Smooth sailing

[u/purple_furball]

Posting this to have more success stories about Frame use when it seems like the only people posting have issues, sometimes major, that might be skewing impressions of people still on the reservation/wait list. I received my purchase email last week, ordered it Wednesday, and it was delivered yesterday evening.

I only had one slight hiccup during setup. Downloading/installing the software update for the Frame it glitched 90% through, gave me a "Try Again" button, and completed on second try (taking maybe three more minutes). I should add in order to access the internet (to download the update) I used the B&W passthrough to read my upstairs router's password on my iPhone to enter it on the Frame. Yes, the passthrough relatively sucks but it's not completely useless. Adding the Frame to my Steam account (using the Steam iPhone app) was quick. The dongle auto-setup within maybe 5-8 seconds.

My PC is in my basement, the back of it facing the room, so the dongle has clear line of sight to me/the Frame. I only looked at transmission speeds last night but it was stable at about 6 ms ping/latency. I also have a 6 Ghz router connected to my PC that I had only used for VR gaming with my Quest 3 (that router is not connected to the internet). That was less stable/higher latency than the dongle so I may just unplug/box it up and rely just on the dongle.

I had one other weird issue playing last night (don't even remember if it happened today) in invoking/starting a VR game (Beat Saber) from the Frame but that ran on my PC. The Steam Frame store/library window stayed active even with the game taking up the rest of the 360 degree view. It took me a minute to realize I could hit the "Steam" button on the controller to banish the window and fully immerse me in the game.

One last note. I played Half Life: Alyx (running from PC) today while it the PC was simultaneously downloading a recently bought Steam VR game. HFA ran fine (should have checked latency) although I think the game downloading slowed down, maybe even paused downloading (it wasn't done after quitting Alyx maybe 15-20 minutes later). I am running with a RTX 3080.

For now I do not regret buying the Frame, even if it's almost identical to the Quest 3 I had. On the Quest I just seemed to have enough latency/game image burps that made me want to use the Quest less often. I have been an early adopter of VR headsets since the beginning. I have owned:

HTC Vive, Valve Index, Quest 2, BigScreen Beyond, Quest 3, and now the Fame. I had bought the BigScreen Beyond hoping the amazing imaging would made me forget it was tethered. It didn't.

[u/r1zputin]

Just rec’d my 1TB. Up and running in ~10 minutes. Flawless beat saber sesh out on my deck and then jumped into Alyx briefly. It’s nice kit, with a nice finish, feels great on ur noggin. Way better feel than any of my Vives.

Color upgrade camera works great. Prescription zenni lenses on the way.

Note: Lenses were smeared with residue from the protective stickers. Moist microfiber. Handled. This is the way.

FYI: Controllers want to fly out of my hands so jonesing hard for the hand straps. May have to make some! Modified claw grip until then. 🦀

[u/purple_furball → u/r1zputin]

Yes, I definitely want hand straps. I hd them for the Index and Quest controllers. I am scared I am going to toss one of them while playing HLA and tossing things in the game. I ordered non prescription plano lenses to protect the Frame lenses. I have to clean them every play session since I get sweat on them.

[u/semperverus → u/r1zputin]

I'm using the spigen bumpers and theyre great outside of a little bit of permanent finger curl on the pinky and ring fingers in hand tracked games.

[u/r1zputin → u/semperverus]

Edit: took another look at the spigen ones. Think u nailed it. Ordering.

###
Just don’t get why the “hold-on-to” piece of the controller is just about the slickest, slipperiest piece of alien tech ever. I mean it’s smooooth.

Wonder if there’s a super thin silicon skin? The ones I’ve seen are too much material (imo!). Recos?

[u/semperverus → u/r1zputin]

If not a skin then definitely ovaloid stickers

[u/semperverus]

Not only has my 1tb been running flawlessly for the last three days, but I managed to get the dongle running perfectly on linux (though, the little LED on it doesn't have driver support yet so I can't actually see if it's working at a glance. SteamVR tells me if it is or isn't)

[u/purple_furball → u/semperverus]

Congrats!

[u/PatHBT]

Yeah, downloads throttle while streaming to the frame.

Not sure why this is the case, i assume high speed downloads might mess up with the streaming somehow?

Anyways, it's an option on the steamvr settings, which seems to be enabled by default. "Throttle downloads while streaming" or something similar. You can disable it and get high speed downloads while streaming again.

Although, remember that it's probably enabled for a reason. I personally did not notice any drop in streaming quality, but who knows.