FrameColor lets you adjust the Steam Frame's display colors from the SteamVR dashboard inside the headset. Alongside panel brightness, you can adjust brightness, saturation, contrast, and gamma globally or separately for the red, green, and blue channels. It includes the 標準 (Standard), 鮮やか (Vivid), and 夜間 (Night) presets, plus three slots for your own presets.

FrameColor is for Steam Frame only. Color correction is applied by a Vulkan layer loaded into SteamVR's vrcompositor. It affects locally run and streamed content, as well as the dashboard and other displayed elements.

Requirements

A Steam Frame (SteamOS, ARM64) using the stock SteamVR installation at /opt/steamvr
Developer Mode and SSH access, so you can transfer the archive to the Steam Frame and run commands on it
Python 3.10 or later on the Steam Frame, used to generate the LUT during installation

The release archive includes binaries built for Steam Frame. See “Development” for the tools needed to build from source.

Installation

Download framecolor-VERSION-steamframe-aarch64.tar.gz from GitHub Releases. If you want to verify its checksum, also download the matching .sha256 file. Replace VERSION and FRAME_IP below with the release version and your Steam Frame's IP address.

From your PC, copy the archive to the Steam Frame's home directory:

scp framecolor-VERSION-steamframe-aarch64.tar.gz steamos@FRAME_IP:

To verify the checksum, also copy the .sha256 file:

scp framecolor-VERSION-steamframe-aarch64.tar.gz.sha256 steamos@FRAME_IP:

Connect over SSH:

ssh steamos@FRAME_IP

Run the remaining commands on the Steam Frame. If you copied the .sha256 file, verify the archive before extracting it:

sha256sum -c framecolor-VERSION-steamframe-aarch64.tar.gz.sha256

Then extract and install it:

tar -xzf framecolor-VERSION-steamframe-aarch64.tar.gz
cd framecolor
sh contrib/install.sh
~/.local/bin/framecolorctl enable

Run the installer as your regular user, without sudo. Vulkan correction is disabled immediately after a fresh installation. The final enable command enables both the correction and the dashboard, and restarts SteamVR. Installation uses only the user's ~/.local and ~/.config directories.

To update, download the new archive and run sh contrib/install.sh again using the same procedure. Saved adjustments and presets are retained. If correction is already enabled, the installer restarts SteamVR.

To remove FrameColor completely, run this from the extracted archive directory:

sh contrib/uninstall.sh

Uninstalling also deletes saved adjustments and presets. Panel brightness stored by SteamVR may remain. If necessary, use リセット (Reset) in the dashboard to return to the standard setting before uninstalling.

Settings

Open “Display Color Adjustment” in the SteamVR dashboard.

Control	Range	Applies to
Panel brightness	40–125%	SteamVR panel brightness setting; shared across channels
Brightness	50–150%	Vulkan correction; global or per RGB channel
Saturation	0–200%	Vulkan correction; global or per RGB channel; 100% is standard
Contrast	0–100%	Vulkan correction; global or per RGB channel; 0% is standard
Gamma	0.50–2.50	Vulkan correction; global or per RGB channel; 1.00 is standard

Under 調整チャンネル (Adjustment Channel), choose 全体 (All), 赤 (Red), 緑 (Green), or 青 (Blue). Moving a control with 全体 selected changes the current values of all three channels together. Panel brightness is unaffected by the channel selection. To save the current settings, select 保存 (Save) and then P1, P2, or P3. リセット (Reset) applies the 標準 (Standard) preset.

You can also use these commands over SSH:

~/.local/bin/framecolorctl status
~/.local/bin/framecolorctl doctor
~/.local/bin/framecolorctl disable
~/.local/bin/framecolorctl enable

disable turns off both Vulkan correction and the dashboard; enable turns them back on. Both commands restart SteamVR. disable does not delete saved adjustments or presets. If the display becomes hard to see, run disable over SSH.

If SteamVR fails and exits within 10 seconds of starting, the startup guard disables the Vulkan layer after one failure by default. The failure may have a cause unrelated to FrameColor. You can instead allow up to three consecutive failures:

~/.local/bin/framecolorctl guard 3
~/.local/bin/framecolorctl guard 1

The guard cannot guarantee automatic recovery from every failure. Keep a way to recover manually over SSH.

Disclaimer

FrameColor is an unofficial beta tool. SteamVR or SteamOS updates may break it.

Because correction is applied to the final display, it may also change the colors of the dashboard and safety boundaries. Avoid settings that significantly reduce visibility, and check that your surroundings are safe before use. This tool does not disable or modify safety boundaries.

This version supports only the stock SteamVR installation at /opt/steamvr. If something goes wrong, first run ~/.local/bin/framecolorctl disable over SSH. Settings retained by SteamVR itself, such as panel brightness, may remain after correction is disabled. See LICENSE for the software's warranty disclaimer.

This tool was created with the assistance of Codex. It has been tested, but you use it at your own risk.

Development

Build from source on the Steam Frame. You need CMake, Meson, Ninja, pkg-config, glslangValidator, development files for Cairo, FreeType, and Vulkan, and the libopenvr_api.so included with SteamVR. Creating a release archive also uses strip, tar, and sha256sum.

sh contrib/install.sh                 # Build from source and install to user directories
sh tests/test_guard.sh
sh tests/test_framecolorctl.sh
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v
sh contrib/package.sh VERSION        # Generate the archive and .sha256 file in dist/

If prebuilt binaries are not included, contrib/install.sh builds them from source. Run contrib/package.sh on a Steam Frame (ARM64). Generated build/ and dist/ directories are excluded from Git.

Acknowledgments

The dashboard code and design are adapted from frameeyeosc. The overlay uses headers from OpenVR, and display color correction uses a modified version of vkBasalt. Thanks to their authors and contributors.

FrameColor's original code is available under the MIT license. See Third-party notices for details about third-party code and the original license texts.

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FrameColor

Overview