Leaked 3D models hidden in a recent SteamVR update appear to show off a new VR motion controller, sparking renewed hope that Valve is gearing up to release its long-rumored ‘Deckard’ VR standalone headset.

As reported by tech analyst and YouTuber Brad ‘SadlyitsBradley’ Lynch, two newly discovered controllers have leaked in recent SteamVR drivers, which includes a new VR motion controller, code-named ‘Roy’, and a new gamepad, code-named ‘Ibex’.

Unlike standard VR motion controllers, which typically feature two action buttons per controller, the leaked Roy model reflects a decidedly more traditional gamepad-style button layout: a directional pad on the left controller, four action buttons on the right controller, start and select buttons, as well as bumper buttons above each controller’s trigger.

Images courtesy Brad Lynch

The layout would ostensibly allow for better out-of-the-box support for titles that use traditional gamepads, essentially positioning Deckard to capitalize on Steam’s massive catalogue of flatscreen games in addition to standard VR titles.

The image above shows off the resultant models when imported into Blender, the 3D computer graphics software tool suite. If you’re looking to grab the files themselves though, it appears Valve has now patched them out in its latest SteamVR software hotfix.

Lynch, who has covered many such Valve leaks in the past, maintains files also specified that every button on Roy “has capacitive touch likely to aid in hand skeleton creation.” Lynch also speculates some of the UI input will likely rely on Deckard’s supposed eye-tracking capabilities.

Meta’s Touch Pro controller | Image courtesy Meta

While many VR headset manufacturers have adopted layouts similar to Meta’s Touch controllers since their initial release in 2016 with the original Oculus Rift, Valve has a history of doing things differently.

Valve’s Index (aka ‘Knuckles’) controllers allow for ‘hands-off’ interactions thanks to the inclusion of a snug-fitting wrist strap, and also incorporate small touch pads on each controller for UI navigation, which can also emulate input for games created for the older HTC Vive wand controllers.

SEE ALSO
Rumored Quest 3S May Be Launching Soon Following New Meta VR Headset Certification

Valve Deckard has been the source of speculation since data miners first found a string in a January 2021 Steam update that mentioned the alleged VR standalone. It’s rumored that Deckard may include PC VR wireless streaming capabilities, eye-tracking, as well as passthrough AR features, potentially putting it in competition with Meta Quest and/or Apple Vision Pro.

Additionally, a separate controller model surfaced in the leak, which seems to mirror the control scheme seen in Valve’s Steam Deck handheld, code-named Ibex. Below is a render model thumbnail leaked in SteamVR drivers, showing off Ibex’s prominent Deck-style dual touchpads.

Image courtesy Brad Lynch

Data miners are still hoping to see similar renders of Deckard itself, which for now seems to still be tightly under wraps, with Valve thus far making no public comment on its existence. Considering the company was so quick to redact the two controller models, it’s possible they’ll be treading lightly when it comes to further software-related leaks in the future.

Whether the controller leaks were intentional or not on the part of Valve, both software and supply chain leaks happen all the time though, the most notable of which was the leak of Valve Index six months before its official June 2019 debut, showing off the physical exterior of the PC VR headset in full.

We’ll be keeping our eyes on all things Valve in the coming months, as the inclusion of controller models in SteamVR software could point to another unpredictably sudden release—which would be all too typical of Valve.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Storymode Chronicles

    As always, the greatest interest I have in new Valve tech is the software they're cooking up to showcase it. Alyx was a defining moment in VR. Half-Life 2 cemented Steam as the industry standard for content delivery. Even Aperture Desk Job was a great, if modest, showcase for the Steam Deck.

    It's tempting given the bubbling rumors surrounding reinvigorated Half-Life 3 development to wonder whether that game may actually be the showcase for Deckard. In which case, there could actually be some interesting clues given those rumors coupled with these controller designs. One of the main things we keep hearing about Half-Life 3, aside from being designed with rogue-like and immersive sim elements, is that it will also be a return to standard 2D game design.

    In this light, adopting a VR controller design capable of playing standard 2D games also seems to revive hope that perhaps a major VR player will begin to really push standardizing the ability to play 2D games in VR through comprehensive conversion principles, such as we've seen the VR mod community fine tune since it's inception now culminating recently in the excellent UEVR.

    Imagining a gaming ecosystem where players can start playing a game in 2D and seamlessly move to both Steam Deck and Deckard is certainly very enticing. If that game is Half- Life 3 it's really just the icing on the cake at that point. If Valve really focused on integrating tools like UEVR and standardizing these approaches across engines and instilling these design principles in Steam partners, it could be a real game changer for VR adoption with the scarcity of quality AAA games playable in VR seeming to be one of the main limiting factors for adoption, despite early movement with games like Skyrim and Resident Evil.

    This is also one of the quiet failures of PSVR2. During development, there were plenty of rumblings that Sony would either encourage or even require that all or at least most games on the platform be playable in immersive VR, not just on a large 2D screen in VR, but fully immersed in the game world, as least as camera control. Personally, I know if they had followed through on this alone it would have changed my current gen VR purchase from a Quest 3 to a PSVR2. But, if those games could also be played on a PS Vita 2, or a PSP 2, they would likely have a gamer for life in me.

    As computing capabilities continue to merge with the basic requirements for generating an immersive environment, this almost seems like an inevitability. As with the Steam Deck now being able to play nearly every PC game in handheld form, we are also beginning to see the trickles of PCVR into Quest 3 games in the same way. Metro Awakening, Behemoth, and Alien: Rogue Incursion are all feature-identical across mobile, PC and console platforms.

    At some point in the relatively near future, the hardware that runs mobile VR platforms such as Quest 3 and reportedly Deckard will be capable of reproducing feature-identical PC games in the same manner that Steam Deck is today. Perhaps in the same way Steam Deck translated the Nintendo Switch's successes into a whole new market of successful handheld PC gaming devices, Deckard can do the same with Meta's Quest successes. Who knows, maybe Nintendo itself will even join the club with Switch 2 or 3, pulling off the ultimate trifecta of switching between handheld, TV, and VR.

    • Hussain X

      Let's also not forget Reshade 3D where you can play games in 3D on a giant curved screen. Very immersive compared to 2D gaming on a standard monitor. Maybe some official blessing from Valve for Reshade 3D or similar first party app, and then game studios just need to optimise the settings for it (very minimal effort required compared to VR mode). 3D gaming on a giant curved screen with borders around to give some grounding will also ease people into VR who otherwise might get motion sick going straight into things like UEVR. Then this will get more people going from 2D, to 3D, to VR and big game studios will also move this way.

      • Storymode Chronicles

        Yeah I've definitely got some enjoyment out of playing 2D games on an IMAX-style screen in VR, although I haven't tried any in 3D yet like VorpX and Reshade. It can be surprisingly engaging. Something like UEVR does seem like another level to me, actually placing you as a camera inside the game.

        If momentum from another Steam product can move developers towards natively integrating that type of functionality beyond Unreal engine, it could be a real game changer.

