This is foviated streaming. The PC still renders everything at full, but the streaming compression is optimized for where you’re looking
Comment on Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026]
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 1 day agoFoviated rendering is a massive thing, usually only done in the expensive stuff.
It gives you a pretty big FPS boost because the device doesn’t have to render stuff the human eye can’t see anyway
themusicman@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Does that mean there’s no forviated rendering in standalone mode?
themusicman@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
I imagine there will be for some games, but it relies on the game developer implementing it. Whereas foviated streaming works for all games.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I wonder if valve can multi purpose the SDK for streaming and give it to game devs and say use this sdk to determine where to adjust how things being rendered, and make it eventually a no brainer easy to use add on.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 16 hours ago
They showed a special build of Alyx only rendering where the eyes are looking and supposedly even that works well. I bet they’re working on a version of Alyx that can run natively on the Frame but it wasn’t fully ready for the announcement.
And maybe a HL3 that works both in VR and flat.
EtzBetz@feddit.org 1 day ago
Does every game need to support it in a way, or would this be done on an OS level? Because I don’t know, from my experience, the game tells how detailed anything has to be rendered in a frame.
DanWolfstone@leminal.space 23 hours ago
The games that will play natively on the steam frame will have to support it on a game level, but for streaming it’s handled at the os level through “Foveated Streaming”. So the PC isn’t getting an fps boost from it but it does allow the latency to be very low through streaming.
I’m not sure that the eye tracking data will be passed through for foveated rendering from the PC side though I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t. In that case you get both render and streaming which would be incredible
EtzBetz@feddit.org 23 hours ago
Thanks for your insight :)