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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

#141

Post by dagmx »

sho wrote: post #82
dagmx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use Whisky ( https://getwhisky.app/ ) or CrossOver ( https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover ) While it would be great if Valve did what they do on SteamOS and just manage it themselves, it’s a very minor burden to use the existing solutions to do the same.

> Just use Whisky You know, every 6 months or so I get a sudden hankering to play Portal or something and start down this rabbit hole. Based on your prompt, I had another look today. So I went and downloaded this "whisky" thing. From their website: "Experience the latest titles effortlessly with Whisky!". OK. Installed. I open it and I see a window with "bottle configuration" (wtf is a bottle?), an "open c: drive" bu…

Yeah whisky definitely exposes more of the wine underpinnings. Crossover is more user friendly but isn’t free.

Crossover are the primary developers behind WINE and transitively, Proton.

Steam just handles all the configuration elements of proton for the user but essentially it’s doing the same stuff under the hood.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#142

Post by dagmx »

modeless wrote: post #68
dagmx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho it’s unlikely this is for natively running on a standalone headset. The overhead of translation alone would be just burning already limited compute budgets. The other games on their list are too demanding for untethered play in the wattage one would have on a face mounted device. IMHO gorilla tag here is just a red herring. IMHO this is just valve hedging the bet that ARM machines become more popular , and futur…

I think you're right that they wouldn't ship Gorilla Tag this way. For a game that big I'm sure they can work with the developer to ship a native version. But for internal testing of a headset it would make sense to use this version in advance of availability of a native port. The games that will ship this way will probably mostly be non-VR games that would never get ported otherwise. So you can play your Steam libra…

I think you’re perhaps over indexing on the one game in the list. The other games in the list have no VR mode at all. So they could run standalone in a flat screen view, but with fairly poor performance.

Gorilla tag also has an ARM version already for Quest. So why would valve not just start from there? The Quest line of products use effectively the only SoC that Valve would have access to anyway for the XR space.

Imho desktop and tethered playing are far more likely targets. I think Deckard might show up someday but it’s become a vessel for everyone’s hopes and dreams.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#143

Post by dagmx »

jorvi wrote: post #55
dagmx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho it’s unlikely this is for natively running on a standalone headset. The overhead of translation alone would be just burning already limited compute budgets. The other games on their list are too demanding for untethered play in the wattage one would have on a face mounted device. IMHO gorilla tag here is just a red herring. IMHO this is just valve hedging the bet that ARM machines become more popular , and futur…

> Imho it’s unlikely this is for natively running on a standalone headset. The overhead of translation alone would be just burning already limited compute budgets. I wonder if with both Windows and Valve getting into ARM64, that will bring significant enough pressure on the market for ARM OEMs (and ARM itself) to start including a x86-transpilation mode similar to the one Apple has in their M-series of CPUs to increa…

Afaik the Snapdragon X cores include the memory ordering mode that the M series have as well.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#144

Post by dagmx »

gpderetta wrote: post #127
chithanh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But unlike ARM Chromebooks, an ARM Steam Deck does not exist today, and will not exist until at least November 2025 per Valve statements. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-09/new-steam... (archived link w/o paywall: https://archive.md/VWvsW )

I think it is pretty clear that Valve plays the long game. Proton existed for years before SD was released.

Proton didn’t exist in a vacuum though. It existed for Valves previously failed vision of the Steam Machine. Those were actual product lines that existed (briefly) to go along with Proton.

The Steam Deck was Valve finally getting sick of nobody doing what they wanted, and technology getting to where they could do something more interesting than just another desktop.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#145

Post by snvzz »

Cloudef wrote: post #80
pjmlp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has, yet the focus is all about Proton.

It's unfortunate but win32 has stable ABI. Such thing can't be really said about glibc and dynamic linking. Many old linux game binaries simply don't work or need tinkering to get them work.

Steam Runtime takes care of this, offering a stable platform for games to target.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#146

Post by dudus »

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…

While this seems counterintuitive Mac makes it very convoluted to release on their platform. To the point that the low sales really don't justify. Here's a video from a game dev driving this home

https://youtube.com/shorts/qRQX9fgrI4s?si=Wg2NkJlo8r0kd9NC

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#147

Post by albrewer »

a2128 wrote: post #102
pjmlp wrote: post #33

Earlier 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.

The cost of developing and maintaining Proton, Linux driver improvements, and their own Arch-based OS has probably exceeded the amount they saved by not shipping Windows on Steam Deck. But what they got in return is a much more usable gaming operating system that doesn't constantly pester you about switching to Edge, using Copilot or draining all your battery for an update while you game What they got in return is fr…

> The cost of developing and maintaining Proton, Linux driver improvements, and their own Arch-based OS has probably exceeded the amount they saved by not shipping Windows on Steam Deck.

So far. Depending on Microsoft's continued benevolence is probably not a great business strategy when you're as big as Valve. You don't want to be caught with your pants down when MS wants their pound of flesh from your $8 billion company.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#148

Post by acdha »

albrewer wrote: post #147
a2128 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of developing and maintaining Proton, Linux driver improvements, and their own Arch-based OS has probably exceeded the amount they saved by not shipping Windows on Steam Deck. But what they got in return is a much more usable gaming operating system that doesn't constantly pester you about switching to Edge, using Copilot or draining all your battery for an update while you game What they got in return is fr…

> The cost of developing and maintaining Proton, Linux driver improvements, and their own Arch-based OS has probably exceeded the amount they saved by not shipping Windows on Steam Deck. So far. Depending on Microsoft's continued benevolence is probably not a great business strategy when you're as big as Valve. You don't want to be caught with your pants down when MS wants their pound of flesh from your $8 billion co…

Isn’t that basically the last paragraph of the comment you replied to?

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#149

Post by zamadatix »

chithanh wrote: post #130
johnny22 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta feeling that would raise legal issues at time of sale. I don't see that happening.

You would need the FTC to intervene to stop the acquisition. And currently there is a massive lobbying push by US technology companies to replace Lina Khan with someone who is more merger friendly. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-06/kamala-ha... (non-paywall archive link: https://archive.md/PhHhU )

The FTC isn't the only one that can intervene:.

Qualcomm (US based) and NXP (Dutch based) blocked by China: https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/qualcomm-ends-44-...

Microsoft (US based) and Activision Blizzard (US Based) blocked by UK: https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/22/microsoft-activision-uk-cm...

These are far from the only examples but they come to mind immediately.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#150

Post by skeaker »

pjmlp wrote: post #42
throwaway2048 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all valve games are linux native, as are lots of steam releases

The point is about the large majority that runs on top of Proton.

Sorry, but are you saying you believe Valve is responsible for the development of every game on their store? In case you're just genuinely unaware, games are developed by a variety of people and studios completely separately from Valve.
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