SteamVR Beta 2.19.1 is a big upgrade for streaming / Steam Link and Linux

3 Nov 2026 at 7:48 am UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand

Valve released SteamVR Beta 2.19.1 and especially when it comes to streaming / Steam Link, it seems like a really nice upgrade for picture clarity.

They mentioned it includes "improvements to streamed image quality: sharper text, clearer colors, and better detail. These improvements benefit all streaming VR applications, the SteamVR interface, desktop streaming, third-party overlays, and the theater screen". In the announcement they showed some before and after shots:

There's some nice improvements for Linux gamers too, like an updated runtime and better support for containers like Flatpak. Key Changes

Streaming (Steam Link):

• Increased the default encoded video size on Steam Frame from 1152 to 1216.

Sharper Colors and Details

• Improved color clarity, using higher-quality filter to downsample color before encoding, preserving fine colored details.
• Improved brightness preservation at edges between strongly saturated colors (see below).
• Sharper peripheral image quality through higher-quality downscaling outside the foveated region.
• Crisper text and UI throughout SteamVR, including the dashboard, third-party overlays, theater screen, and SteamVR Home.
• A new system-layer rendering pipeline renders foveated and non-foveated views directly from their source textures, eliminating an intermediate render texture and an extra resampling step.

Compare Before and After Interested users can compare the new streaming quality with the previous implementation. On the host PC, go to Steam Link > Advanced > Stream Quality and choose Default or Legacy. Legacy reproduces the previous streaming image quality. Additional Steam Link (Streaming) Updates:

• Reorganized the Steam Link settings page.
• Added Preferred Foveated Sharpness (System UI) under Steam Link (on your PC). Adjust the size of the sharp foveated region for the SteamVR interface, choosing a narrower, sharper area or a wider area.
• Fixed several issues that could cause incorrect frame timing at startup.
• Fixed a possible cause of Error 17.
• Fixed IPv4 and IPv6 address comparisons when selecting network links.
• Improved head motion prediction.
• Corrected eye view poses for projection layers to include the eye-to-head offset.
• Added per-application refresh rate overrides.
• When connecting an eye-tracking headset, SteamVR now asks whether to share eye tracking data with PC applications.
• Improved eye-tracked foveation alignment during rapid head movement.
• Meta Quest: Fixed the 72 Hz notification remaining visible in Battery Saver mode.
• HTC Focus Vision: Added support for face tracking data over OSC with the face-tracking accessory.

General:

• Improved image quality for SteamVR Interface and 3rd party overlays. (smoother edges, reduced shimmer, fewer visual artifacts, and better image quality at different distances).
• Updated Settings > Video > Overlay Render Quality to use improved filtering, with a new Ultra quality option. Also available under Steam Link > Advanced.
• Reduced aurora color movement during theater transitions.
• Added a minimum brightness to stars in the construct, preventing the environment from becoming completely black.
• Fixed laser mouse dragging being interrupted by grip presses or brief tracking loss.
• Per-application settings now show "Not Supported" when Motion Smoothing is unavailable.
• Fixed settings sliders extending beyond their tracks for out-of-range values, and Advanced-only sliders not hiding correctly.
• Improved anti-aliasing on the play area floor grid.
• Fixed a crash during shared resource manager shutdown.
• Fixed a crash caused by a dangling texture during Steam's VR manager shutdown.
• Fixed a crash when unblocking previously blocked add-ons.
• Fixed crashes in SteamVR's web handler caused by malformed requests.

OpenXR:

• Added XR_KHR_composition_layer_cylinder support on PC and Steam Frame.
• Added XR_FB_composition_layer_image_layout support on Steam Frame.
• Added XR_EXT_stationary_reference_space support.

Linux:

• SteamVR now runs under the Sniper runtime, supporting Steam Runtime 3 clients while retaining the scheduling priority SteamVR needs.
• Non-Proton OpenXR games can now launch without SteamVR already running.
• OpenVR and OpenXR runtimes can now run inside Flatpak, bubblewrap, and other sandbox environments.
• Added a symlink for the 32-bit OpenXR runtime, which can also be used by Proton.
• Added support for all Render Quality options. (High quality samplers were previously disabled).

Very much looking forward to trying this out on my Steam Frame. The adjustments look really good from their quick preview. This should hopefully make the Desktop Mode more usable too.

🌐 External Sources: store.steampowered.com Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com. Tags: Steam Frame, Misc, Steam, SteamVR, Valve, Virtual Reality (VR) 14 Likes Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:Pimax to improve Linux VR support, announces Crystal Pro headset and their own Steam MachineSteam Client Beta - October 9th brings more Remote Play improvementsAnother set of 15 demos to try in Steam Next Fest - October 2026 editionSteam Next Fest Oct 2026 is live with thousands of demos All posts need to follow our rules. Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us for any issues or concerns.