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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

#161

Post by galleywest200 »

concinds wrote: post #155
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.

Apple leadership cares more about "games on the Mac App Store built for Metal on a Mac" than it cares about "games on the Mac". This won't change until leadership changes.

It does not matter what Apple wants if Steam ships their own compatibility layer.

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

#162

Post by ZeWaka »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #157
aloisdg wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine HL3, Portal 3 et L4D3 but all linux only. oh my

Unfortunately for Linux, the recent ram price increases are reason not to move (if thinking about a new pc).

Why would you need a new PC to swap operating systems?

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

#163

Post by commakozzi »

wiether wrote: post #153
throwaway48476 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If apple wanted to show that they have good hardware they wouldn't gimp the iPad pro with iOS. They really don't care.

Currently, someone interested in an iPad and needing the power of a MB, will have to buy both. If they stopped restricting the iPad, those people would only have to buy an iPad. And as someone without a single interest in an iPad, I would worry that removing the iPad limitations would increase its market-share and lead to Apple reducing even more their interest in the MB, which would be terrible news to me.

I used to understand/agree with this point, but over the past few years i've transitioned to my ipad pro for mobile usage and it has become my daily driver for mobile computing. When i need macos for anything, i typically will use Jump to connect and do something real quick, but that's rare. I'm starting to not understand why i wouldn't just want an ipad pro running a touch friendly (and i mean it would have to be VERY touch friendly) version of macos. again, i would have normally agreed with you, but that line is starting to blur for me...

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

#164

Post by oarsinsync »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #157
aloisdg wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine HL3, Portal 3 et L4D3 but all linux only. oh my

Unfortunately for Linux, the recent ram price increases are reason not to move (if thinking about a new pc).

> Unfortunately for Linux, the recent ram price increases are reason not to move (if thinking about a new pc).

Can you elaborate on why high RAM prices mean Linux is less attractive? Do you believe a usable Linux environment uses more RAM than a usable Windows 11 environment?

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

#165

Post by KaiMagnus »

codeflo wrote: post #137
jonny_eh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's pretty strong rumours that they actually have been working on a new Half-Life. People are hoping it releases with their new hardware in 2026.

Are the rumors still hinting at a VR-only experience as they did a couple of years ago when Half-Life: Alyx released, or is that no longer the speculation? Because that would be unfortunate for me, I'd have to play with a bucket in hand.

I believe for the next Half-Life, latest rumors indicate it is actually back to 2D. During the press event last month, they were also pretty clear that no VR game is currently in development at Valve.

A huge missed opportunity imo, but maybe playing HL3 on a theater sized screen is nice enough.

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

#166

Post by vablings »

kouteiheika wrote: post #115
buildbot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of Anti-Cheat and secure boot, you need SB for Battlefield 6. The game won't start without it. So it's happening! I don't hate the lack of cheating compared to older Battlefield games if I am going to be honest.

> Speaking of Anti-Cheat and secure boot, you need SB for Battlefield 6. The game won't start without it. So it's happening! I'm curious, does anyone know how exactly they check for this? How was it actually made unspoofable?

The basic explanation is that it prevents binaries that are not signed by default from being loaded during the boot process. It only restricts the booting process in the uefi stage. If an executable has been modified, then it will not load due to secure boot. Technically there is nothing stopping you from modifying say winload.efi and signing it with your own key then adding that key to your bios keystore so that it will pass secure boot checks and still use secure boot.

I think the biggest thing is that the anticheat devs are using Microsoft's CA to check if your efi executable was signed by Microsoft. If that was the case then its all good and you are allowed to play the game you paid money for.

I haven't tested a self-signed secure boot for battlefield 6, I know some games literally do not care if you signed your own stuff, only if secure boot is actually enabled

edit: Someone else confirmed they require TPM to be enabled too meaning yeah, they are using remote attestation to verify the validity of the signed binary

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

#167

Post by alemanek »

overfeed wrote: post #158
alemanek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples biggest weakness is games. But it has a pretty large install base when compared to Linux (not counting phones or servers here).Seems like a win/win. Apple gets to address their weaknesses and Valve gets a large target market. I actually see it as the reverse. Valve might be going for the whole pie and want to carve out a niche for their Steam Box. Inviting Apple to the party might detract from that effort. Or…

> Apple gets to address their weaknesses and Valve gets a large target market. I don't think Apple wants any non-Apple store addressing their weaknesses, especially a solution as competent and well-funded as Steam. If Valve gains Apple-user mindshare on Mac, what prevents them from expanding to iPhones and iPads in the EU, and likely elsewhere if anti-monopoly laws get entrenched? IIRC, Services is the fastest growin…

That’s a fair point. I don’t think they care about steam competing on the desktop but mobile is another ballgame entirely.

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

#168

Post by 12_throw_away »

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.

> isn't this handled at the compiler level? I.e. lower level than game devs worry about.

But game devs (at least of a certain type) are notorious for thinking about low-level hardware performance right from the start. As a class I'm pretty sure game devs use godbolt much, much more than your typical developer.

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

#169

Post by hamdingers »

strbean wrote: post #148
codeflo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the rumors still hinting at a VR-only experience as they did a couple of years ago when Half-Life: Alyx released, or is that no longer the speculation? Because that would be unfortunate for me, I'd have to play with a bucket in hand.

From interviews with the Alyx devs, it really sounded like the only reason they didn't call it HL3 was fear of not living up to the name. Given the org structure at Valve, it's going to take someone with massive hubris to say "I can be the one to lead the HL3 project." That or Gabe getting off his megayacht to lead it (or tell someone their project is worthy of being called HL3).

They decided to make it a prequel for fear of not living up to the name, the decision was made much earlier. If you're at all familiar with the contents of Alyx and the Half-Life franchise it wouldn't have made any sense to call it HL3.

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

#170

Post by fulafel »

Perz1val wrote: post #118

Can someone tell me how much more power efficient is ARM actually? Like under load when gaming, not in a phone that sleeps most of the time. I've heard both claims, that it's still a huge difference and that for new AMD Zen it's basically the same.

The instruction set has marginal impact. But many power efficient chips happen to be using the ARM instruction set today.
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