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Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

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Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#51

Post by ywvcbk »

pjmlp wrote: post #43
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my deck, I can run native Linux games

Sure, pity that the large majority on Steam library are running on top of Proton.

Why, though? What difference does it really make besides significantly reducing the cost of “porting” games?

If anything, due to Wine, Proton etc. “Windows API” is almost a pseudo opensource way of developing cross-platform content. There are significant downsides but on the bright-side it’s extremely stable considering to most stuff on Linux.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#52

Post by ywvcbk »

zamadatix wrote: post #14
015a wrote: post #12

I think, especially considering the news of Qualcomm talking with Intel about acquisition, or just Intel's general problems; we are in the last decade of x86.

Even calling Intel x86 a loss overnight AMD is doing more than fine enough, server and consumer, for x86 to stay with a competitive presence into the 2030s even taking a dim view of the architectures future.

Even Intel isn’t doing that bad. Their revenue is still 2x or so higher than AMDs and they are still ahead in the consumer market. Their next gen mobile chips are allegedly already more power efficient than Qualcomm’s meaning that their only remaining advantage might be lower price.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#53

Post by imtringued »

pjmlp wrote: post #41
missblit wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam has supported native Linux games for a decade.

It has, yet the focus is all about Proton.

Maybe because there is a large backlog of old games that will never be ported to Linux? Have you considered that game developers and not valve are responsible for providing a Linux port of their game and so far have managed to do a worse job than a DirectX implementation for Linux?

The collective time spent on developing proton is probably less than a dozen high profile Linux ports.

The latest commit to proton 9.0 is three weeks ago. The latest commit to an experimental branch is 3 days ago and it is just an update of a wine version and no other commits. A lot of proton commits just update a version here and there.

The focus is certainly not on proton. It is simply very cheap to work on it, because it is highly effective. The steam deck probably cost them more software and hardware developer hours than proton.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#54

Post by potwinkle »

pjmlp wrote: post #33
snvzz wrote: post #17

With SteamOS, they solved their dependency on Windows. Now, they're trying to stop being tied to x86. ARM64 is being tested because hardware is already widely deployed, but not being tied to x86 is the important part. Enabling e.g. RISC-V as well.

They are fully dependent on Windows Games developed for Windows. They are only working really hard not to pay for Windows OS licences. The day they actually support native Linux games, instead of doing Windows API translation is when I believe they are actually serious about Linux games, and not saving OS licenses.

What are you talking about? Practically every Valve game has a native (non-Proton) Linux port.

Every Counter-Strike, every Team Fortress, every Half-Life (even Alyx), every Portal, DOTA 2, Artifact.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#55

Post by jorvi »

dagmx wrote: post #39
modeless wrote: post #22

It seems pretty clear to me that this is for Valve's long-awaited standalone VR headset, Deckard. What other reason would they have to support Gorilla Tag on ARM? https://x.com/SadlyItsBradley/status/1837210246076588500 Compatibility with your existing Steam library out of the box will be a huge competitive advantage for Deckard over Meta Quest.

Imho it’s unlikely this is for natively running on a standalone headset. The overhead of translation alone would be just burning already limited compute budgets. The other games on their list are too demanding for untethered play in the wattage one would have on a face mounted device. IMHO gorilla tag here is just a red herring. IMHO this is just valve hedging the bet that ARM machines become more popular , and futur…

> Imho it’s unlikely this is for natively running on a standalone headset. The overhead of translation alone would be just burning already limited compute budgets.

I wonder if with both Windows and Valve getting into ARM64, that will bring significant enough pressure on the market for ARM OEMs (and ARM itself) to start including a x86-transpilation mode similar to the one Apple has in their M-series of CPUs to increase the performance of Rosetta2.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#56

Post by arlort »

pjmlp wrote: post #43
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my deck, I can run native Linux games

Sure, pity that the large majority on Steam library are running on top of Proton.

Your comment above was about:

> The day they actually support native Linux games

Not "the day a majority of their library is linux native"

As others mentioned valve has been developing their games as linux native already, what do you expect them to do? Force every single developer to support all the platforms possible? Delete all the games not linux native?

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#57

Post by bloqs »

dagmx wrote: post #39
modeless wrote: post #22

It seems pretty clear to me that this is for Valve's long-awaited standalone VR headset, Deckard. What other reason would they have to support Gorilla Tag on ARM? https://x.com/SadlyItsBradley/status/1837210246076588500 Compatibility with your existing Steam library out of the box will be a huge competitive advantage for Deckard over Meta Quest.

Imho it’s unlikely this is for natively running on a standalone headset. The overhead of translation alone would be just burning already limited compute budgets. The other games on their list are too demanding for untethered play in the wattage one would have on a face mounted device. IMHO gorilla tag here is just a red herring. IMHO this is just valve hedging the bet that ARM machines become more popular , and futur…

Yeah tethered with a newer generation steam link wireless protocol would be great. They move everything forwards whenever they try something new

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#58

Post by Beretta_Vexee »

pjmlp wrote: post #41
missblit wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam has supported native Linux games for a decade.

It has, yet the focus is all about Proton.

the majority of users have no idea what OS is actually running on their steamdeck and don't want to worry about it. Proton makes it possible to maintain a large library of older games on the platform. Like any Steam user since Half-life 2, I must have accumulated over a hundred games in my library. I think Valve knows better than we do what users want.

Re: Valve is testing ARM64 support for popular games

#59

Post by flohofwoe »

pjmlp wrote: post #41
missblit wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam has supported native Linux games for a decade.

It has, yet the focus is all about Proton.

TBH running through a Win32/DX API shim isn't much different than running through SDL, yet Linux games using the SDL are considered "native" but Win32 games running through Proton are not?

(the Win32 and DX APIs are also much more straightforward to use than wrestling directly with X11, Wayland, Vulkan and the Linux audio API flavour of the month)

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