I posted this in the other thread, but wanna share here too:
Most interesting thing to me is the Frame apparently runs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and is using SteamOS, implying official ARM support for SteamOS, Steam and Proton!
Could mean steam and proton coming to android too.
I’m still a little curious how that will work for games. Are they going to somehow emulate Win32 amd64 games? Do devs have to recompile them in some new way? Will engines support it beyond Unity and Unreal?
It was mentioned in the LTT coverage. Aside from native ARM games they have a translation layer(FEX) to play x86 games on ARM. They’ll have a “Verified” tag like the Steam Deck for compatibility. I assume you’ll still be able to force trying to run unverified games.
Edit: FEX is not a Valve thing, but an existing open source x86/x86_64 emulator that Valve is using. It’s not clear if they’re forking it or directly contributing though.
The Frame isn’t playing the games on its ARM chip. It’s just streaming audio/visual data from the PC and relaying the controller inputs back to the PC.
That’s the normal mode of operation, but it can apparently also run games locally on the Frame itself, which I guess gives people a portable — if less powerful — gaming option that they can haul around easily if they want.
It is fascinating and a huge step, but I want to keep expectations low. It will work, but it will not be as compatible as x86 Proton, not at all. It is first and primarily an OS for streaming games and running VR. That is the VR rendering from the streaming computer, not the VR game itself. In other words, they only had to get exactly one app to run well enough for public use. According to the developer, it is working with a surprising amount of games. I agree, one game is surprising, but trust me when I say you will not be running Windows x86 games in ARM Linux for a long time.
The company also showed off the x86 version of Hades 2 running standalone (as in not streaming from a PC) on the Steam Frame. And the game ran just fine and looked good at what Valve reps told me was 1400p in a window inside the headset
I think that for running games locally on the Frame, for anything other than games designed specifically to be gentle on a battery — and many games are not, unfortunately — you’re also really going to need to leave it plugged into a powerbank. The internal battery just isn’t that large relative to what the device can draw.
The battery included on the Steam Frame is a 21 Wh model. The Snapdragon system-on-chip gobbles up around 20 W at full power—that’s how much it’ll likely use while playing a game locally in standalone mode. From this, we can expect around an hour of playtime without additional charge.
I posted this in the other thread, but wanna share here too:
Most interesting thing to me is the Frame apparently runs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and is using SteamOS, implying official ARM support for SteamOS, Steam and Proton! Could mean steam and proton coming to android too.
Jeff Geerling is probably having a fit right now.
what does that homophobic ass have to do with it, is he not a fan of ARM or something?
And the base would be Arch Linux ARM, right? So that should see an uptick in development too.
Arch Linux has been implementing a build system for other architectures. Perhaps they’ll make ARM official by the time Frame comes out.
I’m still a little curious how that will work for games. Are they going to somehow emulate Win32 amd64 games? Do devs have to recompile them in some new way? Will engines support it beyond Unity and Unreal?
It was mentioned in the LTT coverage. Aside from native ARM games they have a translation layer(FEX) to play x86 games on ARM. They’ll have a “Verified” tag like the Steam Deck for compatibility. I assume you’ll still be able to force trying to run unverified games.
Edit: FEX is not a Valve thing, but an existing open source x86/x86_64 emulator that Valve is using. It’s not clear if they’re forking it or directly contributing though.
That same video says that “Valve has heavily contributed to FEX”
Well, that shows how well I was paying attention to the video
Yup, FEX to translate x86 to ARM.
The Frame isn’t playing the games on its ARM chip. It’s just streaming audio/visual data from the PC and relaying the controller inputs back to the PC.
That’s the normal mode of operation, but it can apparently also run games locally on the Frame itself, which I guess gives people a portable — if less powerful — gaming option that they can haul around easily if they want.
Hm, guess I missed that part, my bad.
It is fascinating and a huge step, but I want to keep expectations low. It will work, but it will not be as compatible as x86 Proton, not at all. It is first and primarily an OS for streaming games and running VR. That is the VR rendering from the streaming computer, not the VR game itself. In other words, they only had to get exactly one app to run well enough for public use. According to the developer, it is working with a surprising amount of games. I agree, one game is surprising, but trust me when I say you will not be running Windows x86 games in ARM Linux for a long time.
It’s using an x86 compatibility layer, pex i think it was called. So apparently you will be running windows x86 games on it.
Edit: fex! https://github.com/FEX-Emu/FEX
Edit 2, from tom’s hardware article:
I think that for running games locally on the Frame, for anything other than games designed specifically to be gentle on a battery — and many games are not, unfortunately — you’re also really going to need to leave it plugged into a powerbank. The internal battery just isn’t that large relative to what the device can draw.
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/vr-hardware/steam-frame-specs-availability/
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