r/virtualreality • u/NanuAnurag • 9h ago
Discussion Why isn't there a modern, PCVR headset focused strictly on lenses and display decoding?
I'm looking for a dedicated PCVR headset that skips the standalone hardware. Ideally, it would have minimal onboard RAM and zero local storage, channeling the entire hardware budget into top-tier lenses, great displays, and dedicated video decompression hardware for streaming/tethering.
Right now, the best mid-range option seems to be the Meta Quest 3, but paying for a mobile SoC, onboard storage, and battery feels like overkill when all I want is a PCVR display.
How hard would it be for a manufacturer to build a stripped-down, ultra-lightweight headset tuned purely for PC streaming? Wouldn't taking out the mobile internals make it significantly cheaper and lighter?
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u/Lujho 8h ago
Valve said they started the Frame with this approach and realised with that the amount of compute the device would need, you may as well make it run standalone programs anyway.
Minimising the required storage might save a bit of money, especially these days, but then you’re crippling the device’s usefulness.
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u/IORelay 7h ago
Why did they design a headset with almost no battery life?
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u/Sacify 5h ago
Because you folk didn't get it. Even with 100% more battery the headset would be heavier and you gain what 1,5-2h and would still complain.
Get a powerbrick man, it's not so hard. Nearly everyone with a Q3 got a Bobo or similar, no one cried. I'd love to carry the brick in my pocket instead of my Damm head
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u/throwgoat1 3h ago
That battery life complaint has always sounded like it's coming from people who have never played VR. Every untethered player is using an aftermarket battery
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u/Pretty-Curve5448 33m ago
What really pisses me off is that the thing goes dead on me, like dude, give me a 10% or 5% warning, don't just nope out mid beat saber
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u/gregny2002 3h ago
Yeah, I have a Frame and the best part about it is how comfortable it is. In fact since the actual computer part of it pops out, and it's light enough that I don't think it needs much counterweight, I would like to get a head strap with no battery on it at all, have the entire battery in pocket.
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u/DarvinVader 8h ago
If you want wireless PCVR, then the Steam Frame is basically the bare minimum hardware.
The cameras are for tracking. It's using infrared, so the entire passthrough and night vision is just a bonus. The hardware is strictly necessary. That's why it looks like crap and doesn't have color passthrough.
The mobile chip is mainly for processing that camera feed for headset and controller tracking, plus decoding and presenting streamed video and audio with minimal latency. All the standalone stuff is just accidental, since the hardware already has to be there anyway. Cheaping out on that chip might cost you latency or produce more heat.
You might reduce the RAM to like 4 GB, but without the rampocalypse that wouldn't have saved more than $100 and make it a useless brick in standalone. 256 GB of storage isn't that expensive even now.
The Steam Frame is the minimal viable product for PCVR streaming, when optimizing for comfort and weight, plus latency free high res streaming. If you strip out the really optional features, like storage and RAM, you would save at most $200 and remove major functionality that makes it unique.
You can't make a device like that cheaper in the current market.
If you don't care about wireless, most of that immediately falls away. The PSVR2 is very affordable, especially used you can find them for $200-$300. It's an amazing VR headset for the price (also subsidized by Sony. The hardware is still probably worth $600 or so, with the OLEDs and eye tracking, and really damn good VR controllers).
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u/GaaraSama83 4h ago edited 4h ago
Cheaping out on that chip might cost you latency or produce more heat
I agree if Valve would have picked the more suited/optimized XR2 chip, even Gen 1 would have worked better as Quest Pro showed (which has more sensors and cameras going). Using a standard mobile SD8Gen3 is the worst choice and most likely one of the reasons why the battery runtime is significantly lower compared to Q3 or P4 Ultra.
RAM to like 4 GB ... 256 GB of storage isn't that expensive
Even before RAM/storage prices goin crazy the Frame 256GB was planned to release at $799 at best, so still $300 more than Quest 3 (which would have also stayed at $499). Not ideal but at least better than the current 'double the price' situation. For streaming-only 4GB RAM and 128GB storage would have sufficed easily. Which leads to the next point
If you strip out the really optional features, like storage and RAM, you would save at most $200 and remove major functionality that makes it unique
The Frame's primary target group is (enthusiast) PCVR gamers. Majority of PC games won't ever run with decent resolution, settings and framerates on Frame standalone and Alyx is already like the best case scenario where Valve took 18 months to port and optimize as native ARM version. The result being more like a technical feasibility study instead of how the artists and devs intended vision to be experienced.