        Still, native integration of tools like VorpX and Reshade at something like a Proton level of translation, with users able to tweak and upload well-tested configurations in the manner that control schemes and performance config is shared on Steam Deck could fundamentally change the usability of VR for casual users while providing a much, much more expansive library of familiar content.

    • Stephen Bard

      I often lament the intentionally primitive graphics of most standalone and PCVR VR games, given the impressive capabilities exemplified even on the Quest 3 with such examples as Red Matter 2, Asgard's Wrath 2 and Batman: Arkham Shadow. It would be amazing if there was an automated UEVR-type system to convert the many 2D games with beautiful graphics to immersive VR, reliably navigable with controllers. I am continually impressed with AI progress (particularly with video animation generation lately) and so nothing would surprise me now technically, however I suspect that the larger impediment would be the monetization of this whole process.

      • Storymode Chronicles

        With Valve, it seems like monetization is much less of a problem than most companies, since they're most concerned with continuing to funnel users to Steam than anything, so a lot of their initiatives almost seem like subsidizing the industry as a whole to stimulate growth which will always compound back to Steam in the end.

        It's a bit like how only the federal government can take on certain large projects like going to the moon. Even with SpaceX today, most of the actual funding still comes from the federal level. Just like Valve, they're counting on that investment coming back into their coffers in terms of overall growth in the economy/market, rather than hoping to make money on that individual project in a cost/benefit analysis.

      • STL

        Waiting for such a system!

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      TL;DR: for technical reasons it is very hard to do something similar to UEVR for most other games, as UEVR relies on specific hooks UE provides that do most of the work; the new Valve controllers are probably more about Steam Input, which turned controller configuration to 11 on the Steam Deck, allowing users to play games that otherwise would never work on the handheld; this could help a lot with playing 2D games, VR mods and native VR games inside a headset.

      UEVR is a very special case that won't translate to most other games. It relies heavily on hooks that the Unreal Engine provides to the character/camera model, that include stereo rendering and many other things needed for VR. So any current UE game has these features "by default", they just aren't used in most games. UEVR "finds" these hooks and thereby makes the game usable in VR.

      AFAIK the same isn't true for any other game engine. Most engines also targeting 2D like Unity or Godot don't rely on a similarly powerful "template" that turns every game realized with them into a sort of modified 1st person shooter. And while UEVR could take the existing VR plugins for UE as a guide line, basically re-creating it with the hooks already available from the engine, similar things don't exist (or aren't public) for many of the AAA in-house engines.

      There isn't a lot Valve can do to make non-UE games playable in VR. Without (expensive) modding of each game, they are sort of limited to generic hacks similar to vorpX with better than nothing, but often not necessarily good results. So I wouldn't interpret the new controller layout as a sign of Valve translating regular games to VR, and their influence on other developers is much smaller than Sony's on PS5, making it hard to push for a hybrid game strategy either.

      So this is probably more about Steam Input, one of the most important and often overlooked features of the Steam Deck. The Deck comes with a lot of inputs, incl. regular controls, touch screen, gyro and touch pads, and more importantly SteamOS allowing to configure anything in any way. You can turn one touchpad into a mouse, enable aiming with the gyro, but only if you touch the top of the pad, or use it as a dpad, joystick with adjustable dead zone, button, key sequence, layer shift, whatever. This allows playing RTS games designed for mouse and keyboard on the Deck. Or Elite Dangerous with tons of shortcuts, as long as you can remember all the layered input combinations.

      While the knuckles controllers were very VR specific, these new ones may aim to add lots of basic options for players to configure themselves in whatever suits them best with Steam Input. Which as a side effect could make non-VR games much more accessible in VR, either when played on a large, virtual 2D screen, or somehow translated into VR like with UEVR or vorpX. This works astonishingly well on Steam Deck with games most definitely not designed for it.

      And for those that don't want to spend hours optimizing the Deck's input config/setup themselves (which you can do even on the fly, while the game is running, with a few button presses), Steam for many games suggest an optimized layout and quick access to many community created configurations for special cases. So instead of installing a Nexus mod to implement realistic sword handling in Skyrim VR, you might use a Steam Input configuration that translate a slicing movement detected by the controller's IMU into a button press that triggers hitting the enemy with your sword in a non-VR game.

      • Storymode Chronicles

        To me it's more about bringing the Steam Deck-effect to VR, causing change over time by first allowing casual or non-technical users to experience what hardcore and mod communities do today, without those barriers to entry, causing market expansion.

        A standalone VR headset capable of bundling UEVR, VorpX and Reshade functionality as-is, by compiling the best-tested mods and config-sets into a default library applied at the Proton level, could bring casuals into the fold and massively expand the VR market in a single swoop.

        After that, Deckard or whatever it might be called, having precipitated significant outreach in the market to new consumers, might be when we would hope to see developers start to natively integrate expanded UEVR-type features into their projects, similar to how we now see Steam Deck optimization as a primary waypoint in the development roadmap today.

        Of course this is all speculation, but while these controller designs certainly don't definitively indicate this is the direction Deckard might be headed, the designs shown here would undoubtedly be necessary to achieve that in any case.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          I seriously doubt that Deckard will target casual VR users, given that in 2024, the Valve Index still sells for the same high price as on the first day in 2019. Valve is about "doing it right", no matter the cost, and put a 300 person team on creating HL:A, the largest team ever for any VR only game. They are basically doing lighthouse projects, trying to demonstrate what is possible, but not necessarily trying to reach the masses themselves.

          The Steam Deck no doubt went the other way, with Valve themselves releasing the hardware basically at costs for the lower end models, expecting this to be the most popular purchase. Compared to Meta also selling Quest at cost they were sort of lucky that the significantly more expensive models sold way better. And WINE derived Proton certainly takes a "collect the available solutions and pack them into a user friendly form" approach.

          I'd still doubt that Valve would even want to touch something like vorpX, which is more for enthusiasts that REALLY want to experience one specific game world in VR, nausea be damned. Or UEVR, which requires a beast of a machine, while HL:A now pretty much runs on the VR equivalent of a toaster due to best-in-class optimization. UEVR/vorpX enable enthusiasts to "force" VR into a game, while the Index aimed to enable the best possible VR experience for enthusiasts, which are quite different goals.

          • Storymode Chronicles

            Interesting, to me it seems more logical that Deckard and Steam Deck will follow the same ethos, targeting casual gamers to bring VR to the mainstream. Index is already there for the hardcore, as any VR solution requiring a PC must necessarily be, in particular Lighthouse solutions.

            For instance, if Deckard is standalone as speculated, it will almost necessarily cost at least half of what an Index with PC would cost, and be far more user friendly with a custom OS, using less expensive mobile processing. Even if it costs two or three times what the Meta Quest costs, that would be in the $1k – $1.5k range, around the cost of Index but without the additional cost of a PC.

            Given the success of Steam Deck, what draws the conclusion for you that they won't seek to continue drawing casuals into the Steam ecosystem with Deckard?

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            TL;DR: Quest 3S already covers the space in VR that the Steam Deck opened for PC handhelds, while there are no gaming focused high end stanndalone VR HMDs, as Meta only cares for the largest possible market; Valve is tiny compared to Meta and simply couldn't underbid Quest 3, so it makes a lot more sense to target the high end enthusiasts niche that Meta ignores.

