I mean the obvious answer is Proton
And SteamOS to some extent, is much more refined
And this is made by Valve, not third parties.
Linux gaming is here. I haven’t run Windows in 3+ years at this point. The world has changed.
I’m more intrigued by how they’re now also running x86 code on ARM at a playable level (e.g. locally on Frame).
how they’re now also running x86 code on ARM at a playable level
The answer is that they arent…
But thats fine, because the thing comes with a custom wireless adapter that uses multiple wifi channels in parallel to stream video from your computer to the headset, so primarily the processing will happen on your computer / steam machine.https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?t=1630
It doesnt even have active cooling. The most you will be able to play on device will be stuff that would run on a phone. But for VR you need high resolution (you need two render two screens worth of video) and 100+ fps or its not gonna be enjoyable. So really only 2D or low poly 3D games will run i expect.
The on device OS will be nice for VR video watching tho, because that requires very little processing power.
The answer is that they arent…
You have the choice of streaming to Frame or running games directly on the device. If the latter, they’re utilizing FEX as the ARM translation layer.
Of course performance will be best with streaming, but I’m still surprised you can run anything at all locally.
Which is why i wrote this
The most you will be able to play on device will be stuff that would run on a phone.
and this
So really only 2D or low poly 3D games will run i expect.
The translation layer and additional requirements for VR will further reduce the selection of playable games. But yes technically you can run x86 programs on it, just not at a “playable level” for 99% of games.
Got it, yeah I misunderstood your comment as meaning there was no translation layer at all.
For me it’s just something to keep an eye on. I think ARM holds a lot of promise as x86 has started to feel a bit stagnant. Things like FEX could minimally be a good way to ensure backwards compatibility if devs start embracing ARM in any major way, but I suspect it is years out, if it happens at all.
But if I get a Frame, it would 100% be for the streaming.
I badly phrased it tbh, so its a fair misunderstanding :)
One thing i kinda dislike about all ARM devices ive played with so far is the lack of a proper replacement for the concept of a BIOS. I want a subsystem for multiboot and toggling hardware features as well as tuning and stuff like that.
Sure its cool that you can just flash an SD card and it works, but you can keep that as default functionality while still allowing more customizability.
And given the history of BIOS as a concept, I guess that isn’t too surprising.
I wonder how much of that kind of thing stems from the fact that many of the really hardcore PC tinkerers aren’t using ARM (yet).
Theres a few simple reasons that this steam machine is better:
- Game support: Proton plus significantly more native games
- Linux is significantly more mature than it was a decade ago (wayland + pipewire + advances in KDE)
- The controller is significantly less opinionated (full dpad plus two analog sticks)
- The Steam ecosystem and PC gaming as a whole is significantly more mature than it was a decade ago (more games support controllers, steaminput has advanced, and PC game ports are for the most part better than they were during 2015)
- This machine actually ships SteamOS and is made by Valve, other companies will make their own Steam Machines later on but this one is the gold standard set by Valve. In this sense Valve has the capacity to demand quality from OEMs rather than OEMs being able to make any demands out of Valve like before.
- Quite frankly as bad as the Xbox One/PS4 were they had significantly more games for a lot less money than the Xbox Series or the PS5, competition is simply weaker
Still think they missed a step by not calling it the “companion cube”.
The GabeCube.
It has a removable face, just print a companion cube on it.
Thank God for that, because after seeing it’s ventilation setup, I’m gonna have to drill holes in that front panel. XD
Or you could just take it off.
I’m actually hoping to buy one and then see if dbrand or similar sells a companion cube set of vinyl appliques for it. Although I do think the 3D printed faceplates would be much better quality.
Hell yeah!
Yea people would buy it just for the meme clout. It would be a fun game prop if it actually looked like one. If the system flopped at least you have a fun paper weight.
It’s not too late!
They never really release a steam machine the first time. They were all windows PC’s that had decent specs for the footprint that the things were, and ran steam in big picture mode. The experience wasn’t bad but it didn’t give you anything a “non-steam machine” gaming PC that you could build yourself didn’t give you at the time, and building a PC yourself was both affordable and very much could provide a better product/experience.
I think it’s unfair to say they flopped the first time when it came down to PC vendors not really shipping them with steam OS because at the time it was not ready yet. It’s fairer to say steam OS flopped back then and the hardware didn’t sell as well as it could have as a result of them being sold almost entirely as windows PC’s.
At the time I fully remember (because I bought an Alienware Alpha for like $350) that there was supposed to be an option to buy a steam OS variant that never really materialized. Never saw it anywhere but in press articles and reviews.
