Valve's newly announced Steam Frame is already getting a ton of attention, as is the rest of the hardware they recently unveiled. This attention is fully deserved, and aside from the Steam Machine and Steam Controller, the Steam Frame stands out, as it is the company's first major VR headset iteration since the Index.

Pretty much every part of the experience has been modernized: inside-out tracking, foveated streaming, wireless connection, and new controllers make up what is assuredly a completely different VR experience to what the Index offered. One part of the spec sheet hasn't gotten a ton of attention, and I think it's one of the most consequential parts of this new device. The ramifications of putting a fully-fledged ARM computer on board the Frame are obviously yet to be seen, but I think Valve doing so could be the catalyst for a huge leap for PCs in general, not just VR headsets.

The headset itself has merit

The Steam Frame looks to be a killer device

Besides the on-board computer, there's a ton that makes the Steam Frame stand out on its own. Ditching the lighthouse base stations for wireless is a monumental jump in usability. Eye-tracking for foveated streaming lessens the load on your PC's hardware while also making the actual resulting image sharper, not to mention the integrated acoustic features, removing the need for any kind of additional sound add-ons. The ARM CPU seems like an afterthought to most looking at the spec sheet, and you wouldn't be blamed for thinking that.

An ARM CPU on a VR headset isn't new

Plenty of them have it

At first glance, Steam Frame having its own ARM processor isn’t groundbreaking. In fact, every major standalone VR headset already does this. Meta’s Quest line uses Qualcomm Snapdragon chips for both tracking and standalone gameplay. HTC’s standalone devices do the same. Pico, Lenovo, and various enterprise headsets all follow the same formula: ARM silicon handles tracking, camera processing, reprojection, and sometimes the entire rendering pipeline.

Valve isn't reinventing the wheel simply by adding one of these ARM processors. It'll certainly be taking some of the load of the host PC by taking over some VR processing locally, but it's not a novel concept at all. It's what comes after that makes this so interesting.

SteamOS on ARM is new, though

Valve are doing more Valve things

Valve have spent the last few years going extremely hard in the Linux department. Their initial attempts with Steam hardware were largely unsuccessful due to various limitations, but one of the things they undoubtedly learned was that the software is integral, and Windows cannot be relied on to provide the kind of experience they want. Steam Deck is really what drove them to develop the Proton compatibility layer to the point where it's rare to find a game that doesn't work on Linux. Any incompatibility is largely due to anti-cheat or developer launchers, not the actual game itself, and adding ARM to this equation makes things interesting.

FEX, an emulation layer for Linux, is the next evolution in this process. It's used to emulate x86 instructions on an ARM system. The Windows-Linux connection is well established at this point, but running x86 applications on a Linux-based ARM system is essentially exactly what the Frame will need to do.

In an interview with Gamers Nexus, Lawrence Yang, a UX Designer at Valve, said that the Frame should have a "sizable library" of compatible games upon release, just as the Deck did. He also confirmed the existence of a similar "Verified" program to what exists for the Deck.

What this could mean for ARM

SteamOS on ARM could be huge for future devices

SteamOS as a platform was designed for x86, but the fact that the ARM-based Frame runs it, and is currently commanding development resources to ensure compatibility with x86 titles, means that this could be a real catalyst for ARM gaming. If it's successful enough, it's not out of the question that we could see ARM-based Steam Machines or Steam Deck devices down the road, featuring chips far more powerful than a Snapdragon.

This is, of course, only viable if developers begin to make their games compatible with ARM natively, which is an entirely different challenge to emulation. Emulation takes significant performance headroom to be able to perform adequately. As we've seen with Linux, though, all it takes is a company like Valve to spearhead software development for their hardware, which can completely transform an industry. They did it with handhelds, the effects of which are still rippling through the PC gaming space today. I think they have their sights set on much bigger things than that, though.

The Frame could be remembered in a completely different way

It's always exciting when a company like Valve releases new hardware, and while the Frame may play second fiddle to the Steam Machine in a lot of people's minds, the potential ramifications it could have on gaming as a whole can't be ignored. SteamOS on ARM, if successful, could mean we see more ARM-based Steam hardware. Steam Frame, ironically, may end up being remembered less as a VR headset, and more as Valve’s first meaningful ARM SteamOS device.