Phoronix article: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Machines-Frame-2026
Also listed here: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware
Valve has already sent support for the new Steam Controller upstream: https://www.phoronix.com/news/New-Steam-Controller-SDL
Fuck you Microsoft!
2026 Year of the Linux desktop?
Surely this will bring over a lot of people to Linux
Year of the Linux living room
Not gonna lie the controller looks ass but maybe it feels fantastic so I‘ll wait with my final judgement. I‘m interested to see how they will try to push VR since most users are still incredibly uninterested in it.
I’ve wanted to get into VR for the longest time but they all seemed like extremely walled gardens. This sounds awesome to me.
The problem is to really make an informed decision you have to try it first-hand. The sensory experience unlike any other device, so descriptions aren’t super helpful, video doesn’t convey what it’s actually like, so you really have to experience it to understand it.
Also given how common it seems to be anecdotally to get sick from it, no one wants to jump in just to have to jump back out.
And unless you know someone that already jumped in and can try theirs, a lot of people like me just don’t want to commit sight unseen. (I mean I’m also broke, but this would be true anyway)
I don’t have a way to try it out, so until I do it’s not on my radar to care. I’m very curious about it. Even if I don’t like it I do really want to see what it’s like at least once. But I’m not gonna pay for that chance. It’s gotta impress me without effort on my part (more than driving to it anyway).
Also given how common it seems to be anecdotally to get sick from it, no one wants to jump in just to have to jump back out.
you can build a resistance to it. It takes time, and it was the case for me
Maybe so, but you probably need to enjoy your first exposure to want to drop money on an entire setup for it.
It’s already crazy enough to drop that money just hoping you like it, but if you drop it hoping it stops making you nauseous, that’s a much bigger ask.
I’m still hoping I won’t have that problem. I do get car sick on meandering drives, but not even close to as bad as I did 10-15 years ago, but the worse the drive gets, the more I have to stay staring out the car windows.
I assume the VR effect would be similar, given it’s a similar symptom, but backwards. (In VR you don’t feel motion, but you see it, whereas in a car, you feel it, but either don’t see it from not looking, or if you have wide visibility it looks like you’re not moving as much compared to the background)
As someone who used to get sick in cars and boats, I got it, so you might as well
If the technology interests you, then sick or not, you’ll probably like it. Won’t play every day, but it’ll be a nice experience.
Start with games with not a lot of motion (beat saber for example), then move to more intensive games. You’ll get sick after 15mins, then 20mins, then 25… until you last for a couple hours, and at this point you’ve built your resistance.
Just stop playing when you feel sick and try again an hour later when you feel better or a few days later
But yea, VR isn’t straightforward or an obvious purchase. It requires time and will, and money, obviously
It’s clearly a luxury and you need to have too much money or be really motivated to purchase it
Personally that’s what I’d like to do anyway. I’m saying that to discuss the growth of the technology among the masses.
Assuming it doesn’t make me violently ill, i like tech and gaming enough to keep it around otherwise. But the potential for the issue and the committal involved off the bat are difficulties for any new, different-enough tech.
I’m someone who has gotten sick in cars before (rarely) but I have done a lot of crazy stuff on VR and never felt remotely sick. I’m an outlier though
For most of my life VR has been, ‘VR is a great way to experience shitty games and you just have to pay a grand or more for this interactive tummy ache, and your unit may not be supported next year! Buy!’
I’m going to hold out until I can pick up one of these at the pawn shop for a bill.
I got an Index for cheap last year and was very excited to play a number of my favorite games with optional VR mode. Turns out:
- the Index ecosystem is more accessible than expected. 2) the games I was looking forward to all played like ass and made VR seem like a stupid gimmick. 3) In a desperate move that felt like sunk cost fallacy, I tried several VR-only games, and got TOTALLY hooked on modded Beatsaber. This itself made the buy-in worth it.
VR-only games
For the most part VR “ports” of traditional games are not worth buying. The developers usually put 0 effort into them. There are exceptions like sim racing titles, but for the most part games developed specifically for VR will be way better designed
‘VR is a great way to experience shitty games
Have you tried Half-life: Alyx?
I recommend you give that, or something equivalent, a go without even buying any hardware. Either ask a friend or go to an arcade. You don’t need to shell out a grand to try.
If you hate it, move on.
Edit! I’m a 90s kid, and I’m really disappointed that VR hasn’t taken off the way scifi suggested it would. Back then, being absorbed in pure information sounded awesome, but now it is just going the way of 24/7 misinformation advertisements and micro transactions.
