t’s certainly been a journey for Valve. A week prior to the Steam Frame’s launch, we spoke with two engineers at Valve about the project: Joy Lyons, hardware engineer, and Jeremy Selan, software engineer. The memory crisis and the price were a big part of that conversation. From that chat, we can confirm that Valve had aimed for a lower price point than the one it’s launching the Frame for today.
Here’s Lyons on the memory crisis:
“We set out to design this hardware with one particular price in mind, but we’ve made choices to make sure that we’re making a product that is choiceful, that people can purchase, they can upgrade with different features later. But we wanted to make sure we had a base product with really great performance. Then that price target shifted due to the ongoing RAM crisis around the world.”
Lyons also said that forecasting for the cost of certain components used in the Steam Frame is an ongoing challenge.
Not exactly boding well of the Steam Deck 2.
I just wish they had better support for Linux out of the box. Still on the fence about buying one, but it’s more battery and performance related than price related (though the price is oof, fucking data centers and AIssholes)
Edit: To be clear, I’m referring to streaming from a Linux gaming rig being unsupported. Yes, I am aware SteamOS is Linux based. This will almost definitely be fixed at some point, no doubt, but still though…
it literally runs linux itself? what about the Frame is unsupported from linux?
I have heard that they haven’t quite nailed down the foveated streaming from Linux pc’s yet, which is what they may be referring to.
Can you cite a source for this? I would be streaming from my Linux PC and I haven’t seen anything from Valve saying that streaming VR (or even that foveated streaming specifically) is Windows exclusive, and if it was that would really surprise me.
The Gamers Nexus review mentions it, I can’t give you an exact timestamp though. https://youtu.be/vcerOYY_K1g
I can’t cite a good source, apologies.
From what I heard, it was just referencing LTT’s experience with the Steam Link software (which was recorded before a round of linux-specific updates to improve it, afaik). Although, the reddit post cited in this github discussion says that Linus is just straight up wrong, so hopefully it just works!
Right, but from what I’ve read, Linux streaming is unsupported at the moment, so if you’re not using Windows for your gaming rig, you’re supposedly SOL for now. I’m sure that will change in time, especially given how many improvements they’ve made to the Steam Deck.
Edit: This is not the article I originally read about this in, but I found another post talking about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706428 and it references Linux Tech Tips from 2 days ago, so if it’s been fixed, it was fixed recently.
I’ve also seen people say that you can stream from linux. I gather there were issues with steamos, or gamescope specifically. I’m not really sure what’s true anymore.
Last I heard it didn’t work, but I would be shocked if Valve didn’t fix it at some point (assuming they haven’t already). I’m still looking for the article I read that mentioned it, so far it’s just an X post from a few weeks ago.
Edit: This is not the article, but I found another post talking about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706428 and it references Linux Tech Tips
LTT couldn’t be much further from that :)
I hope for anyone who buys it that it does work at least by launch. Finding this out when trying it would suck.
Can you cite a source for this? I would be streaming from my Linux PC and I haven’t seen anything from Valve saying that streaming VR (or even that foveated streaming specifically) is Windows exclusive, and if it was that would really surprise me.
Looking for the article now, so far all I found was an old X post from August 24. I’ll edit this comment with the link when I can find the article.
Like I said earlier though, I can’t see them not fixing it (I am assuming it hasn’t been fixed yet, which may no longer be correct).
Edit: This is not the article, but I found another post talking about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706428 and it references Linux Tech Tips
Gotcha, thanks! That’s the only source I could find as well.
And if (BIG if, granted) this Reddit post is to be believed, it seems effectively debunked: https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality_linux/comments/1welkhs/steam_frame_confirmed_by_linustechtips_to_not/
Cool, I’m thinking about picking one up despite the price so if I do I’ll test it on Bazzite to see how things go. Thanks!
I just know it would have been $600 if our biggest issue was still cryptobros.
$600 is still insanely expensive for my usage, but somewhat justifiable