r/SteamFrame

One thing I'm excited to do with my frame is watching movies in it.

Sure it doesn't have oled punch of media viewing first headsets like the bigscreen beyond. But it being standalone is a plus.

I remember attempting to watch movies with my old vive within the bigscreen application. It was nice although it seemed to be more of a social experience.

What method have you used to watch movies in VR? For both normal movies and 3-D movies?

Edit: No, not corn you goonheads.

With what we know of the battery, power drain and past experience with the quest 3, how do you think the battery life will be affected with the headset running at 144hz compared to 90hz while streaming pcvr.

Also, with valve specifying that the 144hz is experimental, what other drawbacks would there be using the 144hz compared to the native 120hz?

I have a Quest 2 and was excited for my next jump to Steam Frame.

Most reviewers who have tried Steam Frame always end their videos by saying that Quest 3 is for casual VR gaming, while Steam Frame is for PCVR. My problem with this statement is that I already play SteamVR on my Quest using a cable, because I hate Air Link, and Half-Life: Alyx looks great.

So I think Quest 2/3 are already PCVR headsets, since they can run their own standalone games and also PCVR through SteamVR, including Steam VR games and even non-VR Steam games.

The reason I am excited about Frame is basically the weight.

Quest 3 is around 550 grams, with most of that weight focused in the front, sitting on your face. Steam Frame is 440 grams, but the weight is divided differently. Only around 200 grams or less is on your face, while the rest is in the back of your head, mainly the battery, so it should feel much lighter on the face.

The second advantage is that with the mini Steam router/dongle, there is no need for a cable anymore, which is nice.

But the issue is that most reviewers who tried Steam Frame say it will be good for around 2 to 2.5 hours on battery, while my Quest on cable basically runs forever because the cable is also charging the headset.

Also, Quest 3 is around $600, while Steam Frame seems to be aiming around $800 to $850.

I don’t know, but it feels like Quest 3 might still be the better purchase for PCVR regardless. Or is there something I am missing?

Edit: I am thankful for some of the useful answers here , but the amount if downvotes is crazy, is this subreddit supposed to be only crying about when frame will be available?

Ugh I love VR but I hit a dead spot in my urge to keep putting money into it after buying body trackers and the original vive. I’m FINALLY going to upgrade and sink all my Gabe bucks into this beautiful machine once it launches but I’m curious on what you guys are all upgrading from. Maybe I’m not alone upgrading from straight ancient tech to something amazing lol

t appeared to me in a dream, the frame was for sale. I was so excited that I woke up, and was immensely disappointed seeing it wasn't.

Does this mean frame soon?

From what I know, the Steam Frame is just going to have speakers instead of headphones built on it. Do you guys plan on just leaving the audio method just the way it is or will you be using something like headphones or earbuds to listen instead?

We officially have 6 weeks until the halfway point of the year. Valve time has taken long enough. If we don’t at LEAST have news in the next 6 weeks, I WILL cry

I am going to say this once, before history gets rewritten and everyone pretends they saw it coming.

Steam Frame is getting announced Friday, May 22nd.

This is not a prediction anymore.

This is a pattern screaming through the drywall.

At first, I thought this was normal subreddit brain rot. The usual cycle.

No news, people get bored, someone makes a fake date, someone else posts a chart made in MS Paint, we all collectively chew on the same three crumbs until Valve remembers we exist.

But this time the crumbs are not crumbs.

They are coordinates.

Look at the subreddit right now.

It is not just people asking “when Frame?” anymore.

The entire place has shifted into pre-announcement psychosis.

People are posting about early previews, dev kits, hardware pages, release wording, timing, windows, deleted uploads, and “first half of 2026” like they are reading tea leaves in an abandoned laboratory.

That is not random.

That is pressure.

Valve is doing the thing Valve always does: nothing.

And that is exactly the problem.

Because with Valve, silence is not absence. Silence is containment.

When nothing is happening, Valve is quiet.

When something is happening, Valve is also quiet, but the quiet has mass.

This quiet has mass.

You can feel objects moving behind the wall.

If Steam Frame is a real 2026 hardware platform, they cannot keep pretending it is vapor forever. Hardware needs runway.

Hardware needs devs.

Hardware needs press.

Hardware needs people to understand why it exists before they are expected to buy it.

You do not drop a new Valve hardware ecosystem from the ceiling like a TF2 crate and hope people figure it out by lunch.

