Linux

48328 readers

632 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml

nooter692@lemmy.ml

MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml

cypherpunks@lemmy.ml

cyclohexane@lemmy.ml

d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz

165

Qualcomm Aiming For Snapdragon X Elite GPU Support In Linux 6.11 (www.phoronix.com)

submitted 5 months ago by just_another_person@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A lot of people here seemed excited for these chips. It'll be very interesting to see the gaming performance as this could bring in an entire new segment of portable devices running Linux if powerful enough to deliver solid battery life and CPU performance.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

Porting games to a different architecture is normally quite a bit more involved than just recompiling them, especially when architecture-agnostic code wasn't a design goal of the original game code. No, Valve couldn't release all their games natively running on ARM tomorrow, the process would take more time.

But even if Valve were to recompile all their games for ARM, many other studios wouldn't just because a few gaming handhelds would benefit from it. The market share of these devices wouldn't be big enough to justify the cost. Very few of the games that run on Steam Deck are actually native Linux versions, studios just rarely bother porting their games over.

I'm not saying ARM chips can't be faster or otherwise better (more efficient) at running games, but it just doesn't make sense to release an ARM-based handheld intended for "PC" gaming in the current landscape of games.

Apple can comparatively easily force an architecture transition because they control fhe software and hardware. If Apple decides to only sell RISC-V based Macs tomorrow and abandon ARM, developers for the platform would have to release RISC-V builds of their software because at some point nobody could run their software natively anymore because current Macs would be replaced by RISC-V Macs as time passed by. Valve does not control the full hard- and software stack of the PC market so they'd have a very hard time to try and force such a move. If Valve released an ARM-based gaming handheld, other manufacturers would still continue offering x86-based handhelds with newer and newer CPUs (new x86 hardware is still being developed for the foreseeable future) and instead of Valve forcing developers to port their games to native ARM, they'd probably lose market share to these other handhelds as people would naturally buy the device that runs current games best right now.

In a "perfect world" where all games would natively support ARM right now an ARM-based handheld for PC gaming could obviously work. That simply isn't the world we live in right now though. Sure we could ramble on about "if this and that", it's just not the reality.