All posts tagged: virtual reality

Valve wants Half-Life: Alyx to work well standalone on Steam Frame

Valve wants Half-Life: Alyx to work well standalone on Steam Frame

Published by Webster

When I tried Half-Life: Alyx streaming from a PC to Valve’s new Steam Frame VR headset, I was blown away; thanks to the Frame’s dedicated wireless adapter and a cool trick Valve calls “foveated streaming,” I didn’t detect any latency as I explored an industrial building and fought some head crabs. But the Frame also has an Arm chip inside, meaning it can run games locally. While I didn’t get to test playing Half-Life: Alyx that way, based on comments Valve gave to other publications, it seems like Valve is optimistic that it might be able to make the game run well when played standalone. “Half-Life: Alyx is a great experience when streamed from a PC to Steam Frame, and we are looking into making it a good standalone experience as well,” Valve told Digital Foundry. And according to UploadVR, “Valve representatives think they can get Half-Life: Alyx running performant in standalone, but they’re not promising it yet and it’s clear there’s still a lot for them to do.” Fingers crossed Valve finds a way …

Who is buying VR and XR headsets anyway?

Who is buying VR and XR headsets anyway?

Published by Webster

From the outside, it looks like virtual and mixed reality is having a moment. Three new headsets have launched or been announced in the last month: There’s Apple’s M5 Vision Pro, the Samsung Galaxy XR, and, just this week, Valve announced the Steam Frame. Given the marketing, you might assume that means Big Tech thinks this tech finally has some mass-market appeal. But, in the nearly 60 years since the first VR headset, one thing remains true: This isn’t the next iPhone. “Let’s put it this way,” says Tuong Huy Nguyen, a director analyst on Gartner’s emerging technologies and trends team. “Everyone who wants a VR headset already has one.” It’s not a question of if people are buying these headsets. They are — just not in numbers that signal the tech is ready for prime time. According to IDC, Apple shipped roughly 400,000 Vision Pro headsets in 2024. That makes sense, given the $3,500 price tag. But Meta’s headsets are relatively affordable at $300 to $500 and make for popular Christmas gifts. Meta shipped …

The Steam Frame has two speakers on each side of your face for vibration cancellation

The Steam Frame has two speakers on each side of your face for vibration cancellation

Published by Webster

In its new Steam Frame VR headset, Valve put dual audio drivers on each side in the included head strap. That puts the audio near your ears while you’re wearing it, and in my brief time trying the device at Valve’s headquarters recently, I thought the sound was just fine. But the choice to have those dual drivers also helps reduce audio vibrations, which helps the headset with tracking while you’re playing games in VR, Valve hardware engineer Jeremy Selan tells The Verge. The Frame, like many other VR headsets, uses outward-facing cameras built into the main part of the headset for tracking. However, audio with good bass “induces vibrations into the headset,” which can affect that tracking, according to Selan. But on the Frame’s included head strap, the dual drivers per side are “mounted opposite to each other,” which creates “vibration cancellation inherent in the design.” That allows for “better tracking, even with good audio,” Selan says. Pretty cool! The headset is modular, too, so theoretically, you might be able to use other head …

Valve’s new VR streaming trick won’t just work with its own headset

Valve’s new VR streaming trick won’t just work with its own headset

Published by Webster

Valve’s new streaming-first VR headset — the Steam Frame — employs a clever trick to help make game streaming feel as low-latency as possible. It’s called foveated streaming, and it means the headset requests a higher-quality image for the content that’s right in front of your eyes while lowering the resolution of your peripheral vision to reduce bandwidth and processing demands. The headset relies on a couple pieces of hardware to make that happen. The first is a dedicated wireless streaming adapter that sends games from a PC to the headset. The second is a pair of eye-tracking cameras inside the headset that follow where you’re looking. If you’re familiar with foveated rendering, which headsets like Apple’s Vision Pro deploy for on-device processing, it’s a similar idea. Valve tells The Verge that foveated streaming won’t be exclusive to the Frame. While it’s currently optimized for the Steam Frame, foveated streaming can work with “any headset that supports eye tracking” and that is “compatible with our Steam Link streaming app,” according to hardware engineer Jeremy Selan. …

We tried Valve’s new VR headset, PC, and controller — ask us anything!

We tried Valve’s new VR headset, PC, and controller — ask us anything!

