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- Hacker News
- I want this for one reason and one reason only: DCS.
Anyone know how well it works/doesn't work yet?
I've waited for years to get a VR heads for DCS (its a flight simulator folks) .. and now, maybe, this is it.
by MomsAVoxell - I used a Rift for DCS and it was amazing graphically. Hard to go back to playing on a screen and using a HOTAS hat to capture your view (or head tracker).
But you better have your HOTAS controls memorized because it's a pain not having visibility of them.
by 0xfeba - If you enjoy DCS give VTOLVR a shot as well. Fantastic fun.by ZeroCool2u
- I bought an HP Reverb G2 for DCS about 5 years ago and it worked great. When Windows started deprecating the Mixed Reality services random things started breaking, though.by _caw
- For DCS only, I wonder how this slots between a Q3 and a bigscreen beyond. The beyond with no controllers is probably about the same price all in as the 1TB, but would be better screens and lighter. If you dont care about the standalone stuff it might be another good option. The frame does bring more versatility, but at the cost of battery/weight. Wireless VR in sims is unbeatable in terms of immersion though.by kikkia
- Something to keep in mind that a lot of simmers (DCS specifically) don't get when they want to jump into VR:
Once you hit the advanced 3rd Gen or any 4th Gen fighter or attack aircraft (essentially anything where you go "heads down" for any significant portion of the aircrafts mission profile) VR becomes more of a liability than an asset.
For those aircraft being a pilot is secondary to being a systems operator.
Think of an F-14; you have the front seat who would want to be in VR because they fly the aircraft, but the RIO would NOT want to be because they have very little need to be, especially since it makes interfacing with their mission systems so much harder. AH-64's are the same split.
Now if you are the sole person in the aircraft and need to do both missions being able to operate the systems fluently and smoothly via dedicated interfaces FAR exceeds any benefit from being in VR.
I've done it all, and I far prefer flying in VR. But for accomplishing complex mission profiles multiscreen with each being an MFD and a rich control set far beat that immersion.
Perhaps the best mix is using a curved UW and trackir plus dedicated MFD screens. Once you get that setup its amazing for that advanced capability set.
All of this assumes you want to use the full capability set of an airframe, or use an attack profile at all. If all you want is to use them for A2A, then VR is wonderful as long as you have a full HOTAS set, understand the preset modes on everything, and memorize the controls and alternate control schemes properly for BVR to close in conversion, countermeasures, etc.
by CobaltFire - At basically quest 3 levels of on device performance, this thing better have amazing software. This price is way too high.
Our expectations have been warped by Meta's decade long subsidization of VR hardware
by LarsDu88 - The price is basically the same as the Index was at launch 7 years ago. With the devaluing of the currency, the increase in specs and capabilities, and the current component suppy crisis, it is a deal. Adjusted for inflation the Index would cost $1300 today, which now gets you a Frame with 1TB of internal storage.by wpm
- I have barely even considered VR until the Steam Frame.
I'm just not interested in closed ecosystems like Oculus.
That said, I have barely looked at VR so much that I'm not sure whether to bother with the Steam Frame.
Is it just for gaming/movies?
by flippingheck - Quest 3 is cheap for the same reason that 80 inch TVs are sold at or below cost. If you value your privacy at zero and want to strap a surveilling, billboard on your face for pennies on the dollar be my guest.
This is for people who want control over their devices. Despite the poor timing and somewhat high price tag I am glad there's competition in this space. Meta's stance on software and hardware openness is not great & it's suffocating the whole space.
by stuxnet79 - Not having to faff about with Meta's developer program or whatever to side load my own homebrew stuff, and then get locked out, then have to do whatever hoop jumping six months later, is a huge bonus. I have an OG Quest 1 and the damn thing needs a new copy of meta quest ...whatever, installed every 2 weeks if I want to use it. It's exhausting.by hadlock
- Everything from meta is a spyware and should be only touched inside a VM like with any other malware vendors.
Money is just a number and far less precious than personal dignity and privacy. I don't even get the idea why people really would compare something around 1k usd range in developed countries, it's a no brainer.
by dmantis - 2x GPU performance[1] and RAM, along with it being your machine instead of a locked down Meta android device is worth 2x the price for many. Eye tracking is also huge, both as an additional input device, and lifting GPU performance even more with foveated rendering.by TGower
- I'm ready to pay it to not be forced into using Facebook's terrible desktop software that they frequently break the PC Link functionality of. The way it's Windows-only also sucks; it's one of the few things that's prevented me from switching my gaming PC to Linux.
And yes, I've tried third-party solutions like Virtual Desktop under Windows and ALVR under Linux. Even with some of the best WiFi 6E hardware available standing within 10ft of the router with the PC being wired into the network with ethernet, nothing has beat a tethered USB connection using the native Link functionality on my Quest 2.
Any SteamVR based solution fixes most of these issues and the Frame sounds like it might make wireless actually viable. Even if it doesn't, tethered with Valve software instead of with Facebook software is still a meaningful improvement.
- For me a lot of the value comes from the freedom you get with frame. Valve says “it’s your PC, install what you want” and it runs an open source OS. It’s the first truly Linux friendly headset (it runs arch btw) and I don’t have to send my data to Meta. Also foveated streaming means, according to reviewers, a pretty decent wireless PCVR experience. I can’t wait to play half life Alyx without a tether. Valve is just doing something very different from meta.by SequoiaHope
- Wish Valve would make enough of something so that everyone that wanted one could get one. I wanted to get an Index headset when they launched that. I would check the Steam store page every few months, for 5 years. Every time it said "Out of Stock". It's still out of stock in France today. They design great products, but are useless at getting them produced in quantity.by Stevvo
- > It's still out of stock in France today.
