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Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

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Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#51

Post by thewebguyd »

EA-3167 wrote: post #25
stetrain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I know Apple has little motivation to support such a project but it would be great to see them work with Valve on this. Having the majority of Steam games "just work" on modern Macs, like they do on the Steam Deck, would be fantastic.

I think it's more than "little motivation" if we're being honest. Right now Valve is quietly targeting MS' attempt to create a walled garden for gaming on Windows and (probably) cut them out. Their very clever approach has been a full end-run around the OS by using Proton, which I'm sure genuinely thrilled Apple... as long as Valve is only doing that to MS. Why would Apple ever invite Valve to potentially do the same…

Especially looking at Apples recent gaming history.

When Cyberpunk, AC, and a couple other AAA titles came to macOS, Apple made a big deal of them being in the mac app store, specifically. They didn't go out of their way to call out that they run on mac, you can get them from Steam, etc. The big deal was they are in the app store.

That's where Apple wants mac gaming to happen so they can get their 30% cut.

I wish that weren't the case, but Apple's gonna Apple.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#52

Post by jitl »

the__alchemist wrote: post #40

Does anyone know what the limfac is? The machine code produced is of course different on different CPU arches, but isn't this handled at the compiler level? I.e. lower level than game devs worry about. The exception I see is if SIMD intrinsics.

This system allows playing unmodified production x86 executables on arm64. It doesn’t have anything to do with the developers.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#53

Post by roflcopter69 »

echelon wrote: post #34
tonetegeatinst wrote: post #30

Given how arm license is know to be less than friendly.... Wouldn't it be preferable to explore a RISCV architecture. As far as I know RISC provides similar power efficiency and sleep that is like ARM.

That's a geopolitical question. ARM is Western RISC is China / Eastern Valve is just trying to outflank Microsoft here. And they're doing a magnificent job of it. Microsoft has on at least half a dozen occasions tried to draw a box around Valve to control their attempts to grow beyond the platform. And moreover to keep gaming gravitas on Windows. Windows Store, ActiveX, Xbox, major acquisitions ... they've failed to…

> RISC is China / Eastern

Imo this is a really strange characterization of RISC. I've never seen this before. I think you try to paint a misleading picture in bad faith, please consider this: - https://riscv.org/blog/how-nvidia-shipped-one-billion-risc-v... - https://tenstorrent.com/en/ip/risc-v-cpu - https://blog.westerndigital.com/risc-v-swerv-core-open-sourc... - https://www.sifive.com - ... - https://riscv.org/about/ -> "RISC-V International Association in Switzerland"

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#54

Post by reactordev »

ZiiS wrote: post #19
jchw wrote: post #11

> and modern multiplayer games with anti-cheat simply do not work through a translation layer, something Valve hopes will change in the future. Although this is true for most games it is worth noting that it isn't universally true. Usermode anti-cheat does sometimes work verbatim in Wine, and some anti-cheat software has Proton support, though not all developers elect to enable it.

It works in the sense it allows you to run the game; but it does not prevent cheating. Obviously, Window's kernel anti-cheet is also only partially effective anyway, but the point of open-source is to give you control which includes cheating if you want to. Linux's profiling is just too good; full well documented sources for all libraries and kernel, even the graphics are running through easier to understand translat…

These things do not prevent cheating at all. They are merely a remote control system that they can send instructions to look for known cheats. Cheating still exists and will always exist in online games.

You can be clever and build a random memory allocator. You can get clever and watch for frozen struct members after a known set operation, what you can’t do is prevent all cheating. There’s device layer, driver layer, MITM, emulation, and even now AI mouse control.

The only thing you can do is watch for it and send the ban hammer. Valve has a wonderful write up about client-side prediction recording so as to verify killcam shots were indeed, kill shots, and not aim bots (but this method is great for seeing those in action as well!)

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#55

Post by ahartmetz »

tonetegeatinst wrote: post #30

Given how arm license is know to be less than friendly.... Wouldn't it be preferable to explore a RISCV architecture. As far as I know RISC provides similar power efficiency and sleep that is like ARM.

