They will likely write their own emulator, but don’t forget about WSL. You can already run WINE on Windows, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could also run FEX+WINE on Windows for ARM.
They will likely write their own emulator, but don’t forget about WSL. You can already run WINE on Windows, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could also run FEX+WINE on Windows for ARM.
by intercepting syscalls and executing them directly
Not only syscalls. FEX and Box64 also allow using native libraries instead of emulating them. That leaves basically only the game logic to be emulated.
Yep. The big question is if the gap will close enough that ARM chips indeed end up delivering better power efficiency with emulation than an AMD64 chip that delivers the same performance without emulation.
My bets would be on the native AMD64 chip ending up more power efficient. To be honest, I would not bet too much money though.
ARM based Deck would be a huge improvement to battery life. Don’t get your hopes up too high. You will need an emulation layer like FEX of Box64, and unlike WINE those do have quite a substantial overhead.
It is impressive how far those emulators have come, especially since they got the option to use native libraries instead of emulated ones, but the game logic itself will always need emulation…
This doesn’t mean it can’t be done, it just means that the ARM CPU needs to be pretty fast to counter the emulation overhead, and that’s why I have my doubts about the energy efficiency…
(Btw: I have tried running several AMD64 games on my A311D powered MNT Reform laptop with Box64. It’s impressive how well the emulation runs, and how many games are actually playable already. However, I also encountered a lot of games that don’t reach enjoyable FPS on that hardware. With a faster ARM chip though…)
It depends on what kind of patent. I just googled the term I had used before, and it is indeed what I expected it to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
And yes, that name is stupid. That’s why I am happy that my native language, German, has a better distinction between “Patent” (what you described) and “Geschmacksmuster” (design patent).
About patents being public: They are. That’s because the idea behind patents is that after they expire, anyone can use them to build the technology they describe. The temporary exclusive usage rights that they offer are meant as an incentive for inventors to publish their findings. The only problem is that the legal situation did not keep up with the creativity of patent lawyers… (I will stop now, otherwise this will turn into an endless rant about how broken the patent system is.)
I’m not sure how the term “patent” is to be interpreted here. It could be used like back in the days when Apple sued Samsung because their phone had rounded edges too…
Like a “design patent” (sorry, I’m not a native English speaker, so I’m unsure if this is the correct translation).
A lot of the pals in the game look quite close to Pokémon. Not identical, of course, but so similar that one just has to wonder if the design has been “inspired” by Pokémon…
Amnesia.
Short answer: Whales.
Long answer: Watch the South Park episode on the topic. They explain it in detail. It’s titled “Freemium Isn’t Free”.
Need to enshittify it enough to make the AI features feel like an improvement.
This. There is very little need for third-party tools, as long as you don’t want to install a whole lot of games. After all, the installation process only happens once per game, and also without tools it doesn’t take very long.
As a step-by-step guide:
I only use my Steam Deck while I am away from my gaming (Linux-)PC. The reasons for this are that for me a big screen wins compared to the small (and relatively low-res) display of the Steam Deck, and also the games I usually play play way better with mouse and keyboard than with gamepad input… Also, the Steam Deck is relatively heavy, so gaming in bed or stuff like that also isn’t that enjoyable…
That said, the Steam Deck absolutely shines in situations where I cannot access my gaming PC. I usually take it with me when I go for a longer train ride, and also brought it along for vacation.
Compatibility wise I am in the situation that all the games I ever tried are working on the Steam Deck, but that’s mostly because I have been using Linux exclusively for decades, and have made it a habit to check if a game is going to work before buying it. Though, in recent years that habit slightly changed, thanks to the work Valve has put into WINE development. While back when I switched to Linux most Windows games would not run via WINE, nowadays one can expect that almost all games do. It is still a good idea to check protondb first, of course. Also, there are still a few games that need tinkering to get them to run, and protondb usually has some info on how to do that.