So the announcement has to be soon.

Not “soon” as in “Valve soon.”

Soon as in: the calendar is starting to become legally aggressive.

June is a trap.

June is noise.

June is trailers, showcases, publisher events, fake gameplay demos, sponsored interviews, platform announcements, and Geoff Keighley manifesting inside your living room to sell you a headset-shaped Dorito.

Valve does not announce inside that.

Valve announces before it.

Valve poisons the well before anyone else can drink from it.

That leaves late May.

And then the date looks back at you.

Friday, May 22nd.

A Friday announcement sounds stupid until you remember Valve does not market things like a normal company. A normal company wants a clean press cycle. Valve wants the community to enter a ritual state.

Drop the announcement Friday.

Say very little.

Show one trailer.

Publish one blog post written like it was assembled by four engineers and a ghost.

Then disappear.

What happens next?

Reddit detonates.

YouTube panics.

Discord becomes unreadable.

VR Twitter starts chewing glass.

Every “Valve is back” thumbnail appears within six hours.

By Monday, the entire conversation has already been colonized.

They do not need a marketing department.

They have us.

We are the marketing department.

Unpaid. Unstable. Highly optimized.

And then there is the number.

I am not saying the number proves it.

I am saying the number is standing in the corner of the room and I would like it to stop breathing.

Two eyes.

Two lenses.

Two displays.

Two hands.

Two controllers.

Steam Frame and Steam Machine.

Deck and Frame.

Past and future.

Reality and rendered reality.

The user and the machine.

The thing looking out and the thing looking back.

2 / 2.

A frame requires two sides to hold an image.

May 22nd is not a date.

It is a shape.

And the product is called Frame.

Do you understand how disgusting that is?

This is the kind of pattern that should mean nothing, but Valve has trained the human brain to become diseased.

We analyze depot updates.

We analyze trademarks.

We analyze branch names.

We analyze deleted videos.

We analyze store metadata.

We analyze the emotional temperature of Gabe Newell’s beard.

And sometimes, somehow, horribly, we are right.

That is why this is not just cope.

Cope is “I want it Friday.”

This is worse.

This is “Friday is starting to behave like the only date that makes structural sense.”

The subreddit is already in the correct psychological state.

The hardware discussion is active again.

The timing window is collapsing.

The first-half-2026 wording is becoming dangerous. June is too crowded.

Valve benefits from a weekend-long community meltdown.

Adjacent hardware noise is increasing.

Dev kit rumors are floating around like radiation.

This is not confirmation.

This is atmospheric pressure before the blast.

And pressure systems break.

So I am putting my name on the wall:

Steam Frame gets announced Friday, May 22nd.

If I am wrong, I was insane.

If I am right, I was not insane enough.

And if nothing happens on the 22nd, that does not disprove the theory.

It means Valve saw the pattern, realized we had breached the simulation, and moved the announcement to preserve causality.

Either way, the Frame was already announced.

Not by Valve.

By the calendar.

By the subreddit.

By the number 22 staring at us with two lenses.

We are not waiting for Steam Frame.

Steam Frame is waiting for Friday.

I can’t stand the wait anymore fuck, the Frame was supposed to be my first headset but there’s nothing holding me back anymore.

I've had a Rift S since it released, currently on its last legs as we speak, but I haven't touched VR in a while. Once we all get our Steam Frames soon^(TM) , I was wondering what you guys were thinking of playing first? My obvious choice is replaying Half Life Alyx, the FNAF VR games, Ghost Town, and The Room puzzle games, and trying the flat screen feature of the Frame. Other than that, I'm not so sure. Thoughts?

Also any word on the compatibility with the Oculus library? I know it somehow works on the Index, but I'm not sure how well its gonna run, if at all on the Frame. I don't mean locally, but streaming from a PC. Would love to play my Oculus games like Robo Recall without a tether.

I mean we all got em on Monday, right?

https://preview.redd.it/is0z8nnpca2h1.png?width=1117&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe021f07b9f6a353cc3d75eef90d2749c44ba109

There’s a verification process that is documented for the steam frame, to verify games run on the frame without the wireless link. Beat Saber was made when an Indy studio when I used to own an oculus cv1 but now meta owns it. I’m looking forward to play it on the frame but now that meta competes with valve I’m worried meta will leave the game to rot.