AC thVRsday
In his weekly column, Android Central Senior Content Producer Nick Sutrich delves into all things VR, from new hardware to new games, upcoming technologies, and so much more.
I didn’t expect it, but the Samsung Galaxy XR has become the ultimate portable gaming machine. Not only can it natively play any Android game from the Google Play Store, but one free app even lets you run Steam games with no configuration or nonsense involved. No cloud streaming, no ridiculous subscription. Just your favorite Steam games, all running natively on the Galaxy XR (and even your Android smartphone).
Why choose an XR headset to play these games on instead of a phone or a portable system like a Steam Deck? Neck and arm comfort, mainly, as you don’t have to look down at a system or hold it up high for hours at a time. The screen just floats in front of your face, no matter if you’re sitting up or lying down. Really, it’s as good as a portable gaming system can get. It’s the sort of functionality you’ll get on the upcoming Steam Frame headset, except you don’t have to wait for Valve to release it.
Playing Steam games on the Galaxy XR
GameSir, makers of many of our favorite mobile controllers, debuted an app called GameHub on the Google Play Store last November. It’s a customized fork of the popular Winlator app, which people have used for years to emulate Windows on Android, but it’s more user-friendly.
In the app, you connect your Steam account, and it more or less ends up looking like SteamOS running within an app window on the Galaxy XR. Fire up the app, tap Steam, and your entire library is now fully playable on the Galaxy XR without any further configuration. I connected the 8BitDo Ultimate 2C Bluetooth controller to my Galaxy XR to play the games, but I’m sure GameSir would appreciate it if you used one of their controllers instead.
When the app debuted, it caught a lot of flak on places like Reddit for requiring too many permissions, but the latest version of the app doesn’t require any permissions to get it running. Not even notification permission, although it’ll harass you from time-to-time about enabling them. If you’re concerned about telemetry data, someone forked a version on Github with that stuff removed. Another option is GameNative.
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Once you’ve got GameHub installed, run it and sign into your GameSir account, or just use the modded GameHub Lite version linked above, which doesn’t require an account. Then, you’ll open up the menu on the left, select Steam from the list, and sign into your Steam account.
Now, any time you launch the app, you’ll be greeted with a Steam button right on the front that takes you to your Steam library. Just like on a Steam Deck, find the game you want, hit the install button, and then you can just play it from there on out. No cloud connection needed, no subscription required. It’s all running on the Galaxy XR.
If you’re worried about compatibility or performance, you can run a check on each game before it’s installed, which gives you a decent idea of whether the game will work or not.
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You can also configure additional options if you want or need to make performance adjustments, but I found the default settings to be more than adequate for my needs. If you run into issues or just want to touch up on your GameHub knowledge, this YouTube video is an excellent resource and uses a phone that sports a processor slightly slower than what’s in the Galaxy XR, so those settings (starting at the 4:50 mark) will help you get the best out of the system.
If you want to experiment with just one feature, though, I’d recommend enabling Snapdragon Super Resolution, which is available in GameHub’s menu found when pressing the home button on your connected controller. You can also learn about it in the video linked above at the 9:18 minute mark.
I found performance to be incredibly similar to my Steam Deck, despite that this app has to translate x86 code to the headset’s ARM processor. Portal 2, for instance, ran at a locked 60fps on both my Steam Deck and the Galaxy XR, but newer games like Resident Evil Requiem are simply too taxing to run on this level of hardware. We’ll have to wait and see if the actual Steam Frame fares better with them since it has a faster processor.
Taking all the best Steam Frame features now
I recently wrote about how two of the Steam Frame’s best features already work on the Galaxy XR, and now even the emulation of Steam games is possible on Samsung’s Android XR-powered headset. That means three of the four big pillars of what’s going to make the Steam Frame great — foveated streaming, a dedicated wireless network, and native Steam game compatibility — are available on the Galaxy XR right now. The only thing missing is running PC VR games natively, something the Frame might continue to stand out for.
The only thing you’ll need for standard Steam games to work is a Bluetooth controller of some kind, like this GameSir Cyclone 2. For PC VR games, you’ll want a pair of Galaxy XR controllers and the Virtual Desktop app on the Google Play Store. Once you’ve got those (and a VR-ready PC), you’re all set.
It’s pretty wild seeing the Steam Frame’s best features already make their way to other headsets before Valve’s next-generation headset even launches, but it’s (ironically) all thanks to Valve and the work they’ve poured into Proton and FEX over the years.
The Galaxy XR is an uber-comfortable mixed reality headset that combines the best Android apps with a brilliant, bespoke XR experience.