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Valve's Next Headset Reportedly Enters Mass Production

IbizaPocholo

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


According to a supply chain analyst and friend of Sadlyitsbradly BlackHairSheriff008, Valve's next VR headset is slated to be entering production now with a target between 400,000 and 600,000 units within the first fiscal year. Original post is in Chinese (and was also briefly removed due to an error the author is correcting) so I won't bother linking it and will update when the post goes back up. But the headline information was corroborated by both Tyler McVicker and Brad Lynch. The summary can be found here on upload vr

https://www.uploadvr.com/valves-next-headset-reportedly-enters-mass-production/
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Do Want Give It To Me GIF
 
Exciting but it's probably gonna cost a lot, targeting the VR enthusiast segment. Doubt it will directly compete with the Quest 3/3S.
 
If some downstream fixes for vr on linux show up. I'll be able to just use my psvr2. Hopefully that's the case. If I didn't have that already, I'd be willing to do a grand for this.
 
Meta won that market and will continue to own it. For whatever it's worth (currently not that much).

Steam making another $1k+ headset is a waste of time. I'd rather they make a big SteamOS box and a Steam Deck 2. Or fuck what about the standalone SteamOS desktop version? When is that coming out?
 
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Yuck.

Why not just make a Steam deck 2 or steam box or anything but a VR headset ffs. VR = The (3rd) worst platform monitor idea for gaming(behind low end skus and subscription services).

I'd honestly put it above mtx as well except for the fact that a bout of nausea is worse than getting scammed out of 10 bucks.
 
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Griffon said:
Meta won that market and will continue to own it. For whatever it's worth (currently not that much).

Steam making another $1k+ headset is a waste of time. I'd rather they make a big SteamOS box and a Steam Deck 2. Or fuck what about the standalone SteamOS desktop version? When is that coming out?
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Unfortunatly Meta spent way too long supporting the Quest 2. I have a few Quest 3 only games, don't make much of a dent in the software lineup.
It's much better to just buy VR games on Steam and use the Quest 3 to play them.
And now everyone can just skip the Quest 3 entirely for future VR anything.

If anything Meta should have released a Meta OS PC to compete with Steam. :)
 
Just reinstalled my Index. Edit: Fking hell I hate wires. Sht takes too long to hook up. Anyway..Half Life: Alyx is so good I gotta play through it again. Needs a sequel! Some other VR games I recommend:



 
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400-600K means it'll be expensive, not meant for mainstream, and likely something revolutionary (like Index controllers and Alyx).

Very much looking forward to it!
 
Chukhopops said:
Exciting but it's probably gonna cost a lot, targeting the VR enthusiast segment. Doubt it will directly compete with the Quest 3/3S.
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Correct

and Gabe does not want to chase bottom of the barrel headset prices

What they'll drop will set a new standard in VR, again.
 
I really hope for the growth of VR industry because, as gaming becomes stagnant and plateauing, VR can revitalize the industry and add more creativity and innovation to gaming.
 
Sept Terrion Of Nothing said:
This thread is not really about it but I don't think Valve will release Steam Deck anytime soon. Not that they couldn't. They could and the thing would sell well.

I think they said they need satisfying gap and results compare to Steam Deck. As far as I know the mobile APUs didn't get significant upgrades yet.
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Steam Deck 2 at the earliest would be in '27, or rather when RDNA 5 will be available for handhelds (rumored in '27).

As the VR goes, it's kind of interesting what Valve winds up doing. Is it going to be fully wireless with built in cameras for detection? AR capabilities?
 
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The streaming tech Valve developed is apparently a game changer for wireless

Peoples have been playing with a new wireless link for Steam and it takes advantage of eye tracking and new wireless protocols to match tethered cable quality and almost no latency. It's only available on the play for dream headset with a developer preview files from Valve. It beats the most high resolution virtual desktop settings in visuals and runs with 3 times less CPU and GPU on the standalone chipsets.

