Steam Frame Beta Adds Room View to PC Streaming and Supported OpenXR Games

What changed​

Before this build, enabling Room View hid remote content entirely. A Steam Frame owner streaming a desktop or remote game theater from a PC lost that picture as soon as camera passthrough switched on. The 0.5.8 build removes that either-or limit for those two cases.

The update also affects PC VR games. Valve's notes say PC VR games with OpenXR mixed reality support can now blend VR content and camera passthrough, and they list X-Plane 12 as the example. The developer note adds that OpenXR games streamed from PC can now use XR_ENVIRONMENT_BLEND_MODE_ALPHA_BLEND.

This is not a general mixed-reality switch. A game has to support the relevant OpenXR behavior. Installing both betas won't turn an arbitrary VR title into a mixed-reality one.

How to try it​

Room View for PC streaming needs two opt-ins, one on the headset and one on the PC. Updating only the headset isn't enough.

1. On the Steam Frame: go to Settings > System > System Update Channel and choose the Beta channel. Then install SteamOS 0.5.8.
2. On the Windows PC: in your Steam library, right-click SteamVR and open Properties. Select Game Versions & Beta and choose the beta branch.
3. To check it: stream your desktop or the game theater, turn on Room View, and see whether the streamed content stays visible. For a game, confirm it supports OpenXR mixed reality before expecting blended passthrough.

Valve labels the Beta channel as containing features still being tested. I found no stable release date. Anyone who wants a dependable setup can wait.

Other changes in SteamOS 0.5.8​

Valve's notes for the same build list these items:

• Overlay quality: it is now always Low on Steam Frame and the setting is hidden. Valve says this fixes problems that happened when Ultra was selected.
• Eye tracking: self-calibration is improved.
• Display: Valve fixed low-end gamma response, including inconsistencies between the two eyes, on some headsets.
• WebXR: a permission issue that prevented WebXR from working in Chrome v157 is fixed.
• Bundled runtime: the build includes SteamVR 2.19.2.

SteamVR 2.19.2 on the PC​

The SteamVR 2.19.2 beta dated November 6 is mostly cleanup after 2.19.1. Valve's notes list these fixes:

• Several overlay and game-menu regressions that 2.19.1 introduced.
• An occasional crash when the streaming resolution changes, plus transient visual artifacts during those changes.
• A restored option to reduce the encoding resolution down to 512.
• Better resilience to brief network-related stream interruptions.
• A Linux launch problem with the SteamRT3 client when the Legacy Steam Runtime isn't in the default Steam library.
• A Quick Access Menu battery tab that reported the right controller twice with some third-party drivers, such as PSVR2.

These fixes apply to SteamVR generally, not only to Steam Frame. Valve asks people who hit problems to post in the SteamVR Bug Report forum with a system report if possible. It says replies to the announcement aren't tracked as bug reports.

Beta caveats​

Early community reports suggest caution. One user on the Steam Frame forum says the headset won't charge in sleep mode or when shut down since updating to 0.5.8. That is a single forum post, not something Valve has confirmed. Another SteamVR forum thread, covering the 2.19.2 beta, reports that OVR input plugin captures in OBS look very blurry. Those reports are unverified, but they fit with this being pre-release software.

Valve's notes give no figures for latency, image quality or network requirements with Room View active. Results will depend on your PC and network. If you stream with Room View on, test it with a game you know well before relying on it.

Why it matters​

Passthrough during PC streaming is mainly a convenience feature. You can check your keyboard, a drink or a person walking in without taking the headset off, and you keep your desktop or theater in view. For sim players, X-Plane 12 is the case Valve points to. Blending a virtual cockpit with the real room could help there, though that depends on how the game itself handles passthrough.