I’ll hold off on VR until there is a decent open source unit that isnt $800.
I remember trying the first VR headset game 1990 that ran on a Commodore Amiga in like 7 fps and was terrible in every way.
Yegods. My first foray into VR was at a high end arcade at North Pier in Chicago. I think the game was Dactyl. The headset was super heavy and none of the goals of the game were explained to me. I basically wandered around for five minutes, shooting green polygons in the sky, then time was up.
Dad was pissed that he’d blown $20 on it.
Edit: For historical reference, in the mid 90s $5 could keep your kids occupied at a regular arcade for a couple hours. $20 could have gotten us a couple of movie tickets and some Twizzlers.
I’d of been angry too.
I think that’s the same game I queued up for like 90 mins at a computer fair to have a few minutes of very confused playtime and that was it.
I remember seeing the Virtuality kits on TV in the 90s.
Clearly absolutely unplayable nonsense, and yet I still wanted to play on one.
It took so long for hardware to catch up.
I’ve got a Meta Quest 2 as a hand-me-down and yes, it’s extremely locked down. It’s possible to use a third-party app store, but to make it work you have to get a developer account with Meta and enable wireless debugging.
I also recieved a quest 2 recently, any good guides on getting it set up with third party apps that you found?
I haven’t tried it myself yet, but I hear the SideQuest app store is the place to go.
I really want to love VR, but it’s just not for me. And i don’t think i’m alone with that. To me, VR is something you try in a mall for 20min and think it’s cool and not something you want to play around with home.
There’s a reason we don’t see any big Let’s Players do more than a couple episodes of VR games.
That doesn’t mean they’re not having fun, but it’s quite physically demanding and the experience just doesn’t translate to 2D.
I love Half life alyx. I played maybe half an hour, and i don’t think i’ll ever play more. Just the thought of putting the vr headset back on puts me off. I thought VR would be great for me, because i do a lot of sports anyway and i like to move around. But sweating while playing video games isn’t as fun as it seems. Especially when you sweat a lot in and around the goggles. Like i said, it’s an experience, not really more. On a side note, i also learned i’m a huuuge pussy when it comes to VR games. I really don’t know what it is, i was never scared of a movie or video game or anything really. In vr looking into a dark hole where something might jump scare me, really isn’t for me at all.
Fortunately I don’t sweat that easily, Alyx was fine for me so far (about 2 hours in). What REALLY gets me going is (modded) Beatsaber. I can only play it wearing briefs and it’s a serious workout if you want to challenge yourself, but it’s so much fun that I’ve managed a few play sessions that lasted for over 3 hours.
I mean, you can certainly pick up a used Quest 2 if you wanted to try it out. There’s a handful of exclusive stuff in the Quest store you’d be able to use, but not much of value. Resident Evil 4 VR is about it for the Q2. I think there was a Batman game for the Q3. You’d have access to anything the Steam Frame has access to if you’re streaming from a PC.
I think the PSVR2 works as well, but it’s wired only.
Half Life Alyx is certainly worth a blast through.
Stories like Ftumch’s reply, and the fact that it’s owned by Meta 🤮 have deterred me from wanting to try that one.
Looks can be deceiving. Coming from someone who uses the steamdeck, that layout looks exactly how I hoped and imagined it would be. The steamdeck is incredibly comfortable to hold and this looks like it would be the same!
It definitely reminds me of that Steam controller someone on Youtube built by sawing a Steamdeck in two and gluing the ends together so to speak. They said it‘s their dream controller so I‘m sure this controller already has some fans. I just can‘t tell by looking at it.
The first controller looked the same, but was very good to use once you got used to it. The build quality, though, was…fucking terrible.
I had to fix my controllers so many times that in the end I was swapping them out almost weekly. Still, felt great in the hand.
I have the first controller, just dug it out the other day because I thought I was going to be able to use it on my new tablet, it still sucks. I never could get used to it, but it’s a far sight better looking then this thing.
It might be you just got unlucky. Mine is still going strong all this years, and I use it often.
It’s basically steam deck minus the screen. If you are used to the steam deck it’ll be fine.
They missed the chance to call the machine the Steam Engine
I thought the GabeCube was even better.
Aaaaalmost shot coffee out my nose. Almost.
But they did name it after a daft punk song
banger
Huh, neat. Til.
