this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Nothing runs on a processor it wasn't built for. That said you can paper over that somewhat using an emulator which is what Apple did on OS X to let you run x86 apps on ARM processors. There's a performance tradeoff though, you obviously can't run as fast in an emulator as you could natively, but if the native processor is fast enough you might not notice the difference. With games in particular they're not often CPU bound, so assuming a good enough GPU even in an emulator it might run just fine. That said games are also far more sensitive to minor timing fluctuations, so even if 90% of the time it runs fine if 10% of the time it has bad hitching you're going to have a bad experience.
For a slightly less extreme example of this you can look at Steamdeck. That's running games in an emulator but in that case it's a more mild form of emulation since it's the same CPU architecture, it's just emulating several APIs to make Linux look like Windows to the game.
A weird way to say that it uses Proton which is Valve's version of Wine (contributing stuff back though), which is a FOSS implementation of Windows subsystem for NT, which happens to be the only widely used subsystem for NT.
OK, guess you just aimed that at mentally normal people.
Yes, I also didn't want to get into the whole "Wine Is Not an Emulator" thing. Technically speaking I suppose it would be most accurate to call it a compatibility shim, although the extremes it goes to somewhat stretch the definition of shim.
The steam deck is also the reason why we're hearing so much about an Xbox handheld/hybrid. OEM partners are screaming at Microsoft to make a mobile UI because they want their products to sell and they don't want to spend the r&d to develop one. Steam deck is already crushing it's competition even when it's using an older chipset and less powerful hardware due to the ease of use of the product.
Valve struck gold in a product market that has predominantly been high priced mobile PC's from companies like GDP, largely due to the fact that they have no obligations on licensing costs and are using their own OS. I wouldn't put past Microsoft to try and capitalize on ARM and the handheld market at the same time and push out some ARM based Xbox handheld that's capable of XCloud streaming and x86/ARM compatibility to fight Apple and Valve. Of course this also means anti cheat makers will need to build compatibility into their products for those handhelds, or else Microsoft will have the same problem Valve has with SteamOS.