Comparing new Steam Link on the wireless Play for Dream to a display port Pimax Super and I can not tell a difference! Same visual quality at 5.5k per eye, 10 bit colors, low 25-30ms latency but on a wireless standalone!

This is very likely been developed for the Steam Frame because it's a standalone wireless headset. And I've thought it will be another Quest quality headset.. but with this eye tracked streaming literally can replace the old display port headsets with no competition. It can stream 8k per eye with ease. My 4070 super just can not render that, as there is little point using above 5.5K render on 4k microOLED panels too.

The headset runs super silent, fans at idle, much better battery time using Steam Link. Virtual Desktop can not even run above the 3.5K. VD loads the snapdragon chip 3x higher and becomes unstable at the highest settings with 45-80ms latency. Steam link is stable 25-30ms latency even on the highest resolution, 10bit colors.
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Hard to capture that and to see anything meaningful on youtube, especially since his GPU cannot even handle the upper range of the streaming algorithm 8k per eye, but also capture hardware cannot really handle that kind of VR resolution and framerate or bitrate he'll see with his eyes

HN1ZJgfRsVtuYFaR.jpg


adrXVi67uOiNx8ZB.jpg


40 PPD is insane



Makes the PSVR 2's tether decision even more shocking considering that they had eyetracking and Sony of all companies should be king for video signal algorithms.
 
I don't even use my Quest 3 anymore so if there's not anything revolutionary going on I'll pass. That Steam Deck 2 though is a day one buy easily.
 
Buggy Loop said:
The streaming tech Valve developed is apparently a game changer for wireless

Peoples have been playing with a new wireless link for Steam and it takes advantage of eye tracking and new wireless protocols to match tethered cable quality and almost no latency. It's only available on the play for dream headset with a developer preview files from Valve. It beats the most high resolution virtual desktop settings in visuals and runs with 3 times less CPU and GPU on the standalone chipsets.



Hard to capture that and to see anything meaningful on youtube, especially since his GPU cannot even handle the upper range of the streaming algorithm 8k per eye, but also capture hardware cannot really handle that kind of VR resolution and framerate or bitrate he'll see with his eyes

HN1ZJgfRsVtuYFaR.jpg


adrXVi67uOiNx8ZB.jpg


40 PPD is insane



Makes the PSVR 2's tether decision even more shocking considering that they had eyetracking and Sony of all companies should be king for video signal algorithms.
Click to expand...

Are they still requiring a wifi router to stream the data? If so that would be why PSVR2 went wired only. If this new steam link requires some new expensive wifi router that's even more money to shell out. :(

Nice to see Virtual Desktop has finally been surpassed. I use it on my current Quest 3 with my PC. It has hicups every now and then but works the best of all the wireless methods I have.
 
Magic Carpet said:
Are they still requiring a wifi router to stream the data? If so that would be why PSVR2 went wired only. If this new steam link requires some new expensive wifi router that's even more money to shell out. :(

Nice to see Virtual Desktop has finally been surpassed. I use it on my current Quest 3 with my PC. It has hicups every now and then but works the best of all the wireless methods I have.
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I think the idea is that it will be either wifi or a dongle
 
When you have so much money, you don't care about mainstream successes. It must be nice.

I have to admire Valve for just doing what they do.
 
Buggy Loop said:
The streaming tech Valve developed is apparently a game changer for wireless

Peoples have been playing with a new wireless link for Steam and it takes advantage of eye tracking and new wireless protocols to match tethered cable quality and almost no latency. It's only available on the play for dream headset with a developer preview files from Valve. It beats the most high resolution virtual desktop settings in visuals and runs with 3 times less CPU and GPU on the standalone chipsets.



Hard to capture that and to see anything meaningful on youtube, especially since his GPU cannot even handle the upper range of the streaming algorithm 8k per eye, but also capture hardware cannot really handle that kind of VR resolution and framerate or bitrate he'll see with his eyes

HN1ZJgfRsVtuYFaR.jpg


adrXVi67uOiNx8ZB.jpg


40 PPD is insane



Makes the PSVR 2's tether decision even more shocking considering that they had eyetracking and Sony of all companies should be king for video signal algorithms.
Click to expand...

