Got my Steam Frame yesterday and had a chance to play with it a bit. Figured I'd leave some details here since I haven't seen much.

Some background: My last headset was the OG Vive with Index Controllers. I've never used another headset other than a Quest 3 at a museum exhibit for a few minutes. So for me, the jump in quality is huge, but if you've kept up with the hardware it might not be.

So far, I'm really enjoying the Frame though it's not without issues. The headset is really comfortable and the initial setup was mostly pretty smooth. I did run into a bug where the keyboard input just stopped working while I was entering my wi-fi password, but a reboot fixed that.

I haven't been able to get streaming working (more on that later), but installing games on the headset worked well. I played Eleven Table Tennis (supported) and Maestro (not supported, but works) without any real issues. Neither of those games requires moving around the room so it was nice to be able to stand in the living room and just set my location instantly to start playing. No full room setup like the Vive so I'll definitely be using this more often. I've seen some complaints about the passthrough camera, but it worked great for me. I can't read text in that mode, but I was able to walk around the house without bumping into stuff just fine.

The streaming was the only real problem I had. I run Fedora 44 and was able to get the Frame to connect using the wifi dongle and give me the option to stream from my computer, but it would always fail. If you don't have SteamVR running on the host PC it just fails silently, but when I had it running I would get an error about video compression not being supported by my graphics card. I have a RX 9079XT so I doubt that's actually the problem, however I still haven't been able to figure out what I need to install to get it working. If I manage to fix it, I'll report back.

I got about an hour and a half of gameplay before the battery died on my but I expect that to be a bit better when streaming. You can play while plugged into power but the power supply that you can buy from valve doesn't have a super long cord.

Happy to answer any questions if you have them. I'm overall satisfied with the purchase and hope to see some software updates to fix the issues I did run into.

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[–] 62 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

I think they’ve acknowledged that streaming isn’t working on Linux yet, including with the Steam Machine. It sucks that they didn’t finish that feature before launch, but I’m sure they’re still working on it.

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  • [–] [S] 39 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yeah, they mention here that Windows is the only officially supported platform but they do add some details for Linux users to try it out: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2668-0B6E-79E0-A85B#os

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Point of clarification: for me at least, regular wifi based streaming from my linux computer works fine, with the typical caveats about latency or quality at times. It's the wireless dongle that has trouble, but if your home Internet is good enough then it isn't necessarily a dealbreaker. I've been able to stream some lighter stuff which, combined with the standalone options, satisfies me to tide me over until the dongle works properly.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    does it say anywhere what it needs to charge? a usb powerbank in your back pocket could probably work for longer sessions.

    also, any eye fatigue?

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  • [–] [S] 17 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    The specs shown for the official charger are PD3.0 Type C power supply, 45W so I bet a decent power bank would work.

    I did experience a little eye fatigue but nothing too crazy. When the battery ran out I still felt like I could have gone at least another hour.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    is that better than on the vive? i've used an index before and my eyes started hurting after like 20 minutes.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago

    I'm using bazzite so super interested in how streaming goes for you. I've used wivrn and envision in the past but it looks like it will need fixes to work https://github.com/WiVRn/WiVRn/issues/1114

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago* (6 children)

    How is Beat Saber on the headset? I’m planning on getting one and want to run it on hardware.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I played it on mine yesterday and it ran perfectly fine. Still trying to figure out how to install mods for the game. Things are slightly complicated by the ARM architecture with compatibility.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    Someone on YouTube tested the PC version and supposedly it ran perfectly. That should also work with all the mods I guess.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yeah I could probably fall back to that, but I'm trying to get as much as possible running natively on it so it's more portable.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Just have one question, in what region are you in ? EU, US... ? I've been able to buy the frame day one (lucky me!) but it still hasn't shipped yet

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    Do your eyes tire or does your vision get blurry after a while? I’ve never set any of these things on my head in my life, so I really don’t know. Lol

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Some people get simulation sickness so that's something to be aware of. If you do, I suggest stopping immediately when it happens and increasing time in sessions gradually. A cooling fan and light clothing can help as well.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    You should probably also know that motion sickness should only be triggered if your brain detects a difference in the motion you feel (mostly via the inner ear) and the motion you see.