            I'd argue that the Quest 3S is VR's Steam Deck, a very affordable standalone device that doesn't offer the same specs as a fully equipped PCVR setup, but enabling VR wherever you like. When the Steam Deck released, there were a small number of PC based handhelds using rather weak iGPUs and Windows for a rather high price, sold in small numbers.

            Valve's intention was to open a new market by providing a cheap package offering better performance and a much smoother experience, made possible by getting access to a new AMD APU with much improved graphics and customizing the Linux based SteamOS. They said they hoped others would follow with similar devices, and still plan to open up SteamOS for competitors free of charge, as they'll benefit from game sales on Steam.

            The VR market is sort of the opposite, dominated by the low end Quest 3/3S. The only high end standalone is the not-at-all gaming focused AVP, the rest is mostly tethered PCVR HMDs at high prices. So I'd expect Valve to go for the high end, with 4K eMagin microOLEDs, eye tracking, high quality sound solution and onboard x86 APU capable of running most of the Steam PCVR library natively, plus a very optimized SteamLink option to connect wirelessly to a higher specced PC, allowing for improved quality and longer usage sessions due to the reduced power requirements. Given est. build cost for AVP packing tons of expensive tech at USD 1400-1800, Valve might end up with a similar price to the USD 999 of the Index with a release at least one year later and using more standard components, though more is certainly possible.

            There simply is no chance that Valve could ever underbid Meta's Quest, while the Steam Deck launched at USD 399, about half of what the niche PC handhelds cost at that time. And there isn't a glaring hole in the low end VR hardware market that Meta already covers as good at technically possible for the price range, with the dominant games played there titles like Gorilla Tag, Beat Saber or other more casual titles that run fine on Quest 2 or even Quest 1. The gap to be filled is in the higher end with no standalone offers, for an experience beyond what the mobile SoC in Quest 3 can offer. This is an enthusiast niche that Meta doesn't really care about, as it is too small to deliver the numbers they are aiming for, but exactly what Valve aimed for with Index. And Valve with 336 full time employees plus lots of project specific contractors generating about USD 13bn in revenue should be smart enough not to directly compete with Meta with 200x the employees and 10x the revenue.

          • Herbert Werters

            I don't think so. For which games should you buy such an expensive HMD? For all the Quest to PC ports? That makes no sense at all. Valve also has to think about sales figures. They certainly don't want to buy VR niche goggles that only a few people will buy. The new controller layout could be seen as proof that the Deckard is a consumer HMD. They can't think about a price above a Quest 3 or PSVR2. The price has to be at same level. At least I can't think of a scenario or specs that would convince me to use a 1000€ pair of Valve glasses instead of a Quest 3 that might deliver the same for half the price. None of this makes sense to me. I think it will be a HMD that will be on a par with the Quest 3 or PCVR2 on the PC. Whether it will be a bit cheaper or little more expensive, I think we'll have to wait and see. They won't be high-end enthusiast HMD.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            What I suggest would run pretty much all of the current PCVR library with moderate system requirements. A lot of games still list the GTX 1060, and I'd expect Valve to be able to push the effective performance of an AMD APU with ETFR and smart upscaling to RTX 2060/2070 levels. The PS5 APU is about as powerful as an RTX 2070, but PSVR2 punches way above that weight class thanks to Sony's aggressive dynamic and even fixed foveated rendering reducing the load by (up to) 72%/60%, compared to 33%-45%/26%-36% on Quest Pro.

            So Deckard would be a PCVR HMD that doesn't require a separate PC when running games (at lower settings), offering a very high resolutions utilized with smart upscaling when run as stand-alone, or with very high render resolutions when used as streaming target for a PC with something like an RTX 4080. It would target those that don't want to be restricted to the quality level of Quest games or ports of Quest games, but still look for a standalone headset that also could replace the Index with a wireless streaming solution.

            None of this is anywhere close to possible with the hardware budget of a Quest 3, and even trying to compete with Meta in the budget VR segment would be stupid, something even Pico with similar deep pockets as Meta thanks to TikTok money backed away from. Valve has stated multiple times that they don't make any money from the Index or even the Steam Deck, and they don't have too, as Steam is basically a money printing press. The Steam Deck sells in much smaller numbers than Quest, and probably breaks even thanks to the higher storage models. Valve can afford to develop and support an expensive high end HMD like Index selling only in very moderate numbers compared to Quest or even the Steam Deck, but they cannot afford to pump billions into competing for the mass market where every device is effectively sold at a loss.

          • Herbert Werters

            I am curious. I really can't imagine that an APU on the head with a battery can get to PS5 level. I'm happy to be surprised. I also can't imagine Valve putting so much effort into a very expensive HMD only to sell very few of them because it's a luxury product. Nobody is interested in the current VR games. Is it all just for the 30% commission on VR games sold? I'll be surprised.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            TL;DR: Slight misunderstanding: no mobile APU will come close to the performance of PSVR2+PS5 anytime soon. But a mobile APU with raw performance similar to GTX 1060 could reach similar resolutions/framerate to a PC using an RTX 2070 by applying similar VR specific speed optimizations to what Sony uses to get way more performance out of of PSVR2 than the RTX 2070-level APU would suggest.

            [Sorry for the wall of text, I currently don't have the time to now edit it down to a more reasonable length and remove excessive detail.]

            PSVR2 was designed for hybrid games with one big problem: taking a 2D game and running it in VR usually means rendering way more pixels at higher rates due to stereo display, 90+Hz refresh and higher resolutions. Which is why UEVR requires a much faster machine than the non-VR system requirements list. But as flat and VR versions run on the same PS5 APU, Sony introduced VR specific performance boosts like ETFR, much higher foveation than used on Quest or PC, their own reprojection etc., and recently their own PSSR upscaling. Which makes RE8 on PSVR2 a much better experience than running RE8 with UEVR on a PC using the equivalent RDNA2 RX 6700 connected to the same PSVR2 HMD. Me mentioning possible RTX 2070 "perceived" performance for Deckard and RTX 2070/plus "raw" performance for PS5 is more a coincidence than comparison.

            Sony squeezed a lot more performance out of foveated rendering than Quest or PCVR. The reported (and mostly confirmed by Unity) load reduction of 72% means that if raw performance got you to 60FPS, ETFR gets to 214FPS on the same machine. ETFR on Quest Pro saves 33% without noticeable artifacts, so 60FPS turns to 90FPS, but also drains the battery and lowers CPU power. The Pimax Crystal with ET DFR saves ~40%, so 60FPS -> 100FPS.

            Valve is in a very good position to benefit from these and similar options thanks to SteamOS and its gamescope compositor. On Steam Deck Windows games run with Windows libraries replaced by Proton/WINE and DX8-12 translated to Vulkan, with all rendering going to a virtual framebuffer in gamescope first. This allows things impossible on Windows, like telling the game that the GPU can only display at 40Hz, forcing framerates onto games without a limiter. It also allows applying postprocessing similar to ReShade, and SteamOS integrates an FSR1 upscaler there. FSR1 is a purely spatial upscaler, decent for getting 1440p/1080p to 2160p, but rather bad for lower resolutions like the Steam Deck's 800p screen. Similar to DLSS, only the temporal data used starting with version 2 made FSR usable for smaller screens, but this required access to motion vectors from the game itself, so it cannot run as a post-process.