You might look at why it's out of stock. Here in the US, it looks like they're out of stock of the base stations, the right controller (but not the left!) and replacement face gaskets. [0]
> They design great products, but are useless at getting them produced in quantity.
shrug I've little doubt that there were a great many periods between the Index release and now that you could have gotten a full set of equipment. I'm very suspicious of the claim that you never found a time when you could purchase one from the Steam Store.
The Index had the misfortune of being released during the start of The Global Plague when everyone with a sizable chunk of disposable cash found themselves with a great need for new toys to play while stuck at home... and global manufacturing got turbofucked by said plague, which didn't make it especially easy to ramp up production.
The Steam Frame has the misfortune of being released in the beginning of The Great Abandonment of The Consumer PC Market, which has just screwed the availability of parts and their price.
I'd say that neither of those things are Valve's fault, but what can I really know? They're a secretive private company, so maybe they engineered both catastrophes. ;)
[0] <https://store.steampowered.com/app/1059530/Valve_Index_Heads...>
by simoncion - The scalpers will probably be all over this too.by dawnerd
- Given the entire hardware world is experiencing multiple important shortages that are unlikely to improve before a while, I wouldn’t bet on itby dgellow
- I've been astounded by how many older games are suddenly getting surprisingly good VR ports/mods (I suspect AI-assisted tooling is playing a role in some of this) There's a youtuber Beardo Benjo who has been documenting a bunch of them where some are tethered to a PC while others have been ported to run natively on the Quest.
A few of the more interesting ones, newest to oldest:
Left 4 Dead VR [9/14/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-blXLU_oy8
DOOM [9/11/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkxVI2KEKrk
Call of Duty Zombies VR [9/2/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9VjFpInLiU
Dead Island 2 VR [8/28/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=notfg5bjUdM
The Simpsons: Hit & Run VR [8/26/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQJZKjkRzyI
GTA: Vice City VR [8/18/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH5k5Un8_HE
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time VR [8/6/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzhbhrotI1Q
Cyberpunk 2077 VR [8/4/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXho2LdD1qo
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild VR [5/17/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Mpqk2X3ww
Pokémon VR [9/1/2026]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlEl1IVU8PA
Ready or Not UEVR Mod [9/8/2025]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnGfQBQJP8Y
by valgaze - Some of the Resident Evil series is in VR, and is also very good.by foo12bar
- Hopefully they have solved the issues but... the only times I got VR sickness from VR is
(1) trying GTA5 in VR using a patch. It was amazing once the game gave me control. But by that time I was already sick from the unskippable in game intro
(2) Breath of the Wild - Labo version. When Nintendo came out with a cardboard holder for Switch and a VR option for BotW, I tried it. The fact that it wasn't designed for VR made me sick really fast
I was surprised by both. I'd played 100s of hours of VR by that point and no sickness. Both of those games made me feel seriously ill and it took a while (30-60 minutes?) to recover.
by socalgal2 - For these devices, I always enjoy Adam Savage's Tested videos. Here's the one they posted today for the Steam frame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9JyWAVj94E
It's full of technical details and down-to-earth analysis, and includes interviews with the Valve engineers.
by BoppreH - Thanks. This was great.by flippingheck
- If use for solely VR Gaming, and you don't care a ton about the privacy aspect, it is a hard sell against a new or used Q3. However, for myself personally I love the idea of it as a device I can tinker with and have full control over. I would love to also replace my laptop with it while traveling. Especially with a small wireless keyboard it has a good chance to replace my laptop for tinkering/gaming on the go.
With the price increases it is likely not a good value for an average person, but for myself and some other tinkerers I think it is very acceptable.
by kikkia - Doesn't wearing a headset in public have antisocial "Glasshole" vibes?
Honestly, people who cowork in public already give me the ick. Maybe immersing yourself in a headset is just a physical manifestation of the digital immersion that is already plaguing public spaces.
by bsimpson - > hard sell against a new or used Q3
That depends. Having had a Quest 2 and dealt...nay, put up with with Meta and their god awful ecosystem you couldn't pay me to touch another one of their headsets. I'll take an open linux based one over a Q3 any day. That alone makes the price difference worth it to me. Throw in the foveated streaming and the vastly superior quality and latency of streaming and it makes for a fairly decent offering.
by esskay - I've never been interested in VR headsets and am not very educated about it.
Can someone explain why you'd want to actually run things on it instead of having a much lighter screens-and-headphones-only unit that plugs it into a more powerful machine that renders things for it? What's the benefit of having to strap all this extra hot hardware and batteries to your face.
Is it just about it being wireless? Surely there are wireless protocols that can stream high-bandwidth videostreams from your PC to VR goggles.
Not trying to be snarky or facetious, but genuinely curious.
by rwz - There are two use-cases. Already sitting at a PC and you just pop your headset on - your idea makes sense. But traditional VR means standing up in a dedicated space (2m x 2m) and demands uninterrupted time. That's a high friction activity, and adding setting up a PC and Oculus Link and Steam VR before you start playing makes that friction even higher to the point where it's a niche hobby. Most casual players are doing stuff like VRChat and Beat Saber which can run on low powered hardware, so having a basic game-playing ability is a good idea.by rjh29
- The wires really get in the way, even in a seated context. I often use a Rift S for rally games, and the wire will get caught in the backrest, the wheels, my legs. VR is immersive, so you instantly forget and it's a thick and fragile wire so there's a degree of stress.
Not to mention the trip hazard or ripping it out of the PC while playing room-scale games.
I concur, given hardware constraints that a far more slimmed down unit would have been appealing, and more future-proof, but I believe there's still a requirement for onboard compute for inside-out tracking and handling disconnection events, at some point making it self-sufficient (at the time) was seen as not much more expense.
by month13