Steam Deck 2

[LordOfTheAutism]

Valve, please use an ARM processor for the Steam Deck 2 when it is released in 2026-2027. This would save battery life, and I know it's difficult because you would have to create a completely new Linux-based operating system converted to the ARM architecture, but it could eliminate the competition as they wouldn't be able to match your hardware. It is already complete, it just needs a bit more performance, and some people complain about battery life.

[Haruspex]

The benefits of such a move are clear, but the drawbacks are greater since all the games on Steam are written for x86 processors. This would require emulation to get them to run which would be a massive undertaking and introduce serious performance overhead.

ARM makes more sense for a dedicated handheld console that games would be made specifically for, like the Switch.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by LordOfTheAutism#SaveTF2:

Steam Deck 2

Valve, please use an ARM processor for the Steam Deck 2 when it is released in 2026-2027. This would save battery life, and I know it's difficult because you would have to create a completely new Linux-based operating system converted to the ARM architecture, but it could eliminate the competition as they wouldn't be able to match your hardware. It is already complete, it just needs a bit more performance, and some people complain about battery life.

A new OS when SteamOS 3 doesn't even have a Windows release yet?

[WarnerCK]

Originally posted by LordOfTheAutism#SaveTF2:

I know it's difficult because you would have to create a completely new Linux-based operating system converted to the ARM architecture,

That's not at all difficult; Linux is fine on many, many CPU architectures already.

The issue is the 100,000 games in the Stream catalogue that aren't ever going to be compiled for ARM. Running x86 games through an x86-to-ARM runtime translation layer is likely to eat up whatever battery savings you're imagining.

[Mahjik]

Valve's goal has never been to have the most powerful PC handheld. There goal was to try to establish a performance platform that devs could optimize for.... Devs "use to" try to optimize their games in the past to run on multiple platforms. Over the years, devs have gotten lazy and just expect consumers to upgrade their gear constantly. One of Valve's goals is to hopefully break that trend.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Valve's goal has never been to have the most powerful PC handheld. There goal was to try to establish a performance platform that devs could optimize for.... Devs "use to" try to optimize their games in the past to run on multiple platforms. Over the years, devs have gotten lazy and just expect consumers to upgrade their gear constantly. One of Valve's goals is to hopefully break that trend.

It also doesn't help that storage has become insanely fast and larger compared to before. Devs worked much hard on optimizing when they knew a 1TB HDD cost over $200.

[ZuppaDiPasta]

Imagine having to emulate both Windows processes AND x86 architecture to run games.