Comment on Probability that the next steam deck is arm based?
Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
We’ve discussed ARM hardware for a future deck a few times here, ever since we learned that valve was working on an ARM compatibility layer.
It seems obvious for a handheld since ARM devices are usually much more battery friendly than x86 devices, but I’ve been told that we won’t see any actual hardware advantages from x86 games running through the compatibility layer. Games that have a native ARM version will perform better, but the FEX layer is just about ensuring backwards compatibility and won’t actually unlock any hardware improvements for pre-existing x86 games.
AliasAKA@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Agreed there. The only advantage is if you have more performant silicon for a given power envelope that exceeds the compatibility overhead of running through FEX. This is why in early days, Rosetta occasionally did just as well on M1 Mac’s as the Intel based software, with the leap in performance more than overcoming that translation layer impact.