GamingNewsTechValve has ported Half-Life: Alyx to ARM, and it\u2019s free with Steam FrameOne of the best PC VR games now runs natively on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.One of the best PC VR games now runs natively on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.by Sean HollisterSep 14, 2026, 5:00 PM UTCShareGiftImage: ValvePart OfSteam Machines have returned: all the news about Valve\u2019s new hardware universesee all updates Sean Hollister is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.Today, Valve is launching its first headset since 2019 \u2014 the new Steam Frame \u2014 while dodging our questions about whether it\u2019ll ever make another VR game to go with it. But buyers of the $1,059 gadget will get one flagship VR game anyhow, and it\u2019s great.Every Steam Frame comes with a copy of 2020\u2019s Half-Life: Alyx, one of the best VR games yet made and a good game, period, and you won\u2019t even need a desktop PC \u2014 because Valve has ported the entire game to ARM64 so it can run natively on the Frame\u2019s Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 3 chip.RelatedOur Steam Frame reviewSteam Machine today, Steam Phones tomorrowThat\u2019s no mean feat: This was a game that required a VR-ready Windows desktop or laptop with a midrange graphics card back in 2020, now running on what\u2019s effectively souped-up smartphone silicon. It even supports all the mods and extra levels that fans have built!<\/p>\n
My mods and saves were waiting for me the moment I fired it up.The port certainly has compromises in graphical fidelity compared to running it on my desktop, but it manages to feel like a full PC VR game on the Frame in a way that native Meta Quest titles never really have, and without removing any objects or assets. Typically, standalone VR games feel emptier.Valve says (via spokesperson Kaci Aitchison) that\u2019s because the Steam Frame\u2019s built-in eye-tracking cameras unlock foveated rendering \u2014 a technique that gives you full resolution where your eyes are actually looking, instead of wasting computing resources on the parts of the image where you\u2019re not:While we initially didn\u2019t think HL:A running natively on the Steam Frame was likely to be possible, the combination of Foveated Rendering & Eye Tracking turned out to be a silver bullet that enabled us to make it work. The Steam Frame\u2019s 16GB VRAM was also a critical piece, allowing us to avoid having to change any assets, or needing to degrade the gameplay experience.See how crisp Alyx\u2019s hand is? That\u2019s because that\u2019s where I\u2019m looking.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t notice that anything else is low resolution, because as soon as I look, it\u2019s sharp! Screenshot by Sean Hollister \/ The VergeThe lightsaber mod works, and so does foveated rendering \u2014 again, I don\u2019t notice the low resolution because it\u2019s in my peripheral view. Screenshot by Sean Hollister \/ The VergeAn example of extreme foveated rendering in the Goldeneye mod. Screenshot by Sean Hollister \/ The VergeThe company says it took \u201ca year of extra software work within the Vulkan drivers and SteamVR\u201d to make it work, but other developers can now take that work and run with it:The vast majority of that work was not HL:A specific, so it benefits every other game that runs on Steam Frame.<\/p>\n
Those bug fixes, optimizations, and extra features were all made easier by the open-source nature of the drivers, allowing our team to iterate quickly without having to wait for a third party.The Steam Frame doesn\u2019t necessarily need games to be ported, though. Like the Steam Deck and Steam Machine, it can play games that were built for Windows through translation and emulation layers that Valve\u2019s been funding for years, and it can run apps originally designed for Android-based headsets through a layer called Lepton as well.Will Valve use this work to build a new VR game of its own? I wouldn\u2019t hold my breath. The Steam Frame is arguably more for flat games than VR ones right now, Valve admitted it was no longer building three full games for VR years ago, and as of 2025, Valve said it had no new VR content in development.Rumor has it that Half-Life 3 has been in very active development, though.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Sean HollisterGamingNewsPC GamingTechVirtual RealityI reviewed Valve\u2019s Steam Frame, ask me anythingSean Hollister3 minutes agoValve\u2019s Steam Frame costs $1,059Jay Peters3 minutes agoThe Steam Frame is made for irresponsible hardware nerds like meSean Hollister3 minutes agoMost PopularYour car is selling your dataLG responds to TV spying allegationsWaymo pulls over, calls cops on riders with a ghost gunYour Mother Your Mother Your Mother will make you forget all about Marvel\u2019s Blade disasterApple is reportedly working on iPhone game controllersAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GamingNewsTechValve has ported Half-Life: Alyx to ARM, and it\u2019s free with Steam FrameOne of the best PC VR games now runs natively on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.One of the best PC VR games now runs\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}