There's been a lull in the VR space. Since the release of the Meta Quest 3, along with the more affordable Quest 3S, there hasn't been much in the way of headsets to expand the scope of virtual reality. Well, Valve changed this with the announcement of the Steam Frame.
Kicking off a new era of hardware devices from Valve, along with the Steam Machine and new Steam Controller, the upcoming VR headset is gearing up to be the virtual reality device to grab for PC VR gaming. It's not like it has much competition, with the latest HTC Vive Focus Vision arriving back in 2024 and Meta pausing plans for third-party VR headsets from Asus and Lenovo.
Optimized for your eyes
One of the most premium features to come out of headsets like the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR headset is eye tracking. Lo and behold, the Steam Frame will arrive with two interior cameras just for that — but for something more than just navigation or selecting apps.
A unique feature Valve is introducing with the Steam Frame is Foveated Streaming. This feature will track your eyes to bring the best image quality to where you're looking. It's said to bring "over a 10x improvement" in details, and works for all games in Steam.
Essentially, it uses eye-tracking data to boost the quality of pixels of exactly where you're looking, with everything else in your peripheral vision at a lower quality. Not that you would notice, as this would be blurry, anyway. Not only will this give you the best visual quality, but it also reduces bandwidth needs for smoother, less resource-heavy gameplay.
It's a genius move from Valve, one that will take full advantage of the 2160 x 2160 pancake lenses with up to a 144Hz refresh rate, especially for streaming. That should beat the quality of its standalone headset competitor, the Quest 3, with its 2,064 x 2,208 pixels per eye resolution.
Since Meta's headset can already offer up some truly stunning VR games, I imagine the Steam Frame will push the bar even further in visual quality thanks to this feature. But speaking of streaming...
Seamless streaming
Initially, I wasn't too impressed with Valve opting for a last-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip over the latest and greatest processors on offer. It's a standalone headset, after all, but that wasn't much of an issue when I saw that it was made for a "high quality streaming-first experience."
Valve includes a 6GHz wireless adapter with the VR headset, and it aims to bridge the gap between wireless, standalone VR gaming and powerful PC VR gaming. How so? Through a simple dongle that connects the Steam Frame to a PC.
The adapter uses a dual-radio system that has one dedicated to streaming the audio and visuals, and the other purely for Wi-Fi. It lightens the load on bandwidth, and it should be a wildly significant improvement for wireless PC VR gameplay and 2D Steam titles, especially over Meta's Air Link.
For those with one of the best gaming laptops or best gaming PCs, it will turn the Steam Frame into a mighty VR headset — no wires needed. I mean, imagine having an RTX 50-series GPU while playing a VR title like Half-Life: Alyx or a non-VR game such as Cyberpunk 2077, right on your face.
Now, I've heard that the Steam Frame doesn't support stereoscopic 3D rendering, meaning we won't see 2D games or content with a three-dimensional effect like the Quest or Vision Pro headsets. It would make gameplay that much more immersive, but at the very least, the gaming giant states that it's "on the list."
So, better visuals and PC-powered gameplay via wireless streaming, but how easy will it be to play VR and non-VR games on the fly? Valve found a solution with its controllers.
Controllers for everything
Those Steam Frame VR controllers sure look familiar... some inspiration from the Meta Quest 3's Touch Plus controllers, perhaps? No complaints here, but there's a key difference that gives Valve's new VR controllers an edge.
The controllers feature a full range of VR-focused tech, including 6DoF (degrees of freedom) tracking, haptic feedback, capacitive finger tracking and sensing on all input surfaces and dual-stage grip buttons, too. Plus, they run on AA batteries to offer up 40 hours of gameplay, as Valve claims.
But put those two controllers together, and you'll find that these look more like a traditional gamepad split in two. That's for good reason, as the VR controllers will also work on Steam's entire library of non-VR games.
You'll get your typical D-pad, triggers, bumpers, ABXY buttons and thumbsticks as with the best gaming PC controllers, just with VR optimizations. So, 6DoF (degrees of freedom) tracking, haptic feedback, capacitive finger tracking and sensing on all input surfaces and dual-stage grip buttons, too.
What may be the best addition of all is the full-size magnetic TMR thumbsticks (Tunnel Magnetoresistance), which offer up even more precise levels of accuracy than what Hall Effect is capable of.
I'm sure the upcoming Steam Controller will be a better fit for playing PC games on the Steam Frame for a more precise, traditional feel (there will even be a virtual Steam Controller that shows up in the headset's VR space if you grab one), but a full-blown set of controllers for both VR and PC gaming? I mean, the split Joy-Cons work for the ever-popular Nintendo Switch 2, so why not for Valve's VR headset?
Of course, it's only a matter of time until we see all of this in action once Valve launches its Steam Frame. But already, it's looking to have the features to top our list of the best VR headsets. Fingers crossed the price isn't too high...
Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.
More from Tom's Guide
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