That would be impossible to search online
Fuck, they did! 😫
Valve really listened to Saejima’s advice:
Steam Synapse when?
Hopefully the Frames can compete with the Meta Quest in both price/performance. It will be good to have relatively affordable VR headset not made by Facebook.
Considering that Quest is sold at a loss and tries to make money forcing you to buy games, I don’t think it’s likely
@MoonlitSanguine@lemmy.zip @jcs@lemmy.world it would certainly be good for it to be relatively affordable but they’re really not promising it will at the moment since they only said aiming it to be cheaper than an Index.
It will be priced as it isnt locking you into a ecosystem like meta, so it will be of course a bit more pricey. ( rumors say roughly 1200$ )
Wish I didnt have to wear glasses, otherwise I’d use my Index alot more.
Inserts?
I hope this somehow manages to convince fortnite / ea to support it or support linux. I want to get rid of my xbox so bad.
also i am excited for the headset, i am wondering how open source it is going to be and depending on that i definilty get one (Since it runs steam os, linux is possible atleast definitly)
Finally, another worthwhile controller with symmetrical sticks. Now to find out how to get my hands on one…
I typically just have one hand on each side
That usb port being off center though…
I did notice that in this picture, but I don’t think it actually is. Pretty sure this is from the “animation” where the puck with the USB cable is put under the controller to charge, and not with the USB cable connected to the controller. From what I see though it should all be centered, even the puck and charging pins, so not sure why they made it off-center here
This will invoke someone’s OCD
There’s plenty of videos of it on YouTube and the port is not off centre.
That controller looks ugly and bulky as fuck.
Well thank God I don’t give a shit how my controller looks as long as it is well designed.
It looks ass on this picture. However, it kinda looks like a steamdeck without a screen which is no surprise. And I quite like the steamdeck controls…
Yup, I love my Steam Deck and usually prefer asymmetric joysticks, so as long as it feels like the SD, it’ll be fine.
Do you remember the old Xbox controllers that had the attachable keyboard? It’s essentially just that kind of shape. So you would use the controller and kind of ignore the touchpads on the bottom unless you actually need them, then you just move your hand down and use the touchpads for something like mouse control. I doubt the intention is for you to use all of the inputs at once like you would an Xbox or PlayStation controller.
I mean, sure it looks a bit odd, but if you remove the trackpads and reshape the controller based on not having those then it’s a pretty standard controller, no? It’s not like the added part for the trackpads does anything to change how you would hold the controller or anything, so I doubt it’d make much of a difference in use even if you never use the trackpads.
Yup, looks just like a DualSense controller from the PS5 without the trackpads.
Since the Steam Machine is more like an entry PC and not a console (and will be priced as that), does that mean that SteamOS for desktop will be officially supported?
In their announcement video, they specifically called out that you can install whatever software you want and showed somebody working on CAD. So, yeah, definitely.
I think they mean SteamOS on other hardware, like a custom built PC.
I mean the recovery images for the deck have been available and I’m pretty sure you can just install that on any x86 system.
I forgot where but some time in the last 3 hours I read that the goal for steamOS is to be supported on all PCs, though it’s an ongoing effort.
That’s a big challenge, but a worthwhile one. The reason that Microsoft exploded in the DOS era was because it ran on everything that was “IBM compatible” aka x86. Meanwhile Apple was over there with a competitive product, but you could only run the software on their OS that ran in their hardware. People were able to get cheap third party x86 compatible computers and run MS-DOS (and later Windows), and they were not locked into a specific vendor doing top to bottom hardware/software support.
If they do this right, they’ll be the go to option for a lot of people who generally use their PC primarily for gaming.
Not to mention that Steam does have competition as an app store, stuff like GOG. I mean, it’s a little bit obnoxious to use both at once, but really not that much of a hassle.
You’d have to assume so!
No, it’s supported on two specific pieces of custom hardware, the Steam Deck and Steam Machine. They’ll get there with general support, but SteamOS isn’t there yet.
Well, there’s official support for some third party handhelds if I remember correctly? Asus and the like? And they just announced that the steam frame (vr headset) will also run steamos, and that’s on a snapdragon ARM SoC. Pretty exciting stuff ahead
do people have issues running steamOs on different hardware? genunly wondering
Yeah, it’s not released or supported outside of the Steam Deck or handheld partners. So you’re probably not going to get Nvidia drivers or anything else that’s not built in to the kernel.
You don’t need it though, you can just run Steam in big picture mode on whatever distro you want.
