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Steam to Chrome OS
- jokowueu 5y agoSince they didn't mention it I'm guessing x86 only chrome books ?
- lillecarl 5y agoAnything else would be highly unlikely.
- encryptluks2 5y agoI imagine they could pressure manufacturers into building some kind of virtual translation layer with accelerated graphics.
- DiabloD3 5y agoAFIACT, 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 5y agoThat'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.
- coconut08 5y agothere are projects like fex and box86/box64 that are trying to do for linux what windows is doing and what rosetta 2 is doing.
- ben-schaaf 5y agoThere's Box86 and Box64 which run x86/ARM64 binaries on ARM64 fairly well. People have gotten games like Portal 2 running on a PinePhone Pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPr0Aw3xZrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPr0Aw3xZrA
- dEnigma 5y agoSeems like it, at least for now https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/steam-gaming-on-chromebooks-hardware-requirements/ https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/steam-gaming-on-chrome...
- ekianjo 5y agoBox86 and Box64 will make it possible to run x86 games on ARM too. https://boilingsteam.com/box64-can-now-run-crysis-on-arm-with-dxvk/ https://boilingsteam.com/box64-can-now-run-crysis-on-arm-wit...
- shmerl 5y agoI'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 5y agoAt 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?
- shmerl 5y agoI 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 5y ago> 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 5y ago* https://twitter.com/killyourfm/status/1502338832053776385 https://twitter.com/killyourfm/status/1502338832053776385 * https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/open-source-amd-linux/1314431-radv-driver-adds-support-for-valve-s-new-vkd3d-proton-focused-vulkan-extension?p=1314565#post1314565 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-d... * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo1khMYMO5c 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.
- lima 5y agoCrostini's (crosvm) virgl is fast enough for gaming? Neat.
- DatDay 5y agoThis is big
- jordanmoconnor 5y agoNeat - but who’s gaming on a Chromebook?
- pja 5y agoSteam streaming will probably work?
- jordanmoconnor 5y agoAh, didn’t know that was a thing. Not unlike Stadia?
- judge2020 5y agoIt’s streaming from one of your own computers, not one owned by Valve.
- zucker42 5y agoProbably the millions of people who own/have access to one and don't have the ability to buy another computer.
- jordanmoconnor 5y agoI guess I was initially thinking more resource intensive games, but there are lots of smaller games that a Chromebook could handle.
- GeckoEidechse 5y agoWhile 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.
- robbie-c 5y agoHere's to hoping this is just a starting point, might be that it's a lot easier to support these models.
- mdoms 5y agoYou'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 5y agoWhy not both. Stadia on Chromebook is great, but more option the better. They also have android games through play store.
- Grazester 5y agoWhat's that even mean? It's cloud gaming which means you can access it from a Chrome window.
- chrisjc 5y agoI don't know enough about Steam ... does Steam provide any sort of services that manage the runtime of games or is the majority of the game still dependent on the users rig? remote GPU workloads/rendering, managing game-play coordination, etc? If not, then it sounds like working with google (maybe others too) to get Steam running on ChromeOS is a fantastic idea that doesn't conflict with any of their own ambitions. It's good for google bc you'll potentially attract more users to ChromeOS and once they're on ChromeOS, I'm sure they'll have more exposure to Stadia and other google services. Moreover, as game developers and platforms start to migrate a lot of their workloads to the cloud, Steam might be able to provide a more seamless way to do so (proton?)... again, potentially using google services or even the Stadia backend to do so. It's good for Valve bc if furthers their independence from Windows. It may also lower the barrier and provide access to individuals that don't have the money or access to expense machines and OSes, especially if the compute intense operations can be offloaded to GPU services in the cloud.
- pa7ch 5y agoMy ideal dev machine would be chromeOS running on apple silicon.
- Yoric 5y agoReally? 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 5y agoIf 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.
- pa7ch 5y agoWith the exception of a few missing things like full USB pass-through to crostini containers, chromeOS with crostini works about as good as my fedora laptop. I like its window management defaults better then gnome as well. Also you get auto-updated and supported firmware from google and secure boot by default. Currently running a framework laptop with fedora just because I like the hardware better then most chromebooks and I can very cheaply throw in a fast 2TB ssd rather then spend hundreds extra to upgrade a chromebook to 512GB.
- forever_spring 5y agoMine would be one running upcoming Ryzen APU!
- paxys 5y agoWhy not just Linux running on Apple Silicon? Isn't the entire selling point of Chrome OS that it can run well on cheap underpowered hardware?
- jeffbee 5y agoNot really. Here are the advantages of ChromeOS as I see them: Fast, unobtrusive, and regular software updates Better touchpad and touchscreen support than any other Linux Perfect integration between local files and files on Google Drive A bare-bones userspace that is not bristling with security vulnerabilities Software including the kernel is peak-optimized with profile-guided feedback, specifically and separately for each model of Chromebook, unlike most Linux distros that ship barely-optimized builds without PGO and targeting k8-generic.