            Deckard would feature much higher resolution, making FSR1 much more usable. But AFAIK Steam's OpenVR has access to motion vectors for Motion Smoothing, the Steam equivalent to Meta's ASW/reprojection, so instead of FSR1, they can apply system wide FSR2/3 to anything passing the gamescope compositor. There were hacks like openvr_fsr bringing FSR1 to DX11 games like FO4VR, requiring to replace a dll file, but those neither work with newer games nor with some like HL:A that don't accept the altered DLL. By moving everything into a motion vector aware compositor, Deckard could apply current optimizations to all VR games available on Steam, incl. ancient, long abandoned titles from 2016 that would never see updates for ETFR, reprojection, upscaling or frame generation. The same wouldn't be possible on many PCs, partly because of hardware requirements like VRS needed for any type of foveated rendering and only introduced with RTX cards, excluding GTX and many/most AMD cards from benefitting.

            Valve might even use the NPU AMD now adds to accelerate frame restoration similar to DLSS by adapting part of Intel's XeSS that also uses trained networks, while all FSR versions up to 3 don't. Or use the framerate limiter to replicate AppSW for all games. AppSW on Quest does pretty much the same as ASW, create extra frames adjusted for head/object movement. But while with ASW this is a backup in case the GPU couldn't render the extra frame in time, AppSW does it on purpose, providing developers with extra performance for each frame. ASW sort of throws away the incomplete frame and replaces it with reprojection, AppSW prevents rendering the second frame. Deckard could force this behavior onto games by setting the virtual gamescope refresh rate to half the physical refresh rate of the HMD. Or even less if they not only rotate the last frame, but also create a completely new frame like DLSS 3/FSR 3 and even third party tools like Lossless Scaling adding it as a post-processing step.

            So:
            – 2025 AMD mobile APUs will not offer the raw performance of the RTX 2070, more like GTX 1060
            – Deckard based on such APUs might nonetheless perform similar for PCVR titles as a Windows PC with RTX 2070 level GPU that neither supports many of the possible optimizations nor could integrate them into existing VR games.
            – Deckard will not reach PSVR2 performance levels, because Sony also had enough control to integrate optimizations that help running VR titles with much higher resolution/framerate than the raw performance of the GPU would allow without the extra tricks to first reduce the render load.

            That's why I think that it's actually feasible for Valve to release an x86 standalone VR HMD based on SteamOS and capable of running large parts of the existing Steam PCVR library despite using hardware that is much less performant than a Windows PC with dedicated GPU would have to be to do the same.

          • Herbert Werters

            I understand that with the Flat2VR and the power you need. I've only been using UEVR since January to play in VR. However, this is only possible with an 80tflops GPU like the 4090, which I noticed very quickly. Even with the 4090, various games perform very poorly when the resolution is set to high. I can understand that this will be a problem with the Flat 2 VR Mod idea. But with a little customization, it's easier than developing a game entirely for VR that requires completely different controls and input methods. Take Hellblade, for example. That's what I imagine when I talk about the VR option. We have a lot of older games and games that require less power that could easily be given a second life with a VR version. Whether this could be successful is of course another question, but you can only find out if you try it out on a larger scale and see how it goes down with gamers. But I don't see VR taking off either. But it could also work.

            Frame limiting under Windows is possible at driver level. You can set a fixed bid frequency in the driver and limit the GPU manually.
            All the image tricks such as DLSS, FSR, frame generation etc. unfortunately change the native image a lot and can even be problematic for users. I often hear that gamers (including me) don't get along with reprojection at all. Upscaling unfortunately also makes the picture very muddy, especially on contours. But well, you have to do something to make the games run on weak hardware. That's just the way it is with compromises. It's the same with mobile VR games that are cut down so that they run on an ARM SoC. They are not only held back graphically, but also in terms of mechanics, level design and scope. Quest is now the development basis and PC VR will not be able to flex its muscles for a long time. Exceptions prove the rule, of course.

            Yes, Valve might be able to make it all work, but the compromises will be huge in terms of visual quality. Even PSVR2 often has problems with the frame rate and resolution. It will be really difficult with an APU on the head despite all the tricks.

            Let's wait and see. I'm rather skeptical that Valve will release mobile PC VR glasses. The Steamdeck is really a different matter. Because they could really tweak the resolution (small screen). With VR, that would be a compromise that I personally wouldn't be happy with. Despite DLSS or FSR etc.

            But you're right, it would be possible with a lot of compromises.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I think that UEVR and other attempts to bring VR to the vast library of existing great games are incredible valuable for VR, even if they currently require significant hardware investments. Simply because they provide at least an option and remove the dependency on larger studios releasing games with native VR support, which seems to get less likely. I also hope that gamers demonstrating interest (with their wallets) to play existing AAAs in VR will make some developers at least consider creating more hybrid games that are designed for VR too, even if they still require way faster hardware for VR.

            And all the tricks possible on PSVR2 or on the (hypothetic) Deckard could in principle work on PC too. It's a bit tricky with Windows, as Microsoft apparently doesn't even provide public access/docs to Direct Mode for HMDs without you first signing an NDA, making it difficult to for example implement an open source OpenXR stack on windows. But in an ideal world where Microsoft implements a similar compositor to gamescope and Tobii decides to offer PC users with a PSVR2 a cheap license for their eye tracking software that would enable the same features that are available on the PS5, it should absolutely be possible to integrate all this into UEVR and make it work just fine without the need of a GPU three times the price of a PS5.

            Of course all these optimizations are compromises and will come with some negative side effects, but at least the muddy contours from upscaling should be mostly a settings question. FSR1 is a combination of an upscaler plus a sharpening process to reintroduce clear edges, and the really new part was the improved (adjustable) sharpener, much better than in most previous scalers, causing some project to use FSR1 just for that. And there are some interesting comparison videos for RE8 (flat) showing more fine contours like small branches and thin twigs in the upscaled version than the native render, due to temporal reconstruction also referencing previous frames with details too small to make it to the current render unless you use supersampling at a significant higher resolution.

            Frame restoration and generation introduce a number of new types of artifacts like ghosting, so it would still be best if you could render everything directly with supersampling instead. But at one point there simply aren't any GPUs fast enough you could even buy, regardless of price. And some artifacts from generated instead of rendered frames may be the smaller evil, when the alternative is waiting for ten years for the (mobile) GPUs to get fast enough.

          • Herbert Werters

            Yes, I completely agree with you that it is better to do something now than just wait until it gets better.

            As a VR gamer (since 2016), I’m eagerly waiting for better VR games to come out again. In my eyes, we’ve had better times. Since the UEVR, I hardly play any native VR games anymore because the flat games in VR offers me more and better gameplay. I just hope that the games will get better again.

            Let’s see how it all continues.

