Valve Index 2 (codenamed Deckard) Standalone

I just cannot see any significant niche for this. Price is almost irrelevant as it can't be cheaper than the Quest3. And then you have Pimax stuff at around 1k which is better for sims, with 2500x2500 OLED dream dream air SE to be launched before Frame starts shipping in q1 2026... Why would any sane person buy the Frame for more than Q3 and roughly the same as DreamAirSE or even Crystal Light?

PS Steam Frame will start selling in 2026 with the same resolution as the $600 HP Reverb in 2019 :o
 
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Bit gutted to hear about this, I was looking for an upgrade from my pico 4 but can't afford to spend more than about £500 for a super fancy OLED thing. It doesn't seem like this it :(
 
Play4Dream or the forthcoming Pimax Dream Air SE look to be the best candidates for a future upgrade, in terms of getting something high res with decent colours.

It's a pity as almost everything about the Steam Frame is good, apart from the panels (not bothered about colour passthrough for PCVR).
 
Borsch said:
I just cannot see any significant niche for this. Price is almost irrelevant as it can't be cheaper than the Quest3. And then you have Pimax stuff at around 1k which is better for sims, with 2500x2500 OLED dream dream air SE to be launched before Frame starts shipping in q1 2026... Why would any sane person buy the Frame for more than Q3 and roughly the same as DreamAirSE or even Crystal Light?

PS Steam Frame will start selling in 2026 with the same resolution as the $600 HP Reverb in 2019 :o
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can the quest play PC games? it will have a huge libary automatically. anything working on steam deck should i guess work on steam frame.

we wont be waiting for content, the content is already here.
 
LostCorpse said:
can the quest play PC games? it will have a huge libary automatically. anything working on steam deck should i guess work on steam frame.

we wont be waiting for content, the content is already here.
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Quest 3 can play all SteamVR and OpenXr games without exception as far as I know (never had one, making do with Pimax Super UW atm :))
 
LostCorpse said:
can the quest play PC games? it will have a huge libary automatically. anything working on steam deck should i guess work on steam frame.

we wont be waiting for content, the content is already here.
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The Quest can play PCVR via streaming. I don't think the Frame will be able to run high end PCVR natively on the headset. Some of the low-end PC titles possibly, but in that case you're probably best running the Quest versions converted specifically to run natively on the Frame.

Depends how good their translation layer is. I could imagine playing something like the PC version of The Light Brigade on the Frame.
 
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I think the Frame will be the goto PCVR headset for wireless play, unless meta pulls something amazing with the Quest 4.

It'll be interesting to see if the new foveated Steam VR streaming system will work well for the Quest Pro too. You could get much better quality. I've not had a great experience with the current Steam VR Meta app though. The quality is nowhere near as sharp as Virtual desktop, and I found it pretty jittery.

Edit: Just listened to the Tested review. Steam VR 2.0 beta has this new foveated encoding and will work with the Pro. I'll give that a try later.
 
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Norm of tested was quite critical of the panels - not that bright, and not brilliant contrast and noticeably lower resolution than headsets like the Big Screen Beyond 2.
 
Ravenger said:
The Quest can play PCVR via streaming. I don't think the Frame will be able to run high end PCVR natively on the headset. Some of the low-end PC titles possibly, but in that case you're probably best running the Quest versions converted specifically to run natively on the Frame.

Depends how good their translation layer is. I could imagine playing something like the PC version of The Light Brigade on the Frame.
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Think I read someone saying it was struggling with flatscreen hollownight.

I don't think it'll be running pcvr titles natively.

It feels like it's a PCVR targeted headset, with a bit of mobility thrown in. The price will be key, if it's PCVR they're targeting, they don't have the specs to grab top tier money. If it's standalone they're interested in, the monochrome passthrough and pricetag become a big deal I suspect.

If it can come in even with the q3, I think it'll do OK. If it comes in significantly higher, I suspect it'll struggle.
 
Grim5 said:
How is it the standard? Steam sells very little hardware

Xbox sells more hardware than Valve and Xbox can't even set the standard
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If you think what they achieved with the Steam Deck, lots of games getting optimised to work on it. I've no experience with the likes of the ROG Ally but the Steam platform and management of games which function perfectly on the Deck is market leading. I assume poster was referring to this.
jonneymendoza said:
Any good for Sim racing?
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Really hope so, been looking for an ideal headset for Sim racing.

Honestly though, I'm torn on the Frame. I haven't had a VR headset since the Quest 2 but from watching a Digital Foundry video I got the impression the LCD choice was down to the brightness and pancake lenses not providing best experience on OLED displays.
Either way, if the price is right then I could be all over this.
 
After listening to the in-depth Q&A with Valve and Norm of tested, the design of this is seriously impressive, it's only the panels that are letting it down. If they'd gone with QLED instead I'd have been desperate for this.
 