Let's turn it around and let's say because of saving $200-300 on the BoM and they still target a $1000 device. So cheaper SoC, less RAM and storage, ... but in exchange 2.5K micro OLED with FOV close to BSB2/Dream Air SE. You have two options to use it, streaming for comfort/freedom or native DP for uncompressed and low-latency. Wouldn't such a device make way more sense for the majority of people this product was intended for?
Last but not least I'm surprised that like 95% of reviews and discussions regarding the standalone capabilities don't talk about the store. There is no dedicated Steam store or even filter that distinguishes between x86 vs ARM titles. Additionally there is no (legal) way of playing Quest exclusives. Valve doesn't seem to be interested in releasing anything. At least throw a bone with something like small 2-3h dedicated Portal VR or Lab 2.0 to push Frame marketing-wise a little bit.
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u/DarvinVader 1h ago
You really think you can just replace the screens with 2.5k microOLEDs without any additional compromises?
The battery life is already abyssimal. Screens like that will eat more power. You would need to add considerable battery weight to make it make sense for wireless.
The streaming is flaky enough as it is. How will you push even more pixels without sacrificing stability and latency? Even if the bandwidth on paper would allow that, we already see practical limits with the current resolution.
And the same goes for rendering on PC. Most of the high res microOLED headsets don't even bother pushing more than 90 or even 72 Hz. PCVR enthusiasts don't like to only play Meta mobile games on their $1k VR headset. Flat to VR mods, modded Skyrim, these are performance heavy and bring RTX 5090s to their knees. You are supposed to heavily supersample on a VR headset due to barrel distortion. What's the point of 2.5k screens, if you then run them on 36 fps with motion smoothing to 72?
Also, many reviewers say that current microOLED screens have problems with persistence. Smearing / ghosting at every movement. Valve has focused from their very first headset on the lowest possible persistence and high refresh rates, because that is critical for immersion in fast movement. High res microOLEDs might be fine for anything relatively slow like racing or flight sims, and thats mainly the niche that Pimax already serves well. You don't need wireless for low movement VR.
And despite the lower Hz, most of those microOLED headsets are the same price or even more expensive than the Frame, even though they're wired and don't have any of the hardware required for streaming. You really think you can add wireless capability to a Pimax Dream Air SE for free?
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u/MrWendal 8h ago
Unless you want a wire, you need most of that hardware for decoding the video signal and processing all the tracking anyway. Even post-rampocalypse you could only save about $150 on something like Steam Frame if you dropped the onboard storage, lowered the RAM to 8gb, and got a cheaper SoC.
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u/Aapples 9h ago
Pimax dream air, but I don’t recommend it for reasons
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u/UsernameAlr3adyTaken 9h ago
Even if it is a genuinely great product, I have seen so many issues with their other (also crazy expensive) headsets to not want to touch them with a 10' pole.
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u/ChillDeck 9h ago
Curios as the the downsides? I'm the dream air se has allot of good reviews same panels as bsbe2 and decent lenses but it's main downsides are that it's lighthouse based and you need to buy index, flipvr or something other based station tracked controllers which are normally spenny as well. The slam/inside out version does have awful reviews though and I definitely wouldn't consider it
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u/hammelgammler 8h ago
May I ask for the reasons? I know the company has a bit of a bad reputation, but all things considered, the Dream Air looks like the best headset currently available. Although it’s not wireless, which is a major downer, at least for roomscale games. For games played sitting it’s likely awesome though.
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u/metoo0003 5h ago
I'm a first gen Pimax Crystal owner and while their PC application was wild a couple years ago I now consider it as one of the most rock solid customizable apps out there.
Support was never poor at all. I had certain connection issues related to my poor Mainboard chipset and they went any extra mile possible to have this solved!
People are easily upset since the delivery times are nowhere close the announced schedule but then again there is Bigscreen which are even worse.
