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 future steamdeck like devices might use ARM.
It would make sense that they test SteamVR running with proton and tethered to a headset rather than directly connected.
Imho, that’s the more straightforward explanation for this. The game is just a test bed for tethered play.
I think you're right that they wouldn't ship Gorilla Tag this way. For a game that big I'm sure they can work with the developer to ship a native version. But for internal testing of a headset it would make sense to use this version in advance of availability of a native port.
The games that will ship this way will probably mostly be non-VR games that would never get ported otherwise. So you can play your Steam library full of non-VR x86 Windows PC games on a giant virtual screen in VR.
> 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.
I don't think this is about the hardware necessarily. They probably make more money from the Steam store and there are some notable ARM based platforms where you currently can't use Steam and where they are not able to sell games.
Macs would be a big juicy target, for example. If they can get emulation working well enough with proton on that, that's a huge market. Lots of people with disposable income on there that could be buying lots of games. And Apple is doing similar things as well so there might be some opportunity to tap into what they are doing.
As much as it sounds like it would make sense, I haven't seen any hints that they are developing Proton for macOS. That seems like it would be evident from open source changes, if it was happening.
I think Valve is reluctant to get any closer to Apple, or any large platform owner for that matter. They want to stay independent and own their own destiny. They even tried to get away from Microsoft with Steam Machines. It failed back then, but the Steam Deck is the continuation of that effort.
It seems pretty clear to me that the main target of this is ARM Chromebooks, at least for now. As these are the only products currently shipping in any relevant numbers where this makes sense.
This does not seem clear to me. My initial guess would be ARM based Steam Deck (or similar handhelds).
But generally, what is clear to me is that ARM is slowly becoming a lot more viable for general purpose computing. Apple's completely made the shift, and Microsoft seems to be persuing it for laptops at least finally. ARM seems like a great match for handhelds, if it wasn't for the compat issues.
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.
Valve got a scare with Windows 8 that they could be pushed off the platform.[0] It became clear to them that they were just guests in a house owned by Microsoft. That was in 2012, the first Steam Machine (running Linux) came out 3 years later and they've been working at it ever since.
It's not about saving the cost of a license, it's about guaranteeing their own survival.
As for "supporting native games," I take that to mean "sufficiently incentivize game devs to port their games to Linux." How would that work, or did you have something else in mind?
The cost of developing and maintaining Proton, Linux driver improvements, and their own Arch-based OS has probably exceeded the amount they saved by not shipping Windows on Steam Deck.
But what they got in return is a much more usable gaming operating system that doesn't constantly pester you about switching to Edge, using Copilot or draining all your battery for an update while you game
What they got in return is freedom from Microsoft's arbitrary OEM hardware requirements like having a front camera for Windows Hello, or having a TPM
What they got in return ultimately is leverage. As sibling comment mentioned, they were in fear that they could be kicked off of Windows by Microsoft. Now, Microsoft is the one in fear that if they ever kick Steam off, gamers now have a perfectly functioning alternative operating system to switch to.
Seems this sentiment is coming up in every recent Proton related thread. Despite all the counterarguments offered each time.
The simple reality is that there are decades worth of Windows games that will never have a Linux version. Because of the studios being gone. Because of the source code being lost. Because of the licensing issues for dependencies, assets, music. If not for the Valve efforts people would always need a copy of Windows to play a good chunk of their libraries. At which point why bother with Linux? But with Proton the calculus changes. Most of those Windows-only games are now fully playable on Linux. Many people no longer need Windows and that's a huge win for desktop Linux adoption.
By this logic Apple should not have developed x86 translation for its latest Macs because it showed they are not serious about the platform and disincentivized devs from providing native Arm ports. Except we know that's not what happened.
> They are fully dependent on Windows Games developed for Windows.
Sure, but they don't want to be dependent on Windows itself. If they can run all those Windows games on another OS, that's a win. Proton is pretty amazing, even if it's not 100%.
And if game devs for some cataclysmic reason abandon Windows, they'll figure that out too.
I used to port games to linux (from windows). There is just a huge amount of work porting each game, even if the tech used is somewhat cross platform to begin with. Game devs in general (and the people funding them) are just not interested in doing that work; they have more than enough work just getting the game to ship on their primary target platforms. And at least back in my day, native linux ports sold extremely poorly.
