They are recompiling games they do not own?
That said, this would also be good news for RISC-V if they start providing builds for different ISA than x86(32bits) and x86_64.
Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
91–100 of 202 posts
Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not possible to fully AOT for all applications because you don't know which ones do JIT compilation to generate x86 code at runtime. Many games make use of LuaJIT, for example.
LuaJIT would also work with ARM though, so would it be possible to swap it out?
Swapping out is possible only if there are shared libraries though.
For statically linked programs is there anything that can be done?
Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has, yet the focus is all about Proton.
TBH running through a Win32/DX API shim isn't much different than running through SDL, yet Linux games using the SDL are considered "native" but Win32 games running through Proton are not? (the Win32 and DX APIs are also much more straightforward to use than wrestling directly with X11, Wayland, Vulkan and the Linux audio API flavour of the month)
SDL handles everything for you.
On Windows, good luck with running DirectX 6, 7, 8, and some DX9 and Direct Draw games under Windows > 8 without issues.
Direct Draw games will lag even under an i5.
Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#94Would it possible to AOT-recompile from x86 to aarch64? Or will it all be emulated forever?
Very likely yes (Rosetta for the Mac already does this), but the big issue is that a ton of Unity games use JIT compiled Mono, and that would require dynamic recompilation, which as we've seen with Rosetta, would lead to terrible realtime performance
Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Steam has supported native Linux games for a decade.
It has, yet the focus is all about Proton.
Valve has little control on what other companies target. Their previous push for native gaming produced very little results: Valve ported all their titles, a few minor publishers released native titles and some porting companies ported some AAA titles, but it was only a drop.
Proton has caused a significant increase in Linux playable games. The side effect is that it effectively killed porting companies.
edit: also all porting companies were effectively using their proprietary equivalent of proton (although often inferior) .
Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#96Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are fully dependent on Windows Games developed for Windows. They are only working really hard not to pay for Windows OS licences. The day they actually support native Linux games, instead of doing Windows API translation is when I believe they are actually serious about Linux games, and not saving OS licenses.
> They are only working really hard not to pay for Windows OS licences. In what way are they supposed to be paying for Windows licenses? What do you even mean by that? You aren’t required to give 30% to MS to ships Windows apps (nor macOS) If anything they are trying to build a moat, good-luck playing Xbox games on your Steam Deck if you don’t go out of your way to install Windows. Making them affectively a monopoly…
Valve doesn't ship Windows on the SD, hence doesn't need to pay a license for it.
Nothing prevents MS for porting their launcher to SD and running the games on SD.
Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#98With SteamOS, they solved their dependency on Windows. Now, they're trying to stop being tied to x86. ARM64 is being tested because hardware is already widely deployed, but not being tied to x86 is the important part. Enabling e.g. RISC-V as well.
They are fully dependent on Windows Games developed for Windows. They are only working really hard not to pay for Windows OS licences. The day they actually support native Linux games, instead of doing Windows API translation is when I believe they are actually serious about Linux games, and not saving OS licenses.
> They are fully dependent on Windows Games developed for Windows.
Sure, but they don't want to be dependent on Windows itself. If they can run all those Windows games on another OS, that's a win. Proton is pretty amazing, even if it's not 100%.
And if game devs for some cataclysmic reason abandon Windows, they'll figure that out too.
Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#99Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Apple cared about gamers, they wouldn't have blocked proper Vulkan support. They simply don't care. A major reason to stay away from Apple if you are a gamer.
Most game studios don't care about Vulkan, that is why HLSL is what everyone uses instead of GLSL. Any game engine worth using has Metal support for ages.
That's all well and good, but no Vulkan means not DXVK or VKD3D without yet another layer of translation like MoltenVk.