[HN Gopher] Steam to Chrome OS ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-20 23:00 UTC)