I had the windows variant. There were some drawbacks: had to provide my own keyboard and mouse), the controller that came with mine was one of the old school XBOX 360 controllers, windows 8, and big picture mode sometimes not allowing me to leave it to return to the desktop. But all in all my experience with it was pretty good. Certainly comparable to the gaming PC I had built and owned before it (in that it ran the games I wanted to play, which were games of that time period at a decent frame rate and quality).
"Developers were kind of stuck between the equation of ‘Do I want to do a bunch of work to port my game? But there’s not an audience for it that justifies this work yet.’ So it was a little bit of a bootstrapping problem.
While Proton is an amazing technology I think it will also be a crutch and an excuse to not make native ports. Proton brought gaming to Linux, but it will also hold games on Linux back for decades.
I half agree. The more we get the masses away from windows and macOS the more likely they’ll be included in the dev process.
Performance and playability on Linux are effectively solved by Proton; therefore, the effort required to maintain a native Linux build is an unnecessary and inefficient use of development resources, especially for smaller studios. “Holding games back” on Linux feels like a semantic distinction if we’re moving to a world where every PC game is playable on Linux.
(this assumption relies on Linux marketshare growing and the remaining games that don’t support Proton due to anti-cheat software eventually are pressured to support playing on Linux, even if they don’t build a native linux port. I think we’re well on our way to that future and it’s probably just a matter of time.)
Relying on Proton just offloads development/optimization to the community instead of the actual developers getting paid to develop it. Sure it’s cool the game runs better. But like pay people to do that.
Valve does, they literally have teams dedicated to the work.
Also, do you guys (who can afford to) not have re-occuring donations going out to your favorite open source projects every month?
I guess my question is why pay people to solve a problem two ways?
We have an increasingly functional way to play on two platforms with a single build. I’d love to have both for completeness, but as long as Proton is actively being worked on, I feel like that’s good enough and will certainly not hold back gaming on Linux for years to come.
If it gets a proper market share and can’t be ignored, developers will be more inclined to take care of it themselves. A lot of games come already working on it.
It’s a crutch until it isn’t. I’m guessing that the majority of Machine buyers won’t install windows on it.
If there’s a safe subset of the Windows API defined as a virtual machine for gaming on x86-64 machines, and running with next to no overhead on Linux, does it really matter that the binaries are PE-COFF . EXE files assuming their world to have DirectX rendering and drive letters rather than POSIX?
As SteamOS is Linux, it’s a matter of the Steam Machine actually competing with PS and Xbox. If it sells enough, it’d be a logical step to start porting directly to it instead of relying on Proton. But then again, logic isn’t always developers or publishers forte.
Im upvoting as this is a valid concern imo.
However, all it’ll take is one studio to find an angle to leverage native linux support in a way that shows its value. What value? I dont know, Im not in that space. But there is a big push from valve here to show devs that this isnt the token effort is was last time, and any effort they put into such a project won’t be wasted.
We just need the killer app, and valve is holding open the space for someone to make it, for now.
We just need the killer app, and valve is holding open the space for someone to make it, for now.
The killer app is already there and it’s Steam and it’s massive library.
Sure, previously Steam has had Steam Link or having a computer connected to your TV, but frankly it just was never going to be a mainstream option. Too much finickiness, it locks up your PC in the other room, sound and controllers are wonky, etc. Local compute on the hardware under your TV is what console gamers are comfortable with and having a PC that isn’t giant and butt-ugly in the living room is a huge hurdle. This hardware, assuming it delivers, is priced right, is a potential console killer.
Linux ports are more common now than they ever have been. I think you might be off base with this take.
Agreed. Saying that just because an application layer that allows it to run on Linux exists will prevent developers from simply exporting the game and making the few critical changes necessary in order to make it work on Linux natively are two entirely different things.
The developers that export their games to run on Linux natively will likely have a higher sales rate for their Linux users, as us, the users, will know that the developer cares enough to do the proper export, and therefore we are likely to have some level of support should something go awry.
Whereas with proton, we have to rely on community notes in order to solve incompatibility issues, which can be a major hurdle for the less technologically inclined, AKA the majority of computer users
The fact I have to ask what it is - means it’s an advertising failure. Is it a VR geadset system? Does it stream video? Is it a console? Is any of it portable, which parts? Mains power or rechargeable?
Huh? I’m a consumer, your media/ad buy should immediately answer these. If it hasn’t done this, your product won’t sell.
I don’t get your point. You could ask the same questions about any other hardware, including Playstation and specially Xbox.
Here’s the product page if you want to learn about it.
It’s a computer with an accessible OS that you can do whatever you want to it which happens to be optimised for gaming, but can also stream.
This is a teaser. It’s not meant to answer all those questions (although the full hardware page does answer a lot). It’s to get you thinking and talking about it. More details will come, but they haven’t even announced an order date and deliver is still “early 2026”.
The steam machine is a small PC with Steam OS (The same that runs on the Steam Deck).
