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Why a new Steam Machine when the first ones flopped? Because this time, Valve say, it'll actually have games
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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The answer is that they arent...
But thats fine, because the thing comes with a custom wireless adapter that uses multiple wifi channels in parallel to stream video from your computer to the headset, so primarily the processing will happen on your computer / steam machine.
https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?t=1630
It doesnt even have active cooling. The most you will be able to play on device will be stuff that would run on a phone. But for VR you need high resolution (you need two render two screens worth of video) and 100+ fps or its not gonna be enjoyable. So really only 2D or low poly 3D games will run i expect.
The on device OS will be nice for VR video watching tho, because that requires very little processing power.
But they are: https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/gaming-headsets/hands-on-with-valves-new-steam-frame-headset-arm-powered-mixed-mode-device-uses-new-fex-translation-layer-for-traditional-x86-games
You have the choice of streaming to Frame or running games directly on the device. If the latter, they're utilizing FEX as the ARM translation layer.
Of course performance will be best with streaming, but I'm still surprised you can run anything at all locally.
Which is why i wrote this
and this
The translation layer and additional requirements for VR will further reduce the selection of playable games. But yes technically you can run x86 programs on it, just not at a "playable level" for 99% of games.
Got it, yeah I misunderstood your comment as meaning there was no translation layer at all.
For me it's just something to keep an eye on. I think ARM holds a lot of promise as x86 has started to feel a bit stagnant. Things like FEX could minimally be a good way to ensure backwards compatibility if devs start embracing ARM in any major way, but I suspect it is years out, if it happens at all.
But if I get a Frame, it would 100% be for the streaming.
I badly phrased it tbh, so its a fair misunderstanding :)
One thing i kinda dislike about all ARM devices ive played with so far is the lack of a proper replacement for the concept of a BIOS. I want a subsystem for multiboot and toggling hardware features as well as tuning and stuff like that.
Sure its cool that you can just flash an SD card and it works, but you can keep that as default functionality while still allowing more customizability.
And given the history of BIOS as a concept, I guess that isn't too surprising.
I wonder how much of that kind of thing stems from the fact that many of the really hardcore PC tinkerers aren't using ARM (yet).