this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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Steam Deck
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I don't think they'll release a new one until they make the leap to an ARM processor like Apple did when leaving x86 behind. But that means they'll have to make x86 emulator that doesn't torch the battery. As it is, Proton was an enormous undertaking and it has resulted in a fantastic product. I believe they call pull it off again and we'll get 20 hours of battery life with better performance.
But that'll take a few years. I'm in no rush to spend another $600+.
Just a note, Proton is mostly Wine, a program that has been in the making for decades and could be used to play Windows programs (including games) on Linux long before Valve started pouring resources into it. They have "just" concentrated development on games.
As previously discussed, it's confirmed that Valve is in fact working on a x86 to ARM emulator, probably for their upcoming VR headset.
However from what I understand, we're unlikely to get better battery life from ARM hardware unless the software/games are actually created for ARM hardware. x86 games running through an emulator probably won't see much benefit from the ARM hardware even if everything works great.
It's been 5 years now since Apple moved to ARM. I think that had a big enough impact on the market to start compiling ARM binaries. Those toolchains are much more common now and I think once Steam makes the plunge, you'll see a ton of games target it directly. As shitty as Apple's decisions are sometimes, you definitely see them force the markets to move like when they removed the headphone jack.
At this stage, it's likely they'll move to RISC-V over ARM if they change architecture. Drastically freer licensing would give them more control and fewer headaches.
Proton isn't the same as an architecture emulator. It wraps the Windows APIs and translate them to Linux system calls. Translating CPU instructions is more complicated because it's much more latency and overhead sensitive, and slight architectural differences can drastically blow up performance hits to translation. You need hardware based emulation for some instructions.
Yeah I was just using proton as an example of a translation layer that made the steamdeck possible. RISC-V would be great. The Steamdeck adopting it would also push far more development and refinement in the Linux kernal for that architecture too.