First let me say this, how the hell did Valve keep this quiet for so long? No prototype leaks, no controller leaks, nothing. Unless of course that the "early 2026" release date actually ends up been closer to Quarter 3 and what we are seeing now are the Prototypes!!

And second, look I don't know whether to be disappointed or impressed with the Steam Frame. Ravenger said in his last post that the design of this was seriously impressive, and it is. No question about it that at all. But what are they bringing to the VR side of things? Lots of noise about open source and been able to run 2D games and android APK's. Great, but how often do any of you play 2D games and what Android APK's are you looking to run on your VR headset that would make you use your VR headset more? Apart from some Movie apps maybe.

The resolution is a slight disappointment but was expecting higher. Not having Mini Led or Micro Oled panels is a massive disappointment though. It's supposed to be a premium VR experience. And there is talk of low contrast, poor brightness and SDE. That's not good at all. Hopefully problems that are only effecting the demo units and will be fixed before release.

As a Standalone VR headset though, I am not sure it's going to great. Games aren't going to be even optimised for it. The Frame is more powerful than the the Quest 3, but the Quest 3 standalone games are built from the ground up for the Quest 3 on a processor that was custom built for VR. The Processor on the Frame is for pancake stuff. For standalone VR, I don't think the Frame is going to be that much better than the Quest 3.

I will put this release another way. If it wasn't Valve releasing this but this was the Meta Quest 4. I think a lot of us would be very disappointed. When it comes out, it will be slight upgrade to a three year old headset with a few extra features that may or may not be worth having for a sizeable price increase. (if it's close to a $1000)
 
LostCorpse said:
its setting the minimum spec standards for Games and VR

not the standard hardware vender.

sorry if that was mis communicated.

just to add, newer hardware doesnt = better performance,
just more room to not optimize code.
this would i feel force some better coding practices and optimization.

its just my thoughts on it. i understand why a lot of people in here are disappointed as your all classed as "early adopter" and been in the space for 5+ years.
this move really seems to be about onboarding more people to the echo system. which from the VR side we kind of need, we need more developers coming out with good titles, for that, there needs to be a user base to support it, or capacity for it.
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I don't think this is going to do anything to get more people onboard in VR. The price is too high.

Secondly, It's not a standalone headset, Unseul put it best, it's a PCVR headset with some mobility thrown in. Or to put it another way. One of the main complaints about standalone VR is the lack of triple A titles and how crap the graphics look. This isn't going to change that. Half Life ALyx won't run on this, and Half Life ALyx is one of the most optimised VR games out there, it runs on a potato PC. That should give you some idea of the power that the Frame has or more accurately, doesn't have.

I don't think this has anything to do with setting the minimum standard or spec. No, actually, I am completely sure that the Frame has nothing to do with that. It's about keeping VR gamers in the Steam ecosystem. And that's why Valve has released the three things at once. Steam Machine gamers using the Steam Frame attached to it.
 
points at every one of you : "your wrong!"
i dont know what your wrong about but your wrong about something, so i demand you go to your room(s)

we wont really know until it releases properly sadly.
 
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+++ Sounds like they nailed the tech behind the wireless streaming. This is a big plus as I would like to run the games native from my PC not on headset.
- - - LCD displays , brightness should be good but will have to wait on feedback on these displays to hear how good the sweet point and clarity is, how bad contrast is etc
 
flyinmunky said:
+++ Sounds like they nailed the tech behind the wireless streaming. This is a big plus as I would like to run the games native from my PC not on headset.
- - - LCD displays , brightness should be good but will have to wait on feedback on these displays to hear how good the sweet point and clarity is, how bad contrast is etc
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Norm of Tested says the lens clarity and sweet spot is excellent. The panels basically look the same as the Quest 3, so washed out and lacking contrast, though some people say the SDE is more noticeable than Q3.
 
Thoroughly disappointing. It's just a race-swapped Quest/ Pico ;)

Basically has the same panel as my HP Reverb which will be 6 years old by the time this come out. LCD?! Not even local dimming. I don't care if it's a headset for VR newbies, it's still old tech and totally underwhelming. And I bet it won't be cheap at all. The only interesting thing about it is the foveating streaming tech. That could pique my interest to go wireless if someone can do similar in a headset actually worth buying.

Pimax have such an open goal now (especially the Dream Air SE), only they could **** up the opportunity. Which they will no doubt.
 
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Wireless streaming is awesome, but it is already utilised by Play for Dream (3500x3500 OLED standalone $2k) - allegedly Steam Link is DisplayPort quality there right now. So it's great that Valve are bringing this software and making it available to everybody, but the Frame itself is completely unremarkable - 2k LCD was done 7 years ago by HP reverb, pancake lenses were done 3 years ago by Meta. Valve brought nothing to the hardware side of things.
 
problem is, all they have done is trying to get onto a new market

Steam machine
Steam frame
steam deck

etc
its so they work together like apple and pears
its not designed for enthusiasts unfortunately


i think if they did a headset "for the enthusiasts and the vr market" only. Then i think it would have been good
 
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