Steam Frame VR headset

[chiliwili69]

Just the specs and facts from Valve:

https://steamdb.info/blog/steam-hardware-2025/

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe

I am intrigued with this device for IL-2 despite it is 2160x2160 LCD panel. A VR device is more than just panel resolution.

As usual, you never know until actually trying the headset.

[chiliwili69]

Here an interesting experiment "simulating" how Steam Frame may improve over a non-eye-tracking traditional encoding method used in Pico4 or Quest3.

 

[bunik]

20 часов назад, chiliwili69 сказал:

As usual, you never know until actually trying the headset.

let's look at the price

[Qcumber]

I think this might be a viable option for IL-2 as long as the price is right. I am hoping that it will be about £600. Anything more than this would not be competitive. 

I have been trying dynamic foveated encoding with my Quest Pro via steam link and it works with IL-2. I have not noticed any change increase in performance but the image looks good. Actually a better experience now than VD. 

Has there been any update about whether Korea will support dynamic foveated rendering (QVFR). 

[Customizer171]

I'm also interested in this headset. I have a G2 today and I honestly don't think I need more resolution than that. Pancake lenses and eye tracking will hopefully make it a worthy uppgrade. I don't have a monster PC , 5800x and 3080, but my G2 is running good and I hope that the Steam Frame will run even better?

[72AG_TAPAKAH]

I also tried the dynamic foveal encoding of Steam Link with Quest 3, and noticed additional smoothing, which in our game only makes it difficult to notice contacts. You won't notice any performance gains.

[Col.Sanders]

On 11/29/2025 at 1:43 AM, Qcumber said:

I think this might be a viable option for IL-2 as long as the price is right. I am hoping that it will be about £600. Anything more than this would not be competitive. 

I have been trying dynamic foveated encoding with my Quest Pro via steam link and it works with IL-2. I have not noticed any change increase in performance but the image looks good. Actually a better experience now than VD. 

Has there been any update about whether Korea will support dynamic foveated rendering (QVFR). 

They are not utilizing foveated rendering. It's a huge miss and they say it only helps with a few fps. Clearly they did not test with any high res headsets or the VR experience is so terrible to begin with it won't matter. It is so stupid to not include it, GB could really use it already, I am sure Korea will be even worse.

[chiliwili69]

On 12/9/2025 at 4:56 AM, Customizer171 said:

I'm also interested in this headset. I have a G2 today and I honestly don't think I need more resolution than that. Pancake lenses and eye tracking will hopefully make it a worthy uppgrade. I don't have a monster PC , 5800x and 3080, but my G2 is running good and I hope that the Steam Frame will run even better?

These are the numbers of the G2:

Yes, I also think that the G2 gives a quite good balance in terms of image quality and GPU load to play IL-2 today. Of course, there are better VR devices in terms of image quality but all of them have their own pros and cons.

The physical panel resolution (2160x2160) is identical to the Steam Frame, but we don´t know yet the default render resolution.

In the G2, the default resolution is 3162x3162 which is 19.5 Million pixels to render. So the render/panel ratio is 2.1 (about twice the physical pixels). This is the key number to know the GPU load, the total rendered pixels.

G2 uses fresnel lenses, and pancake lenses (like in Quest3 with ratio 1.03) might need a lower ratio, so it might load less the GPU.

The Dynamic Foveated Encoding used by the Steam Frame will not reduce the GPU load (it doesn´t reduce the number of pixels being rendered) but will utilize the wifi bandwidth in a more optimize way so that the image quality would be equivalent to use a DP cable. Nobody has tested this yet objectively.

So for a G2 user Steam Frame will give you:

- Wireless without losing image quality (but dependent on bateries)

- Less weight and comfort (the G2 IMHO was already quite confortable)

- Most likely a bit more FOV (specially Vertical)

- Better edge-to-edge clarity (this was the reason why I sold my G2, look here)

- No need of light in the room

- And perhaps less GPU load.

[Customizer171]

40 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

These are the numbers of the G2:

Yes, I also think that the G2 gives a quite good balance in terms of image quality and GPU load to play IL-2 today. Of course, there are better VR devices in terms of image quality but all of them have their own pros and cons.

The physical panel resolution (2160x2160) is identical to the Steam Frame, but we don´t know yet the default render resolution.

In the G2, the default resolution is 3162x3162 which is 19.5 Million pixels to render. So the render/panel ratio is 2.1 (about twice the physical pixels). This is the key number to know the GPU load, the total rendered pixels.

