Valve has finally revealed a few key requirements games should aim for if they plan on running on the upcoming Steam Frame headset—at least if they want the coveted ‘Steam Frame Verified’ badge.
The News
In Valve’s ‘Steam Hardware’ talk at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), the company showed off two specific stats that games should hit in standalone mode, noting that games will be tested in order to achieve the Steam Frame Verified badge.
For games running natively on the headset, Valve says VR games need to hit a minimum of 90 fps, which is notably higher than Frame’s minimum variable 72Hz refresh rate. Information was provided by XR analyst Brad Lynch.
Steam Frame can also download and natively play non-VR content too, although performance minimums are much more lax here, requiring a minimum of 30 fps at a resolution of 1,280 x 720.
For contrast, on the Horizon Store VR games must hit at very least 72 fps to match Quest’s minimum 72Hz refresh, while general media can hit a minimum of 60 fps.
Additionally, Valve says games must offer a “legible UI” in addition to full playability with Steam Frame controllers.
The company says games that are ‘Verified’ or ‘Playable’ on Steam Deck are automatically tested for the Frame Verified badge, as seen in the flow chart above. Games that aren’t supported on Deck due to performance or lack of compatibility with SteamOS won’t be considered.
As for PC VR gameplay, Frame’s direct WiFi 6 connection and Foveated Streaming protocol are said to run without requiring any sort of test or verification program.
“If it runs well on your host PC, it will run well on Steam Frame,” Valve says, noting that streaming requires no special integration, VR titles included. You can check out the slides for Valve’s Steam Hardware presentation here.
My Take
The jump from 72 fps to 90 fps may not sound like a lot, but it represents a roughly 25% increase in rendering workload, meaning developers hoping to directly port their games from Quest may need to optimize a fair bit to maintain Frame’s higher target.
Quest 3 and Steam Frame aren’t 1:1 when it comes to specs, but they do seem to be broadly comparable in native rendering capabilities. On day one (who knows when that will be), I’d imagine we’ll see a lot more non-VR games claim the Frame Certified than native VR games, as devs will need to either optimize existing SteamVR titles for standalone mode or otherwise port (and likely optimize) Quest games for Frame.
That said, like on Steam Deck, Valve isn’t stopping you from downloading and playing anything on Steam—it’s just providing guidelines to make sure consumers known when games fully work or not.
Whatever the case, Valve still has us in a holding pattern, as the global RAM and storage shortage seems to have wrinkled the company’s release plans for Steam Frame, Steam Machine, and Steam Controller.
Looking for more Steam Frame news?
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Hands-on: Steam Frame Reveals Valve’s Modern Vision for VR and Growing Hardware Ambitions: We go hands-on with Valve’s latest and greatest VR headset yet.
Valve Says No New First-party VR Game is in Development: Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx (2020) a few months after releasing Index, but no such luck for first-party content on Steam Frame.
Valve is Open to Bringing SteamOS to Third-party VR Headsets: Steam Frame is the first VR headset to run SteamOS, but it may not be the last.
Valve Plans to Offer Steam Frame Dev Kits to VR Developers: Steam Frame isn’t here yet; Valve says it needs more time with developers first so they can optimize their PC VR games.
Valve Announces SteamOS Console and New Steam Controller, Designed with Steam Frame Headset in Mind: Find out why Valve’s new SteamOS-running Console and controller will work seamlessly with Steam Frame.
Steam Frame vs. Quest 3 Specs: Better Streaming, Power & Hackability: Quest 3 can do a lot, but can it go toe-to-toe with Steam Frame?
Steam Frame vs. Valve Index Specs: Wireless VR Gameplay That’s Generations Ahead : Valve Index used to be the go-to PC VR headset, but the times have changed.
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