I believe this work is a continuation of the work the asahi linux people did to get games working on M-series macs. It seems Alyssa Rosenzweig works at valve as a contractor. Super cool work. Some seriously talented folks.
This is fun, just found this issue from 2018 which was closed with this comment:
> Hello @setsunati, this is not a realistic objective for Proton. As @rkfg, mentions wine for ARM does not magically make x86 based games work on ARM cpus.
> Even if Steam were brought to ARM, and an x86 emulation layer was run underneath wine, the amount of games that could run fast and without hitting video driver quirks is small enough not to entertain this idea any time in the near future.
Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. Even if they did, the whole Proton project is about Valve controlling their own destiny rather than being chained to someone else's platform, and Apple is just another Microsoft in that regard.
Proton is just a fork of Wine that also translates from Microsoft's DirectX graphics API to the native graphics API of Linux (Vulcan) so you can run Windows games on Linux.
The new thing Proton is adding is translation from x86 to ARM.
Macs already have Wine, an x86 to ARM translation layer (Rosetta), and an Apple provided translation layer from Microsoft's DirectX to the Mac's native Metal graphics API (D3DMetal) which is integrated into upstream Wine.
It can, but it'll be a small subset of stuff. You'll probably be able to just hit install + play on most things, but it'll have a "Steam Frame Verified" program like the Steam Deck's.
Wow this looks great. Foveated streaming, great resolution, wireless, 144hz, looks much more comfortable... As much as I want this, I feel like it'll end up being a really cool thing that just sits on the shelf.
> Passthrough - Monochrome passthrough via outward facing cameras
This is an outright bone-headed move that I can't believe Valve is making. Only having monochrome cameras means augmented reality is basically a non-starter.
AR has a lot of potential. I literally bought a Meta Quest 3 just for PianoVision [0] when I already had a Valve Index. I would love to see some sort of AR-based game you could play outdoors. But with only monochrome vision, that's gonna be awful.
The videos I've seen about the Frame all call out the front expansion port, which "Valve says ... offers a dual 2.5Gbps MIPI camera interface and also supports a one-lane Gen 4 PCIe data port for other peripherals."[1]
That's plenty to support color passthrough as a physical addon, which in turn makes me think that, like with the OLED Deck, we'll see a Frame with built-in color-passthrough later as a different premium SKU when/if they justify it.
I tried VRChat once or twice but never seemed to have found any fun places/groups to hang out that weren't obsessing about anime/manga most of the time. Anyone here on HN have better suggestions of worlds/groups or where to even look?
Maybe they've cracked the code with the dongle? Usually, you either have to invest both time and money into setting up the perfect streaming network, deal with annoying cables or resign yourself to inferior on-device game versions. The ergonomics matter more than you'd think.
But if it's a very easy plug-n-play type deal to run SteamVR games (and on Linux!), that's a huge ergonomic improvement. Don't have to think too much about whether everything is running correctly or what-have-you.
If it's just plug and play and works well, it'd be brilliant. I have experimented a lot with a couple or wifi dongles I had lying around and setting up a hotspot, but honestly I could never get it to work well.
Streaming VR content is just so sensitive. I have a good cabled network but even a simple switch introduced noticeable lag spikes. In the end I have a separate router that I just connect straight to my PC, and then I share my wifi connection through my PC to that network. A whole silly setup just to minimize latency and packet loss. If that could be replaced with a simple USB dongle I'd be amazed.
My NVIDIA Shield is getting old and slow. I can see this as a good replacement, because it supports HDMI CEC, so you can control it with your remote control.
Install Plex, JellyFin, FreeTube et.al. to it and you have a nice open source TV box.
You also get 4k gaming from Steam, GOG, Epic etc. and you get emulators. I've been wanting to build a computer like this, but CEC is hard to find and the adapters that exist don't support full 4k resolution.
The specs for this steam machine say HDMI 2.0, in the past I used a pulse8 HDMI CEC USB dongle with a computer which was also HDMI 2.0 iirc. I was using a 1080p projector with it but their website claims 4k support: https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/104/usb-hdmi-cec-adapter
I recently replaced a shield with an Ugoos Am6b+ running coreELEC, which works okay and supports some stuff the shield doesn't but I miss being able to run some android apps easily. I wonder if the new steam machine will support DV.
There are already headsets with decent text fidelity, but IMO the problem is now on the host side. I tried to get an XR desktop env running (Stardust https://stardustxr.org/) on Linux but ran into graphical issues. The Windows ecosystem is much better though.