One negative point I have to mention is battery runtime. It strongly depends on what one is playing, but very demanding 3D games can drain the battery in 1.5 hours. However, I am talking about the old LCD model here, the newer OLED models run longer with one charge (though I don’t know how long actually).
Another negative is the display resolution. Most games don’t mind running on 1280x800, but some do. This can lead to illegible text, broken UI, or, as is the case with Stellaris, a different UI that is less convenient to use.
And last, but not least, performance. The Steam Deck GPU is just enough for the built-in display’s resolution, and also only under the assumption that games are reasonably optimized. I have not yet been in the situation that I would have gotten unplayable FPS, but I have heard a lot about games only running with 20 FPS, and needing upscaling… So, basically don’t expect it to run Crysis (yes, I know that joke is old, and that the Steam Deck can run Crysis just fine).
No. Or rather, not yet. Valve has not released SteamOS 3 for anything other than the Steam Deck, but is planning to do so at some point in the future.
I honestly wouldn’t recommend SteamOS for anything other than a dedicated gaming device though. It excels at its use case of launching games via Steam, but for everything else it is quite cumbersome… I would much rather install a general purpose Linux distribution and run Steam on it.
I would rather trust GamingOnLinux here:
While it is not in any way officially supported by Valve, they have now released Windows drivers for the newer Steam Deck OLED model.
(emphasis mine)
Oh, and just in the moment I hit send, I remembered another gem from the olden times:
Unreal World: Basically the survival game. 99% of today’s survival games are just a pale shadow of this. I mean, nowadays there are even “survival” games without hunger mechanics or proper simulation of wounds… No, this is not one of those easy mode survival games. This is Fantasy Finland, and it’s the Fantasy Iron Age. Available for free or, if you want updates faster, also for money on Steam.
If I weren’t currently at work and would have time to think about the answer, I could probably come up with more titles, but those are the top 2 that come to mind, if I ignore cRPGs (at least that’s how I read your “avoiding final fantasy-esque” requirement):
Settlers 2: It’s new enough to still look decent by today’s standards, and has amazing game design. Available at GoG.
Star Control 2: One of the best early open world games. The graphics have definitely aged by today’s standard, but the humour hasn’t. Or maybe it has, but just a bit. Available for free and open source.
Just look at the trailer. Of course there is still some animation jank, but the overall visuals are just stunning.
It’s so uncanny valley that I might feel bad for deleting the pool ladders (or whatever the equivalent of that is in inZOI).
I would like to answer Vagrus, as that is what I would want to play.
However, I spent way too much of my spare time playing Lean4, and that isn’t even supposed to be a game!
Almost all the rest of my gaming time goes into Palworld multiplayer with my wife. What left about 1 hour for Vagrus last week…
I wanted to play Baldurs Gate 3 multiplayer with my wife, but couldn’t convince her. She really doesn’t like turn-based combat, and the game has too much dialogue for her taste…
So, we are now playing Palworld instead. It’s a lot of fun in multiplayer, but still quite grindy.
To answer your question: I use an Xbox Series X gamepad. However I cannot recommend this cheaply built piece of junk.
I also tried to use the DualShock 4, but with that I had the problem that it interfered with my WIFI connection. I’m not sure if this is a general problem, or only happens with my WIFI base station though. Also, the DualShock controller has a severe drawback, and that is its short battery runtime, compared with the issue that you cannot easily switch batteries…
So, my recommendation: An Xbox One gamepad. While I don’t own one, I am using them regularly at work, and they basically have all the advantages of the Xbox Series X gamepads, and have a way better build quality.
I would also recommend Xbox 360 gamepads, but they need a dedicated base station, which is very expensive.
Me neither. I only (have to) use Windows at work, all my own PCs have been running Linux for decades…
I do know however, that WSL emulates most (but not all) Linux syscalls, so you can ran (nearly) all Linux programs on Windows - including WINE. There is also a driver in Mesa so that you can render 3D graphics from within WSL on any DX12 graphics card.