G2 uses fresnel lenses, and pancake lenses (like in Quest3 with ratio 1.03) might need a lower ratio, so it might load less the GPU.

The Dynamic Foveated Encoding used by the Steam Frame will not reduce the GPU load (it doesn´t reduce the number of pixels being rendered) but will utilize the wifi bandwidth in a more optimize way so that the image quality would be equivalent to use a DP cable. Nobody has tested this yet objectively.

So for a G2 user Steam Frame will give you:

- Wireless without losing image quality (but dependent on bateries)

- Less weight and comfort (the G2 IMHO was already quite confortable)

- Most likely a bit more FOV (specially Vertical)

- Better edge-to-edge clarity (this was the reason why I sold my G2, look here)

- No need of light in the room

- And perhaps less GPU load.

But has not Valve said that DFR is also coming?

[chiliwili69]

7 hours ago, Customizer171 said:

But has not Valve said that DFR is also coming?

But Valve Frame, since it has eye tracking, will support games which supports DFR.

No all VR games support that, only some of them. 

IL-2 GB has never supported natively DFR, and it looks as per what I read above that IL-2 Korea will also not support DFR.

Another thing is what third party software could do. I recently read this:

https://www.uploadvr.com/pimaxmagic4all-adds-eye-tracking-to-many-steamvr-games/

[TCW_Brzi_Joe]

1 hour ago, chiliwili69 said:

Another thing is what third party software could do. I recently read this:

https://www.uploadvr.com/pimaxmagic4all-adds-eye-tracking-to-many-steamvr-games/

That crashes IL-2 GB every time, especially in multiplayer.

[TCW_Brzi_Joe]

1 hour ago, TCW_Brzi_Joe said:

That crashes IL-2 GB every time, especially in multiplayer.

Except I tried foveated rendering again with updated Pimax software, and it was working in WOL server last 30 minutes 😄 

Before it was crashing in a few seconds to few minutes. I will check this more...

Edit 2: it crashed again..

Edited December 10, 2025 by TCW_Brzi_Joe

[Qcumber]

I had not seen this before. Very exciting. I will give it a go. There must be a way to make it work as mbucchia's site shows a picture that is from IL-2 even though it's not on the list of apps that are know to work. 

[Qcumber]

On 12/10/2025 at 7:41 AM, Col.Sanders said:

They are not utilizing foveated rendering. It's a huge miss and they say it only helps with a few fps. Clearly they did not test with any high res headsets or the VR experience is so terrible to begin with it won't matter. It is so stupid to not include it, GB could really use it already, I am sure Korea will be even worse.

Foveated rendering (QVFR) provides more than "just an extra few FPS". There is a massive improvement. It reduces GPU frame times and can keep FPS consistently at 72 FPS rather than dipping below and causing stutter. 

[Qcumber]

Just read the thread on the old forum about pimaxmagic4all and all the issues. I have not been following IL-2 for a while as I have been focused on other flight Sims that support DFR. Has anyone tried it recently? 

[Customizer171]

On 12/11/2025 at 2:08 AM, chiliwili69 said:

But Valve Frame, since it has eye tracking, will support games which supports DFR.

No all VR games support that, only some of them. 

IL-2 GB has never supported natively DFR, and it looks as per what I read above that IL-2 Korea will also not support DFR.

Another thing is what third party software could do. I recently read this:

https://www.uploadvr.com/pimaxmagic4all-adds-eye-tracking-to-many-steamvr-games/

It's a disappointment that IL-2 Korea won't support DFR, but fortunately there is other flight Sims that do👍

[Qcumber]

19 hours ago, Qcumber said:

Just read the thread on the old forum about pimaxmagic4all and all the issues. I have not been following IL-2 for a while as I have been focused on other flight Sims that support DFR. Has anyone tried it recently? 

I tried this and it worked ok for me using Quest Pro and Steam VR. I played for up to about 20 minutes at a time and no crashes, except when I used VRNecksafer. That might give some hope for the Steam Frame. 

[Col.Sanders]

On 12/11/2025 at 2:57 PM, Qcumber said:

Foveated rendering (QVFR) provides more than "just an extra few FPS". There is a massive improvement. It reduces GPU frame times and can keep FPS consistently at 72 FPS rather than dipping below and causing stutter. 

Yep, it's a huge miss. I suspect they had some trouble integrating it into the engine. So they just claim it doesn't help much and is not needed. No modern flight should be missing DFR. 

[chiliwili69]

Nothing new but good comparison with other headsets: