This would presumably let x86 windows games run on ARM hardware.
This is almost certainly meant for the next Valve VR headset, but ARM has so much better power efficiency than x86 that a future ARM based Deck would be a huge improvement to battery life.
Also see this tweet:
VR games that have already secretly pushed Android ARM builds onto the Steam Store are ran via Waydroid (androidARM to LinuxARM)
VR games that do not have an ARM build on Steam (windows x86) are being translated/emulated via ProtonARM and FEX
Well, Steam and Proton both already run on top of FEX or Box64 on ARM Linux, but it’s nice to see an official effort from Valve.
Also, does ARM still have better battery life when all of the machine code has to be translated from x86? That adds a not insubstantial amount of CPU overhead, which does hurt battery life.
And perhaps most importantly, is there any ARM chipset out there that can deliver performance on par with the Steam Deck’s CPU (even after factoring in the overhead of the x86 JIT) at a viable price for a Steam Deck successor?
does ARM still have better battery life when all of the machine code has to be translated from x86
afaik macos/rosetta is more efficient than native windows/x86, but that could be down to OS integration, or any number of confounding factors… i’d suggest though that x86 windows applications sometimes run better and more efficiently on alternative platforms, even with the translation layers - whether that’s down to the instruction set or a combination of factors
IIRC, the M chips also have a couple of specific hardware accelerators for some parts of x86 code that ARM devices would usually struggle with. That’s something that other ARM chips (presumably) don’t have.
is there any ARM chipset out there that can deliver performance on par with the Steam Deck’s CPU
Yes, but they’re made by Apple.
I got a M1 Pro MacBook a couple weeks ago. I’m astonished at how fucking powerful those thing are. An Intel laptop I had with similar specs would start screaming for mercy for any heavy Programming work I’d do. The MacBook just shrugs it off. Fans don’t even come on
Also, does ARM still have better battery life when all of the machine code has to be translated from x86? That adds a not insubstantial amount of CPU overhead, which does hurt battery life.
No idea, and that’s a pretty good question. The again some games run better on proton through Linux than they do on windows, so the performance overhead isn’t that bad.