          • Storymode Chronicles

            I'd say that Quest 3 is VR's Nintendo Switch rather than VR's Steam Deck. The whole point of the Steam Deck is the ability to play most of the existing Steam library in a mobile form factor, at basically half the cost of an entry level gaming PC.

            That's why I think that even positioning the Deckard at $1000 to $1500, somewhere around the Index, would make it the Steam Deck of VR. Because it would give the ability to play most of the existing SteamVR library in a mobile form factor at significantly less than the cost of a comparable entry level PCVR setup.

            So, in the same way that Steam Deck iterated on the successes of Nintendo's Switch, I would expect Deckard to iterate on the successes of the Quest 3 design. More comfortable, with substantially, if modestly, more processing capabilities, but crucially able to slot into the Steam ecosystem seamlessly and hopefully spring a whole host of similar competing devices into the space, such as the ROG Ally, Lenovo Go, MSI Claw, etc.

            The upside to this seems like more than the sum of its parts to me. It begins to create a holistic Steam hardware ecosystem, where games can move between desktop, handheld and VR seamlessly, with a variety of presentation modes to accomplish that. It significantly increases the value proposition of entering the Steam ecosystem.

            I also see a bit of a small scale technological singularity on the horizon with these mobile processors finally reaching acceptability in approximating desktop experiences. At a certain point beyond satisfactorily emulating a 3D environment with basic physics to sufficiently engage users in the game world to the point game mechanics are more important than any additional bells and whistles in the rendering process across different form factors, some very interesting possibilities start to open up in the space.

            In particular, as I see the best mobile VR form factor necessarily moving towards some kind of "puck" to offload bulk from the headset, housing not just battery power like the AVP, if not also compute power like the Meta Orion and Magic Leap, we very soon begin to see that this "puck" itself will become the center of the ecosystem, with only the hardcore investing in more capable hardware. I imagine internally at Meta there are already some hard conversations revolving around how the Orion form factor really begins to beg the question of why Quest and Orion couldn't simply share the same compute resources, and this then spins out into other form factors beyond VR/AR which need considerably less compute resources.

            In the end, I see these "pucks" evolving into insertable cards which power I/O and display devices both wired/inserted and wirelessly, sort of an inverted version of what 5G promised would allow us to simply use our devices as shells connected to cloud processing. If cell networks ever really advance to that point, I think they'll more likely act as augmented parallel processing to this type of new device family rather than replacing them.

            Interestingly, this will likely only become feasible just about the time the greater Kurzweil-fashioned capital "s" Singularity, projected for about 2030. Currently to my knowledge only the military uses swappable compute cards between shell devices of different form factors, with some units assigned a compute card that can move between tablets, laptops, smart phones, headsets, etc. to provide primary compute resources. The military contractor who manufactures these will see their patent expire in 2029.

            So, if we can project out just a few years we might begin to see how the work that Valve is putting into Steam Deck and Deckard to expand form factor and presentation scalability in its Steam library will begin to coalesce into something truly revolutionary in the PC gaming space. Scalable experiences across a complete family of device form factors, while simultaneously reducing the cost of the those devices by sharing discrete compute resources across them.

          • Herbert Werters

            Deckard will be a normal pair of PCVR HMD that will have a SOC that ensures latency-free transmission of the signals in wireless mode. These will not be stand-alone VR glasses like the Quest. I'm really sure of that. It makes no sense for Valve to position itself with an APU between PC Power and Snapdragon VR. That would fragment the market. Nobody wants that. The users don't want it and I don't think Valve does either.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Valve wants to sell games on Steam. The only way to offer an untethered stand-alone VR HMD that can run existing Steam games is releasing a device with an x86 APU. Going for an ARM based solution actually running games would fragment the Steam install base by architecture and be completely pointless, given that none of the current PCVR titles offered on Steam are available for ARM.

            Valve could try to only release a wireless Index replacement with a simple SoC, but that would basically be the same as a Quest 3 without the option to also run standalone games, so only a few hardcore enthusiasts would pick such a visor for lower latency over a Quest 3. A cheap visor makes little sense given that you still need an expensive PC, an expensive high end visor at a similar price point to Quest 3 would only be a niche device.

          • Herbert Werters

            Will the developers adapt their PC versions for a weak x86 APU? Do you want to play these games in low resolution and quality settings? Won't you end up with a quest again? Yes, I can imagine, but do you really need that? The advantage of a PC is that you can put your existing power into resolution, quality and frames. The advantage would then be gone and you'd have to be satisfied with a kind of quest quality. Hm.

          • Herbert Werters

            Or Valve offers something like Acer Spatiallab's Truegame list for their 3D monitors. With which you can play various games in 3D on a screen. Valve would then have to offer a kind of patch list like Acer. It seems that it's reasonably easy if a company like Acer can even manage it and doesn't really have much to do with gaming.

          • Nevets

            "Valve is about "doing it right", no matter the cost, and put a 300 person team on creating HL:A, the largest team ever for any VR only game."

            What is it with you and your overblown assertions today! You're usually quite level-headed. The team was said to be around 80 people, not 300.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            The 80 were full-time Valve employees. The HL:A credits list 393 people, which includes voice artists, external animators, lots of contractors etc. that were not permanent employees, but still part of the team that created the game.

          • Nevets

            Well yeah, if you include the tea lady and the IT techs then it's a pretty big team. But I think the point some people made at the time (pre release) was that the core team of 80 working on the game was, for a huge AAA ip, quite a small team, but small teams can produce big games. And how right they were!

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Now you are the one with the overblown/lowballing assertions. It's not particularly likely that the 313 non-Valve employees listed in the credits were (contract) tea ladies and IT techs not directly contributing to the development. Valve is structured different than most other gaming companies, with a rather small core of permanent employees and a huge number of contractors. Don't remember the source, but of Valve's 336 permanent employees, 35 are administration, 41 hardware developers, 79 work on Steam and 181 are developing and maintaining Valve's games, incl. Dota, CS and TF.

            Any project by Valve will pale compared to giant AAA projects like GTA 5 that had a core team of 1000+ working on it for years plus contractors only involved for some parts, with a total of 5000 people working on it at some time. Pretty sure that without the 4000 externals, GTA V wouldn't have been anymore possible than HL:A could have been released if only the 80 full-time Valve employees had worked on it. But comparisons to other AAA created to make money don't make sense for HL:A anyway, as Valve took their incredible valuable Half-Life IP and "wasted" it for the very tiny VR market. Just try to imagine how much money they would have made if instead of creating HL:A for VR, the same people would have created HL3 for PC instead.

            The more relevant comparison is to other VR gaming project, and only hybrid projects like PSVR2 RE8/RE4 that sell mostly to non-VR players had more people in total working on them. No other pure VR project comes even close in size, with 393 people involved enough to make it to the credits. Which by the way the tea lady wouldn't be. She might get listed under "thanks", which is still more than the Valve IT stuff would get for just doing their regular job of maintaining Valve's IT infrastructure incl. all Steam servers.

