Steam Frame starts at $1,059 and you'll want to enter the stock lotte…

The Steam Frame is ready for launch, and Valve has finally announced pricing and availability for its streaming/standalone VR headset.

There are two models of the Steam Frame available:

• Steam Frame (256 GB) w/ VR controllers: 1,059 USD/ 1,529 CAD/ 1,049 EUR/ 889 GBP/ 1,609 AUD/ 4,539 PLN
• Steam Frame (1 TB) w/ VR controllers: 1,299 USD/ 1,859 CAD/ 1,279 EUR/ 1,089 GBP/ 1,969 AUD/ 5,549 PLN

Valve has two additional purchase available alongside the Steam Frame at launch. newsbetting.cv

There's the Ergonomic Accessories Kit. This costs 49 USD/ 69 CAD/ 59 EUR/ 49 GBP/ 89 AUD/ 229 PLN and includes two hand straps (similar to the Valve Index's), over-the-head strap, and extended light blocker.

There's also a power adapter, which costs 29 USD/49 CAD/39 EUR/29 GBP/49 AUD. There's not one included in the box, though any USB Type-C charger of 45 W should cut it if you want to save the cash.

How to sign up for a Steam Frame at launch

If you don't mind the price, signups for a Steam Frame reservation can be made anytime between now and September 17 at 10 am Pacific Time on the product page.

Valve will be doing a one-time randomisation to determine who has a unit reserved for them and who is stuck on the waitlist. This takes place on September 17. From this, Valve will determine who has a unit reserved in their name and who is stuck on the waitlist.

Here's Valve on how the reservation system works:

• Folks can sign up for the model they’d like to purchase between September 14 and September 17 at 10 am Pacific Time
• When signups close, we’ll do a one-time randomization to determine reservation and waitlist order
• Based on the results of that randomization, customers receive an email later on the 17 indicating they are on the reservation list or waitlist
• Anyone coming to the product page after September 17 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time will be able to join the waitlist and will be added to the back
• We expect to send the first batch of purchase emails out on September 18, and will continue sending those out as units become available to ship
• For those on the waitlist, it means their place in line is beyond the number of Steam Frames currently available for reservation, and we will notify folks if and when they are moved into the reservation queue.

It's a similar system to the one Valve used for the launch of the Steam Machine, which so far seems to be working as intended. Orders for the Linux box were said to be going out daily back in July, with Valve believing then that it will be done with the reservation queue for the Steam Machine by the end of the year. In some regions, it had already begun offering units to those on the waitlist.

"We found the reservation system to be helpful in limiting resellers and improving the purchase experience," says Valve.

The Steam Frame is a different beast altogether, with a varied range of components and heaps of LPDDR5X memory chips, which could make life more difficult for Valve, but it seems the reservation system is at least working as intended. The main thing to note is that, by signing up ahead of September 17, you secure the best chance at a Steam Frame anytime soon.

No one knows how to haunt the narrative quite like Overwatch's two misfits, Roadhog and Sombra. When these heroes are strong the game sucks for everyone else, but when they're nerfed for the sake of everyone else there's almost no reason to play them. This has meant that both characters are in a perpetual state of buff/nerf; it's tough out here to be a hog.

So it comes as absolutely no surprise that the two characters picked to undergo yet another redesign over at Blizzcon were the dynamic duo Hog and Sombra. But it wouldn't be an Overwatch balance change without at least a little bit of upset.

Hog's new look seems sound enough—especially with the much-needed addition of Trash Compactor which works as a de facto shield. But Sombra's change to the Support role has players up in arms.

Much of Sombra's previous kit has stayed the same, with her primary fire, EMP ult, and translocator ability all left intact. But she also has two new abilities and passives:

• Hotfix heals an alley for a set amount of health over time and lets her freely hack health packs.
• Cyberspace is just a biotic grenade mimic.
• The Conspirator passive means that Sombra can now see whenever enemy ultimates are fully-charged.
• The Tactician support subrole means she can store excess ult charge and beef it up.

Change can be difficult, but I actually like this new look.

Sure it's annoying that Sombra can't hack heroes out of their ult, but she still has EMP for that. And it'll be frustrating for flanker DPS mains that they now have one less hero to use against Widowmaker, but Tracer can get that job done. If used correctly, I think this can turn Sombra from an outlier to a standard pick.

There's only one issue: Overwatch players are stubborn as all hell.. First up, Overwatch players don't like playing against Sombra, and her ban rates in competitive are ingrained into the psyche of some players, so I don't think this restyle will help change her public image all that much at first.

Then there's the fact that in all likelihood a great deal of players will play Sombra in her old fashion as a flanker, instead of a support who's new role is to stick with her team and tank. If there's one thing that pisses me off it's support players who justify DPS joyrides as another way to support their team.

If you're not in Masters or above then that just isn't true. While healing isn't the whole role of a support, there's facilitating engagement and boosting ally's kill-potential, the main goal of a support should always be self and team sustain. So having one support off on the other side of the map spawn camping the enemy team's Mercy will probably be a commonly frustrating experience.

But these issues are just growing pains. I'm sure overtime Sombra's new role will settle itself into the muscle memory of players. I have a feeling she'll become a valued member of her new role much like Doomfist and Symmetra.

Here's some logic for you: Grand Theft Auto 6—fattened on its billions—cannot help but be the greatest game of all time. This I have gathered from the apocalyptic euphoria that surrounds its release. But GTA 6 is not out yet, and the greatest game of all time, currently, is The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for the PlayStation 2, original Xbox, and GameCube.

