zlacker

>>6a74+(OP)
From a performance and technical perspective this is incredible. Well done!

It will never happen, but my dream is for the Asahi devs, Valve, and Apple to all get together to build out a cross-platform Proton to emulate and play games built for Windows on both x86 and ARM hardware running Linux.

A Steam Deck with the performance and power efficiency of an M-series ARM chip and the entire library of games that run on Proton is just...dreamy.

>>dccham+KU
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2465907/arm-version-of-steam...

>>tapoxi+m01
A lot of stuff like this shows up, they also have a fork of waydroid and box64. I think a lot of them are projects and a lot of them are just devs with a lot of agency who share the dream

>>sweete+nr1
Steam Deck was made possible by their ongoing efforts to enable the play of most of their games catalog on any hardware platform that is computationally capable of running them, regardless of OS or architecture.

The end game for Valve isn't Steam Deck 2 or 3 (which is statistically impossible for Valve to produce), but for Steam to be on everything.

>>schees+LU1
Steam Deck was made possible by the plethora of the Windows games developer market and Proton.

Most of the studios that own those games, and target POSIX like OSes on mobile phones and game consoles, are yet to bother with GNU/Linux versions for SteamOS.

>>pjmlp+I12
Wine and DXVK are already running on Android and they play Windows games with the rendering and computational complexity of Fallout 4 at playable framerates on many of the latest smartphone SoCs. It's still WIP, but it's already gone beyond proof of concept, people are using them. Valve don't need the developers to be on-board in order to run their games on anything else, that's why Proton exists.

What Valve want is the dissolution between platform/architecture and store. By my eye, it's the driving force of their efforts, more so than them selling hardware or being the open source good guys. Not to undervalue their work in helping make Linux a first class citizen for gaming, but the core of their business model is getting people to engage with their store, full stop, and being able to sell their games on Android (and elsewhere) would massively extend their reach.

This may go both ways too, there's also been indications that Valve have been tinkering with Waydroid, meaning Steam could also become a store for Android-native games.

>>schees+Tg2
It looks more like how to avoid paying Windows licenses for the SteamDeck to me.

>>pjmlp+PN2
Close, but the root is more nuanced. Once upon a time, Microsoft was talking about regulating "apps" on windows like Apple does for the iPhone. Valve saw the writing on the wall: a potential ban on violent or otherwise adult-themed games. So Valve started the steambox project. Get the games running on linux/WINE and they could tell Microsoft to push off. Years later, we have the steamdeck as a revolutionary product and linux is the go-to OS for portable gaming.

>>sandwo+MY2
Running Windows games on top, which will work until it doesn't.

>>pjmlp+823
What do you foresee not working in the future?

If future versions of Proton break compatibility with older Windows apps, you can use different old versions of Proton for individual games. Steam makes this very easy on Linux, but rarely is it necessary.

I don't foresee many Linux distros breaking compatibility with Wine, which is good, as some devs argue Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux. [1]

I don't foresee legal issues either, as Wine has been around for 31 years, and its corporate sponsors have included Google in the past. I've seen no indication that the project is on shaky legal grounds.

Microsoft could always create a new API that Wine doesn't yet support, but good luck getting developers to use it -- they've tried many times, but not much has stuck, and most devs just stick with Win32. [2]

1. https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/

2. >>36060678