    • STL

      Who would play a 2D game like Hogwarts Legacy from beginning to end in UEVR? I tried, and it was so cumbersome! It wasted my time, and I contributed too much to Patreon before realizing it’s just a gimmick and not truly immersive. The controllers aren’t integrated. The camera isn’t in first-person. The perspective constantly changes. It’s unstable. The resolution is poor, even on an RTX 4090 (my Skyrim VR is crystal clear).

      • kakek

        Dépends of the game.
        I did it for Gylt, and it was one of the best gaming experience I ever had.

  • xyzs

    I like that they are working on next gen VR devices, with no more lighthouse obviously, I like less that they are not following the standard with two button / one joystick on each side.
    That is great standard, so, why breaking that with an asymmetrical new input type? To port 2D games in VR without any remapping?

    • prinstusind

      Well they still keep this standard, but have just added more buttons so the controllers can function as a regular controller as well. THIS should be the standard layout in my opinion. Also if no one ever tries to do things differently, VR won’t evolve.

      • xyzs

        They removed 2 buttons on the left to add a d-pad, so they broke the current standard.
        I don't think it's a good thing in VR because this was introduced to combine player movement + camera movement originally.
        In VR, you do not have a camera to control since it's your own gaze.

        So it's not a good thing.

        I understand your point of view about trying new things, but, it would only be good if people kept complaining at the Oculus standard, and this didn't happen, people were satisfied with it.

        • Herbert Werters

          That's not true, you can assign X at the down direction pad and Y on the right direction pad. Nothing is gone, just the haptics are slightly different. But I think that's a great compromise. Every UEVR player will be happy about this new option.

          In addition, no standard is broken because no buttons are removed but some are added. The shoulder buttons, for example, are still being added too. And in gampad mode you would have two more buttons that you could assign. The grip buttons.

          But the best thing is the analog sticks. Finally someone is building VR controllers with real analog sticks and not these little crap things with which you can't work sensitively at all.

          You could simply assign X and Y twice on the right-hand controller. That doesn't break any standards at all. It would just be a welcome option for people who might prefer to have X and Y there. So depending on your taste. Maybe also a great option for left-handers.

          • Michael Speth

            You have obviously never used the PSVR2 Sense controllers. The control sticks are wonderful. The controller feels like a PS5 controller minus the useless D-Pad. On top of that, we get adaptive triggers which are game changers for VR.

            A D-Pad is not equavalent to buttons.

            I don't need or want a D-Pad on my VR controller. A D-Pad increases the SIZE of the controller which is BAD for VR.

            You want controllers that are as light as possible because the entire point of using tracked controllers is to move them.

            You want to play games that need a d-pad, pick up a gamepad – like the PS5 Controller – and play whatever game you need that requires D-Pad

            Combing the D-Pad with VR controls is just stupid which is why it's not there now.

          • Herbert Werters

            Ah yes, the sticks look good too. Are they the same as those in Dual Sense? Yes, that's perfect then. Yes, I haven't actually had them in my hand yet.

            I see it differently. I'm pleased that Valve had the idea and might implement it. I mainly play flat titles with the UEVR mod. A hybrid controller like this comes in handy. Then I don't always have to switch controllers.

          • Michael Speth

            The PSVR2 controller sticks are smaller than the PS5 controller. This is to keep the size of the controller down. You could put controller caps on them to increase the size if you like though.

            If you are playing EUVR, just use a controller designed for 2 handed use when a game calls for it. The experience is going to be better than holding 2 seperate controllers that you aren't using to interact with the world.

            Then use the better and smaller VR controllers when you need to interact with the world.

            If the UEVR game is implemented correctly, you wouldn't be switching during the game – you pick 1 or the other when u start the game.

          • Herbert Werters

            The smaller the analog sticks, the less precise the controls. That’s why quadcopter radio controls have control levers sticking out. That’s why I criticize the small sticks that are always used. I think it’s great that valve seems to be installing the usual sticks.

          • Michael Speth

            Quadcopter radio controls requires 2 hands to operate as does game controllers.

            As for the stick size, have you ever played an Nintendo Switch or Switch Light using the stock controllers (not pro)? Millions of gamers play on these devices without any issues.

            As I mentioned, you can get control caps for the Nintendo Switch controllers to make them bigger for your thumb.

          • Herbert Werters

            Ha ha, I really have to laugh. That’s exactly what I criticized about my Switch lite, I just couldn’t choose. But I would definitely have preferred normal sticks. Incidentally, a lot of them just because of the drift problem. The Quest Cotrollers have not been spared this either. They are also really susceptible to stick drifts. Of course nobody complained because nobody had a choice. For the portion of extra precision, you can use the gyro on the Switch. Why do you think? The Switch’s analog sticks are garbage and so are the Quest’s. I don’t know how many liters of WD40 have already been sprayed into Quest controllers because of drifts.

          • Michael Speth

            I don't believe switch analog stick drift issue has to do with the size rather more of an engineering design defect.

            I was unaware of Meta Stick Drift. I will add that to the list of problems with Meta Hardware.

            So far, there isn't any documented issues with PSVR2 Sense Controller drift. I also haven't had any issues.

            Why are the nintendo switch sticks small? I think due to portability constraints. It is simply easier to package and transport a mobile gaming device that is smaller.

            The point of VR controls is more advanced than nintendo's gyro controls (which are very nice to have in FPS BTW). 6dof verses just the 3dof you get with switch and other gamepads.

          • Herbert Werters

            Take a look at the technical structure of the analog sticks and you would know why the small ones are much more susceptible. But let’s leave the discussion. We’re not getting anywhere anyway.

          • I want gloves, not controllers.

            Meta's workin' on 'em, so there's that, anyways.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    Valve just released the (must see) "Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary", with statements many interpret as confirmation for them now actually working on HL3. Those who lost hope for Deckard only five years after Index haven't understood Valve time, and neither have those with now "revived" hope for a soonish release.

    Valve hinted that the Steam Deck's x86 APU was interesting for VR too. Any Valve standalone HMD must leverage the existing x86 PCVR library, and while some Qualcomm ARM SoCs now run x86 applications at bearable speed, the performance loss from emulation makes running existing PCVR games on ARM infeasible/years away just like rumored ARM support on Steam.

    AMD's roadmap showed that late 2024/early 2025 would be the EARLIEST low power APUs close to PCVR entry level (GTX 1060) would become available. AMD is expected to show new APUs at CES 2025 fitting into HMD friendly 15W/28W TDP (Quest 3 12W, Steam Deck 15W, AVP up to 40W) with significantly increased GPU CU count. Which could enable a Deckard running HL:A based on raw performance. And with AMD pushing NPUs and Valve adding lots of clever tweaks to SteamOS, I'd expect system wide features like smart upscaling/ETFR to make even old, unmodified games look much better on the hires display than the specs would suggest.

    So we're close to the tech needed for a standalone PCVR HMD, there certainly is current VR activity inside Valve and a big rush of new hints from data mining. But does that mean we will see Deckard anytime soon or even in 2025 or 2026? Only Valve time will tell.

    • ZarathustraDK

      The current Deck is interesting for VR in the sense that if Valve makes a standalone headset, then the Deck + Deckard can be used as a portable big screen 2d-gaming solution.

