{"id":716776,"date":"2026-06-05T10:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716776\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T10:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:51:08","slug":"valve-explains-steam-machine-and-steam-frame-verified-requirements-vr-standalone-drops-to-72-fps-minimum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716776\/","title":{"rendered":"Valve explains Steam Machine and Steam Frame Verified requirements, VR standalone drops to 72 FPS minimum"},"content":{"rendered":"

PC Guide is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019re getting ever closer to the release of the Steam Machine<\/a> and Steam Frame<\/a> \u2013 two of Valve\u2019s three hardware launches this year. Valve has officially published Steamworks documentation for the new cubed mini PC and VR headset. These explain the \u201cbest practices\u201d for optimization and verification requirements \u2013 in a similar vein to the \u2018Steam Deck Verified\u2019 program.<\/p>\n

The third piece of the hardware, the second-gen Steam Controller<\/a>, arrived just over a month ago, as it wasn\u2019t held back by memory and storage shortages that continue to plague the industry. Given the recent Steam Deck price hikes, we now expect the Steam Machine to ship with a four-figure price tag<\/a>, and it only makes sense to expect the Steam Frame to suffer similar hikes.<\/p>\n

Steam Machine Verified and Steam Frame Verified requirements<\/p>\n

In an official blog post<\/a>, Valve explains what it takes for developers to get their games verified on these systems. This isn\u2019t the first time we\u2019ve heard these requirements (they were explained at GDC 2026<\/a> in March), but the new Steamworks documentation provides game devs with much more to dive into.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, 90 FPS was the original minimum benchmark announced for standalone VR titles; Valve now seems to have dropped the requirement to 72 FPS when running at 1728 x 1728 resolution (per eye). This matches the base 72Hz refresh rate of the display, though the max resolution is 2160 x 2160 (per eye). Valve did not specify a resolution for 90 FPS performance at GDC.<\/p>\n

Performance<\/p>\n

2D titles: your game must run at a minimum 30 fps at 1280\u00d7720 during normal play.<\/p>\n

VR titles: your game must run at a minimum of 72 fps at 1728\u00d71728 during normal play.
(Recommendations: We strongly recommend submitting both motion vector and depth suitable for reprojection. This will not automatically throttle your application, but will enable users to optionally run at higher refresh rates using improved reprojection techniques.)<\/p>\n

Steam Frame Standalone performance requirements, source: Steamworks<\/a><\/p>\n

Performance<\/p>\n

Default Configuration: the game must ship with a default configuration that results in a playable framerate. On Steam Deck, this is 30fps at 800p, and on Steam Machine this is 30fps at 1080p.<\/p>\n

Steam Deck Verified & Steam Machine Verified performance requirements, source: Steamworks<\/a><\/p>\n

As you\u2019d expect, any Steam Deck Verified games will already be verified<\/a> on the more powerful Steam Machine \u2013 both (as well as the Frame) run on the same operating system, SteamOS, so the game must run on Linux or be supported by Valve\u2019s Proton compatibility layer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all about performance, however, as Verified games must work seamlessly with any built-in controls. The Steam Deck has more restrictions to consider, such as text legibility and specific resolution support (preferably 1280\u00d7800).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PC Guide is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[64,63,105,238,239,240],"class_list":["post-716776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-virtual-reality","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology","tag-virtual-reality","tag-virtualreality","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}