Cyberpunk 2077 Steam Frame performance was the first thing I wanted to test once the 2.5 update landed. The game runs, just about, on the Steam Deck, so surely Valve’s new headset could handle it too? I tried it two ways: running natively on the headset with Steam Deck-style settings, and streaming it from the Steam Machine. One of those is a struggle, and the other turned out to be a genuinely good way to play once I got it working.
What the Cyberpunk 2077 2.5 update brings
CD Projekt Red’s Edgerunners 2 Update (2.5) arrived on 22 October, tied to the second season of the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime. According to the official patch notes, it adds the Clampdown side quest, a five-piece gear set based on the character King, the HKGN 102.0 FM radio station, and the new Double Trouble perk in the Cool tree, which lets V dual-wield Pistols and Revolvers. There’s also cross-platform mod support through mod.io, new outfit sets, and cyberware skins at Glamdoc shops.
On the technical side, the update lists various performance optimisations (including some specifically for ray tracing), improved HDR rendering and a refreshed set of AMD FSR options: FSR 3 upscaling is gone, while FSR 2.1, FSR 4 and FSR 3.1 Frame Generation remain. If you want to see how all of that plays out on Valve’s handheld, I’ve covered it in my Cyberpunk 2077 v2.5 Steam Deck performance tests.
Cyberpunk 2077 Steam Frame performance running natively
For the native test I used pretty much the same settings you’d use on the Steam Deck, with motion blur and the other post-processing effects turned off. The main difference is resolution: it runs at 720p here instead of the Deck’s 800p, which isn’t a big change. Given that the headset costs nearly twice as much as a Steam Deck OLED, I expected it to at least be comfortably playable.
Unfortunately, it sits at around 20 frames per second. Yes, 20. Technically you can play it, but it’s far from enjoyable, and that’s a disappointing result for a device at this price. Cyberpunk 2077 is a demanding open-world game, and on these settings the headset simply doesn’t have the headroom to make it feel smooth.
The controls add to it. Using the Steam Frame’s own controllers rather than a Steam Controller, every button gets mapped across them, and with the dual sticks it takes a while to get used to. I had a few twitchy moments, and at one point I ended up going for a very unexpected swim in Night City.
Streaming from the Steam Machine: getting it working
The obvious alternative is to let the Steam Machine do the heavy lifting and stream the game to the headset. Streaming from the Steam Machine is still experimental, though, and it hasn’t been fully released in the way you’d expect yet. Getting it going was a real faff.
Without the wireless adapter, streaming caused loads of problems. Even after switching to Valve’s Steam wireless adapter, I had to change a few settings, reboot everything several times and go through plenty of trial and error, with black screens, random noises and streams that failed to open. Cyberpunk 2077’s launcher doesn’t help either, because you have to interact with it across the stream. When I tried to type, the R key stopped responding completely while other letters worked fine.
What finally fixed it was setting up the wireless adapter again and fully rebooting both the Steam Machine and the headset. After that I could start the stream straight from the home screen, rather than trying to reach the Steam Machine through VR. I covered the adapter improvements Valve has been making in my look at the Steam Frame SteamOS 0.5.6 beta, and it’s clearly still the piece that matters most here.
Beta branch problems
All of this was with both devices on the beta branch, which brings its own issues. The Steam Machine occasionally locked up completely after I exited a game, and the Steam Frame sometimes showed odd control layouts. A few reboots cleared those up, but there are still plenty of kinks to work out, and that’s just for streaming regular flat games, not even VR titles. Valve’s recent SteamVR 2.18 streaming fixes are a step in the right direction, but streaming from the Steam Machine to the headset is still quite problematic out of the box.
One more beta quirk: the performance overlay showed the GPU at 100% while streaming. I’m fairly sure that’s another Steam Frame beta problem rather than a real reading, so I’d ignore it for now.
Streaming at 1440p High: the better way to play
Once everything was set up properly, streaming was a very decent experience. I ran the game at the Steam Machine’s usual settings, 1440p with the High graphics preset, and had no issues streaming it to the headset. The picture didn’t look pixelated or break up, and it was a big step up from playing natively.
With the wireless adapter working on the beta branch, it’s definitely more stable than it was on the stable branch, at least once you finally get it running. That’s the key caveat: the end result is good, but the road there takes patience.
My verdict
If you’re hoping to run Cyberpunk 2077 natively on the Steam Frame, I’d hold off. Around 20fps at Steam Deck-level settings is playable in the loosest sense, but it isn’t fun. If you own a Steam Machine, streaming is the way to go: at 1440p High it looks and plays far better, as long as you’re prepared to fight through the wireless adapter setup and a few beta bugs first.
Have you got your Steam Frame yet, and have you had any luck streaming from the Steam Machine? Let me know in the comments.
