{"id":856805,"date":"2026-09-22T17:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T17:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856805\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T17:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T17:04:12","slug":"the-steam-frames-first-post-launch-update-speeds-up-charging-and-ungarbles-a-mic-bug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856805\/","title":{"rendered":"The Steam Frame\u2019s first post-launch update speeds up charging and ungarbles a mic bug"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having launched<\/a> though the same system of reservations and waitlists as the Steam Machine<\/a>, the Steam Frame<\/a> is still navigating that inscrutable void betixt “on sale” and “actually out.” Nevertheless, it\u2019s had its first software update, SteamOS 0.3.0<\/a>, which brings \u2013 among other technical tidbits \u2013 a microphone bug fix, smoother controller tracking, and “substantially faster” charging to the VR headset. Yeah, nice one Valve. Would have been useful to have that last one when reviewing the thing on a deadline but whatever.<\/p>\n

Bitterness aside, battery longevity is not one of the Frame\u2019s strong suits<\/a> \u2013 play Half-Life: Alyx<\/a> in the headset\u2019s signature standalone mode<\/a> and it\u2019ll conk out from full after an hour. Faster recharging, even just when the Frame is off or sleeping, should go a ways towards easing that pain point. Conversely, I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve encountered the “garbled audio” microphone bug myself, though am now curious as to how it sounded \u2013 I like to think it resembled the deep, underwater warbling of the Board in Control<\/a>, though that might just be recency bias<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the full patch notes:<\/p>\n

General<\/p>\n

Substantially faster charging while unit is off \/ sleeping
\nImproved controller tracking while haptics are active
\nImproved system stability and reliability under high load
\nFixed “garbled audio” microphone bug<\/p>\n

UX<\/p>\n

Fixed per-app Motion Smoothing -> “Force Always-On” setting (was getting ignored)
\nImproved motion smoothing behavior in Alyx
\nAdded VR Settings control for “Game dimming when dashboard is visible”
\nVR Settings -> Play Area no longer auto-shows bounds<\/p>\n

Developer<\/p>\n

Change Playable performance criteria to allow any resolution (was: 1440p)
\nVulkan layer fixes for increased game compatibility
\nMultiple improvements to overall system \/ OS performance
\nMultiple improvements to graphics performance (Mesa)<\/p>\n

Valve have told us, numerous times, that they plan to continue updating and expanding the featuresets of their 2026 hardware output, much like how the Steam Deck<\/a> got a bunch of added tools and tricks after it launched in 2022. And, in fact, continues to receive them today<\/a>, at least by virtue of sharing an operating system with the newer Steam Machine. The Frame also runs SteamOS, and a few of its own game compatibility aids<\/a> besides, though as a VR headset will naturally require a more specialised approach to future enhancements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having launched though the same system of reservations and waitlists as the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[74,179,509,180],"class_list":["post-856805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-virtual-reality","tag-technology","tag-virtual-reality","tag-virtualreality","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}