StooMonster

I agree Rich. Also interesting titbit is that Apple's Rosetta 2 solution wasn't just software. Apple built specific hardware features into Apple Silicon chips to make Rosetta 2’s x86‑64 translation fast.

Apple Silicon adds microarchitectural support specifically aimed at making x86‑64 emulation efficient, which Rosetta 2 takes advantage of. Key changes include:

• x86‑style memory ordering (TSO): M-series SoCs implement support for x86‑64’s Total Store Order memory model so that translated x86 code can run without constantly inserting extra memory fences.
• Special flag/condition‑code instructions: M-series chips include custom ARM instructions for computing x86 flags, which lets Rosetta 2 map x86 condition codes directly instead of emulating them with long instruction sequences.
• Paired load/store and stack operations: Apple’s cores support efficient paired loads/stores and stack‑pointer‑modifying operations that Rosetta 2’s translator targets to reduce instruction count and improve cache behaviour.

Together with Rosetta 2’s ahead‑of‑time translation and aggressive optimisation, these hardware features are a major reason x86‑64 apps under Rosetta 2 often reach a large fraction of native performance on M‑series chips.

This a key feature missing on Microsoft's Prism that works by just-in-time compiling x86-64 code into ARM64 instructions without this boost in the generic ARM64 Qualcomm Snapdragon for example; one of the reasons it's not as performant as Apple's translation layer.

Interestingly Apple have already set a sunset for this, Apple has stated that Rosetta 2 will remain a general‑purpose Intel‑app translation layer through macOS 27, covering the next couple of major releases, but also that starting with macOS 28, Rosetta 2 will be scaled back to a more limited, legacy‑focused mode mainly for older games and unmaintained software that rely on Intel‑specific frameworks … and the expectation is that it will eventually be dropped — like Rosetta that translated PowerPC to x86-64 before it — and will eventually be dropped from M-series chips too.

Wouldn't it be marvellous if Valve worked with likes or Nvidia or AMD to include similar x86-64 translation boosting hardware that they could take advantage of in FEX … rather than relying on generic ARM64 chips that lack this hardware optimisation?

Customer ARM64 CPU for Steam Deck 2 could be very interesting.

Even if they don't, I'm keen to see SteamOS offer Nvidia options — come Nvidia with your Linux drivers — moreover with the Nvidia N1X/N1 processors there could be some very interesting things to come.

Can we assume that it's going to run Half-Life 3 at 4K 60fps with FSR upscaling?

In theory, Half-Life: Alyx should run on Steam Frame already, barring incompatibilities with the new x86 to ARM translation layer … the CPU not only has to run game logic and prepare GPU draw calls, but also needs to run the title's x86 code through the FEX translation layer to run on an ARM-based processor

Do Valve have a native ARM64 build of Source 2 engine is key here, if they can get rid of the overhead of running the FEX translation layer and run native instead then it could be transformative to some titles … maybe Half-Life Alyx among them.

Which brings me to questions of Steam Platform, clearly it can manage Windows vs Linux vs Mac vs SteamOS on x86-64, are we about to see different processor architectures supported too?

Did I dream this or hear it on some YouTube video, that Valve will sell the Steam Machine sans a controller … with the assumption that you have an Xbox or PlayStation or other controller laying around, as these are all compatible.

That would give it a lower 'entry price'.

Not to say they won't sell a bundle with the controller too, but this might be a tactical option to give a "from $499" price tag.

How’s the Steam Machine at running Half-Life Alyx and streaming that to the Steam Frame?

Going to be very interesting comparing that to X86-64 emulation on Steam Frame versus the native ARM64 version when that arrives.

@Nebatunia MooresLawIsDead has a good video about pricing, Tom over there reckons $400–$600 for the Steam Machine.

@fatpunkslim

Are we comparing SteamOS versus Xbox Full Experience on Windows?

Soon enough we're going to be comparing Valve's Steam Console (codename "Fremont") running SteamOS versus Xbox's next-gen PC-console hybrid (with "Magnus" APU).

In addition to the Steam Deck versus other handhelds.

Fascinating times.

With Valve working on SteamOS for ARM64, reckon we'll have all sorts of new PC benchmarks in the near future and not just Windows vs Linux x86-64.

@Abdulla77 Did that too!

From your list you've missed the PSVR2 games with PS5 Pro enhancements … tiny list that there is!

I am happy with my PS5 Pro — although it makes my buys games that support it that I wouldn't otherwise, just to test it out.

I wish there were more titles with support for it launching, plus a bit of love from Sony first-party studios tweaking older titles would be nice.

The weird thing is the PSSR being subpar in so many regards, one would've thought Sony would be on top of that for PS6 — I hope we see their PSSR hybrid to FSR4 before long, and that perhaps it's easy to back port to games with PSSR shimmer issues.

Please reposition the "LEAVE A COMMENT" at the top of the comments under the articles, not at the bottom of the comments … as this leaves a huge scroll to leave a new comment!

Oh my goodness, what a great time indeed. Congratulations to RichL and the DF team on this milestone.