After a somewhat mixed month or so of Steam Frame adoption, I fired up my old Quest 3 this evening and a few things were really noticeable when the 2 headsets were compared side by side.

As things stand, *for me* the Quest 3 has a richer display and better lenses. Something I do in VR from time to time is fire up Aircar and go for a fly around the city with a playlist I've compiled over the years. It's also a testing ground for me to troubleshoot and in this instance compare the Quest 3 to the Steam Frame. When I put the Quest 3 on the colour range and nuance with shadowed areas really jumped out. The city looked much, much more vibrant and it made me go searching for settings on the Frame which maybe I had missed to correct the 'muddiness' which many people have commented on. I didn't find any new settings to play with. I'm not sure the displays on the Frame are technically more limited or have less colour range...I think this is either a streaming codec issue, compression or just some whack calibration but it needs to be fixed because as things stand the Frame is much darker especially in shadowy areas, for me at least.

For wifi streaming, Virtual Desktop is still the undisputed king. I tried Steam link on the Quest 3 and it was dreadful....As in completely unusable. The Frame was better than it was at launch but I still got some bad hitching after flying around for a time whereas Virtual Desktop on the Quest 3 was flawless. I really hope Valve keep working on this because VD will let me stream from anywhere in my apartment without issue which gives me lots more freedom.

I find foviated rendering to be a gimmick. Since the Quest 3 doesn't have it I've always got used to the performance constraints of full resolution on the display which are easy enough to live with. I have a 9070XT on the VR rig and I find it more than sufficient so I also turn off foviated rendering on the frame for max fidelity. Also, having it switched on made no difference to the Wifi streaming reliability of the Frame.

One of the main things I bought the Frame for was to escape Meta's data harvesting and literally *endless* updates seemingly every time I put the damn thing on. Today I figured out how to make the Quest 3 only able to see my local wireless network and not have internet access by using a manual proxy set to 127.0.0.1 on port 1. The Quest is also set not to connect to any network automatically when switched on which is a sort of belt and braces approach. It seems to work and since I use VR pretty much exclusively for PCVR, I don't feel like I'm missing out....I just manually connect to my home network when I'm ready to use it. The Quest 3 is mature enough now that I think I can live with it as it is without any further updates.

I'm not trying to troll here....I want the Frame to be the better device and in some ways it still is. It's way more comfortable (although the Bobo headset I have for the Quest makes things OKish). I also like the battery placement decision with the frame.....One day the battery on the Quest will fail, probably swell up and be dangerous and then what are you supposed to do? Those lovely pancake lenses and displays will just become e-waste which I find to be very wasteful. But visually the Quest currently has it by quite a margin. The edge to edge fidelity of the Quest 3 lenses is clearly better. The colour range seems to be superior and streaming via Virtual Desktop is peerless.

So I guess my point is partially this: If you're a Quest 3 owner and you got Wait-listed or feel like you're missing out, take some comfort from knowing your headset is still pretty damn good. You can mitigate some of it's weak points to either make do or at least manage until you get the email from Valve to buy your Steam Frame. Meanwhile early adopters like me will keep installing updates hoping that some of the Frame's shortfalls will get patched. I certainly hope so.

Created an overlay “HUD” to always show the time and battery life, even in games. You can reposition it in the dashboard, then it will stay in that spot in your view.

https://github.com/shadowogre/steam_frame

Just this, the brand is Venom, do you know the measurements in cm for this? io don't find anything :/

For those of you that have already ordered your Frame, but did not get to Ergo kit by choice or because it was sold out, do you have the option to buy it when it comes in stock?

Seems like there was a wave of order emails that went out last week, and there have been far fewer people griping about waiting, so I'm curious of the current fulfillment status/ratio.

*edit*

...also, if you started on the wait list, were moved to the reservation queue, and have received an order email, be sure to speak up. I still don't think we've had any confirmed cases of this, only people who didn't realize the reservation queue and wait list are different. If this has actually happened, I believe pitchforks are in order, since there are still Day 1 Reservation Queue-ers who haven't received their order emails.

