• Tak@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    With how close they’ve been working with AMD I wouldn’t doubt if they know what is in the works and are waiting for that tech to mature.

  • Dalek Thal@aussie.zone
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    10 months ago

    Cool, does this mean they’ll actually fucking sell the thing in Australia, or is it just forever going to be dodgy resellers?

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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    10 months ago

    Imagine Valve going the Apple route: “Fuck it, we will design our own hardware to suit our needs” and making hardware tailored to linux.

    Edit: what about qualcomm’s new ARM: Snapdragon X Elite?

    • gornius@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I think ARM is their end goal, it’s really the only option for a handheld console, as today ARM is the only way you’ll get enough performance/power rate to make it both good on battery with good enough performance.

      Win-win for everyone if they invest in an open source x86 to ARM project, similar like they did with Wine.

      • kadu@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        The Switch is more than proof enough that pretty much any modern game engine can compile to an ARM target with zero issues (though Nvidia’s low level APIs help, not sure about Qualcomm).

        But there’s zero chance older PC games would ever be updated, and by older I don’t mean ancient, some AAA studios stop issuing updates in about one year after release.

        So it all comes down to being able to emulate X86 on ARM… The best example we have is Apple, and games run but with a massive performance hit. Microsoft’s implementation is borderline unusable. I’m not sure what to expect from Valve.

        • Dani551@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 months ago

          Checkout Box86/64 and Fex-Emu. They both do x86 translation/emulation on ARM Linux and the results are wayy better than any reasonable expectations I had going in.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Nah ARM is barely more efficient than X86. As soon as AMD went TSMC 3nm they got almost similar power efficiency. As the Apple M chips.

        Apples “magic sauce” is just being the first one on the new TSMC nodes.

      • asexualchangeling@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        I’m no expert so id love to be proven wrong but Emulation has more of an overhead than a translation layer, so that probably wouldn’t work as well

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Not sure what point you trying to make. Translation is just one of ways to emulate.

          • asexualchangeling@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            Emulation is from one architecture to another, translation layers like wine just translate windows instructions to linux, see also: every WIP ps4 “emulator” is just a translation layer, and doesn’t have the over head that it would if it was your traditional emulator

            • uis@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              This… Is not exactly how it works.

              The way windows ABI works is syscalls always should go through dynamic libraries first, while on linux syscalls do syscall instruction/*. How windows syscalls work allows project like WINE just implement those libraries that will do linux syscalls. No instructions translated.

              But with other architectures story is different. You either make instruction decoder for processor, make interpreter or make binary translator. First is itanium-way, second is naive way and third is how everyone does. Third is basically compiling one machine code to another. It has overhead of, well, compiling one machine code to another. And it works badly with other JIT compilers.

              *there is vDSO, which is dynamic library, that implements syscalls like getting time. It is totally optional.

    • cordlesslamp@lemmy.today
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      10 months ago

      Aren’t the AMD in Deck 1 using x86 architecture? It would be impossible to change to ARM now. That would mean starting at square 1 and redesigning everything. And games compatibility would be thrown out the window.

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        And games compatibility would be thrown out the window.

        Computer is like AC. It becomes useless the second you open Windows.

        Developers already did half of work for porting on ARM: they ported on Linux.

        • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          The whole point of the Steam Deck for me is playing my older games. Unless they get x86 translation working without a performance hit them I’d rather they stay on x86.

  • SamXavia@kbin.run
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    10 months ago

    From what I’ve seen of the Steam Deck there’s not far that it can go to improve as of the moment but in the next 10 years there’s going to be needing another one as newer games like GTA 6 and stuff come around and eventually be on PC the tech is going to really show it’s age.

    • clayh@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Valve’s hardware strategy up to this point has been to push into new markets via hardware innovation. So I’m very skeptical that the hypothetical successor to the deck is a more powerful version of the deck. They’ll let other hardware manufacturers push those limits and reap the benefits via software sales. The deck was exceptionally successful in that regard, it’s literally opened an entire market segment.

