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Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

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Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#131

Post by Novosell »

mariusor wrote: post #105
timschmidt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Proton has prevented anything. In fact, without it, and the back catalog of Windows games it makes available on SteamDeck, I doubt the handheld would have been as popular. SteamDeck was successful enough to get a re-release in the form of the OLED model, which is a big success for a Linux handheld. The longer Valve remains committed to the platform, and the more devices they get into the hands of consum…

The people I mentioned in my comment clearly disagree with you, and frankly they have more of an incentive to be well informed about the situation. See the twitter link I posted to your comment's sibling for Ethan Lee's impressions from three years ago. Also, I never argued against Proton having been a boon for Linux gamers, but I tried to present an opposing point of view that usually does not get taken into account…

In my experience, the Linux ports never got any attention from the devs either way. They'll usually have worse performance, not be on the current patch and in at least one case, Binding of Isaac Rebirth, not be compatible with the DLC as the DLC works in some hacky way on the windows version.

Without Proton the steam deck would not be popular enough to warrant any Linux ports either way. So Linux ports would be doomed regardless.

The real travesty is steam, with the recent introduction of WoW64 in Wine, is now the only software that requires me to run 32bit binaries on my desktop. Real annoying.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#132

Post by ChocolateGod »

sph wrote: post #119
pjmlp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has, yet the focus is all about Proton.

Not Valve's fault that user-space Linux is run by a bunch of unpaid headless chicken with no overarching vision, sense of momentum and direction, while Win32 is a rock-stable API that games are already using. Until there is a Linus figure that coordinates the userspace and organises a common platform API with long term support for closed-source software, Proton is the only pragmatic choice. Valve want to get off Wind…

> unpaid headless chicken with no overarching vision

systemd, GNOME, mesa etc all have developers who are being paid by companies for their work (Red Hat, Microsoft, Canonical, SUSE etc). That said, you're not wrong on the 'no overarching vision' part, see Wayland.

> Linus figure that coordinates the userspace and organises a common platform API

Flatpak with the freedesktop runtimes are just this, that said some companies (e.g. Canonical) are trying to sabotage these efforts and Ubuntu not shipping with Flatpak is the biggest hurdle.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#133

Post by [deleted] »

chithanh wrote: post #62
zamadatix wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even calling Intel x86 a loss overnight AMD is doing more than fine enough, server and consumer, for x86 to stay with a competitive presence into the 2030s even taking a dim view of the architectures future.

After buying Intel, Qualcomm could sink x86 by simply not renewing the cross-licensing agreement with AMD. With Intel's patents on emulating x86 on other CPU architectures, Qualcomm could then ensure that going forward, the only economically viable way of running x86 code is on Snapdragon CPUs. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/intel...

[deleted]

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#134

Post by zamadatix »

chithanh wrote: post #115
michaelt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the early days of 64-bit, Intel put all of their resources into 'itanium' and it was AMD that created 'x86-64' I doubt Intel would back out of the cross-licensing agreement that lets them implement x86-64.

Intel certainly would not. Qualcomm as the new owner of Intel, trying to extract maximum profit out of their IP, possibly. Think of when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems.

Qualcomm would certainly not either, x86-64 is what they want to emulate with ARM... otherwise you're saying their only interest in purchasing Intel is to completely shut its main business down to reduce competition by producing neither x86 chips nor emulating them... which, apart from being extremely unlikely, would trigger even the most laid back of regulatory environments. Doubly so after already receiving over a billion in antitrust fines in 2009 for simply being "unfair" about the agreement, not even outright removing it.

Not to mention the cross-licensing deal between Intel and AMD also includes x86 patents from both sides anyways (your original article doesn't reference this as it's about Intel and Microsoft, not Intel and AMD).

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#135

Post by FroshKiller »

Novosell wrote: post #125
jillesvangurp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is about the hardware necessarily. They probably make more money from the Steam store and there are some notable ARM based platforms where you currently can't use Steam and where they are not able to sell games. Macs would be a big juicy target, for example. If they can get emulation working well enough with proton on that, that's a huge market. Lots of people with disposable income on there that c…

It isn't a huge market though. Mac has never been particularly big for gaming, they've always come in very low on the steam hardware survey. Now, post-ARM, it's beat by Linux even.

I don't think the Steam hardware survey is representative of the market size. Most people with Macs are accustomed to games that should run just fine on them never getting released, which means there often isn't any point to installing Steam on a Mac in the first place. Therefore they wouldn't be represented even though they are gamers, they spend money, and they have Macs.

I don't have a PC for personal use, but I do have a lot of game consoles, an M1 MacBook Pro, and an M2 Mac mini. There are lots of games like Pizza Tower that look fun to me, do not have a Mac version, but do have a Switch version. So I wind up spending money on Switch games that would've gone to Steam if the publisher had bothered with a macOS release.

While I do have Steam installed on my M1 and M2, I rarely launch it because I've only bought eight games off Steam in two years because of this dynamic, meaning I haven't even participated in the survey myself. My Steam account is over 20 years old and has a healthy library from when I was a PC gamer. I'd say my money's on the table, but my money's in Nintendo's wallet. But I'd really rather be buying macOS versions!

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#136

Post by littlecranky67 »

caseyy wrote: post #10
shmerl wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

It’s not the end of the world to develop for macOS and iOS. These platforms are just idiosyncratic and don’t have many serious gamers. Neither smartphones nor Macs have been powerful or ergonomic enough to play current-generation games for decades. So the user base is almost entirely people who don’t play games. For a developer, the juice is not worth the squeeze (and by far!). The platforms are challenging to port f…

> It’s not the end of the world to develop for macOS and iOS. These platforms are just idiosyncratic and don’t have many serious gamers.

That could change if Apple and Valve would team up and make proton-like stuff happen (GamePortingToolkit is a first, but half-assed step). I own a MacMini M2 base model (retailed at 630€ new) for work and was surprised how well games last-gen games run on it (either Rosetta2 or GPTK+wine). With better software compatibility I could see the upcoming M4 mac mini as a serious game console contender. Smaller form factor and more silent than any console, add an Xbox/DualSense controller in the living room and you are good to go.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#137

Post by oliwarner »

Great. A native Steam client with and Box64 or FEX integrated into Proton for CPU layer translation, would open up a world of low cost Steam hardware.

Not just VR, commodity gaming devices like a $100 Steam Deck, $50 HDMI dongle consoles and with both a brand new market segment to tap into.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#140

Post by throwaway9524 »

pjmlp wrote: post #33
snvzz wrote: post #17

With 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.

Seems this sentiment is coming up in every recent Proton related thread. Despite all the counterarguments offered each time.

The simple reality is that there are decades worth of Windows games that will never have a Linux version. Because of the studios being gone. Because of the source code being lost. Because of the licensing issues for dependencies, assets, music. If not for the Valve efforts people would always need a copy of Windows to play a good chunk of their libraries. At which point why bother with Linux? But with Proton the calculus changes. Most of those Windows-only games are now fully playable on Linux. Many people no longer need Windows and that's a huge win for desktop Linux adoption.

By this logic Apple should not have developed x86 translation for its latest Macs because it showed they are not serious about the platform and disincentivized devs from providing native Arm ports. Except we know that's not what happened.

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