[HN Gopher] Steam to Chrome OS
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Steam to Chrome OS
Author : LopRabbit
Score : 90 points
Date : 2022-03-20 20:16 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (support.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (support.google.com)
| pa7ch wrote:
| My ideal dev machine would be chromeOS running on apple silicon.
| Yoric wrote:
| Really? I have considered a chromeOS machine from afar, but I
| wasn't aware that it had reached a stage where it could become
| a good dev machine.
|
| What's the coding workflow like on chromeOS?
| ehsankia wrote:
| If you have a remote box, probably just remote SSH + web IDE
| (potentially running on your remote box). For full local,
| you'd do it through the Crostini layer, which is basically
| Debian.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| How many Steam games actually run on Chromebooks? Let alone on
| Linux in general.
| dadoprso wrote:
| You can stream steam games to any device with the steam binary
| installed.
| m0ngr31 wrote:
| https://www.protondb.com
|
| Quite a lot actually. Obviously you won't be playing AAA games
| on a Chromebook, but I think most would run lots of older games
| well enough
| mdoms wrote:
| You'd think they would want to double- and triple-down on their
| cloud gaming platform, Stadia, for Chromebooks. But there's also
| good reason to believe that platform won't be going the distance
| so perhaps this is another signal in that direction.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Why not both. Stadia on Chromebook is great, but more option
| the better. They also have android games through play store.
| shmerl wrote:
| I'd just stick to gaming on regular Linux.
|
| But I suppose it can be useful for arguing that Linux gaming
| market is expanding, so developers who like to excuse lack of
| Linux releases with market size will have less excuses now.
| JamesMcMinn wrote:
| At this stage, native Linux releases are becoming less and less
| likely because of Value's efforts to improve gaming on Linux,
| as paradoxical as that seems. Proton is getting better and
| better with each release, and in many cases, is providing
| better performance than running native code on Windows.
|
| Why bother with official Linux support when you can just check
| that your game runs via Proton and push the burden of support
| onto Valve and the Proton community?
| modeless wrote:
| If Proton just becomes the "game runtime" for Linux, that's
| OK! It's still open source. There may come a time when Proton
| compatibility becomes as important or even more important
| than Windows compatibility for game developers. Not only
| might game developers start explicitly supporting Proton,
| they could even contribute fixes upstream, unlike with
| Windows.
|
| Ultimately if it becomes popular enough, Proton could execute
| the embrace, extend, extinguish strategy on Windows itself.
| We'll know it succeeded if one day Microsoft gives up NT
| kernel development in favor of shipping Linux/Proton, just
| the way they ultimately gave up on Trident and started
| shipping Blink/Chromium. Today Windows is a relatively small
| and shrinking percentage of Microsoft's revenue so maybe it's
| not out of the question in a decade or two.
| 1_player wrote:
| I'd argue that Proton is better than native Linux support
| in the long term, hear me out.
|
| Linux userspace API has no promise of long term
| compatibility, and in fact there's a lot of churn,
| especially nowadays as we approach the Year of the Linux
| Desktop and technologies come and go as they're improved.
|
| The Windows API instead is known for its long term
| compatibility. Microsoft goes out of their way to ensure
| applications keep running a decade later, and using that as
| a base for gaming is a win-win, as developers can target
| two operating systems with one API, and gamers have more
| guarantees their game will still be playable on Ubuntu 2030
| edition.
|
| The last few times I played native Linux games I had to
| fish for old and unsupported libssl and libjpeg libraries
| that my distribution doesn't ship anymore. I can blame the
| port, but nowadays I just try the Proton version first.
| shmerl wrote:
| It's not about Windows long term support, it's about Wine
| long term support (which is much better than Windows
| own).
|
| So I agree with your point that long term Wine offers
| better support than Linux native ABIs.
|
| I doubt Windows ABIs are better than Linux native ones on
| their own long term wise (i.e. without Wine).
|
| That said, it would be cool for someone to develop Wine-
| like wrapping of historic Linux ABIs into modern ones so
| you could have the same preservation effect.
|
| There was for example such project for older SDL over new
| one.
| qudat wrote:
| I've seen game devs advertise that their game works natively
| on Linux and is seen as a positive. My guess is if steam deck
| takes off there will be more games trying to build natively
| on Linux.
| shmerl wrote:
| Besides, supporting a game means more than making a Windows
| build and expecting it to "just work" through Wine /
| Proton. Proper support requires some effort, even if it's
| translated. So they can as well support a native release if
| they even care about support.
| shmerl wrote:
| I don't see why it has to become less likely for those who
| care about performance (which major games usually do).
| Translating DX12 or DX11 into Vulkan has performance
| overhead, even if you manage to run the game better than on
| Windows itself (for example Cyberpunk 2077 performs on Linux
| better than on Windows now). But native releases can perform
| even better.
|
| And it's probably not always the case that Windows games
| perform better on Linux through translation than on Windows.
|
| Besides, Wine has to play constant catch up to all kind of
| NIH stuff that MS will produce. Direct storage is the new one
| that doesn't have any translation implementation yet. So
| value of native releases won't disappear.
| jhasse wrote:
| > for example Cyberpunk 2077 performs on Linux better than
| on Windows now
|
| Do you have a link? Everything I found suggest that it's
| the other way around, but Linux comes close.
| shmerl wrote:
| *
| https://twitter.com/killyourfm/status/1502338832053776385
|
| * https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-
| org-d...