>arm license is know to be less than friendly

Sure, it's not open source or anything. But ARM doesn't seem to be a typical greedy incumbent that everyone hates. They don't make all that much profit or revenue given how much technology they enable - there isn't much to disrupt there.

RISC-V is severely lacking in high-performance implementations for the time being.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#56

Post by ahartmetz »

moregrist wrote: post #48
tonetegeatinst wrote: post #30

Given how arm license is know to be less than friendly.... Wouldn't it be preferable to explore a RISCV architecture. As far as I know RISC provides similar power efficiency and sleep that is like ARM.

Have we seen a commercially available high performance 64-bit RISCV chip at production scale yet? There’s a lot of work and experience built up for ARM through Proton and other tech (that can be reverse engineered to see how it works) like Rosetta. A lot of that would have to be redone for RISCV. Seems like a lot of risk in the short term for what’s not an obvious product benefit. I would expect the high-end RISCV ma…

>at production scale

You can even omit that part and the result is the same: nothing

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#57

Post by cpgxiii »

o_m wrote: post #43
cpgxiii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has yet produced a RISC-V CPU or SoC with truly competitive CPU and GPU performance and compatibility to the current state of arm64 or amd64.

It’s a catch-22: why build a RISC-V CPU if there’s no software for it, and why write software if there’s no CPU to run it?

Until there's a common, well-supported, and sufficiently performant family of RISC-V SoCs or CPUs with support for existing well-supported GPUs, RISC-V support will be a massive pain in the ass of a moving/fragmented target.

This has held back Arm for years, even today the state of poor GPU drivers for otherwise good Arm SoCs. There is essentially a tiny handful of Arm systems with good GPU support.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#58

Post by Goronmon »

reactordev wrote: post #54
ZiiS wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works in the sense it allows you to run the game; but it does not prevent cheating. Obviously, Window's kernel anti-cheet is also only partially effective anyway, but the point of open-source is to give you control which includes cheating if you want to. Linux's profiling is just too good; full well documented sources for all libraries and kernel, even the graphics are running through easier to understand translat…

These things do not prevent cheating at all. They are merely a remote control system that they can send instructions to look for known cheats. Cheating still exists and will always exist in online games. You can be clever and build a random memory allocator. You can get clever and watch for frozen struct members after a known set operation, what you can’t do is prevent all cheating. There’s device layer, driver layer…

Cheating still exists and will always exist in online games.

Sure, but you still have to make a serious attempt or the experience will be terrible for any non-cheaters. Or you just make your game bad enough that no one cares. That's an option too.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#59

Post by plufz »

reactordev wrote: post #54
ZiiS wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works in the sense it allows you to run the game; but it does not prevent cheating. Obviously, Window's kernel anti-cheet is also only partially effective anyway, but the point of open-source is to give you control which includes cheating if you want to. Linux's profiling is just too good; full well documented sources for all libraries and kernel, even the graphics are running through easier to understand translat…

These things do not prevent cheating at all. They are merely a remote control system that they can send instructions to look for known cheats. Cheating still exists and will always exist in online games. You can be clever and build a random memory allocator. You can get clever and watch for frozen struct members after a known set operation, what you can’t do is prevent all cheating. There’s device layer, driver layer…

That sounds like it does prevent cheating? But maybe doesn’t prevent ALL cheats. Or do you mean they work so poorly that it doesn’t make any difference at all?

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#60

Post by dev0p »

charcircuit wrote: post #35

I thought for a moment from the title that Valve has finally started funding game developers to make content from SteamOS, but no, this is just another case where Valve pays some contractors for open source projects and force developers to foot the bill for verifying compatibility.

Why the vitriol? This is one of the rare cases where a company actually puts money in open source development. Of course they ultimately do it for business reasons but everyone benefits from it as a whole, so I fail to understand the issue here.
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