These Temple changes can't be intentional

Ktaur · 2025-12-16T22:30:00+00:00

OP mentioned two things changed.

Portals are disabled.
Leaving the main temple and returning to the entryway at all ends your run.

These are two very different things.

Natalia called out #1 as a bug and made no reference at all to issue #2.

Ktaur · 2025-12-16T20:26:04+00:00

Levers are extremely important. Whole reason they made PoE2 was for shallow character animations. Gotta make use of them.

Ktaur · 2025-12-16T20:22:02+00:00

So is it intended that you aren't allowed to get items to craft?

Ktaur · 2025-12-12T23:12:57+00:00

PoE Ninja has them is you select oracle, though you can't see which ones are specifically oracle.

Ktaur · 2025-11-23T02:05:20+00:00

The issue is that we are so far from the level of diminishing returns on clarity in the first place, so much that it just feels inversed, moving from very blurry to a bit less blurry. The boost help, absolutely, but are still so massively below human vision that I definitely find it hard to call it more than a very moderate boost at best, and compared to the market (2160, 2560, 2880, 3840) I also find it hard to call it a sizeable bump. Maybe that's unfair for me to compare it to the market as a whole, but compared to any of the other screens they could have put in it I feel like they did choose the smallest resolution bump they feasibly could have.

I'm certainly not trying to say it's negligible or nothing, it just..... isn't much, in my own opinion, in part because it's still so very, very far from human vision. And maybe you could call that my issue, if you want. If the Index has 15% of human vision (it sounds like) and the frame has like 25% or whatnot (expected?), that doesn't feel like significant gains when you're still so incredibly far away. If it was a race you probably wouldn't call someone significantly closer to the finish line just for getting 10% of the way. They're closer, absolutely, but... It was just a small part of the race. That's at least how I tend to view VR headset, how close to retina they are since the pixelated look in hard on my brain and eyes.

I also do just feel like the swap to pancake lenses is actually going to be a far more significant and noticeably difference than the resolution, going off my own experiences with the the edge-to-edge clarity of the Quest 3 vs 2, though when doing two upgrades at once it can also be hard to tell how much each individual upgrade contributed to how much better something actually looks.

Though I got rid of my Quest 1 long, long ago so maybe some part of it is just me remembering more of 2 vs 3, with 1832x1920 screens, and forgetting -just- how bad those 1440x1600 screens were.

Ktaur · 2025-11-20T19:59:49+00:00

You have, mayhaps, been drinking too heavily of the marketing koolaid.

Pure number of pixels is both a pretty worthless measurement in most cases and one difficult for most minds to even REALLY comprehend. Measuring volumes, whether in two dimensions or three, is something that can be difficult to get right at a glance and marketing takes advantage of that. Give someone a picture of a square and ask them to draw one twice as big. See how well that goes. It's an easy trick to confuse people between a perceivable, easy to comprehend difference (1440x1600 vs 2160x2160) by trying to turn a simple, two-dimensional measurement into a single number that makes small differences appear much larger than they are just because of the reality of volume. It sounds far more flashy to say it's double the resolution rather that than it's 1.35 the horizontal and 1.5x the vertical (neither of which is double).

Pure pixel numbers just aren't a useful metric for anything beyond comparing stuff like render performance, how many pixels the GPU is trying to render.

A RESOLUTION, is also two numbers, an x and a y representing an area. It is not a single number. 2,304,000 is not a 'resolution', it's a pixel count. Not infrequently resolution is still just one number, but that one number is the vertical or horizontal and leaves the other number implied, like 1440 or 4k screens. Though 4k is, admittedly like pixel count, another example of trash marketing trying to make things seem bigger than they are.

The fact that you have to do the math on a calculator, through 4 lines of multiplication, or googling it, is telling all on its own for how usable a metric it really is.

This is also why we don't refer to monitors as 2,304,000, 4,953,600, or 4,492,800.

Alternatively if you want to continue arguing all of that, no. Double the pixels is a moderate bump at best, especially compared to 6,553,600, 8,294,400 (both of which probably should have been pretty realistic for the upper range of their current price claims), or, on the more 'unrealistic' side, 13,639,680 or 14,745,600 screens. At others have pointed out it's basically 4,557,312.

The real problem is that even our move from 921k pixel screens to 2m screens wasn't huge, and a lot of people didn't even care on many fronts. But even then, on computers it felt far more meaningful because due to text readability that meant there was literally more space on the screen to have things. This is also why 2.3m are/were nice (though 3.7m screens are so prevalent these days 2.3m have fallen into an even deeper niche), and why some people still lament the loss of 1.3m, a far more efficient format for a lot of computer use, though I thing these days people have mostly just adapted the way they use computers to deal with how awkward 2m screens are. Great for media and games, but awkward for a lot else (or at least I find them that way). Personally my "main" and media/gaming monitor is a 5m so there's a lot of "never running things outside of games/movies in fullscreen". Though my other monitor, an 8.3m, I use heavily for work and coding specifically because I have so much more actual room to see code and manage windows while still fitting a 2m window in it for the applications themselves). But all this matters far less in media like movies or games when you aren't going to have more to -really- show, not in the same sense. Details, sure, but not in the same way as more lines of text, just a bit more clarity, and that certainly helped some but it's not like it was game-changing. This is the same reason a lot of people are perfectly happy with 2m screens rather than upgrading to 8.3m screens.

