Source VR Mod Team’s free Half-Life 2: VR Mod is now Steam Frame Verified. The badge landed after the team added eye-tracked foveated rendering and clawed the build up to Valve’s standalone frametime bar. Frame reservation week is the reason to care now.
UploadVR and VR.org reported the certification in early August. The team’s own Steam news post — “We are Steam Frame verified!” — is the primary source. With Valve’s summer window closing and backend packages already moving toward a reservation lottery, a free, full-campaign Verified title is the cleanest content signal Frame has right now.
It did not boot. Then it did not pass.
The Steam post is blunt about the path. On Frame hardware the mod would not start. Then it started with poor performance and bugs. Bug fixes and frame-timing work produced a “playable build with decent performance” that still missed Valve’s required frametimes. Suitable performance settings and more optimization closed part of the gap. What finally cleared the threshold was eye-tracked foveated rendering.
Valve’s current partner docs for Steam Frame Standalone Verified ask VR titles for a minimum of 72 fps at 1728×1728 during normal play, with controller and UI legibility checks. That is the bar the modders were shooting at — not a marketing vibe, a measured review.
The same patch ships to every headset
The Frame work came with a changelog that is not Frame-only. Per UploadVR and the Steam post, the update also:
- Updated the bundled dxvk build (possible startup fixes)
- Improved performance on lower-end CPUs
- Added a deeper “chunky” crossbow sniper scope plus two-handed stabilization
- Smoothed controller poses; fixed hands vanishing while holding objects
- Made loading screens visible in VR; gravity gun laser when enabled
- Fixed Episode startup on Linux; added Steam Frame controller bindings
Half-Life 2: VR Mod has been on Steam since September 2022. Flat2VR Studios publishes it. It remains free if you already own Half-Life 2. It runs on any SteamVR-compatible headset today; the Verified badge is about native standalone Frame performance, not a new exclusivity wall.
Why this matters in September
Valve still has not announced a Frame price or day. The summer confirmation, FCC clearance, warehouse imports, and recent Steam package revisions all point at an imminent reservation window. Valve has also said it is not building a first-party VR launch title. In that gap, a free, beloved full campaign that already clears Standalone Verified is doing the work a platform game would normally do.
If you own Half-Life 2, the mod is free on Steam app 658920 now — Frame or not. If you are waiting on Frame reservations, this is the badge that makes the Great on Frame shelf look less empty.
Sources: Steam news / Source VR Mod Team, UploadVR, VR.org, GamingOnLinux, Steamworks Frame compat docs, Steam store.