Discussion: Do you think the next steamdeck will be x86 or ARM?
Wanted to talk about this a bit. I've seen some things showing how well along translation layers have gotten with both proton from windows based games and x86 apps running on ARM. I think it'd be a huge improvement for something like standby time. Although I'm not sure how well it'd be for power efficiency while gaming since it might use the same amount of power for similar performance regardless. Maybe better for low complexity games like balatro or vampire survivors?
arms not ready yet for gaming. id expect at least 1 more generation of x86 hardware. especially if AMDs 1W optimized efficiency cores end up becoming an option.
I would guess steam deck 2 will be x86, I'm assuming that valve is already working on hardware for it. We do know that Valve is working on a new VR headset that will be ARM based though, and that they're working on an ARM compatibility layer for it. If the early testing of the VR headset is promising enough I could imagine valve pivoting to make the next Deck ARM based, but that will probably cause a longer delay before we get a Deck 2.
As with anything like this, it's not 100%, but it's pretty much confirmed that valve is working on getting x86 vr games to run for ARM hardware, which is enough for most people to assume that an ARM VR headset is coming.
ARM boards with slotted RAM use the same type as x86 (although mostly LPDDR, as found in laptops), so I assume there isn't any difference that is related to the CPU architecture.
I was surprised to discover how simple Windows commands on Linux (via Wine/Proton) are, x86 on ARM is much harder. That said, Apple have managed it pretty well (Rosetta?) so it's clearly doable.
My understanding is Apple did this by having the more "expensive" to emulate commands be actual hardware, so some commands are emulated/translated, but others are just implemented in hardware on the processor. They could do this because they control the hardware and OS. Microsoft or anyone else trying to get that done is much more of a challenge.
Translation layers are possibile, but from what I can see, are quite unreliable for games (especially more graphically-demanding), which is not of high importance for Apple
Absolutely 0 chance as current RISC-V chips are dog slow and inefficient. Currently RISC-V is only really used in microcontrollers and everything else is highly experimental.
I’m of the opinion that Valve should keep the og steam deck around for 7 years to keep squeezing more value out of the hardware with software updates and to keep the baseline simple for developers to ease the transition to the linux and mobile technologies then release the next iteration of hardware in 2029, RISC-V would be much more developed at that point especially with Valve’s full backing.