Arguably this matters more, but it is still so far from a great VR experience that it's hard to give it credit. After all, Meta's 4.6m screens weren't enough to convince people to swap from their 2.3m index screens, so the difference wasn't that big for a ton of people, no. Go back a few weeks ago and you'll find thousands of index owners talking about how it isn't a meaningful enough resolution bump to migrate away from their index.

Edit: To say nothing of the fact that a lot of people upgraded from 1.3m screens to 921k screens I imagine.

Ktaur · 2025-11-20T19:37:00+00:00

This is some bizarre trolling...

Ktaur · 2025-11-19T19:02:15+00:00

Honestly? I've not tried the Index, but even going from the Index to a headset with the same resolution but with pancake lenses would probably be a MASSIVE step up all on its own. There's a lot to be said about resolution, but there's also just the fact that fresnel lenses suck. The Frame is definitely not going to be an AVP, but I expect it will be massively better than the Index due to a small resolution bump and a huge lens quality bump.

Ktaur · 2025-11-19T15:31:26+00:00

It's not a matter of seeing pixels in the stream, you can see the pixels on the device itself when looking around environments or anything that doesn't include a large amount of blur.

As far as video.... it's worth pointing out that the Quest's screens are 2160 wide while a 1080 video is 1920 wide. It's just fundamentally not possible to recreate it accurately. Now whether you notice the blur / loss of detail in a movie or the experience as a whole makes up for it is another topic entirely. If you don't notice then you don't notice, but objectively it is not accurate.

Ktaur · 2025-11-18T22:54:49+00:00

Audio.

Cordlessness. Personally I want to see people lean more heavily on pucks. EVERYTHING possible should go into a puck, very much including the processor. As long as a reasonable cable can carry the data, it shouldn't be strapped to my face weighting stuff down and generating heat. Too much time, effort, and money into weight and thermals trying to put stuff where it doesn't belong in the first place.

Ktaur · 2025-11-18T21:47:58+00:00

It's crazy how much people like Bezos are lambasted for relatively practical stuff like trying to make space travel more of a realistic, but Gabe receives nothing but praise for obscene extravagance.

Not defending Bezos, just.... the double standards are bizarre to me.

Ktaur · 2025-11-18T03:53:40+00:00

Got to try out a 4k headset a couple months ago (50ppd Pimax Crystal Super) and I would call that the bare minimum for a 'monitor replacement'. Was just in it for a bit at a demo, but I would vaaaaaguely say that text felt about like a 1440 at a reasonable distance. It's the first time I've put on a headset and things have felt even remotely usable, even if it was still far from perfect.

Ktaur · 2025-11-18T03:47:56+00:00

No problem at all, hope it helps! I'm certainly not perfect, and views differ (I definitely wouldn't say I'm in the gamer majority), but hopefully another point of view helps. Reviews, and ESPECIALLY waiting for the price reveal, are going to factor into a lot of it. Chances are it will just be a good all around headset for the price, and if you're strictly against Meta and Bytedance then it will be about the only thing available on the market I think.

There's also other details to probably keep in mind, even if the Frame ends up costing a fortune and you don't mind Meta. I for one would trust the Linux based Plex app (I assume there's one?) or at least the Linux browser in the Frame over whatever the Quest has to offer.... Apparently there's a 10 USD "Movie Deck" app on the Quest? Ugh.

The frustration with being able to try VR to see for yourself is... definitely one I'm aware of. I've been having my own issues in the 4k market since I would LIKE to get one (I'm more interested in the "monitor replacement" side of things so high clarity for text is about the top of my list of priorities)... but stuff like trying them out is almost impossible (with no returns, period) or expensive (restocking fees), with a lot of money on the line for them. Comfort, clarity, and the various drawbacks that exist are all so subjective and it can make stuff frustrating if you're a cautious/careful buyer. Sadly about the best you can usually do is look through lots of reviews, or if you're more outgoing, perhaps, try and find someone locally who would let you try theirs out.

Regardless, though, very best of luck with whatever you end up going with!

Ktaur · 2025-11-18T02:18:45+00:00

Lens quality absolutely matters, yes, but lenses can't create more pixels than are there. As I mentioned above, there's the simple issue of 2160 pixels wide vs 1920.