      As for the graphical grunt to pull off VR in a standalone form-factor there are 2 possible solutions: 1. Streaming games over wifi from a pc and letting the standalone aspects focus on stuff like latency and dealing with controllers/tracksers etc, or 2. Absolutely nerd it out with some kind of ai framegeneration and dynamic foveated rendering to lower the hardware requirements for standalone to become viable somehow.

      I think it'll be a mix. I don't think Valve is going to "hardware-lock" vr-games into some specific specs just to be able to run on a particular headset like quest does. They're gonna utilize other pieces of hardware, be that pc or steam deck; however in order to stream those things wirelessly they're gonna need framegen and eyetracked DFR to bring down bandwidth.

      There was some leaks about Valve also testing Waydroid, so it's not out of the question that they may support low req apk-based games (like quest games). Would be nice to buy, for instance, Bonelab once, and then be able to play both the standalone version while on the go, and the pcvr-version when a proper rig is available. This would also synergize well in getting standaloners into pcvr-gaming, and the other way around, with Valve profitting on every game purchase for one reason or the other.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        At one point there were rumors about Valve going with a dual-SoC version, an AMD x86 APU for running the actual games in standalone mode, and an extra ARM SoC used for tracking and even tasks like displaying menus. That ARM SoC would also be used when Deckard was serving as a streaming target for a more powerful VR PC due to its more efficient low performance operation. Such an ARM SoC wouldn't be fast enough to run ports of current Quest 2/3 games though, and integrating an XR 2 Gen 1/2 would negate all the power savings integrating an extra ARM SoC could provide.

        I also suspect that Deckard will rely heavily on ETFR, upscaling, frame generation and more, and there are a number of very interesting technologies that so far aren't properly utilized in VR that could benefit from being integrated into SteamOS, so using them wouldn't require explicit developer action or updates to older games that would be unlikely to ever happen. But currently we have so little information about what and when Deckard will actually be, that all this is basically wild guessing. A 2025 Deckard would probably be very different from one released only a year later, the now leaked controllers might see several more revisions if the HMD release is still more than a year away, and even speculating how Valve will approach low latency, high fidelity wireless streaming will open another huge can of worms.

    • foamreality

      Its totally unecessary to use a low power CPU/GPU for VR. Just make a dongle for a PC and make the headset wireless. Nobody needs or wants a PC strapped to their face, you arent going to use VR on a bus. And you really shouldnt even if you could.

  • mirak

    I am already disapointed.

    • Why …??

      And at what? lol

      • mirak

        Ok that's a fair question, I felt it was obvious.

        To me in my mind it's already a given that Valve will release a standalone headset Deckard someday in the continuity of the work done on Steamdeck.
        I could be happy that it's not a news about deckard beeing dropped, but I never had any fear about that, so this is not hyping me, plus I still feel it's a few year away anyway.

        So right now what the news show is controllers, and I don't like them because :
        – they look like an Oculus Touch copy
        – no lighthouse support ( can't know for sure though because IR captors wouldn't show on the 3D model anyway)
        – it feels a step back or dumbing down of index controlers
        – no inside out tracking on the controler, therefore bad controler occulusion if you have them in yout back or whatever
        – I don't like thumbstick and prefer touchpad, that's why I use more my Vive Controllers than Index Controllers.

        • Harold

          Wow you prefer the Vive controllers?! Each to their own I suppose

          • XRC

            The beauty of steamVR ecosystem is choice, have Pimax Sword, HTC Vive Pro and Valve Index controllers each has its own characteristics so it's a case of choosing controller to suit the game

          • mirak

            Overall yes, because of touchpad for movements and bigger handle.
            I feel touchpad is way better for straffing around in locomotion and more precise having your thumb on firm surface, instead of "on top of a pole" of the stick.

            The only real weakness of Vive Controller is the grip button.
            When I play Walking Dead Saint And Sinners, that require a lot of grabbing, I prefer use the Index Controllers.

            But Vive Controller in toggle mode is usable, but games like Boneworks do not have a toggle mode, so it's unplayable and will hurt your hands.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            The Vive wands are build like tanks and only offer a small set of controls, which still makes them great for any type of public demonstration for people unfamiliar with controllers. One of them survived being accidentally dunked into a bucket of old fish tank water that was standing in my living room while I tested a custom application that required picking up virtual plates from the virtual floor of a not yet manufactured RV.

  • kakek

    This brings almost no new information concerning a potential ( and not eventual ) release.
    From various insider leak and official documentary, we know that valve always had plenty prototypes and project internally, and no qualms about never releasing them if they are not satisfied with the final product, even for very advanced project.

    Exemple : Ravenholm. A pretty much complete HL episode game, that they never released just because at some point they decided "Meh, now that it's pretty much done, it doesn't bring anything new to the table."

    So I'm pretty sure they could have pushed a prototype far enough to have it's controllers included in steam, and then decide it's just not good enough and never release it.

    And that's nothing new.

    Despite what ViRGIN like to say, it's obvious they never stopped caring for VR. They always had a team seeing what they could do. And it's also obvious they never had any real concrete raodmap for a release, or even a certitude that they would ever release something.

    My overall prediction remain the same.

    They will release a new VR headset when they can make one that runs Alyx autonomously. Alyx is their standard of what a VR games needs to be graphically to carry a story and a good immersion. Until they can do that in mobile VR, they won't release.

    And that tech is still about 4 years away.

    By then we will be between Quest 4 and quest 5, and Meta will have reached more or less the same level.

    • Andrey

      Despite what ViRGIN like to say, it's obvious they never stopped caring for VR. They always had a team seeing what they could do. And it's also obvious they never had any real concrete raodmap for a release, or even a certitude that they would ever release something.

      As far as I know Valve consists of people who are free to work on whatever they want. They gather in small groups or even work alone and create prototypes that they later present to higher ups. If higher ups don't think that will work – they stop and move to something else. So saying "Valve never stopped caring for VR" is, imo, not 100% correct. Some people in Valve – including Gabe himself, based on interviews with him – may still believe in VR and even work on something related to it, but not the whole Valve by all means. And if releasing one game and one headset and then only a bunch of updates for SteamVR – in what, 5 years I think? – equals "caring" for you, then Sony cares about VR even more, because they released two headsets and more-than-one game for VR too. Do you agree that Sony cares for VR nowadays and, generally, really cared all along? Exactly, they don't. I am not a Meta fanboy, but only Meta trully cares about VR, though even their approach to the subject is not ideal as well.

      They will release a new VR headset when they can make one that runs Alyx autonomously. Alyx is their standard of what a VR games needs to be graphically to carry a story and a good immersion. Until they can do that in mobile VR, they won't release.

      And that tech is still about 4 years away.

      By then we will be between Quest 4 and quest 5, and Meta will have reached more or less the same level.