I don't think there is foveated rendering. There is foveated encoding, when game streaming.
Looks like a very competent headset indeed though! Nice combo of fast streaming that can prioritize well with foveated encoding, and hopefully a pretty nice malleable capable standalone headset too.
I'm more confused that it's running SteamOS which is supposedly Arch based, but arch doesn't officially support ARM. You have to use the ArchLinuxARM distro for that, which is less maintained. They got to be doing something off label for that.
Arch has been working with Valve on various build system improvements for some time [0], which as I understand it are targeted at making it more feasible for them to eventually support more architectures [1]. This doesn't release for several months; I wonder if there'll be an official Arch Linux ARM by then?
Valve has been quietly working on integrating the FEX x86 emulator into Proton for a while, and it's official now.
https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/gaming-headsets/han...
I believe this work is a continuation of the work the asahi linux people did to get games working on M-series macs. It seems Alyssa Rosenzweig works at valve as a contractor. Super cool work. Some seriously talented folks.
Alyssa works for Intel now, so I doubt she'll be doing much contract work for Valve anymore...
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https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1493
This is fun, just found this issue from 2018 which was closed with this comment:
> Hello @setsunati, this is not a realistic objective for Proton. As @rkfg, mentions wine for ARM does not magically make x86 based games work on ARM cpus.
> Even if Steam were brought to ARM, and an x86 emulation layer was run underneath wine, the amount of games that could run fast and without hitting video driver quirks is small enough not to entertain this idea any time in the near future.
It's mentioned in this issue https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/8136 which was closed Oct 2024 with this comment by kisak-valve:
> Hello @Theleafir1, similar to #1493, this is not a realistic objective for Proton any time in the near future.
Finally some clarification on what valve time actually is.
5 replies →
Valve deciding to support Arm-based gaming is HUGE news
There was also a parallel effort to this end, targeting Android rather than plain Linux, resulting in an app called https://winlator.org/ — which also works quite well at this point. (See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0yUqcyY18)
That was a very higher quality YT video. It's clearly written by someone who knows when they're talking about even though it's mostly non-technical
Have to wonder if there is a world where Proton comes to macOS.
Pretty unlikely as long as Apple refuses to support Vulkan. Even if they did, the whole Proton project is about Valve controlling their own destiny rather than being chained to someone else's platform, and Apple is just another Microsoft in that regard.
15 replies →
Proton is just a fork of Wine that also translates from Microsoft's DirectX graphics API to the native graphics API of Linux (Vulcan) so you can run Windows games on Linux.
The new thing Proton is adding is translation from x86 to ARM.
Macs already have Wine, an x86 to ARM translation layer (Rosetta), and an Apple provided translation layer from Microsoft's DirectX to the Mac's native Metal graphics API (D3DMetal) which is integrated into upstream Wine.
Just to clarify that's for the Steam Frame VR Headset. The Steam Machine PC uses an AMD Zen 4 x86 CPU.
The headset isn't natively running games, right?
It can, but it'll be a small subset of stuff. You'll probably be able to just hit install + play on most things, but it'll have a "Steam Frame Verified" program like the Steam Deck's.
Yes, in the same way that a Quest 3 can run BeatSaber and other similar calibre games.
For more demanding games it's designed to stream from a PC.
Wow this looks great. Foveated streaming, great resolution, wireless, 144hz, looks much more comfortable... As much as I want this, I feel like it'll end up being a really cool thing that just sits on the shelf.
Edit: foveated streaming, not rendering
It looks good until I reached one bit:
> Passthrough - Monochrome passthrough via outward facing cameras
This is an outright bone-headed move that I can't believe Valve is making. Only having monochrome cameras means augmented reality is basically a non-starter.
AR has a lot of potential. I literally bought a Meta Quest 3 just for PianoVision [0] when I already had a Valve Index. I would love to see some sort of AR-based game you could play outdoors. But with only monochrome vision, that's gonna be awful.
[0] https://youtu.be/apwZTV-Rg0s
The videos I've seen about the Frame all call out the front expansion port, which "Valve says ... offers a dual 2.5Gbps MIPI camera interface and also supports a one-lane Gen 4 PCIe data port for other peripherals."[1]
That's plenty to support color passthrough as a physical addon, which in turn makes me think that, like with the OLED Deck, we'll see a Frame with built-in color-passthrough later as a different premium SKU when/if they justify it.
1: https://www.uploadvr.com/valve-steam-frame-official-announce...
