quality compared to their streamed counterparts. However, popular titles like SuperHot and Beat Saber perform well, and more complex games can be playable with adjusted settings.
A notable achievement for the standalone library is the native ARM build of Half-Life: Alyx. This version, redeveloped from the ground up, demonstrates the headset's capabilities without relying on streaming, maintaining much of the original game's detail and interactivity despite some reductions in rendering resolution and animation smoothness. Battery life is a point of concern, with approximately 1 hour and 3 minutes of playtime on default settings when running Half-Life: Alyx. PC streaming offers closer to two hours, which is still considered modest for extended play sessions.
The Steam Frame also supports playing traditional, non-VR games within a virtual theater. This feature is made possible through FEX, a new SteamOS component that acts as a compatibility layer, enabling games designed for x86 architecture to run on the ARM processor. This allows for standalone play of many PC games, offering a large virtual screen experience. However, the performance of these games can be inconsistent. While simpler titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades 2 run adequately, more demanding 3D games may struggle, with performance varying significantly from the Steam Deck on comparable settings. Some games, even those with low minimum specifications, experience frame rates below 30fps.
The utility of playing flat games in VR is questioned, particularly concerning portability, as the Steam Frame is more cumbersome, less powerful, and has shorter battery life than a Steam Deck OLED, despite its higher cost. Nevertheless, the development of FEX could have far-reaching implications, potentially enabling a wider range of games to run on the numerous ARM-based devices currently in circulation.
Overall, the Steam Frame is a feature-rich VR headset that successfully addresses long-standing VR issues such as unreliable wireless connections, complex setups, and the need for proprietary accounts. It offers improvements in comfort, functionality, and performance. Despite its exceptionally high price—the 1TB version tested costs £1,089 / $1,299, nearly double a top-spec Quest 3—and the likely necessity of purchasing additional accessories like the Ergonomic Accessories Kit for £59 / $59, the Steam Frame is positioned as the best available option for those willing to invest heavily in virtual reality hardware.