      I am not a tech evangelist – only VR one (ha!) – but, again, imo it's VERY optimistic to think that by 2028 we will have mobile chips that will be able to run Alyx standalone – if we are talking about the same level of quality as it's on PCVR, even on middle settings but with native headset's resolution. If it will be port with (much) worse graphics (including rendering in smaller resolution) – sure, but there won't be modern PCVR quality on standalone anytime soon. Even best Quest 3 exclusives are pretty limited in that regard – Batman doesn't have much anti-aliasing (if has it enabled at all), dynamic shadows are not casted from every light source in the scene and are all pixelated that it's hard to look at it without tears. And Batman is singleplayer and corridor-like game that was created by Meta's studio that had all the help regarding working with it's hardware and making software optimizations on it, yet they still created pretty good looking game – but only compared to other standalone Quest games. Hell, even original Arkham Asylum from 2009 (!) looks better in every aspect graphically even today. So, no, I don't think that in 2028 it will be possible to run Alyx natively on standalone. If it will be – I will be VERY surprised, but as of now I don't think that next generation mobile SoCs from Qualcomm or even an analog from AMD but for VR headset will be able to achieve this.

      • mirak

        Look on youtube for the video titled "Half-Life: Alyx on integrated graphics. Ryzen 7 5700G. VR"

        Steam Deck GPU is better than the integrated graphics on the Ryzen.

        • foamreality

          Microsft Flight Simulater 2020 and especially 2024 – propbably one the most popular PCVR games of all can barely run on 4090 and even then it won't hit even 60fps unless you turn down all the settings. No mobile x86 SOC is going to be able to run that anytime soon. People want high end graphics, even on console. Valve needs to do wireless PCVR that can support the latest GPUs because SOC are just pointless if its just going to give a small imporvement over quest stand alone, which dreadful.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Agree to most of that, with the exception of the timeline. The tech necessary to run HL:A autonomously on a standalone HMD with mobile x86 is maybe one year away, not four, and that's without any nifty performance optimizations from SteamOS. Shortly after its launch in 2022, people streamed the first chapters of HL:A from a Steam Deck running Windows and VirtualPC in potato mode at 45FPS/90FPS with SSW reprojection, without the config optimizations previously used to run HL:A on underpowered PCs. Not recommended, but already playable.

      Valve may still wait for the tech to first become more powerful, because HL:A is extremely well optimized, running on minimal spec hardware with barely visible degradation, while many other titles like badly optimized FO4VR can easily force a PC to its knees. Some shovelware PCVR treasures lacking any optimization won't hesitate to sent a 4090 into full load territory for graphics that would be considered a disgrace on Quest 1.

      • Nevets

        "Some shovelware PCVR treasures lacking any optimization won't hesitate to send a 4090 into full load territory for graphics that would be considered a disgrace on Quest 1."

        I get your point, but this is a heavily exaggerated comparison.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          No doubt. I mostly wanted to point out that they cannot wait for a mobile APU fast enough to run all of the current Steam PCVR library, as there is such a wide range of performance requirements that this will never happen. They will have to restrict it to being able to run most properly optimized VR games.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Oh please have the sidestraps of the original controllers. I now have third party sidestraps for my Pico 4 controllers and it makes them much better.

    • XRC

      There is a strap that mounts using the battery compartment, as many electronic devices will start to come with replaceable / removable battery due to legislation:

      "The EU states operators (OEMs) will have until 2027 in the region to produce devices that fit the new criteria."

      • Andrew Jakobs

        But IMHO these straps should be the default with these controllers, not as an addon.

  • XRC

    As someone who spent two years working on modular steamVR motion controllers, I'm super interested to see what Valve have cooking.

    Durability is a big concern, hopefully they learnt lessons from Index. Just this week I posted my months old left controller back to Netherlands for rma after the grip plate mounting cracked from too much "gripping". Not the first time…

    Having gone through many controller since launch (more than 20, less than 30) with some only lasting a few months, any new controller needs to be substantially tougher. Are they finally using hall effect joystick? Or still using undersized potentiometer stick that degrade with regular use? Did they finally align the sticks with forward extension of the thumb?

    my modular controllers ordered the choice of swappable d-pad, touchpad or joystick with software support, it's been a few years since my meeting with the nice hardware people from Bellevue, perhaps some of my work may have played it's small part in this further development.

    i wish Valve luck with their next system, and look forward to seeing if it lands in 2025. Happy XR!

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      When the Steam Deck released, one of the criticisms was Valve not using Hall effect based joysticks, but they were praised for making everything extremely modular. Basically every part of the Steam Deck is user replaceable, the joysticks come on small, separate PCBs and 3rd party Hall effect modules are available for USD ~25.

      Right from the start Valve partnered with iFixit to make replacement parts available, and based on user feedback they altered the only glued-in part, the battery, on the newer OLED models to make it easier to replace. Valve apparently learned a lot about reliability/repairability, and I'd expect much of that to translate to whatever hardware they will release in the future.

      • foamreality

        Why? Valve makes money selling you a new peice of hardware as soon as the warrenty runs out and the device breaks. You are tied in with their games ecosystem so have little choice but to continue handing them money for poor quality hardware. Same as apple (who are even worse)

  • Oh, I hope I hope I hope… C'mon Valve!

  • foamreality

    I wouldn't touch Valve hardware with a barge-pole. Their index controllers suck, so many complaints about the poor quality joysticks causing drift after short period , and valve are refusing to replace them. Despite being the most expensive controllers available for a VR headset (over $300!) they used a cheap plastic joystick component that cost 90c. I don't mind if a company makes a mistake, but valve refuse to admit there is even an issue. Thousands of people now have controllers that are unusable after just a few short years of use (google 'index controller drift' issue and you will see forums awash with complaints about this).

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      – Valve developed all the initial room scale hardware that led to Facebook even investing in Oculus that was still pushing the Rift as a peripheral for seated VR experiences added to existing games. The HTC Vive was pretty much 100% Valve development paired with HTC manufacturing experience.

      – While the Index controllers are plagued with reliability and durability issues, Valve has a very user friendly RMA policy and replaces broken controllers. That still means a lot of unnecessary effort on the user side, but Valve at least eats the significant costs of replacing tons of Index controllers.

      – They apparently learned from their mistakes, as the Steam Deck is now a beacon of reliability and (user) repairability, so there is hope that future Valve controllers are designed more like the Steam Deck than the Index costing them lost of money. Given the also leaked, very Steam Deck like Ibex controller, this is probably a pretty safe bet.

      – While Valve's strength is most certainly software, they release a number of controller (including) devices over the last decade and ironed out a lot of the kinks with newer devices. It has been a somewhat painful learning process, but the progress is undeniable, and the still support every single one of these devices with regular updates, even the 2015 Steam controller that started it all.

      • foamreality

        Valve wont replace controllers outside of 2 years warrenty. Despite many of them breaking within 3-4 year with normal use. Thats not good enough for a $300 controller. HTC didnt make those controllers. HTC hardware is very good quality, reliable in my experience. Valve used the cheapest components they could get and charged insane prices. Their room scale setup software is terrible and hasnt been updated in 8 years. Quest is way ahead. If yoiu have a good idea you have to follow through. The steam deck will likely have issues in a year or so, I bet money on it. Again they used a cheap screen and had to resell it with OLED , ripping of first movers and loyal cutomers stuck with lemons.

  • david vincent

    Finally Valve get rid of ther infamous touch pad and sensitive grip. Good news.