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo1khMYMO5c
|
| The above is for AMD. And I saw people with Nvidia
| reporting it performing better on Linux as well.
| jokowueu wrote:
| Since they didn't mention it I'm guessing x86 only chrome books ?
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Anything else would be highly unlikely.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I imagine they could pressure manufacturers into building
| some kind of virtual translation layer with accelerated
| graphics.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| AFIACT, it's a "no but yes" sort of answer. Linux games are
| free to build binaries for any architecture they wish, but any
| game relying on Proton because it's a Windows binary will
| require x86.
|
| Good news is, any of us in here are going to buy whatever we
| want and aren't limited to Chromebooks. Its everyone else that
| is screwed by the virtual duopoly of Windows and !Windows.
| fragmede wrote:
| That's not entirely clear to me. Windows on Arm has some
| weird sort of compatibility layer that could also exist here.
| It's a different environment but I'm able to run (some) x86
| windows programs on an Arm Windows virtual machine,
| unmodified, under Parallels on an M1 MacBook. Boggles my mind
| how it all works together, but it does.
| risho wrote:
| there are projects like fex and box86/box64 that are trying
| to do for linux what windows is doing and what rosetta 2 is
| doing.
| dEnigma wrote:
| Seems like it, at least for now
|
| https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/steam-gaming-on-chrome...
| lima wrote:
| Crostini's (crosvm) virgl is fast enough for gaming? Neat.
| torginus wrote:
| Wait - does this mean that if Steam ships on Chromebook, and
| Steam can be made to run arbitrary software via proton, that
| Chromebooks have become regular laptops?
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| To be clear, chromebooks have for a few years been able to be
| regular labtops since crouton [1] allowed installing linux
| distros on them. (And could even use wine to run windows games
| on the x86 chromebooks.)
|
| [1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
| cl3misch wrote:
| Not sure if this is a joke, but you can already "officially"
| install a Debian environment from within ChromeOS.
|
| https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en
| mistrial9 wrote:
| hey interesting - new to me.. (checks models) yep, the
| Chromebook on the desk is one of "the ones that have Linux"
| ..
|
| "Camera not supported yet" .. feature!
| ehsankia wrote:
| Indeed, this is just a more convenient and user friendly
| support layer than installing stuff through Crostini.
| pengaru wrote:
| Wake me up when Steam supports ARM builds.
| DatDay wrote:
| This is big
| jordanmoconnor wrote:
| Neat - but who's gaming on a Chromebook?
| pja wrote:
| Steam streaming will probably work?
| jordanmoconnor wrote:
| Ah, didn't know that was a thing. Not unlike Stadia?
| judge2020 wrote:
| It's streaming from one of your own computers, not one
| owned by Valve.
| zucker42 wrote:
| Probably the millions of people who own/have access to one and
| don't have the ability to buy another computer.
| jordanmoconnor wrote:
| I guess I was initially thinking more resource intensive
| games, but there are lots of smaller games that a Chromebook
| could handle.
| GeckoEidechse wrote:
| While this was not stated in the linked post, other sources
| said it will be limited to x86 chromebooks that run 11th+ gen
| Intel CPUs or equivalent.
|
| That basically limits it to models that cost >800$ making it
| a very niche product.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Probably not since it requires an 11th gen i5 or better
| chrome book https://www.androidcentral.com/steam-for-chrome-
| os-supported...
| glenstein wrote:
| This is whats frustrating to me. We're talking a small
| slice of most chromebooks out there.
|
| I actually have used old chromebooks with crouton to
| install steam and play games. You have to pick
| "lightweight" games like Baldurs Gate, but it still opens
| up a lot of possibility.
|
| So I had hoped maybe something could be brought to old
| hardware, but I guess not.
| someperson wrote:
| When travelling, I have used GeForce Now to play Fortnite on an
| a pretty weak ARM Chromebook from a web browser.
|
| I was able to turn up the graphical settings up much higher
| than what my regular desktop's ageing GTX 970 graphics card can
| get, while still maintaining a high frame rate.
|
| Latency is low enough to have fun and contribute to the team.
| Wasn't a good experience over cellular, but it was very good on
| a wired connection.
|
| I was very happy to have had a streaming option available at
| the time.
| donatj wrote:
| You'd be surprised the saturation in the 12-18 year old market.
| So many parents bought their kids chrome books.
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