I don’t like the look of this controller… I’m still gonna get one. Everything else I love.
Especially that SteamOS is apparently going to become available on ARM devices.
Arch linux ARM (the base of such steam os) has existed for a while now. Not to diminish Valve efforts, just putting in some context.
Fex works for most games now! This is amazing.
And now there are arm systems that are powerful enough to compete with consoles easily (consoles probably already using ARM?)
I’m running it on my raspi but it seems like the repos have been frozen for a while now?
Same, but at least it feels like the focus was on usability rather than looks. Keep it humble, Steam!
I do appreciate that the grips are flared out at least a little on this controller. The 90° ones on the Steam Deck can be quite uncomfortable, especially given that it’s a pretty heavy and cumbersome device.
My biggest skepticism is the dpad though. It looks nearly identical to the Steam Deck’s, which is easily one of the worst dpads I’ve ever used. Hopefully the underlying mechanisms and feel of it has been improved.
FEX is the most exciting thing for me!
Im hyped for a new vr headset.
Why does the controller look very uncomfortable to use? I hope it’s not.
Hopefully, this means an official release of SteamOS Desktop. I want to switch away from Windows 11 IoT, if I can get a flavor of Linux with official backing from an 800lb gaming gorilla. While I can try out Bazzite or Cachy, I would prefer to have only one Linux for the rest of my PC’s life.
Would have stuck with Windows, if it weren’t for the fact that Microsoft has been channeling the spirit of an overly controlling parent.
Not what you asked for but as someone else who used W11 IOT as a daily driver, CachyOS is fantastic. It’s just Arch Linux with really strong gaming first additions.
Haven’t had a hitch.
official backing from an 800lb gaming gorilla
Eh… aren’t most of the largest corporations contributing to Linux already? I’m not sure what you need beside Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Samsung, etc https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members
Those companies aren’t exactly releasing consumer-facing distro’s, though.
True, but would one want to have a BigTech labels on their Linux distribution? Wouldn’t that kind of miss the point and bring us back to e.g. ChromeBooks?
Maybe. As it stands Valve is rather open with their implementation, but who’s to say it will remain indefinitely so.
I do get the desire, though. I’ve gone to Bazzite and Fedora and – even though it’s a lot better than just a year ago – it still requires some commandline tweaking. It isn’t entirely smooth sailing yet.
Will SteamOS be? I do have some doubts.FWIW been using SteamOS on the SteamDeck for ~3 years now and from gaming to tinkering, no major problems. Never had to tinker hard or re-install. A couple of time it didn’t suspend properly or I had to hold power button of to force a shutdown but that’s about it.
I doubt Valve would back of from the openness because that’s their one single advantage.
I doubt Valve would back of from the openness
Not on the short term, but who knows. If SteamOS becomes a major player in the PC space, at a post-GabeN Valve–
But that will take many more years, if ever it does happen. I do think it is a legitimate reason to be somewhat cautious.
Right, better be safe than sorry. The important point though IMHO that with Proton and now FEX they have shown that compatibility layers are not that costly or complex :
- try to make it run
- nothing works
- note precisely what doesn’t, try a way
- one thing work and it’s slow as heck
- understand why
- 2 things now work, one of them is fast, the other slow
- rinse&repeat until it’s good enough to crowd source quality control to others
So… I don’t want to diminish how amazing that is, technically speaking, but we now all know it’s feasible. Initially it looks like supporting an entire OS architecture was ridiculous (and it was, emulation was just “good enough” for games that were some years old and for much more powerful machine) until somebody tried “just” swapping or fixing the right API (i.e. DirectX) and … that was actually OK.
Again, it’s a TON of work. A lot of it also comes from Wine. But… now we now why it works and how to do that. Even if Valve were to lock SteamOS, that knowledge wouldn’t be lost on the broader community.
PS: they briefly mention this during the Tested video (sorry YouTube only) on the new hardware.
Those contribute to Linux, but not Desktop Linux and not at all gaming on Linux.
I’m a bit too lazy to check for the entire stack I admit but I bet a lot of those actually do. Still to do a quick check Google for examples is on https://ev.kde.org/supporting-members/
They said there’s still a lot of work for them to do with SteamOS before it’s usable on all PCs. I wouldn’t hold my breath especially if you’re on NVIDIA, especially if it’s older than RTX-es. Besides, when SteamOS is ready for general public, the desktop Linux experience is elsewhere regardless of the distribution.
Time to sell my never used old steam controller
