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How to Choose Which Eye Steam Frame Tracks

Steam Frame has a Dominant Eye selector for spectator view and screenshots, plus a separate accessibility setting for limiting eye tracking to one eye.
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In Steam Frame’s VR Settings, choose Dominant Eye to set which eye is used for spectator view and screenshots. To limit eye tracking to one eye, use the separate Track Dominant Eye Only accessibility setting in VR Settings > General; you must first enable Show advanced settings. Valve’s published notes do not give a test for deciding whether to select left or right.

What the Dominant Eye setting controls

Valve says the Dominant Eye choice in VR Settings controls which eye is used for spectator view, screenshots, and similar outputs. It is a preference you specify; Valve’s October 6 Steam Frame update announcement does not say the headset automatically identifies your dominant eye.

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If you already know which eye you want Steam Frame to use for those outputs, select that eye under Dominant Eye. If you are unsure, the published update notes do not provide a dominance test or recommend left versus right. They also do not describe a calibration procedure, so there is no official test to follow from these notes.

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Set the eye-tracking option separately

Track Dominant Eye Only is a separate accessibility control. Valve describes it as a way to limit eye tracking to one eye; it is not another name for the Dominant Eye selector.

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  1. Open VR Settings.
  2. Choose General.
  3. Enable Show advanced settings if it is not already enabled.
  4. Find Track Dominant Eye Only and turn it on if you want eye tracking limited to one eye.

Valve documents the setting as an accessibility option. Its announcement does not claim that enabling it improves tracking accuracy, comfort, or streaming quality, so do not treat those as guaranteed benefits.

How this relates to foveated streaming

Steam Frame’s official product page describes two interior cameras for eye tracking and says low-latency eye-tracking data steers foveated streaming toward the area you are looking at. That describes the headset’s use of gaze data, but the page does not explain how the Dominant Eye selector or Track Dominant Eye Only setting affects that streaming behavior.

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The product page also claims an improvement of over 10x in image quality and effective bandwidth for foveated streaming. That is Valve’s product-page claim, not an independent test result, and it is not evidence that choosing a particular eye—or enabling single-eye tracking—causes that improvement.

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Which setting should you change?

What you want to control Setting What Valve documents
The eye used for spectator view and screenshots Dominant Eye in VR Settings Choose the eye for those outputs.
Whether eye tracking is limited to one eye Track Dominant Eye Only in VR Settings > General, with advanced settings enabled An accessibility option for limiting eye tracking to one eye.
How either setting changes foveated streaming No documented relationship in the cited Valve materials The product page describes gaze-directed foveated streaming but does not connect it to these controls.

In short, set Dominant Eye for the eye used in spectator view and screenshots. Enable Track Dominant Eye Only only if you want the separate single-eye accessibility behavior; Valve’s published information does not establish that it changes foveated-streaming performance.

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