Published by Webster

Hi! I’m Jay Peters, a senior reporter here at The Verge. I’m perhaps the site’s second-biggest Steam Deck fan, surpassed only by Sean Hollister, our unofficial handheld gaming PC reviewer. So you can imagine how excited we were to visit Valve’s headquarters to try the company’s three new hardware products: the Steam Frame, a streaming-focused VR headset; the Steam Machine, a Valve-designed gaming PC for the living room; and the Steam Controller. Those links take you to our big stories about all three pieces of gear, and I encourage you to read the articles and bask in our photos from Ripple at Everything Time Studio. But if you’re a Verge subscriber and have any burning questions we didn’t answer about the hardware or Valve’s strategy in our stories, we’re hosting a subscriber-only Ask Me Anything session today in the comments of this post. Feel free to start dropping in your comments and questions right now, no need to wait. Sean and I will both start replying at about 3PM ET. We’re looking forward to it! …

How the Steam Frame compares to other VR headsets

How the Steam Frame compares to other VR headsets

Published by Webster

Valve just announced the Steam Frame, a new standalone VR headset that can both stream games from a PC and play games locally thanks to an onboard Arm chip. The headset is quite a bit different from Valve’s previous model, the Index, which had to be tethered to a gaming computer with a physical wire. But it also stands out from a lot of other major VR headsets on the market right now, like the Meta Quest 3, Samsung Galaxy XR, and Apple Vision Pro. A big way the Frame separates itself from the pack is its focus on streaming your games. That’s all made possible thanks to a wireless dongle that comes with every Frame: plug it into your PC, and you can stream both your flat and VR games to the headset over a low-latency connection. I got to try the streaming for myself at Valve’s headquarters while playing Half-Life: Alyx, and I didn’t notice any discernible lag. You can also play games right on the Frame itself because Valve has gotten SteamOS …

Valve has stopped manufacturing its Index VR headset

Valve has stopped manufacturing its Index VR headset

Published by Webster

Valve has just announced the Steam Frame, its new VR headset that can play games streamed directly from your PC using a dedicated streaming stick and run Windows games locally thanks to an Arm chip in the headset itself. At the same time, Valve is also moving on from its previous VR headset, the Valve Index, which it’s “no longer manufacturing,” designer Lawrence Yang tells The Verge. The Index, a high-end headset that had to be tethered to your PC to work and used external “lighthouse” base stations for tracking, was released in 2019. In her review, my colleague Adi Robertson praised its visuals and its controllers, though dinged it for its $999 cost. But corded headsets have also fallen out of favor since then. Meta has sold tens of millions of its standalone Quest VR headsets that can play games without a PC connection and track your position without extra base stations. Even more expensive headsets like the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy XR have taken the standalone approach. The Frame isn’t exactly …

Windows 11’s Vision Pro-like remote desktop is now widely available on Quest 3

Windows 11’s Vision Pro-like remote desktop is now widely available on Quest 3

Published by Webster

After downloading Mixed Reality Link on a Windows computer, Quest 3 and 3S wearers can look at their keyboard and select “pair” to view and interact with their desktop display from their headset. Meta notes that you can either immerse yourself in your virtual desktop or use passthrough so that you can still see your surroundings. Aside from this update, Meta is also rolling out the ability to rescale and resize displays across all apps, as well as a Full Passthrough feature to quickly check the environment around you by double-tapping on the side of your headset or clicking the action button on the Meta Quest 3S. You can now open up to 12 apps at once, too. Disclaimer: We do not own any of the content, ideas, images, or text presented here. All rights belong to their respective owners. For more information and to view the original source, please visit the following link: Source link

Google I/O 2025: how to watch and what to expect

Google I/O 2025: how to watch and what to expect

Published by Webster

Google’s annual I/O developer conference is almost here, and all eyes will be on the company’s opening keynote. But for the first time in years, we know there’s little reason to hope for major Android OS announcements, since Google already did that last week. Instead, we’re expecting I/O’s keynote to be (almost) all about AI, though we do know there’ll be at least a little time devoted to XR. When Google I/O will happen and where you can watch If you’re planning to watch, be sure to set aside ample time. I/O keynotes usually run for a couple hours, and even with no new Android announcements, we’d expect the same this time. As my colleague Allison Johnson put it over the weekend, the fact that this year’s I/O keynote will be focused on AI shouldn’t come as a surprise. Gemini and its ilk have dominated the event for two years running, and Google is embroiled in an AI race with OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and more. In fact, I/O kicks off a day after Microsoft’s Build …

Who is buying VR and XR headsets anyway?

Apple might let you scroll with your eyes in the Vision Pro

Published by Webster

Apple is testing a feature that will let users scroll through Vision Pro apps using the headset’s eye-tracking capability, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Eye-based scrolling will apparently work across all of Apple’s built-in apps, and Gurman says the company is working on letting third-party developers use the feature, too. How it would actually function is a mystery, but I could see a system where you have to look at the edge of a page long enough to start scrolling, or focusing on a UI element, then looking above or below it to move a page. You can do a version of eye-based scrolling with the Dwell Control accessibility feature, which lets you open menus or carry out actions by briefly resting your eyes on items in your view. To scroll, you can gaze at an icon until the page scrolls a set amount — it’s clunky, and I’d be surprised if what Apple is testing works the same way. Apart from accessibility alternatives, other ways to scroll include the default — pinching with your …