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Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

igalia.com

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Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#201

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #95
l11r wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no ARM chips with enough power. They have said many times that they are not interested in minor performance improvements but rather want a leap. The Snapdragon X2 Elite chip is the leader (I cannot count Apple; they won't share their chips, obviously), but it doesn't even match AMD with their RDNA 3.5, and who knows when they will (or even if).

Apple not sharing their chips extends to Apple keeping their grip on the higher density nodes. I wonder if it's still the case, but for a while Apple was buying the totality of TSMC's capacity for 3nm nodes, leaving the rest of the world with only 4nm+ chips to grab.

You don’t need to wonder. Top of the lines Snapdragon, Dimensity and Exinos SoC all use 3nm.

Amusingly, it’s the second time in two days I have this discussion here and I have noticed that a lot of people, who I think are American and using Apple phones by default, are completely unaware of what the mobile SoC landscape looks like nowadays. Apple lead doesn’t exist anymore as of this generation.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#202

Post by ben-schaaf »

Spivak wrote: post #54
sbarre wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I had not connected those (hypothetical) dots, but I could see it.. Or maybe there's 2 next-gen Steam Decks, an ultra-portable ARM-based one that's as small as can be, and a more performant x86 one with AMD's next-gen APU...

Why not just make a performant ARM device? Apple demonstrated to the world that it can be extremely fast and sip power.

> Apple demonstrated to the world that it can be extremely fast and sip power.

Kinda. Apple silicon sips power when it isn't being used, but under a heavy gaming load it's pretty comparable to AMD. People report 2 hours of battery life playing cyberpunk on Macs, which matches the steam deck. It's only in lighter games where Apple pulls ahead significantly, and that really has nothing to do with it being ARM.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#203

Post by Maxious »

jorvi wrote: post #41

Really cool stuff! Especially nice to see the groundwork being laid for what could become very efficient handhelds, considering how much performance Apple's M-series and Qualcomm's Elite series with relatively few watts. Much better than AMD, Intel or Nvidia. One nit: it's too bad Valve / Igalia choose to completely ignore the lessons from Bazzite. Bazzite already runs a scheduler like LAVD, called BORE[0]. It would…

Igalia benchmarked against EEVDF https://youtu.be/wQbiqKUIsMI?si=rT-zMXJkVR6RYG_D&t=2353

Also bazzite uses LAVD by default for steam deck hardware https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/bazzite-buzz-18/379...

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#204

Post by OoooooooO »

tpxl wrote: post #187
ecshafer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that valve loot crates/hats have also always been tradeable, and Ive never had to buy them or suffer a disasvantage.

TF2 hats used to bring an advantage until about a decade ago.

All items had stats / skill changes, no?

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#205

Post by ant6n »

jsheard wrote: post #53
sbarre wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I had not connected those (hypothetical) dots, but I could see it.. Or maybe there's 2 next-gen Steam Decks, an ultra-portable ARM-based one that's as small as can be, and a more performant x86 one with AMD's next-gen APU...

Yeah, there's a real gap in the market for a relatively compact handheld which can play low-spec PC games. The AMD-based handheld PCs available today are all pretty chunky.

Like an IPad mini?

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#206

Post by LtWorf »

doubled112 wrote: post #140
LtWorf wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's the reason why for several years I didn't consider buying anything that had an AMD card (not now, but for many many years it was insanity).

Are you talking about the FGLRX drivers on Linux desktops? Or their Windows driver quality back then? I remember them both being pretty brutal.

The linux desktop was my reason.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#207

Post by [deleted] »

MindSpunk wrote: post #108
fidotron wrote: post #2

> This is a very difficult combination to achieve, and yet that’s exactly what we’ve done for Valve with Mesa3D Turnip, a FOSS Vulkan driver for Qualcomm Adreno GPUs. Look at that. Something Qualcomm should have been doing. Much credit to Valve for pushing that out as FOSS.

Qualcomm's Vulkan drivers are hot garbage, so I'm not surprised Turnip was seen as more desirable. I work with mobile GPUs for , have direct contacts with Qualcomm, and the drivers still find ways to disappoint even with my low expectations.

[deleted]

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#208

Post by usrusr »

zamalek wrote: post #75
fidotron wrote: post #2

> This is a very difficult combination to achieve, and yet that’s exactly what we’ve done for Valve with Mesa3D Turnip, a FOSS Vulkan driver for Qualcomm Adreno GPUs. Look at that. Something Qualcomm should have been doing. Much credit to Valve for pushing that out as FOSS.

> Much credit to Valve for pushing that out as FOSS. Cynical: Valve doesn't sell hardware or operating systems, they sell games. These devices are merely another storefront. Optimistic: Valve has also figured out how to turn good will into a commodity. Blowing cash on Steam sales is a bit of a cultural centerpiece of the PC gaming community. Gabe has proven that you can make stupid amounts of money by [mostly] doing…

Other CEOs are not owner-CEOs. They may be founder-CEOs, but at the end of the day those aren't really more powerful than a CEO hired off the street by owners. For publicly traded companies, even a majority stake only makes them powerful on paper, because the 49% selling would shatter their paper net worth.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#209

Post by graemep »

usrusr wrote: post #208
zamalek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much credit to Valve for pushing that out as FOSS. Cynical: Valve doesn't sell hardware or operating systems, they sell games. These devices are merely another storefront. Optimistic: Valve has also figured out how to turn good will into a commodity. Blowing cash on Steam sales is a bit of a cultural centerpiece of the PC gaming community. Gabe has proven that you can make stupid amounts of money by [mostly] doing…

Other CEOs are not owner-CEOs. They may be founder-CEOs, but at the end of the day those aren't really more powerful than a CEO hired off the street by owners. For publicly traded companies, even a majority stake only makes them powerful on paper, because the 49% selling would shatter their paper net worth.

The other difference (and I think a more important one) is that they take a longer term view of the business, rather than next year's bonus and options vesting. A hired CEO will probably not still be there in a few years time.

> or publicly traded companies, even a majority stake only makes them powerful on paper, because the 49% selling would shatter their paper net worth.

That threat is limited because the other shareholders do not want to reduce the value of their investment either. Look at what a firm of Musk has on Tesla with something like a 15% stake.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#210

Post by 15155 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #95
l11r wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no ARM chips with enough power. They have said many times that they are not interested in minor performance improvements but rather want a leap. The Snapdragon X2 Elite chip is the leader (I cannot count Apple; they won't share their chips, obviously), but it doesn't even match AMD with their RDNA 3.5, and who knows when they will (or even if).

Apple not sharing their chips extends to Apple keeping their grip on the higher density nodes. I wonder if it's still the case, but for a while Apple was buying the totality of TSMC's capacity for 3nm nodes, leaving the rest of the world with only 4nm+ chips to grab.

Bitmain is quite often first on new nodes, ahead of Apple, even.
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