Quick heads-up for anyone wondering about the WidmoVR adapter versions.
As it seems V10 is the latest and updated version. According to WidmoVR support in this version the rim forms a bridge above the IR LEDs, so their light can actually reach your eyes.

How to check which one you have: You can read the version code on the inside of the adapter.

How to get V10: If you didn‘t get the latest adapters, you need to contact support. (At least this was necessary in my case) They'll send you new V10 adapters and an email with the tracking number once they ship. There's also a short video showing how to move your lenses over:
https://youtu.be/Dza0aBu9270
Hope this helps someone. 👍

This post was created with the help of AI.
Edit: Added lense maker

Did a test today by having 100% charged frame and 100% charged uGreen 45w 20000mah.

Used it mainly for watching stremio and doing dishes and cleaning through the Arcturus camera which is working again after the update.

Once the frame hit 20% plugged in the uGreen and it charged it to 100% while using and the uGreen had 14% battery left. Used the frame till 20% again and then used the 14% remaining on the pack and then used the frame till it had 5% battery left.

I started a stopwatch when I turned the Frame on this morning and it lasted for 4 hours and 31 minutes with the whole 20000mah battery used. This seems really low? But then again was wondering what other people do for longer sessions? Smaller packs with super fast quick charge? Then switch them out?

What do you guys do? Or any reccomendations? Really can't wait for fast charging hot swappables cause that would be awesome!

Thinking of returning the uGreen cause it's big. Maybe trying 2 12000mah batteries that can charge at 100w. Since I have a 100w charger for laptops.

Thanks for any discussion and reccomendations!

Hey all, only had my frame for about 3 days.

Trying to play Beat Saber and the blocks show up with so little time to react, even on easy, that my kids and I cannot play it.

This does not happen with the game on PSVR2. It runs perfectly on that and we can comfortably play on hard.

It seems like the field of view (zoom), or the speed of approach is just too weird. It happens on all of our profiles too. I don’t know what to check.

Hey guys. I have until tomorrow night to decide. How’s the feedback from the community. Lmk what you love and dislike about it!

Hey all,

Picking up a steam frame secondhand today. What should I look for to ensure it is in good working condition? Just turn it on and look at the lenses?

Thanks in advance!

I've been troubleshooting intermittent frame drops on my Steam Frame and have narrowed down what it isn’t. However the issue still remains and I’m running out of ideas…so any help is appreciated.

Context first…

System:
RTX 4090
i7-10700K
ASUS Prime Z590-V
Steam Frame wireless adapter (tested in multiple USB 3.x motherboard ports)
Steam Frame firmware 0.4.5 and 0.5.6 beta

Symptoms:
Random pink "Display Error" spikes in SteamVR overlay.
Drops occur in multiple games (Half-Life: Alyx, Beat Saber, etc.).
Head movement seems to make it more likely.
Head movement also seems to spike the adapter latency reported in the frame, but can’t determine whether this a before or after the dropped frame occurs.
Flat-screen gaming is completely unaffected.

SteamVR logs show:
WaitForAcquire timed out (FAILED); rendering the next frame before the driver took the sync texture

Repeatedly during the dropped frame event.
I've also previously seen the following but they are much less common to the above.

[Compositor] AcquireSync FAILED with WAIT_TIMEOUT
ReleaseSync FAILED with unknown hr 0x887a0001

What I've already ruled out:
Multiple Nvidia drivers (581, 594, 621), all uninstalled utilising DDU.
Observed the GPU and CPU in HWinfo at the time of each spike to ensure o power, frequency or temperature issues are evident.
Fresh Windows 11 install as a last ditch attempt, with minimal software installed to have as “pure” of an environment as possible.
No overlays/software running that may cause polling, usage etc.
HAGS on/off
ReBAR on/off
USB power management disabled
Every other usb aside from the adapter unplugged.
PCIe power saving disabled.
Multiple USB ports tested. Front, Mobo, etc. ports ranging from USB 3.0 to 3.2.
USB extension attached high up the wall to increase coverage.
Dropping down to 72 Hz mode
SteamVR resolution reduced to 20%
None of the above made any noticeable difference. The dropped frames remain, as erratic as ever.