Aside from that there is a huge catalog of games using DX 9-12 and other windows-specific APIs that is just never going to get ported and that even valve would never be able to get source code for. Most of that source code is essentially unobtainable and in some cases has passed through multiple IP holders such that whoever owns it now (most likely a big company like EA or microsoft) doesn't even know what they have, let alone how to build it or even where the archives are.
An additional fact is that nowadays many older games have communities that have modded them unofficially by resorting to DLL injection and other hacks - these hacks can work under proton with the windows executable, but would fail on with a native linux binary. An example is oblivion script extender and its many cousins for that family of bethesda games. Many of the more advanced mods for those games require the capabilities of those low level hacks.
> They are only working really hard not to pay for Windows OS licences.
In what way are they supposed to be paying for Windows licenses? What do you even mean by that? You aren’t required to give 30% to MS to ships Windows apps (nor macOS)
If anything they are trying to build a moat, good-luck playing Xbox games on your Steam Deck if you don’t go out of your way to install Windows. Making them affectively a monopoly for now.
While it would be great if Valve did what they do on SteamOS and just manage it themselves, it’s a very minor burden to use the existing solutions to do the same.
You know, every 6 months or so I get a sudden hankering to play Portal or something and start down this rabbit hole. Based on your prompt, I had another look today.
So I went and downloaded this "whisky" thing. From their website: "Experience the latest titles effortlessly with Whisky!". OK. Installed.
I open it and I see a window with "bottle configuration" (wtf is a bottle?), an "open c: drive" button (???), "SteamCMD" whatever that is, "winetricks" (??) and a "run.." button which opens a file from finder (??). I have absolutely no idea what any of this is or how to proceed.
Confronted with this and the prospect of hours of research and messing around I decide I don't need to play anything all that much really.
If Apple cared about gamers, they wouldn't have blocked proper Vulkan support. They simply don't care. A major reason to stay away from Apple if you are a gamer.
I didn't even know there was Proton for macOS, but it looks like Valve ended that before the AS chips, so I don't think it had to do with the CPU arch.
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.
After buying Intel, Qualcomm could sink x86 by simply not renewing the cross-licensing agreement with AMD.
With Intel's patents on emulating x86 on other CPU architectures, Qualcomm could then ensure that going forward, the only economically viable way of running x86 code is on Snapdragon CPUs.
Since we're all just reading tea leaves, my guess is Valve is looking at a higher performance, lighter, ARM-based SteamDeck 2. They have time to develop it, so maybe they're targeting the next generation of Snapdragon X.
Not possible to fully AOT for all applications because you don't know which ones do JIT compilation to generate x86 code at runtime. Many games make use of LuaJIT, for example.
Very likely yes (Rosetta for the Mac already does this), but the big issue is that a ton of Unity games use JIT compiled Mono, and that would require dynamic recompilation, which as we've seen with Rosetta, would lead to terrible realtime performance
Readit News
Compatibility with your existing Steam library out of the box will be a huge competitive advantage for Deckard over Meta Quest.
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 future steamdeck like devices might use ARM.
It would make sense that they test SteamVR running with proton and tethered to a headset rather than directly connected.
Imho, that’s the more straightforward explanation for this. The game is just a test bed for tethered play.
The games that will ship this way will probably mostly be non-VR games that would never get ported otherwise. So you can play your Steam library full of non-VR x86 Windows PC games on a giant virtual screen in VR.
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.
Macs would be a big juicy target, for example. If they can get emulation working well enough with proton on that, that's a huge market. Lots of people with disposable income on there that could be buying lots of games. And Apple is doing similar things as well so there might be some opportunity to tap into what they are doing.
I think Valve is reluctant to get any closer to Apple, or any large platform owner for that matter. They want to stay independent and own their own destiny. They even tried to get away from Microsoft with Steam Machines. It failed back then, but the Steam Deck is the continuation of that effort.
Now, post-ARM, it's beat by Linux even.
But generally, what is clear to me is that ARM is slowly becoming a lot more viable for general purpose computing. Apple's completely made the shift, and Microsoft seems to be persuing it for laptops at least finally. ARM seems like a great match for handhelds, if it wasn't for the compat issues.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Deckard
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 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.
It's not about saving the cost of a license, it's about guaranteeing their own survival.