      Whatever the “Deck 2” comes to be, I expect it will be poised to capture a different market segment, possibly AR/VR or even modular handheld hardware (totally unfounded speculation), but I sincerely doubt they have much interest in releasing a more powerful version of the same thing every few years.

      Who knows, though. Valve’s gonna valve and the only thing they do with any consistency is change things up.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        10 months ago

        I disagree. I feel more like Steam has been focusing on being able to decouple from Windows. The hardware it has developed was paired with other initiatives to move beyond the Windows desktop. They are now at a point where they’ve basically created their own Switch that can run without Windows.

        I wouldn’t be surprised if Steam finally makes consumer Linux on the desktop a thing.

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        Why spend all those years and all that capital/manpower on R&D for a handheld that is widely touted as a success only to never use any of those lessons ever again? I can’t imagine they’re just going to one-and-done the Steamdeck. Seems like a massive waste to me.

          • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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            10 months ago

            Why does it matter if they have a better translation now? The steamdeck 2 is a long way away. By the time steamdeck 2 releases I imagine their translation layer will be better than apples is today but probably not better than apples will be when steamdeck 2 releases.

            • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              If it’s not, then it’ll never work, which is why Apple’s endeavor is doomed too. There’s such a massive back catalogue of games that we can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t abandon that unless you’ve got x64 translation as good as Proton is for Windows translation, or better, switching to ARM will never work for the latest greatest games. I think that switch to ARM is nearly inevitable, but that translation needs to be excellent first.

    • datendefekt@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Highly doubt it, because pretty much all games are compiled for x86, and would require dynamic recompilation, which I’m turn costs performance.

      Or… they could perform the recompilation beforehand just like the precompiled shaders. Hmmm… that would make it pretty viable!

      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        I think it’s well in valves wheelhouse after proton to do something similar and revolutionise x86 to ARM translation. But at the moment better chips still need to arrive for that too be good enough for a product to built around. Which is why it’s the first thing i think of when they say they need technology to advance more before they make a new steam deck.

        • Chobbes@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          x86 to ARM translation is a fairly different problem than what proton solves, so I don’t think it’s clearly in their wheelhouse. Proton / wine is mostly just an implementation of windows libraries on Linux, but doing efficient x86 emulation on arm is a compiler problem. I would guess that Valve could do it or at least hire people to do it, but it’s a bit of a different skill set. Doing x86 efficiently on ARM (particularly with concurrency) also likely involves some extensions to ARM like Apple does with their chips. I haven’t heard if the snapdragon elite chips have anything for x86 compatibility baked in at all. Frankly, I’m treating the snapdragon elite with a fair degree of scepticism until you can actually buy the thing, but I hope it’s good!

    • antihumanitarian@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Architecture emulation for current gen games is exceptionally unlikely right now. At a fundamental level, wine/proton doesn’t change the instructions the code describes, rather it translates the input and output. It’s a reimplementation of the same instructions in Windows. For architecture crossing you’d either have to create virtual hardware, which adds tremendous overhead, or recompile the binary. Recompilation is theoretically possible, but for x86_64 to ARM64, for games no less, it’s beyond the realm of mortals. It’s like how some jokes can’t be translated between languages; the structure and vocabulary is just too different.

  • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Back then, we really couldn’t engage with a display manufacturer to do exactly what we were after because they didn’t really understand the product category, or who would be buying the screen, or why it would matter. Now that picture has changed and we’re able to get custom work done.

    Why would literally any of those questions be of concern to the screen manufacturer? And I don’t understand, did Valve begin work on this in 1918? How could anyone not understand the product category?

    • And009@reddthat.com
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      10 months ago

      Understanding a product and having practical knowledge about building a speciality part are different ball games

  • MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com
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    10 months ago

    They are hoping for robot gamer companion SteamyTM to develop enough AI empathy where it doesn’t kill you in a rage-quit.

  • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Qc X elite says hi

    Edit: 2.5-3.5x faster cpu and 2x faster gpu at slightly higher tdp (23W vs 19W). Even if the arm x86 emulation has 40% overhead it’d still be faster and more efficient especially at lower power limits where arm shines.

    • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago
      1. This is based on benchmarks from Qualcomm, not Internet reviews right? IDK if I’d be buying tickets for the hype train just yet.
      2. Shifting all the software to work on ARM is going to take time. By the time Valve got everything running on ARM, AMD would have released something equal or better by then.
      3. Any word on pricing for those?
      • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago
        1. This is not based on benchmarks from qualcomm, it’s based on benchmarks revievers ran on demo units.

        2. You don’t need to shift the software to work on arm. Most essential things already work and the ones that don’t can be emulated. All valve needs to do is to make it seamless. And unless they also switch to arm its a long shot for amd to achieve a 2x uplift in a single generation.

        • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago
          1. Kind of I guess. Reviewers where allowed to run specific benchmarks approved by Qualcomm on laptops specifically made for Qualcomm at the launch event, not consumer models.
          2. What games run in ARM today? I’m not aware of any games that run nativly on ARM, meaning games would need to be emulate from Windows to Linux, then from x86 to ARM. Not ideal.
          3. And we still don’t have a price. The APU in the Steam Deck is a budget chip, if the X Elite is really 2x the competition Qualcomm will likely be charging almost 2x the price
          • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            I hate being that guy… but nobody is emulating windows. It’s a compatibility layer. If they can emulate the x86 instructions (like apple is doing with the M chips and some open source implementations out there) then he compatibility layer could be 100% compiled for arm.

            I’ve seen pc games running on phones using this tech. With valve backing, it’s definitely possible, but not before stea,m deck 3

            • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Only 10% of games are verified for Stream OS, with 40% being listed as unsupported. I’m pretty sure Valve is more focused on stability for Steam OS, switching to ARM only complicates things at the moment. Once they have that figured out they can consider ARM. The games that work on ARM now do so because of developer support, most games aren’t supported yet.

              I’m not saying it’s impossible, of course it is. It’s just not the time for the Steam Deck to switch to ARM, SD 3 sounds like a reasonable time to consider it.

    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      AMDs 7000 series APUS (and Z1) aren’t efficient enough, no performant enough to really warrant a real upgrade if valve is going for a console like experience.

      Sure you can get 10% more performance at the same power level, but why bother? Valve had to custom design their own APU to hit their power goals, and there’s no way chasing that yearly 0-10% gains is going to pay off.

      • krolden@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Whatever. You can clock down a 7840 and it will be plenty efficient.

        • Cyv_@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          It isnt though. Check out the phawx on YouTube, he’s done extensive testing.

          The truth is you can underclock the 7840u but it still is less efficient at those lower wattages. I think if I remember the data right it crosses over around 12watt tdp to being as efficient then more powerful at higher clocks, but at 10w and lower the custom apu in the deck is king. The new apu for the oled deck is even more efficient at those levels too.

          The point I think they’re trying to make is right now nothing can beat the performance for the power at lower tdp right now, and so they want to wait for newer and better apus so they can maintain the size and battery life a best as possible, while keeping it relatively accessible cost wise.

          I own a win max 2 and I can tell you that as nice as that extra 10% performance is, I spent around $1200 and my SO spent $500ish on their deck. That’s why valve isn’t making a deck 2.0, to hit those higher performance benchmarks the cost raises exponentially, and it isn’t worth it right now for them.

    • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      It seems like a minor increment over the Steam Deck. Valve is targeting performance per watt, and what’s available in a handheld right now isn’t going to start running The Quarry at high settings and 60 FPS.

    • anon232@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Bruh that psp knockoff looks like straight garbage to use compared to the deck.