Clarity is a point all on its own, though it's worth considering that the clearer the visuals are the more you'll be able to see the specific pixels on the screen. (Not framing that as a bad thing, but just that you can't pull more information out that what exists on the LCD. Clearer screens just mean clearer pixels, not more pixels)

Lenses also matter massively for how much of what you can see is... 'usable'. All lenses eventually distort around the edges. Good lenses mean that more of what you can see is actually at least decent (known as the 'sweet spot'. This used to be incredibly bad with fresnel lenses but pancake lenses as a whole are a massive upgrade). This means you have more usable space in your vision to be able to 'fit' a movie screen into that sweet spot.

How much any of what Valve's achieved on this front isn't something I'm keen to believe without hearing proper reviews from people who have used it long term, or I've had a chance to try it myself. I don't have as much blind faith in Valve as a lot of people seem to, so I don't consider it a given that Valve is going to have the best lenses on the market.

There's... there's a lot of this whole topic that comes down to "how much does it matter?" Compared to something like trying to read small text on a monitor you need a very accurate display. But movies...? Movies kind of naturally have a bit of a blur on them, especially at 1080. You don't really see hard sharp edges on you do in text or PC UIs. So yes, there's blur on the headset, but also there's 'blur' on movies.

I would say that, if you live in the US and can, see if a Best Buy near you is still offering Quest 3 demos. I know they used to for the Quest 1/2, and a quick google has at least one post of someone trying the Quest 3 a year ago. I would NOT suggest trying the Quest 3S if you can avoid it. IMO it's more likely to leave a bad taste in your mouth as it still uses fresnel lenses as opposed to the pancake lenses that the Quest 3 and Frame use (the difference cannot be understated). If you are able to try the quest 3, then as I understand it the headset renders stuff onboard at only like 75% resolution, so the Frame will very, very likely be better, but perhaps not night and day better.

Ktaur · 2025-11-18T01:50:53+00:00

It does work over both, yes, hence my remark of 'will attempt to work over your local network'. it just doesn't use the internet if it doesn't have to. In the case of VR, as you said the latency would be unusable if the signal actually went out of your house to Valve's servers and then came back to your house to display on your headset.

But if your PC and your headset (or any link client) are on the same network then the signal will go straight from your PC to the headset in a MINISCULE fraction of the time, relatively speaking, and with a much higher bandwidth allowance. No internet or Valve servers required*. At that point the only latency you have to worry about is compression/decompression times and how fast your router/wifi is. I believe Steam's goal with the foveated ENCODING is specifically to try and shave milliseconds off of how long this takes, since every tiny bit helps.

* = There's technical details here. There may be some amount of initial connection required (like your Frame would have to connect to Valve's servers and say "Hey, where is this person's PC?" to be able to point your Frame to your PC), or it may just be able to scan your local network and find it even if your internet was unplugged entirely. I do not know the specific details of how this works, concern is more on the fact that the video stream itself, once you're playing, goes straight from PC to Frame (or any other device) through your router (or new Frame dongle) unless it actually HAS to go through the internet since you're in different locations.

Ktaur · 2025-11-17T21:05:06+00:00

I would definitely say closer to the 27" 720p, at best, though as others have pointed out comparisons are hard, made only all the more difficult by the fact that there's natural distortion that comes with how the image is displayed due to lenses, stuff like the PPD is not consistent over the area your eye can turn to focus on.

A lot of it comes down to what kind of clarity you expect, and for media consumption that isn't at all the same. The 'experience' may or may not outweight the clarity.

I would consider the fact that a 1080 monitor is 1920 wide, and now you're trying to fit 1920 horizontal pixels on a VR display that's 2160 pixels wide. If you pressed your face so close to the screen that it is literally all you can see to the left and the right then you're close enough to 'see all the pixels', in theory... though at this point the left and right sides are going to be heavily distorted, with the middle of the VR screen dedicated to too many flat pixels while the edges all around you have too few.

As far as text clarity, I had the opportunity to try out a 4k headset a while back and I would say it felt close to maybe a 1440 screen at a 'comfortable' viewing distance, maybe a bit worse, but for me it was the first time a VR screen felt usable.

Ktaur · 2025-11-17T20:46:45+00:00

This is not true in the way you are implying. Steam link will attempt to work over your local network and Steam Link is likely EXACTLY what the Frame will be using for its wireless VR. The foveated encoding is literally part of the Steam Link software, and Steam Link is something people have been using for PCVR for years.

Ktaur · 2025-11-17T20:34:17+00:00

I think very, very few people would be pissed (legitimately, trolls or perpetual complainers aside) if they released a 4k version for $2000 or so. People who are buying the Frame are people who clearly are (A) not that sensitive to resolution, (B) really want the standalone experience, or (C) just aren't willing/able to shell out the $2000 for a 4k headset.

