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Valve brings native Steam Link app to Vision Pro

Still needing a PC isnt a surprise for anyone; at least it should not be. The valve index was a device that is tethered to the PC to work. Their follow up that hasnt been released yet is more like a vision pro but with a much weaker hardware set. So to have a platform provide the official vision pro app to stream your PC games over your network is essentially the only thing that people felt was missing. Obviously for over a year people have been using other methods to stream their game libraries but a native vision pro app isnt bad news.
 
MrWayne said:
Why did valve choose amd graphic card instead of GeForce in their new steam machine?
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I agree, especially considering the machine is a dedicated PC with a dedicated GPU. Despite me being really tired of Nvida and a lesser extent AMD, at least Nvidia GPUs perform well. AMD has done well with ryzen Ai MAX+ 395 but it all seems to mostly revolve around the unified architecture for Ai training and LLMs in the unified RAM. The steam machine is something I have no interest in because Valve has completely stopped subsidizing anything for the consumer.
 
Tr3m0r said:
I agree, especially considering the machine is a dedicated PC with a dedicated GPU. Despite me being really tired of Nvida and a lesser extent AMD, at least Nvidia GPUs perform well. AMD has done well with ryzen Ai MAX+ 395 but it all seems to mostly revolve around the unified architecture for Ai training and LLMs in the unified RAM. The steam machine is something I have no interest in because Valve has completely stopped subsidizing anything for the consumer.
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It doesn’t make sense to use amd. I was really surprised. If you really want people to build all type of things. Nvidia has far more use cases than amd in terms of games, vr and LLM stuff. Valve is marketing the valve machine to let you do a lot. But amd was a major disappointment.

The second surprise was the lack of color passthrough on their new valve frame headset. I don’t want to have additional mods to allow me to have color passthrough. It is 2026. Color passthrough should be there by default.
 
Part of me wonders if they were doing this work for the Steam Frame already, and just decided to move it over to Vision Pro as a side project.
 
MrWayne said:
Why did valve choose amd graphic card instead of GeForce in their new steam machine?
Click to expand...
Because of the Linux driver stack and cost. Nvidia drivers on Linux are proprietary and the open source path for nvidia is still in its infancy. For AMD valve can modify the drivers themself to eke out performance and fix bugs and upstream it into the Linux kernel. It gives them much more flexibility without being reliant on the manufacturers. Where I work we use Linux with nvidia for our products, and we have had cases where we find bugs in the driver and have to wait months for nvidia to fix things if they will even take a call from us.
 
bryo said:
Because of the Linux driver stack and cost. Nvidia drivers on Linux are proprietary and the open source path for nvidia is still in its infancy. For AMD valve can modify the drivers themself to eke out performance and fix bugs and upstream it into the Linux kernel. It gives them much more flexibility without being reliant on the manufacturers. Where I work we use Linux with nvidia for our products, and we have had cases where we find bugs in the driver and have to wait months for nvidia to fix things if they will even take a call from us.
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That’s awful of nVIDIA. I wish AMD could somehow get a broader grip in too so there’s competition.
 
bryo said:
Because of the Linux driver stack and cost. Nvidia drivers on Linux are proprietary and the open source path for nvidia is still in its infancy. For AMD valve can modify the drivers themself to eke out performance and fix bugs and upstream it into the Linux kernel. It gives them much more flexibility without being reliant on the manufacturers. Where I work we use Linux with nvidia for our products, and we have had cases where we find bugs in the driver and have to wait months for nvidia to fix things if they will even take a call from us.
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Very interesting insight, I have never known this. It does somewhat make sense anecdotally at least as I rarely have have issues with AMD GPUs compared to Nvidia. Though I mainly build my computers with Nvidia GPUs paired with AMD CPUs, the APUs in the Steam Deck and RoG Xbox ally X always seem to run without issue. I suppose it also is a reason why each console generation usually is contracted with AMD despite much more progress at the high end with hardware ray tracing. AMD is showing very strong mobile and portable APUs lately with the ryzen 395 Ai max+ and Halo Strix. If they could just make their product names memorable!
 
I'll have to try this out, I imagine the only upgrade from using the iPad version is now we can get higher resolutions, which is great. We already have a 3rd party VR streaming app that I have confirmed works perfectly: ALVR. But, it sounds like Valve might actually bring 3D support in the future. Which would be a lot easier then setting up ALVR lol
 
SunMac said:
I'll have to try this out, I imagine the only upgrade from using the iPad version is now we can get higher resolutions, which is great. We already have a 3rd party VR streaming app that I have confirmed works perfectly: ALVR. But, it sounds like Valve might actually bring 3D support in the future. Which would be a lot easier then setting up ALVR lol
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The best VR support for AVP is through CloudXR. This is what Apple/NVIDIA brought to AVP with the 26.4 update. In my testing it runs significantly better than ALVR. You can now run any PC VR game with AVP (OpenXR, OpenVR and SteamVR).

Good video showing how it works with iRacing:
https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1smxck4/krvr_with_passthrough
 
One could get a pretty decent PC rig + VR setup just for the cost of the Vision Pro. Vision Pro to me is not a consumer item. Some of the stuff they are doing with surgical procedures is cool, but that segment has money.

Needs to get to sub $1000 before consumers will even begin to look at it.
 
avkills said:
One could get a pretty decent PC rig + VR setup just for the cost of the Vision Pro. Vision Pro to me is not a consumer item. Some of the stuff they are doing with surgical procedures is cool, but that segment has money.

Needs to get to sub $1000 before consumers will even begin to look at it.
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The problem is the lower cost VR market isn't great in terms of quality. Quest 3 and equivalents are basically child toys and after trying things like the Pimax Crystal, I was about to upgrade to that but now that the AVP works across all PC games, no longer need to do that. And now of course component costs are going in the wrong direction as well.

But the issue for Apple is the premium VR market is so small, just can't see it taking off, so hard to see it making sense for them to continue. But let's see what happens in the coming months. WWDC and what Apple does with VisionOS could give some insights, but not expecting much!
 
ryanmp said:
The best VR support for AVP is through CloudXR. This is what Apple/NVIDIA brought to AVP with the 26.4 update. In my testing it runs significantly better than ALVR. You can now run any PC VR game with AVP (OpenXR, OpenVR and SteamVR).
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Oh wow, I'm looking at installing CloudXR now. Didn't know about that, last time I messed with VR games was in Nov. last year. Thanks for the info! I also got the new weighted Apple head strap last last year for gaming with the AVP it does a better job of keeping the device in place during gaming sessions compared to the strap that came with the AVP (M2). I prefer the original strap for non-gaming use though.

Some people don't realize that there are people out there who don't care so much about the price of the AVP. For what it does it's practically incomparable to any other device. I've had VR gaming setups before and doing VR with AVP is superior.
 
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SunMac said:
Oh wow, I'm looking at installing CloudXR now. Didn't know about that, last time I messed with VR games was in Nov. last year. Thanks for the info! I also got the new weighted Apple head strap last last year for gaming with the AVP it does a better job of keeping the device in place during gaming sessions compared to the strap that came with the AVP (M2). I prefer the original strap for non-gaming use though.

Some people don't realize that there are people out there who don't care so much about the price of the AVP. For what it does it's practically incomparable to any other device. I've had VR gaming setups before and doing VR with AVP is superior.
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KRVR is the best CloudXR client right now https://krvr.app/
 
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