Makes me sad, I really hope there is a PSVR3 wireless. We need the adoption of vr anywhere we can get.
 
Ozzie666 said:
When you have so much money, you don't care about mainstream successes. It must be nice.

I have to admire Valve for just doing what they do.
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It's this balancing act right. Quest 2 was for mass adoption. I'm glad quest 3 was more pricey and it's less of a cheap toy. But it moved barely any units compared to Q2. I don't have the answer because I desperately want vr to grow but I also want something nice.
 
The problem with VR is almost all the great software (can be counted on one hand) that uses it is fragmented and exclusive to some brand. The software in common is almost all demo length shovelware.
 
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NeverYouMind said:
The problem with VR is almost all the great software (can be counted on one hand) that uses it is fragmented and exclusive to some brand. The software in common is almost all demo length shovelware.
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This here is the issue. My jam is strategy games, WRPGs, some JRPGs and a few other things here and there. Basically there is really not much decent in VR in these genres. I really would love to see something like Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis or other 4x/Grand Strategy in VR.

I also play beat'm'ups, sports, racing and flight sims and the latter two are the only thing that has good VR titles.

Yes, there are mods for say Cyberpunk but it's not the same thing. This Valve headset might entice me though, lol.
 
cyberheater said:
Please don't let it be LCD.
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Rumours are that there's two versions planned but the micro-OLED will be later down the line and more expensive. The production capacities for those is super limited. Right now the micro-OLED available are on 1" displays and its a nightmare to get a good FOV out of that. They don't refresh fast enough, in the 72-90Hz range, 2.5x2.5 k per eye is relatively cheap but not 4x4k. Because you need to drive these panels with very high brightness to get over pancake lenses, you get persistence issues. There's no optics in the world right now that output the display's high quality to your eyes without problems, the screens are just too small, even stacked optics have a hard time.

The other cheaper one will be LCD. The thing is that you can get 2.8" super high nits LCD panels for cheap.

JDI was the supplier for prototype and they have some nice panels. They now use backlight like Sony TVs and you would probably get to 98% of micro-OLED blacks but with all the gains of LCD for VR

anyone-want-to-hear-my-thoughts-again-d-v0-6ryo9m84p6of1.png


anyone-want-to-hear-my-thoughts-again-d-v0-xgrmkf9qp6of1.png
 
Buggy Loop said:
Rumours are that there's two versions planned but the micro-OLED will be later down the line and more expensive. The production capacities for those is super limited. Right now the micro-OLED available are on 1" displays and its a nightmare to get a good FOV out of that. They don't refresh fast enough, in the 72-90Hz range, 2.5x2.5 k per eye is relatively cheap but not 4x4k. Because you need to drive these panels with very high brightness to get over pancake lenses, you get persistence issues. There's no optics in the world right now that output the display's high quality to your eyes without problems, the screens are just too small, even stacked optics have a hard time.

The other cheaper one will be LCD. The thing is that you can get 2.8" super high nits LCD panels for cheap.

JDI was the supplier for prototype and they have some nice panels. They now use backlight like Sony TVs and you would probably get to 98% of micro-OLED blacks but with all the gains of LCD for VR

anyone-want-to-hear-my-thoughts-again-d-v0-6ryo9m84p6of1.png


anyone-want-to-hear-my-thoughts-again-d-v0-xgrmkf9qp6of1.png
Click to expand...
Hmm… if the performance is mostly there and the price is more reasonable that would be good. We will need to see final product reviews first of course.
 
I had one of the oculus DK1s and then the HTC Vive. Could really feel the potential but decided Id bail out until tech matured.

Well 10 years later I may dip back in with this new valve headset just to see where we at.

I have to admit After a decade I thought VR would be in a much better place hardware and software wise....
 
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