I recommend preparing a drink or two and loading up VRchat and joining one of the rave club groups. Check out the metaverse zuck wishes he ran.
VRChat is one of the most socially dysfunctional online platforms I've ever used
I tried VRChat once or twice but never seemed to have found any fun places/groups to hang out that weren't obsessing about anime/manga most of the time. Anyone here on HN have better suggestions of worlds/groups or where to even look?
1 reply →
I could see Steam creating the OASIS
1 reply →
Maybe they've cracked the code with the dongle? Usually, you either have to invest both time and money into setting up the perfect streaming network, deal with annoying cables or resign yourself to inferior on-device game versions. The ergonomics matter more than you'd think.
But if it's a very easy plug-n-play type deal to run SteamVR games (and on Linux!), that's a huge ergonomic improvement. Don't have to think too much about whether everything is running correctly or what-have-you.
If it's just plug and play and works well, it'd be brilliant. I have experimented a lot with a couple or wifi dongles I had lying around and setting up a hotspot, but honestly I could never get it to work well.
Streaming VR content is just so sensitive. I have a good cabled network but even a simple switch introduced noticeable lag spikes. In the end I have a separate router that I just connect straight to my PC, and then I share my wifi connection through my PC to that network. A whole silly setup just to minimize latency and packet loss. If that could be replaced with a simple USB dongle I'd be amazed.
My NVIDIA Shield is getting old and slow. I can see this as a good replacement, because it supports HDMI CEC, so you can control it with your remote control.
Install Plex, JellyFin, FreeTube et.al. to it and you have a nice open source TV box.
You also get 4k gaming from Steam, GOG, Epic etc. and you get emulators. I've been wanting to build a computer like this, but CEC is hard to find and the adapters that exist don't support full 4k resolution.
The specs for this steam machine say HDMI 2.0, in the past I used a pulse8 HDMI CEC USB dongle with a computer which was also HDMI 2.0 iirc. I was using a 1080p projector with it but their website claims 4k support: https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/104/usb-hdmi-cec-adapter
I recently replaced a shield with an Ugoos Am6b+ running coreELEC, which works okay and supports some stuff the shield doesn't but I miss being able to run some android apps easily. I wonder if the new steam machine will support DV.
I lowkey hope it's good enough for coding. Really wanted to try out the xreal glasses, but multiple people said they aren't crisp enough for text.
There are already headsets with decent text fidelity, but IMO the problem is now on the host side. I tried to get an XR desktop env running (Stardust https://stardustxr.org/) on Linux but ran into graphical issues. The Windows ecosystem is much better though.
resolution is in the 2000x2000 range so don't count on it.
I can't wait until the tech reaches this stage. Infinite desktop space, surrounded by text and terminals. It will be so hard to unplug.
I don't think there is foveated rendering. There is foveated encoding, when game streaming.
Looks like a very competent headset indeed though! Nice combo of fast streaming that can prioritize well with foveated encoding, and hopefully a pretty nice malleable capable standalone headset too.
Yes - thank you, fixed
> So Steam + Proton works on aarch64?
CodeWeavers just announced[0] CrossOver on ARM a couple of days ago, so yes.
[0]: https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/mjohnson/2025/11/6/twist-ou...
When's the preorders happening?
I'm more confused that it's running SteamOS which is supposedly Arch based, but arch doesn't officially support ARM. You have to use the ArchLinuxARM distro for that, which is less maintained. They got to be doing something off label for that.
> arch doesn't officially support ARM
Doesn't really mean much to Valve as SteamOS vendor:
- linux kernel supports aarch64 just fine
- user space supports aarach64 just as fine
- Valve provides runtime for games (be it via proton or native linux), so providing aarch64 builds is up to them anyway
The main point of ArchLinuxARM is providing compatible binaries, which isn't something hard to do in-house.
Arch doesn't support ARM at all. Arm is somebody else hobby project.
Arch has been working with Valve on various build system improvements for some time [0], which as I understand it are targeted at making it more feasible for them to eventually support more architectures [1]. This doesn't release for several months; I wonder if there'll be an official Arch Linux ARM by then?
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41696041
You mean valve's?
isn't Steam Deck arm based?
2 replies →
Even if they are, Valve has a long track record of contributing back to open source projects.
Proton was a community led effort years back. The guy who started that is now an employee at Valve (IIRC) working on Proton, but also getting paid :)
I think this is a form of an announcement but without many details. I'm curious to see how well it works