The rumoured Steam Frame OLED would fix one of the Frame's minor weaknesses and do nothing for its major ones

Good catch by SteamFrameHub here: snippets of the recently released Steam Frame kernel source code contain references to a possible variant of Valve's new VR headset with upgraded OLED lenses. A failed prototype, ditched during development? Maybe not – one of the related code branches, which codename the device 'Planar,' was updated on October 2nd, weeks after the LCD-lensed Frame opened for reservations.

There's details, too. The OLED lenses seem to have a native resolution of 3,552x3,840 and a max refresh rate of 90Hz, suspiciously identical to the MicroOLED lenses used by Samsung's Galaxy VR headset. In standalone VR play, this would be much harsher on the (allegedly unchanged) Snapdragon SoC than the current Frame's 2,160x2160 eyescreens, but then the code also hints that Valve are getting around this with a cousin of the Frame's foveated rendering and foveated streaming tech: foveated scaling, where higher pixel density is used where your eyes look, and lower, less demanding pixel density is applied where they don't. Interesting! Even if right now, the whole idea of a Steam Frame OLED doesn't make much sense.

It probably did at some point – the Steam Deck OLED was a very nice upgrade on the original Deck and a Steam Frame OLED could be a similar deal, replacing the standard Frame's okay-not-amazing lenses with sharper, more vibrant ones. Foveated scaling also sounds like something that could improve standalone performance on both versions, if Valve's engineers can pull it off. Outside of this Might Be Nice vacuum, however, Planar appears to be addressing a minor imperfection of the current Frame in a way that either wouldn't help its bigger, much more urgent problems, or would actively make them worse.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

You've probably guessed that these are pricing and availability. RAM shortages, and the subsequent pushing of component prices into Fuck You money, have left the Steam Frame costing hundreds more than originally expected while Valve scrabbles to build enough to satisfy demand. Frame discourse has been dominated not by how its blacks could look deeper, but by its unintended unobtanium status.

An OLED version would not help this. It would not increase the overall supply of Valve VR headsets, as it would be competing with the LCD Frame for the same costly RAM and SSD parts. And, just as the Steam Deck OLED did, it would undoubtedly cost even more – the Galaxy VR is a cool £1,699, £610 more than the priciest Frame, and that had the good fortune to launch before hardware prices went properly screwy.

In happier times, I imagine I would be interested in an OLEDified Frame. Besides the likely display improvement, I'd be curious as to whether the panel type's inherently lower power usage would also help bump up the headset's short battery life, even with more total pixels to push. As it stands, though, hardware that would drive prices even higher, while diverting resources from a device whose reservation waiting period is already several months long, sounds like the last thing we – and Valve – need.