    A VR environment that isn't actively moving versus the real would ideally never trigger motion sickness in even the most sensitive people, but if the hardware doesn't maintain a high enough frame rate (typically 72 to 120 fps depending on your sensitivity) and low enough latency to convince the brain at the subconscious level, you can get motion sickness even if your conscious brain is convinced by the visuals.

    The result is that a lot of people think all VR makes them sick when the reality is that they've only been exposed to subpar experiences, either due to hardware underbuilt for their needs or due to running experiences too demanding for the hardware they were using (or because they actually were in an experience where the game world was moving).

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I've never had an issue with that before, but I've only used the Vive. My eyes felt a bit dry after using the Frame for a couple of hours but I don't know if that's the same thing as making my eyes tired.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Thank you. I’m just really scared to be completely honest. The idea of having a screen an inch away from my eyes terrifies me.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    The lenses on VR headsets make it so you're focusing your eyes as if the screen is farther away. So much so, that I wear glasses, and VR is a little bit blurry for me because of it.

    (This is based on my last headset, I'm still waiting for my frame)

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 month ago

    Yeah that makes sense. Not sure if they have them where you live but I’ve seen a few places that let you pay to use a VR headset at the location. Could be worth trying out to see if it’s for you before committing to an expensive headset.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    I don't know if the Frame is exactly the same, but the lens in previous headsets made it so that the screens are in focus at a perceived distance of about 6 feet or 2 meters. I think the only time you might notice that distance is when the screens are purely black.

    Most of the time, you'll be looking at a virtual environment where your brain is predisposed to determine depth by the parallax effect, both the offset from each eye and how things visually move when you move (faster = closer).

    You should never actually feel like the screens are very close outside your brain conceptually knowing that they are. At most, the actual feeling should be closest to looking through goggles, so if you can handle that, you should be fine.

    Also, in case it's related to your fear, the widespread idea of screens permanently damaging your vision is a myth. It came about, because children who needed vision correction would naturally sit closer to televisions to be able to see them. The televisions got blamed for poor vision when the actual cause and effect were swapped. At most, screens can cause some eye strain, but it's the same idea as holding a muscle in one position too long, uncomfortable but not actually debilitating.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Not really. The biggest issue is motion sickness. A lot of games have you teleport around for that reason. I can personally handle it quite well, but some games still mess me up e.g. subnortica.

    That said, some people do have eyes that are slightly off level with each other. That can cause interesting problems for them. It's not hugely common however.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Def want to know how streaming and flat 2d gaming works in the frame for ya once you have it working. I only have an og rift so I’m on the waitlist for the 256 and also suspecting I’ll enjoy the upgrade. Also do you wear glasses? I’m probably going to splurge with the special lenses and the the kit that gives you the bracelets and top head strap for it but curious if you have either.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 1 month ago

    I don't wear glasses, but I did get the ergonomic kit after seeing most reviewers say it's basically a requirement. I don't love the head strap so far but I may just need to adjust the fit. When I was using it yesterday it felt like I had to do extra work to get it to fit in a way that I could see clearly.

    The bracelets are nice though and allow you to use the finger tracking more like the Index controller. It also comes with the improved plastic nose cover but I haven't installed that one yet. The one it comes with has been fine but there's a small gap.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I'm on the reservation list but haven't got my order email yet. I'm also on Fedora so this is relevant to my interests. Were you using SteamVR beta as is mentioned on the support page? And have you swapped your mesa driver for the rpmfusion one that enables proprietary hardware encoders?