As for "supporting native games," I take that to mean "sufficiently incentivize game devs to port their games to Linux." How would that work, or did you have something else in mind?
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18996377
But what they got in return is a much more usable gaming operating system that doesn't constantly pester you about switching to Edge, using Copilot or draining all your battery for an update while you game
What they got in return is freedom from Microsoft's arbitrary OEM hardware requirements like having a front camera for Windows Hello, or having a TPM
What they got in return ultimately is leverage. As sibling comment mentioned, they were in fear that they could be kicked off of Windows by Microsoft. Now, Microsoft is the one in fear that if they ever kick Steam off, gamers now have a perfectly functioning alternative operating system to switch to.
The simple reality is that there are decades worth of Windows games that will never have a Linux version. Because of the studios being gone. Because of the source code being lost. Because of the licensing issues for dependencies, assets, music. If not for the Valve efforts people would always need a copy of Windows to play a good chunk of their libraries. At which point why bother with Linux? But with Proton the calculus changes. Most of those Windows-only games are now fully playable on Linux. Many people no longer need Windows and that's a huge win for desktop Linux adoption.
By this logic Apple should not have developed x86 translation for its latest Macs because it showed they are not serious about the platform and disincentivized devs from providing native Arm ports. Except we know that's not what happened.
Sure, but they don't want to be dependent on Windows itself. If they can run all those Windows games on another OS, that's a win. Proton is pretty amazing, even if it's not 100%.
And if game devs for some cataclysmic reason abandon Windows, they'll figure that out too.
Aside from that there is a huge catalog of games using DX 9-12 and other windows-specific APIs that is just never going to get ported and that even valve would never be able to get source code for. Most of that source code is essentially unobtainable and in some cases has passed through multiple IP holders such that whoever owns it now (most likely a big company like EA or microsoft) doesn't even know what they have, let alone how to build it or even where the archives are.
An additional fact is that nowadays many older games have communities that have modded them unofficially by resorting to DLL injection and other hacks - these hacks can work under proton with the windows executable, but would fail on with a native linux binary. An example is oblivion script extender and its many cousins for that family of bethesda games. Many of the more advanced mods for those games require the capabilities of those low level hacks.
In what way are they supposed to be paying for Windows licenses? What do you even mean by that? You aren’t required to give 30% to MS to ships Windows apps (nor macOS)
If anything they are trying to build a moat, good-luck playing Xbox games on your Steam Deck if you don’t go out of your way to install Windows. Making them affectively a monopoly for now.
Every Counter-Strike, every Team Fortress, every Half-Life (even Alyx), every Portal, DOTA 2, Artifact.
I don't have high hopes however.
While it would be great if Valve did what they do on SteamOS and just manage it themselves, it’s a very minor burden to use the existing solutions to do the same.
You know, every 6 months or so I get a sudden hankering to play Portal or something and start down this rabbit hole. Based on your prompt, I had another look today.
So I went and downloaded this "whisky" thing. From their website: "Experience the latest titles effortlessly with Whisky!". OK. Installed.
I open it and I see a window with "bottle configuration" (wtf is a bottle?), an "open c: drive" button (???), "SteamCMD" whatever that is, "winetricks" (??) and a "run.." button which opens a file from finder (??). I have absolutely no idea what any of this is or how to proceed.
Confronted with this and the prospect of hours of research and messing around I decide I don't need to play anything all that much really.
UPDATE - ok, I decided to actually try and get it working and it's not that bad. Follow this video, basically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xowJ3b-pt-U
And protip, set your system audio to 44.1khz. Cool. Portal.
I maintain the user onboarding could be MUCH more friendly.
[0] https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK
With Intel's patents on emulating x86 on other CPU architectures, Qualcomm could then ensure that going forward, the only economically viable way of running x86 code is on Snapdragon CPUs.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/intel...
I used to work at ms on xbox backcompat games and we AOT recompile PowerPC arch to x86. (Xbox 360 to Xbox one).
You could likely aot recompile any arch with enough resources to fix up issues and things.
One key difference is older games were fixed so no more updates. It can be a little trickier with modern games still taking updates but could be done.
Not just VR, commodity gaming devices like a $100 Steam Deck, $50 HDMI dongle consoles and with both a brand new market segment to tap into.