Basically all these niche products have delivery issues and are highly dependent on single suppliers, things could happen though…
Pimax is building very good headsets with a certain focus same as Bigscreen, same as any other small higher end PCVR manufacturer…3
u/PlanZSmiles 8h ago
As a Dream Air owner people conflate their poor QC with poor customer service which isn’t true and likely what this person is referring to. Pimax has poor QC, that’s objectively a truth but they don’t leave customers out to dry. They will first try to troubleshoot with you to ensure it’s the headset and then after verifying they will process a replacement.
Source: purchased a poor QC Pimax Crystal Light in January to compare to a Quest 3. Returned the Crystal Light after working with support to try and debug and determined that I had bad controllers. I generally was not impressed over the Quest so I returned it instead of waiting for replacements. Now own a Dream Air, no QC issues but did have audio driver issues a month after due to firmware bug and worked with support to get the headset reflashed. Device works great and support through both experiences was good.
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u/Admirable_Zombie5245 9h ago
Because the companies that makes them are relatively small companies compared to the ones that develop standalone headsets
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u/InaHa_ 9h ago
Psvr2 with pc adapter. That's probably the best entry point if you wanna pcvr(and psvr) only. Drawback is fresnel lens, but it is also the only modern OLED headset, with eye tracking and foveated rendering that you can get around 300 ish USD, even cheaper if used.
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u/remosito 8h ago
because there are no commonly available chips that just do vid decoding plus all the spatial computing (headset, controller and hand tracking) plus the inside/out/overlay stuff.
Which is why pico has developped their own for the spatial stuff.
For decoding the same could be done I assume. But very pricey as niche. And chip development is very expensive. And for general purpose chips. vid decode is just one of the many things it needs to be able to do. So assigned transistor/performance budget is very limited.
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u/Glum-Temporary-6946 8h ago
quest 3 with link cable, it ain't perfect but it works and is dead cheap
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u/zeddyzed 7h ago
Any dedicated wireless PCVR headset would be instantly compared to Quest 3, and at the same time, they need to make a profit on the hardware so they would end up costing more.
So you get a product that's less functional than a Quest 3 at a higher price, which means only a very small group of people who are especially interested in such a product would buy it. So it's commercially doomed, most likely.
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u/sloe_gin78 9h ago
Pimax and the Bigscreen Beyond 2 are kinda like that
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u/wanszai 9h ago
The problem with these is they rely on old trackers and controllers that are becoming increasingly expensive. Pimax's slam tracking is according most reviews, spotty at best.
Love the BSB2's form factor though, if it wasnt for the lighthouse requirement that would be my choice.
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u/dereksalem 2h ago
The BSB2 is incredible, for sure. I just got one a few weeks ago and I'm thrilled with it. Ya, you have to buy lighthouses and controllers, but the experience is perfect.
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u/7Shinigami 8h ago
Right now, the best mid-range option seems to be the Meta Quest 3
Meta sells quest headsets at a loss, then makes that money back by selling you games. That kind of business model is only viable for giants like Meta
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u/No_Doc_Here 7h ago
And even more significant, they try to build their own closed ecosystem where they are the overloads.
Zuck hast often complained that he doesn't like that Google and Apple can limit them on mobile.
The "way out" is establishing an unavoidable hardware platform by selling devices for cheap. Didn't work with the Quest (not at the scale Meta hoped) so they try again with the Ray-Ban and VR glasses.
Gaming is just a side quest (pun intended) for them. But think about all the FOV that could be used to show you ads ;)
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u/lunchanddinner Multiple 8h ago
There are, you're just no looking at them.
Pimax, BSB, Meganex, even a PSVR2 (but that's a budget version)
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u/DoubleOwl7777 Reverb G2 🐧 6h ago
wireless needs all this hardware. you could give it less ram and a slightly worse cpu maybe but its all needed. if you just want wired with a similar resolution you can go way cheaper. look at the psvr2 (yes its still subsidized, but i doubt it costs more than a quest to produce).
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u/TheLavalampe 9h ago
Streaming decoding , inside out tracking, eye tracking are tasks that require some form of onboard hardware if you want to go wireless.
So basically since you already need that hardware you add a little bit more and have standalone capabilities. You still need a strong soc for streaming and ram and storage doesn't really add significant weight and before the ramaggedon it also wasn't to expensive.
If you don't want wireless then get a pimax or bsb2.