    Fedora has a philosophy of not shipping with non-free software, it leads to stuff like the GPU's encoders not working out of the box and is a bit of a pain point if you don't know about it.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Right now the regular SteamVR and the beta are the same version, but I do currently have it set to the beta. The issue is almost certainly the mesa driver. I installed some of the proprietary encoders but I have a feeling I'm missing something. Going to keep trying tonight but unfortunately there's not a lot of information on the requirements just yet.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    It used to be you needed to swap the default mesa drivers for the freeworld ones, but it seems that's changed with Fedora 44. Now you should run:

    sudo dnf install libva-utils
    vainfo
    

    That will show you the VAAPI profiles currently enabled. If your setup matches mine that will be profiles for JPEG, VP9 and AV1 but not H264 or HEVC. If that's the case install the codec-enabled driver:

    sudo dnf install mesa-va-drivers-freeworld

    Running vainfo again should then show a bunch of new profiles for H264 and HEVC.

    If you have the H264 and HEVC profiles available but are still experiencing the issue then we probably need to wait for Valve to do their thing.

    Edit: also you should probably reboot before trying to stream a game after installing the driver.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    Sure would be nice to get my purchase email...

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Are you near or far sighted at all, if so how was that experience?

    Are you using only the base horizontal strap, or did you get the ergonomic gear add-on with the overhead strap and other stuff? Some reviewers were saying that it was only bearable with the extras.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Ignoring the resolution/clarity upgrade, how does the color vibrancy/contrast compare with the Vive? I've been unsure about making a similar upgrade because of the industry switch from OLED to LCD, but given the ten year tech gap I'm hoping the difference isn't actually that big.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 1 month ago

    The color vibrancy and contrast don't seem significantly different to me. The biggest difference is definitely the higher resolution and the lack of the screen door effect. To me, the higher resolution and removing the need to set up base stations were worth the upgrade but if you're happy with the Vive it's probably fine.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    My guess concerning the streaming from Linux is that they haven't got Wayland capture to work perfectly yet. I remember seeing several issues about that. You also currently cannot stream the game mode screen.

    You could try X11.

    Hope it doesn't take too long to fix it. I will get mine on Monday.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    got about an hour and a half of gameplay before the battery died on my but expect that to be a bit better when streaming.

    I haven't run through a whole battery standalone yet, but don't expect streaming to have significantly more battery life than playing on the device. Standalone defaults to a lower frame rate, I saw 72, not sure if that's game specific, and streaming defaulted to 120

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Do Valve still only officially support .deb? Could that be part of the streaming issues?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    I can't imagine that is true anymore given that the Arch-based SteamOS can be officially installed on any AMD machine without any workarounds now.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    you ever use moonlight/sunshine?

    im wondering if ill be able to do flat gaming streaming using moonlight installed to the steamframe

    this is how i use my steamdeck currently and its absolutely killer. gaming pc performance on the tiny handheld.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 month ago

    I haven't but I may try it out if I can't get the official streaming working. I've seen reports of 2D streaming working on Linux so it's likely something with my own environment. I don't know much about Moonlight but I guess my concern would be it working with the wi-fi dongle.

    From what they have here it sounds like Linux streaming is still a work in progress: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2668-0B6E-79E0-A85B#os

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Is moonlight/sunshine more performant than steam remote play on the steam deck?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    I think ive tried remote play and never got it working. at least with moonlight and sunshine, i can control everything thats going on. I have had to tinker quite a bit.

    I basically now have a script that saves the state of my real monitors, turns them off, and creates a virtual monitor on my Ubuntu 26.04 pc, according to whatever resolution the moonlight client requests. then, after i close moonlight, it runs a tear down script that destroys the virtual monitor and brings the real monitors back exactly how they were. That way i can connect from my steamdeck and it matches the resolution, or i can connect from another computer and it matches the resolution of that screen.

    i have hitches with wifi sometimes, where i have to restart moonlight client (which doesnt necessarily kill the sunshine session) but for the most part it runs smooth enough for action games like Onimusha, Spider-Man, etc. I've also played Rocket league on it, the most latency-affected game I play, and it is better streamed than playing straight off the steamdeck.

    edit: for context im running ubuntu 26.04 with kde plasma.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Have you tried streaming over WiFi without the dongle?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Did you try any non-Steam Android games? Personally I am especially interested in the Team Beef ports and whatever is available on SideQuest.

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