Steam Deck

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Valve is working on a version of proton for ARM devices (x.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) by Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz

78 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

Edit: here's gamingonlinux coverage of this info, includes some more information

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[–] stormeuh@lemmy.world 9 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Well, not exactly... WINE is a compatibility layer for syscalls between the x86 Windows API and (among others) the x86 Linux API, quite similar to how DXVK translates from DirectX to Vulkan.

What proton does is combine utilities like Wine and DXVK into a user friendly bundle, along with contributing substantially to the projects it bundles to make them interoperate well.

This looks to me like they want to bundle another utility, which does fast emulation of x86 user code on an ARM Linux system. Another commentator mentioned they are using FEX for this, which looks to me to do the same core task as qemu-user, but more focused on x86 to ARM and generally user-friendlier. That emulator could then be used to run x86 Wine on ARM.

The way qemu-user and FEX emulate one ISA on another is actually very cool btw. They realise massive speed gains by intercepting syscalls and executing them directly, instead of emulating a whole x86 Linux system.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Since Microsoft also wants x86 apps to work on their Qualcomm powered Windows laptops, can this project help Microsoft in some way?

[–] stormeuh@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

No, not that much. The emulation of the syscalls are specific to Linux, so none of that is usable on Windows. They could reuse the emulator, but it seems likely they would write their own from scratch so they can keep everything closed source. Obligatory: fuck Microsoft.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

A happy fuck Microsoft to you as well 🎩

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago

Hey, can I join in!

Fuck you Microsoft

[–] milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 2 points 9 hours ago

Thanks for the explanation!