Helping Valve to power up Steam devices • Hacker News Board

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#271

Post by altfredd » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 5:54 PM UTC

david-gpu wrote: post #211

MindSpunk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I work with mobile GPUs for , have direct contacts with Qualcomm, and the drivers still find ways to disappoint even with my low expectations. Often when people run into problems with a GPU they blame "the drivers". How confident are you that the problems you ran into originated from the drivers, and not from other sources, such as the hardware itself? Just because an issue goes away with a driver update it doesn't…

Android has entire API for handling driver failures:

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/wifi/Wif...

Hardware can have issues, but firmware and drivers usually work around those issues. When firmware and drivers crash, you get "masterpieces" like the one above.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#272

Post by david-gpu » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 6:11 PM UTC

altfredd wrote: post #271

david-gpu wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I work with mobile GPUs for , have direct contacts with Qualcomm, and the drivers still find ways to disappoint even with my low expectations. Often when people run into problems with a GPU they blame "the drivers". How confident are you that the problems you ran into originated from the drivers, and not from other sources, such as the hardware itself? Just because an issue goes away with a driver update it doesn't…

Android has entire API for handling driver failures: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/wifi/Wif... Hardware can have issues, but firmware and drivers usually work around those issues. When firmware and drivers crash, you get "masterpieces" like the one above.

I used to write drivers for Qualcomm GPUs. I am speaking from years of experience here.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#273

Post by madeofpalk » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

tonyarkles wrote: post #161

madeofpalk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t someone else make one?

That’s very much the trick. Apple is actually exceptionally good at making CPUs. Look at these single-thread benchmarks: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/single-thread/ Similarly, if you look for the M4 in this list and then look for other ARM chips, you’ll have to look quite a ways down the list: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/multithread/mobile

It’s baffling to me that no one else (Qualcomm) has not been able to come close.

My guess is that CPU design is existential for Apple, and no one else cares enough to be dedicated enough to do what Apple has done.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#274

Post by OvermindDL1 » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

altfredd wrote: post #268

bri3d wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different definitions of "easy." With hardware, you have about one billion validation tests and QA processes, because when you're done, you're done and it had better work. Fixing an "issue" is very very expensive, and you want to get rid of them. However, this also makes the process more of, to stereotype, an "engineer's engineering" practice. It's very rules based, and if everything follows the rules and passes…

> intentionally hostile kernel interface If open-sourcing your entire kernel is being "hostile", I don't think that there is or ever was a "friendly" OS.

I think what they were referencing with that is that the kernel hardware interface is unstable, it changes literally every version, which is why you went to upstream it so you don't have to keep it up yourself after that.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#275

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 6:38 PM UTC

soiltype wrote: post #84

bryanlarsen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The steam deck, especially the low-spec variant, was sold at very low, likely negative margins. They make huge profit on their games, but if you don't buy the games... They've implied that they're not going to sell the Steam Machine at a low margin because they're worried about people buying the Steam Machine for general purpose computer use without buying games. I'm not sure that's a rational fear. If you subtract t…

> Not to mention that the Beelink comes with a Windows license, and the Steam Machine doesn't. That's a mark against the Beelink for many :)

I was looking at buying a Beelink NAS and paying for a Windows license when I'm just going to install proxmox on it (I think) definitely counts against it.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#276

Post by drchaim » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 6:46 PM UTC

So proud to see a Spanish company working on this low-level stuff

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#277

Post by MindSpunk » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 7:24 PM UTC

david-gpu wrote: post #211

MindSpunk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I work with mobile GPUs for , have direct contacts with Qualcomm, and the drivers still find ways to disappoint even with my low expectations. Often when people run into problems with a GPU they blame "the drivers". How confident are you that the problems you ran into originated from the drivers, and not from other sources, such as the hardware itself? Just because an issue goes away with a driver update it doesn't…

I suppose from the outside I cant meaningfully distinguish from hardware or software bugs except in a few cases. Doesn't change the outcome for us either, it's not like we can rely on driver updates to be shipped on Android. Many extensions are broken like extended dynamic state to the point of being unusable. We've hit plenty of issues in the driver shader compiler too, even in Vulkan 1.0 features like relaxed precision.

We've hit a ton of bugs on the adreno 830, with even basic stuff like barriers being broken.

The problem isn't exclusive to Qualcomm fwiw, we've run into plenty of bugs in ARM's driver. Apple's too

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#278

Post by aaarrm » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

xinayder wrote: post #215

awill wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a super high opinion of Valve. Sure, they have loot crates. But sensible people don't buy them. I guess you could blame them for having it in the first place. That's fair I guess. But I've never for a second considered buying any of that junk. I just buy single player offline games with no IAP, and Steam is amazing. It's a million miles ahead of the competitors, and it's really surprising that EA/Ubi etc.. try…

And loot boxes in Valve games never bothered me, because if you want a particular skin you can just buy it off the market. I can't remember being angry at Valve for having loot boxes. All other games require you to keep opening loot boxes to get what you want.

Well not with their battle passes in Dota. They employed a lot of FOMO tactics where you had to spend hundreds to guarantee a set that you'll otherwise never be able to get again.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#279

Post by robbiet480 » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 7:52 PM UTC

torginus wrote: post #181

crims0n wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in fact, are able to play Windows games already with Winlator or GameHub. Performance is getting impressive as well, with newer chips like the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Not sure where they are now, but a year or two ago compatibility with all but the most basic games was quite bad (because of the GPU).

GTA V is running at high preset locked 60fps via GameHub on the Ayn Thor which has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMIPlwoAt58#t=14m41s

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#280

Post by tormeh » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

virtue3 wrote: post #241

rpdillon wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though I am not outspoken about it, I think individuals need to come to terms with telling themselves no. This really resonates with me. I feel like self-control has gone out of fashion, but it has a lot of merit.

I think it's difficult to just call things "self control" when there have been entire college majors / studies / casinos dedicated to tricking us into making the choices they want. Look at the Apple price ladder on ipads. Look at any tactic by a casino - go to Reno and see many retires at the beginning of the month drop their whole social security check in the casino. Look at why they label things $9.99 instead of $1…

Yeah, existing in the modern world you're surrounded by mind-hackers. Everywhere you go there are hacking attempts against your mind, trying to get you to buy stuff you shouldn't or want stuff you don't. It's really absurd.