ToastconcernandClaude Opus 4.8
546d6767f6
The PC compositor-layer work (the Direct3D 11 proxy, its installer, its notes) now lives in pc-streaming/, clearly separate and marked experimental, so the main project is the Steam Frame build and the fixes that help it. The PC layer can't change the Steam Frame's home (the Steam Frame renders it on the headset), and this keeps it from crowding the Steam Frame release while preserving it for a tethered PC headset. The shared Windows renderer support (src/, behind #ifdef _WIN32 / FRAME_HOME_PC) stays put: it only compiles into a PC build and never touches the Steam Frame build. Build and README references updated to the new paths. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
4.7 KiB
Frame Home on a PC (SteamVR)
Frame Home also runs on a PC with SteamVR, exactly the way it runs on the Steam Frame: a small layer inside SteamVR's compositor draws your home where it would draw Aurora, so your home is the SteamVR environment — it shows at boot, during game loads and behind the Steam menu, with the controllers and passthrough, never a separate app that launches and hands off. The Environments panel in the Steam menu switches homes, as on the headset. It works with any headset SteamVR drives, including a Steam Frame streaming from the PC.
On a PC, Frame Home shows the environments in Frame Studio's My Environments (Documents\Frame Studio\Environments):
save something in Studio and it's in VR straight away. Bundles (.fbundle) dropped there are unpacked by the panel.
Install
From Frame Studio: Properties > Headset, section This PC: Install Frame Home on This PC. The same button updates it after you update Studio; Remove from This PC takes it off.
Without Studio (Windows): download FrameHome-PC-windows-x64.zip from the
latest build, unzip it, and double-click
Install Frame Home on this PC.bat (or Remove Frame Home from this PC.bat). From a terminal:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install-frame-home-pc.ps1 # install or update
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install-frame-home-pc.ps1 -Uninstall # SteamVR's own environment back
SteamVR can be running or not: running, the change happens at once; not running, it's written to SteamVR's settings and takes effect when SteamVR starts.
How it works
Both platforms work the Steam Frame's way: a layer inside SteamVR's compositor draws your home in Aurora's place, and
frame-home --system (which the Environments panel starts and keeps running) renders it. Because the swap happens
inside the compositor, your home shows wherever Aurora would — at boot, during game loads, behind the Steam menu,
with the controllers and passthrough — and steps aside for a game the instant it opens, coming back when it quits.
Windows. SteamVR's compositor is Direct3D 11, so the layer is a proxy d3d11.dll placed beside the compositor
(SteamVR\bin\win64). It wraps the compositor's device, finds Aurora's own draws by their shader bytecode and draws
the home over them; every other Direct3D call passes straight through to the real d3d11.dll, kept beside it as
fh_d3d11real.dll. Frame Home renders in Vulkan and shares each frame to the compositor as a Direct3D 11 texture.
Linux. The same, as a Vulkan layer in the compositor (layer/frame_home_layer.cpp), since the Linux compositor
is Vulkan. (Linux PCs are supported but haven't been tested on a desktop yet.)
If the layer ever can't draw the home — Frame Home isn't running, or has stopped for more than half a second — the
compositor draws Aurora as usual, so Frame Home stopping or crashing never blanks the headset. The layer turns itself
off if the compositor starts twice without a healthy frame, and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\layer\off turns it off by
hand. The installer saves the SteamVR settings it changes (enableHomeApp, environmentMode) and puts them back,
and removing the two files from SteamVR\bin\win64 takes the layer off entirely.
Files
| Where | What |
|---|---|
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\bin |
frame-home.exe, frame-switcher.exe |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\current |
the environment shown |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\settings.json |
Frame Home's settings (the panel's Settings page) |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\logs |
logs (frame-home.log the renderer, frame-layer.log the compositor layer) |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\layer |
the layer's off switch and crash guard; its folder marks the layer installed |
Documents\Frame Studio\Environments |
the environments |
SteamVR\bin\win64\d3d11.dll, fh_d3d11real.dll |
the compositor layer and the real Direct3D 11 beside it |
On Linux everything is in ~/frame-home, as on the headset.
Troubleshooting
- Aurora still shows after installing: the layer loads when the compositor starts, so restart SteamVR (or your
headset) once after installing. If it still shows, see
frame-layer.log. - Nothing in the Steam menu: the panel starts with SteamVR. In SteamVR's settings, Startup / Shutdown > Choose Startup Overlay Apps should list Environments switched on.
- Black world: Frame Home needs a GPU with Vulkan 1.2. Its log is
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\logs\frame-home.log. - Turn it off without uninstalling: make a file
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\layer\off(the layer checks every second and draws Aurora); delete it to turn the home back on.