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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

#321

Post by NekkoDroid »

nomel wrote: post #201
6SixTy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Main issue is the lack of Vulkan support on macOS. Currently, solutions like MoltenVK have to be developed to add Vulkan support, which isn't as clean as just supporting it. For some reason the prospect using Wine, Rosetta 2, and DXVK with MoltenVK on top just to run some games doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that this whole thing will be performant and/or stable.

No, the main issue is a fundamentally different rendering pipeline (tile based deferred rendering) that makes "Vulkan support" a conceptually difficult square peg in a round hole problem, since everything is made for immediate rendering, like all the other mainstream GPUs use.

The entire reason vulkan didn't ship with dynamic rendering and instead had its entire renderpass system is because it was to support tile based rendering.

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

#322

Post by randyrand »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #223
mikkupikku wrote: post #219

Hypothetically, if Valve made a strong push to make SteamOS compatible with all Windows programs, not just games, could they make a serious run at knocking down Windows?

And why would they care? Not even Microsoft really cares about Windows licensing for consumers and businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows. There is no real business case.

Here’s an idea, charge money for it?

I’m sure there are lots of businesses that dislike Microsoft and the freemium model they’re using.

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

#323

Post by internet101010 »

tombert wrote: post #279
adverbly wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you're completely correct. But if we treat all companies the same regardless of their behavior, they don't have any incentive to change their behavior. So I'll keep rewarding the good behaviour and punishing the bad.

I just wonder if it's an inherent symptom of massive success. I'm not talking Valve level of success, but more like Google and Apple and Microsoft levels. Eventually every company has downturns in the market, and whether or not it's fair the investors/board of directors will think it's because of the current strategy, and they'll engage in terrible rent-seeking behavior. I just worry that if we keep rewarding them, a…

Valve already owns the market. There is nothing left to strangle. Every attempt to break through has been a failure and none of those failures can be attributed to an anti-competitive action taken by Valve. They could have engaged in rent seeking a long time ago if they wanted to. They are managing their market position well by not abusing their customers or giving customers a reason to complain to lawmakers.

Epic's storefront is trash (only recently got ability to gift keys, still can't leave reviews), Microsoft already botched Game Pass by showing their cards too early via substantial price increases, and Amazon failed so badly that nobody even knew they tried.

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

#324

Post by littlecranky67 »

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.

I honestly don't know why so many people say that anti-cheat with Proton or SteamMachines won't work. SteamOS is an immutable Linux - especially with their own SteamMachine they can enable SecureBoot and attestation that you are using the SteamOS verbatim efi boot file, kernel, and corret system fs image - all signed by Valve. Just as Battlefield 6 does on windows (relying on SecureBoot). That would still allow you to install other OSes on your SteamDeck/SteamMachine, but it would fail the anticheat attestation. I personally see the push in hardware from Valve particular so that they can support anti-cheat on linux.

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

#325

Post by lallysingh »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #217
nialv7 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve is estimated to make $16.2 billion from Steam alone in 2025 [0], and CS:GO loot boxes only netted them ~1bn in 2023 [1] (and CS:GO player count is only slightly higher now compared to 2023, so I expected the income number is similar). Why don't they just take a 6% pay cut and make sure there is nothing to criticize them about :/ [0]: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-mak... [1]: https://c…

There's an argument that loot boxes that give you cosmetics just aren't that big of a deal, at least if we're talking about adults. Especially since Magic the Gathering and similar card games are very normalized, and have a straightforwardly more evil monetization strategy, since you need to do gambling there to even play the game, it's not cosmetic. There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are peopl…

I always interpreted that as cosmetics are OK because it doesn't make the game unfair. You can't buy advancement in the game that way.

Subsidizing the game's devel/ops cost isn't a bad thing. Especially if it's optional and doesn't change the game.

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

#326

Post by stavros »

craftkiller wrote: post #199
adverbly wrote: post #98

Everything valve doing for linux is making such a huge impact. The HL3 memes don't even seem fair to use anymore. I don't even want to un-seriously make joke fun of them at this point. They are just genuinely doing so much for the community.

That is why I bought a steam deck: to financially support Valve's Linux efforts. I barely play games anymore but thanks to the Wine devs, CodeWeavers, and Valve, I no longer have to listen to the knuckle-draggers claiming that "Linux sucks because it can't play games". In fact, now it is the opposite: Linux is outperforming Windows[0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJXp3UYj50Q

I wonder when games will start supporting Linux natively, especially after the Steam Machine is released.

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

#327

Post by TulliusCicero »

MattDaEskimo wrote: post #289
TulliusCicero wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there. But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

Let's be honest about this current situation. Valve pushing for Linux gaming is for survival, not charity. Windows is closing in on them: stricter kernel access (tougher time for anti-cheat) Encouraging users to use the app store, or more accurately: discouraging users to install from binary They threaten Valve's business model, and Valve is responding with proton & SteamOS

They're doing things that are simultaneously good for business and good for consumers.

That contrasts against the companies doing things that are good for business (at least short term) and bad for consumers.

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

#328

Post by torginus »

buildbot wrote: post #102
jchw wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-cheat is a misnomer; it's much more about detecting cheats more than it is preventing them. For people who are familiar with how modern anti-cheat systems work, actually cheating is really the easy part; trying to remain undetected is the challenge. Because of that, usermode anti-cheat is definitely far from useless in Wine; it can still function insofar as it tries to monitor the process space of the game itsel…

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.

I remember reading that Microsoft is trying to crack down on kernel level anti-cheats. Just like anti-virus, they mess with the operating system on a deep level, redirecting/intercepting API calls, sometimes on undocumented and unstable internal APIs.

Not only does this present a huge security risk, it can break existing software and the OS itself. These anti-cheats tend not to be written by people intimately familiar with Windows kernel development, and they cause regressions in existing software which the users then blame on Windows.

That's why Microsoft did Windows Defender and tried to kill off 3rd party anti-virus.

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

#329

Post by mhast »

bigyabai wrote: post #301
IshKebab wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's still highly debatable. Intel and AMD claim the instruction set makes no difference... but of course they would. And if that's really the case where are the power efficient x86 chips? Possibly the truth is that everyone is talking past each other. Certainly in the Moore's Law days "marginal impact" would have meant maybe less then 20%, because differences smaller than that pretty much didn't matter. An…

> And if that's really the case where are the power efficient x86 chips? Where are the power inefficient x86 chips? If you normalize for production process and put the chips under synthetic load, ARM and x86 usually end up in a similar ballpark of efficiency. ARM is typically less efficient for wide SIMD/vector workloads, but more efficient at idle. AMD and Intel aren't smartphone manufacturers. Their cash cows aren'…

Jim Keller goes into some detail about what difference the ISA makes in general in this clip https://youtu.be/yTMRGERZrQE?si=u-dEXwxp0MWPQumy

Spoiler, it's not much because most of the actual execution time is spent in a handful of basic OPs.

Branch prediction is where the magic happens today.

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

#330

Post by whazor »

nosrepa wrote: post #307
micromacrofoot wrote: post #44

2026 will be the year of the linux desktop

I used to have `echo "$((( $(date +%Y) + 1 ))) will be the year of the linux desktop"` at the end of my .bashrc

Linux desktop is getting better every year, meanwhile Windows and arguably MacOS are getting worse every year.
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