Ergo, QED, post hoc ergo propter hoc, abracadabra: GTA 6 will basically be like The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

With that key fact in mind, and with the aim of continuing to transform Grand Theft Auto the fifth into a facsimile of GTA 6 (this time on PC), I have installed Superman V into GTA 5. Your heroes now have laser eyes (also cryo eyes, pulse eyes, solar flare eyes, and so on), super speed, freeze breath, the ability to fly, and X-ray vision—which so far as I can tell is a heat-haze effect that happens intermittently.

I have waved goodbye to guns, much like the protagonist of A Farewell To Arms, who also probably did that after learning he could set people on fire by staring at them.

It works alarmingly well. I can ignite passing cars with my heat vision, freeze cops where they stand, and subject Los Santos' now-roving ambient hit squads to the carcinogenic effects of sustained X-ray exposure. I can also fly, which sometimes works, and sometimes results in Franklin, Michael, or Trevor tumbling lazily but uncontrollably through the sky, like an airborne flower.

My only concern is that, at this point, I am rapidly running out of keys on my keyboard with which to activate the various mods I have installed. At time of writing, hitting any of my function keys will summon a pile-up of distinct mod menus: Enhanced Native Trainer, Menyoo, the one that controls giving people piggybacks, the one that controls summoning dogs. What if what breaks by the end of this thing is not GTA 5, but my ability to control it?

Grand Theft Auto 6

GTA 6 guide: Everything we know
GTA 6 cars: The garage lineup
GTA 6 characters: Your anti-hero cast
GTA 6 map: Confirmed Vice City locales
GTA 6 PC release: When's it going to happen?

BlogEisstockschießen auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt: So wird der Glühwein zum SiegWarum Weihnachtsmärkte ohne Eisstockschießen nur halb so viel Spaß machen Der Duft von Zimt und Glühwein liegt in der Luft, Lichterketten flackern zwischen TannÖffnen →

Modern PC gaming may not be the most energy efficient hobby. Even as someone who would sooner play yesteryear's favourite over this month's shiniest new game, I dread to think just how much smaller my electricity bill might be if it wasn't for my gaming rig. Thankfully for retro gaming fiends, energy efficient hardware isn't hard to come by.

Case in point, hardware creator Alejandro Villegas Alonso shared a clip of classic Tomb Raider running from a low-power chip. The SoC in question is the ESP32-P4 microcontroller, a lightweight 32-bit RISC-V processor featuring two 400 MHz cores which sips a mere 1 watt of energy according to the data sheet (via Tom's Hardware).

It's not the kind of chip that would usually be used for anything like gaming, rather more for simple tasks in embedded devices such as cameras—that makes it all the more impressive that Alonso has got Tomb Raider up and running on it. It's particularly appealing given you can pick one of these up for very little cash.

The chip is running a port of OpenLara, a version of the original Tomb Raider that can be played in your browser with unlocked FPS. This version recreates the classic game in an open source engine so, no, this isn't a teeny tiny original PlayStation emulator or anything like that. Alejandro Villegas Alonso explains via the project's GitHub that this port "runs the classic Tomb Raider 1 engine with software rendering, audio, and USB HID keyboard input on Espressif's latest RISC-V SoC."

The project uses the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board specifically, which comes with both a seven-inch capacitive touch screen and even a camera module. This obviously pushes the project's total power budget a little higher than 1W, with the power use of even just the 1024 x 600 LCD screen quickly overshadowing what's being used by the chip at this board's heart.

Alonso writes that their Tomb Raider port features a "software RGB565 renderer at 320 x 240, hardware-scaled to 1024 x 600 via the [...] Pixel Processing Accelerator." As Croft crunches through snow in the YouTube short, you can hear stereo audio via an ES8311 codec. Game inputs are handled via a USB keyboard, though that feels borderline profane to a console interloper like me.

With some versions of this development board costing a little under $30, it's not hard to see why ESP32 microcontrollers are such a popular choice for DIY hardware projects. Recently, we've seen similar SoCs used in a credit card sized computer, the 'world's worst USB drive', plus this pocket-sized Game Boy emulator based on an ereader. Creativity knows no bounds, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a few more retro gamers begin to bring yesteryear's favourites back to life on similarly low-power hardware.

There's being into PC hardware and then there's crafting a glorious custom loop. Every time I see the latter I'm hit with a pang of jealousy, and it's no different here with Old-Mate-Fetus' custom copper build on Reddit.

We highlighted a similarly impressive different custom copper PC a few months ago. This latest copper build looks a little more extravagant to my eyes, and I'm not sure which I prefer.

In the centre is an Alphacool Core RX 9070 XT cooling block. Presumably it is the Aorus Elite version, given the Redditor says the motherboard is a Gigabyte B650M Aurous Elite Wifi.

Here's the full list of components (with perhaps slight variations from the specific models linked, which I have added):

• "Gigabyte 9070 XT Gaming OC
• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• Gigabyte B650M Aorus Elite
• 32 GB Klevv DDR5-6000
• Alphacool GPU cooling block
• Heatkiller IV CPU cooling block
• Alphacool DDC pump with custom enclosure
• Reservoir made from an old Primus blowtorch with sight gauge fitted to it
• Custom Wooden case
• Custom cables made from a Corsair 850W SFX power supply
• Noctua Industrial 120mm fans"

According to Old-Mate-Fetus, the build weighs close to 20 kg.

The most eye-catching part of the build for me, and what sets it apart from other copper builds I've seen, is that blowtorch. Reminiscent of one of those handheld oil drippers mechanics use, but with a glorious copper sheen, plus a bunch of pipes poking out of it. It makes the whole thing look very artsy.

In another comment, the Redditor says they're "just going to let it tarnish over time, i quite like the look."

You won't catch me repurposing old PSU cables and blowtorches for a PC build anytime soon, but it's cool to see someone with the guts doing so and sharing the result—not mention, then using it to play Overwatch, judging by the corner of the screen: good choice.