- torginus 5y agoWait - 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 5y agoTo 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 https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
- AviationAtom 5y agoOr go a step further and flash a modified UEFI firmware on it, then natively run a Linux distro. My HP Chromebook from 2013 is rocking still, almost a decade after release. I run Gallium on it, for optimal compatibility with all the hardware.
- cl3misch 5y agoNot 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 https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en
- ehsankia 5y agoIndeed, this is just a more convenient and user friendly support layer than installing stuff through Crostini.
- mistrial9 5y agohey 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!
- 5y ago
- pipeline_peak 5y agoHow many Steam games actually run on Chromebooks? Let alone on Linux in general.
- dadoprso 5y agoYou can stream steam games to any device with the steam binary installed.
- m0ngr31 5y agohttps://www.protondb.com 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
- shadowgovt 5y agoFor AAA games on chromebook, I believe Stadia was supposed to be the solution. Emphasis on was. Ask me again in 6 months.
- LegitShady 5y agostadia's biggest problem is stadia's business model. It's not solveable unless they change it. Paying for the streaming service and full price for the game too is a no-win situation and won't reach widespread adoption when microsoft is offering streaming for a large collection of games in their monthly xbox live subscription.
- pengaru 5y agoWake me up when Steam supports ARM builds.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ekianjo 5y agoIt's the other way around, you have services like Box86 and Box64 to translate x86 and x86_64 binaries to run on ARM architecture.
- pengaru 5y agoValve has already added arm64 libs for macos steamworks, implying a native arm client should be imminent at least for macos. It'd be nice to have a linux arm client and steamworks support for native rpi and arm chromebooks.
- sendilkumarn 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30692091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30692091
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pvg 5y agoThere's no discussion there so these end up being links to nowhere.
- mabbo 5y agoI think some folks are missing the really neat thing about this: remote play. Steam supports playing games remotely on another computer. So your desktop is doing the heavy lifting, but you can view the game on your TV in the livingroom. Now you can be playing the game on your Chromebook as well. Then the next step is that Google Cloud offers you an on demand high end gaming machine, pay by the minute, which runs Steam on Windows x86 and has an instant VPN to your Chromebook. I set this up successfully once on an AWS machine and a very low end laptop running Ubuntu, but I couldn't get the hardware accelerated video encoding to work right. 3 seconds per frame made the game hilariously unplayable, but it did function.
- allanbreyes 5y agoYou can do remote play on a Chromebook right now with Moonlight! Works great (for me). Some other alternatives include Parsec and Rainway, and probably a few others I'm missing.
- jchw 5y ago> Then the next step is that Google Cloud offers you an on demand high end gaming machine, pay by the minute, which runs Steam on Windows x86 and has an instant VPN to your Chromebook. I find it difficult to believe they'd offer this, given that they already have Stadia. I do see how this could be more appealing for consumers, but aside from competing with themselves, I also would be curious about the economics. Considering how expensive GPUs are, is it even possible the prices for an on-demand gaming service could ever make that much sense? With Stadia, they are making you buy the games through Stadia itself, where they would get a cut of the revenue, which probably helps subsidize the actual cost of the service a bit more. There's also other very irritating issues. For example, a litany of AAA game companies do not allow their games to be streamed via GeForce Now, even though it would be running your own copy that you bought from your Steam or other library. I assume they would fight to earn additional money on game streaming, even though the money simply isn't there. This is unfortunate, but perhaps it's OK. Lower end devices will be getting more and more powerful and eventually I'm sure even reasonably priced Chromebooks will be able to play games decently. Given this launch only applies to newer Intel processor based Chromebooks, that day is not today... but still, it certainly could be on the horizon.
- tfolbrecht 5y agoIf anyone else uses Steam Link, Steam link works well on the ChromeOS Linux Development Environment https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.valvesoftware.SteamLink https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.valvesoftware.SteamLink As does the Android App in the ChromeOS Android Play Store. Can't wait to have the full steam experience!
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoI remember when Chrome OS first came out. I have an old Chromebox I got at Google I/O over a decade ago too. And I remember all of the narrative about it being better because it was just the web browser, and the web was all you needed. Chrome OS has firmly educated me on how to read marketing copy about things the product doesn't have. "Tell people they don't need it until you catch up to your competitors." Ten years more from now if Chrome OS still exists, I expect it to simply be another macOS or Windows clone with more or less all of the same features and trappings.
- scaredginger 5y agoA few years ago (around 2015-2016), I got Counter Strike: Global Offensive running on my x86 Chromebook using Chrubuntu. The experience was about as good as one would expect, but it was still a fun time