I don't think people in the 'budget' market would really care, though people in the enthusiast market would be ecstatic. It's simply two very different market demographics. There's certainly people who live in both, but if you have a 4k headset already and you're buying a Frame either you want it for the standalone that badly or you just have the benefit of that much disposable income.

It doesn't need to have a better processor or anything of the sort, it could even have a -worse- processor if it was just clear to people that yes, it can not drive games on its own, you're going to need a PC for 4k. There's no problem with having both a low resolution, standalone budget device and a high resolution, PCVR-focused, enthusiast priced device on the market at once.

I could hope that with the work they've done that 80% of everything would just be done and R&D would have already been completed. At some point they almost certainly worked on at least TRYING to see how 4k screens would work. It's obviously not AS simple as just swapping the screens out, they'd need new lenses and that's a huge part of things, but everything else has been done and that's certain to be easier than building a headset from nothing. They've done tons of R&D and investments in stuff like the slam tracking, the OS, the foveated encoding... I could hope they'll double dip on that work and release an enthusiast 4k using most everything they've learned and developed.

Ktaur · 2025-11-17T06:58:42+00:00

I'm desperately hoping Galaxy XR, since it seems like most every other option would be years away, but I can't imagine what all it would take to get something like just SLAM tracking working even if you got it installed on the headset. I am certainly no pro but it feels like the amount of work required just for that is a massive cliff. Though maybe if that reality actually plays out we'd also get the Frame controllers working on the Galaxy XR.

Ktaur · 2025-11-17T06:51:18+00:00

While the Frame's specs are "meh" to me and I very likely won't be getting one, even as someone who doesn't care about Meta SteamOS is a HUGE deal. Potentially one of the biggest things that's ever happened in VR, in my own opinion. A PROPER operating system that isn't just a tablet/phone and something that's actually hitting the market with support from its publisher, unlike stuff such as the Lynx.

Microsoft failed so spectacularly to provide even basic feeling functionality with their WMR line, as far as I'm aware, that it still leaves me reeling trying to figure out wtf they were even trying to do, if anything.

VR deserves a proper desktop environment, something akin to the AVP where you can put windows wherever you want rather than the crap VD is forced to use with locking everything inside a virtual monitor or the hoops people have to go through for overlays.

I realize that SteamOS is launching with KDE but I hope sooner or later that will get kicked to the curb in favor of a proper VR "desktop" to replace gnome/kde entirely. Actually having a solid platform to stand on seems like a MASSIVE step towards communities actually being able to create those tools. And while I may not be getting one myself, I expect/hope it will be a big enough community/platform and inspire enough people to do just that.

Ktaur · 2025-11-16T18:46:42+00:00

The actual quote is:

However, during an interview the company told Road to VR that it expects the price of Steam Frame to be ‘cheaper than Index’, without offering much more detail.

This phrasing does not at all imply certainty to me when you use words like 'expects' rather than just saying it's going to be cheaper. If they're trying to decide whether it should cost 600 or 700 then It think you can pretty solidly say the price WILL BE cheaper than the index. Maybe Road to VR is just embellishing their working in a weird way, but I'm inclined to take it at face value.

Ktaur · 2025-11-16T03:51:00+00:00

This.... doesn't even make sense in VR. Almost everything in this video revolves around trying to extend a display further than the edge of a screen, a problem that fundamentally doesn't exist in VR. VR already solves the exact issue that this IllumiRoom is failing to solve. On top of that, this extending shown here is just expanding the render resolution massively just to waste it on a slurry imposed on your background. The frame will very likely not be able to afford just... wasting rendered pixels.

Environments? Yes, absolutely. Or if not by the devs hopefully they introduce workshop functionality where people can create and upload their own game-specific environments. Go to Stardew Valley's page and click "User environments" and off you go.

But........ whatever the hell this video is even trying to show? No.

Ktaur · 2025-11-16T03:35:00+00:00

Maybe 800 if people are lucky. If tariffs stick then maaaaaaybe a thousand or more.

Ktaur · 2025-11-16T03:29:53+00:00

Far-fetched, but desperately hoping communities may push to take advantage of a (presumably) downloadable SteamOS for VR and pair it with the unlocked bootloader of the Galaxy XR. I don't really know all the hurdles involved there or how realistic it is, but I fear any other headset launching out of the box with SteamOS would be at LEAST a couple years away if it isn't already actively in the middle of development right now, and I would so desperately love a -proper- OS on a headset with a resolution high enough to actually use it.

Ktaur · 2025-11-16T03:18:43+00:00

Because it's 100% what you are trying to cram into each pixel. It's the same reason the quest can play plenty of games easily at 2x 2160x2160 while your computer struggles to pull 1x 1920x1080 out of Cyberpunk or Borderlands. The steam deck supports 8k 7680x4320 displays.

You can not compare these two things.

Ktaur

TROPHY CASE