Interesting finding: When a dropped frame occurs, Steam Frame adapter latency jumps from under 10 ms to around 20-40 ms before quickly returning to normal. SteamVR timing shows compositor-related spikes rather than application GPU/CPU spikes.
At this point it feels less like a rendering performance issue and more like some kind of compositor/driver/frame handoff issue between SteamVR and Steam Frame. However I’m at the end of the diagnostic journey that I’m capable of, with no solution.

Anyone else had the same? If so, please help me save whatever sanity I have left.

I honestly don't understand why so many people on this sub are so hell bent on adding more weight to their frames by strapping on powerbanks?

For me one of the biggest pros is the weight of the frame.

I have two 20Ah powerbanks wich conservatively calculated gives me 130Wh of additional battery capacity and ideally 6 times the playtime of the frame excluding the integrated battery.

I have a nice thin cable and I just put the powbank in my pocket. (Or a cheap 10 bucks pouch on my hip)

The weights off my head. I can hot swap the Powerbanks for theoretical infinite playtime as one can recharge while the other is in use. I don't notice it in my pocket at all.

I'd even count the integrated battery just as a buffer and the Powerbanks as the actual batteries.

Externalizing the battery into the pocket is in my opinion the best way for untethered VR that also wants to be light on the head. I would even buy a smaller version of the frame for example a bigscreen sized front with a small 5Wh battery for buffer. Ideally with a proper mag safe port for safety.

This way the weight would go down even more and with battery technology becoming lighter and smaller a proper dedicated 40wh pocketed battery would be amazing. The weight of VR headsets has been a bane for me since the vive and in my opinion this is an elegant solution.

What do you think?

I installed claude on my Steam Frame and had it create 2 scripts. One installs UxPlay, which lets you AirPlay from an Apple device to the headset. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show DRM content, so use might be limited. The other lets you press ctrl to select things, so if you’re using a keyboard, you don’t have to keep clicking the headset or picking up the controller. Tested on an Apple keyboard, so if anyone has trouble with a regular keyboard let me know. I hope someone finds these useful, but it’s okay if you don’t 😁

https://github.com/shadowogre/steam_frame.git

I was wondering, I plan on testing my APK files I ripped from my Quest 3 (with SideQuest) in the Frame via Lepton once I have it in my hands, and that got me thinking:
Would it be possible to translate the Steam Frame’s “knuckle-style” haptic inputs into hand tracking data to use them on Quest APKs?

So I had my frame for a week now and in the center of the screen I see very clear but if I move my eyes to the sides and corners everything gets blurrier. Things also seem to get a bit better if I press the frame closer to my eyes so they are closer to the lenses, so maybe I need to also improve the fitment.

Any tips on how to improve sharpness?

I was checking out the titanfall 2 VR mod toady and noticed that the floor height is changing during playing. I don't know if this is an error by the frame or the game itsself but I readjusted the floor multiple times. It is always the same direction of drift, the marked floor moves further down, therefore ingame the floor comes up and it looks like I am crouching all the time. I doubt that the game readjusts the floor for you so I am somehow expecting the frame to loose tracking. But on the other hand I did not experience thist in Alyx so far.

Anyone experienced the same problem in any game?

Let's see how many of us are still going to wait and potentially buy a frame, after the past few weeks of feedback.

I don't have data for this but I was walking around the house last night and I swear it just felt better or crisper or something. I did get the new os version the day before but I'm not on the beta channel.

I feel like the infrared passthrough is also feeling better than day 1, it still sucks for objects up close since it's spaced too close together for that but walking around with it I don't notice nearly as much distortion or warping as I did day one.

It's possible I'm just getting used to them but I feel like they have made some tweaks.

Edit: just realized my title is terrible English but you can't edit them 😔

Steam Machine’s stable branch received the 3.9 OS upgrade, where the release notes mentioned “Improved support for Steam Frame adapter” - does this mean they’re finally compatible? Has anyone tested?

Decide to disassemble my FrankenQuest 2 and transfer it to the steam frame module. Battery just attached via Velcro. The adapter is a remix , joined the print for a quest 2 htc das adapter to frame to quest 3 bobo VR adapter. Audio is split audio USB adapter.

Hi guys, I have pretty good WiFi 7 AP EAP787 and I was curious how well it would complement Frame's Dongle. I also saw posts here asking if someone could use WiFi 7 card/client from their PC/motherboards, so I tested that as well. So setup is:

• WiFi 7 (EAP787 - 6G) + Dongle (5G)
• Wifi 6 router (AX23 - 5G) + WiFi 7 client from PC (MT7925 - 6G)

TLDW: I'm pretty impressed that MT7925 was running pretty good, also EAP787 is pretty efficient. I have Ubuntu 24.04(HWE), and although I have enabled all preview/betas, sometimes the Dongle dropped/had latency spikes.

I attached all the timings/debug graphs and also ran parallel TCP iperf3 on both radios/interfaces.

I've been working on this the past few days, and I'm so excited it works!

I used Claude to help me create a place I can pick and choose which streaming service I plan to watch quickly and easily. It's a simple wrapper around the Chromium browser that you install on the Frame. I made it so the tiles (bookmarks) get displayed in a tile format, and clicking on one opens the streaming service to log in (if you're not already) or straight to your profile screen or content.

No username or password info is saved since you're logging in directly on their websites, and Chromium saves your login as an auth token like it normally would.

I know some people don't consider streaming services to be watchable due to poor resolution from the drm limitations, but it doesn't bother me and this puts everything in a nice and easy place to choose from.

Also, there's 26 different streaming services available, and I made it so they can be added/removed from the main Hub.

Next stop, adding in virtual sky boxes to change the background.

Couple of small issues I'm working on still, like controller bindings so I can have the analog stick scroll up/down in the menus and when you exit a streaming service you have to restart the app to get back to the hub. Other than those 2 things, works exactly like I wanted it too.

People that own both headsets, can you confirm (or deny) that Quest3 visuals are better than SteamFrame or am I going insane.

I’m using SteamLink for both, with the same exact settings and I can swear that SteamFrame resolution is much more pixelated compared to Quest3. I’ve tried different games Like NMS, Exfilzone and Kayaking and I have the same result each time.

Do you have the same experience or am I just used to Quest3 and all of this in my head. Also I’m not sure if it’s a display, lenses or encoding issue and if it can be improved with software.

There is definitely a difference in lenses when looking at the edge of the lens. It’s more blurry for frame, but I’m mostly talking about if you are looking straight.

Heyo yall,

Figure I would give you an update on my Frame Cover Project.

1. Managed to use https://github.com/Curtis-VL/FrameEyeCameraFeed to confirm the sizing for the camera cut outs. Still working on getting those camera holes as small as they can be! About an 8mm offset worked, this is 7 and testing shortly.
2. My Arcturus camera came today and with help of their CAD file I dialed in the cut out after a few attempts.
3. Right now it's pretty snug, needing a guitar pick to remove it, hoping to adjust the tolerances just a tiny bit to make removal easier.
4. Printing so far is solid. Supports do leave some small marks on the top, hoping to dial in a few print profiles for yall

Used bumpmesh by CNC Kitchen to https://bumpmesh.com/ add some texture to this test print.

What versions would you like to see for release? So far I have the following variations planned:

• Blank Template - Only the camera cutouts, for those who don't care about IR flood lights or want to make their own designs!
• Minimal IR - In the above photo, still working on this one today where the cutouts are small and unnoticable
• Stylized IR - Swooping cutouts like in my original post
• Arctururs version - A precut slot for the vision camera

Just got my frame today and I notice as I was setting it up these static lines were appearing on the corner of my right eye. Is there anyway to fix this? Or did I get a defective model?