[Feature Required] Windows 10/11 on Arm64 support is needed.

[E4a]

Hello! Steam on Windows is an x86 version that is compatible with translation in the Windows on arm system. However, the current experience is not good, mainly due to 3 points:

1. The x86 Steam client does not run natively, which means performance loss and a few incompatibilities.
   
2. The Steam client is unable to identify the processor architecture and download games or softwares corresponding to the architecture.
   
3. The Steam hardware survey identified my processor as a virtual processor, which is inaccurate.

I hope that the Steam client on Windows can release the arm64 version and correctly download games/software with the corresponding architecture, just like macOS supports both x64 and Arm64 architectures, which can let more game to release arm64 versions and let my arm64 computer to run games better

[Cathulhu]

I'm not aware of a single game on Steam natively supporting Windows on ARM.
Do you have examples of such games?

While there are a few Mac OS games that support Apple ARM silicon, the Steam client itself does not.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

I'm not aware of a single game on Steam natively supporting Windows on ARM.
Do you have examples of such games?

While there are a few Mac OS games that support Apple ARM silicon, the Steam client itself does not.

Yep, so even if they did make an ARM native version of Steam, you wouldn't have any games to play on it anyway.

[Crashed]

Do 64-bit games install properly on Windows 11 ARM64 or does it not detect the 64-bit emulator? It is normal for them to not install on 10 because it only emulates 32-bit x86.

Windows ARM64 went up from 0.03% to 0.05% in the most recent hardware survey - check the "MicrosoftXTA" vendor string at https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/

[nullable]

I'm sure ARM support will be added eventually. But not when Windows 8 users outnumber them like 5:1.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by nullable:

I'm sure ARM support will be added eventually. But not when Windows 8 users outnumber them like 5:1.

At the very least it should function properly on ARM64 systems, allowing installation and playback of games for platforms which the OS has emulators for, specifically x86 on Windows 10 ARM64 and both x86 and x64 on Windows 11 ARM64.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Like ChromeOS?

[nullable]

Originally posted by Crashed:

Originally posted by nullable:

I'm sure ARM support will be added eventually. But not when Windows 8 users outnumber them like 5:1.

At the very least it should function properly on ARM64 systems, allowing installation and playback of games for platforms which the OS has emulators for, specifically x86 on Windows 10 ARM64 and both x86 and x64 on Windows 11 ARM64.

Well if the emulation isn't providing information Valve can consume, that's really on MS.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by nullable:

Originally posted by Crashed:

At the very least it should function properly on ARM64 systems, allowing installation and playback of games for platforms which the OS has emulators for, specifically x86 on Windows 10 ARM64 and both x86 and x64 on Windows 11 ARM64.

Well if the emulation isn't providing information Valve can consume, that's really on MS.

If you run an x86 program under Windows 11 ARM64, I would think it should indicate it's running on WOW64. They did add some extended APIs to query the type of WOW64 it is running under, and checking if x64 emulation (which is mixed in with native ARM64) may just be a case of checking if the Windows build is 10.0.22000 or greater.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Like ChromeOS?

:summercat2023:

ChromeOS support for Steam is for Intel x86 laptops running ChromeOS. It doesn't run on any ARM based Chromebooks

[aiusepsi]

Originally posted by Harusp3x:

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

I'm not aware of a single game on Steam natively supporting Windows on ARM.
Do you have examples of such games?

While there are a few Mac OS games that support Apple ARM silicon, the Steam client itself does not.

Yep, so even if they did make an ARM native version of Steam, you wouldn't have any games to play on it anyway.

This is a chicken-and-egg problem. Steam having no support for arm64 on Windows means that even if a game developer wants to support native arm64, they run into these problems with Steam:

1) No Steamworks API for native arm64 binaries. That means among lots of other things, no achievements or overlay. No multiplayer authentication or matchmaking. No Steam Workshop, no Steam DRM/ownership checks etc. etc. For some games that's painful but doable, for others it's fatal.

2) Steam doesn't know to launch the arm64 binary if you're on an arm64 system, so the developer would have to route all game launches (even those on x86_64 systems) through a shim executable that would dispatch to the right binary.

3) Steam currently allows you to ship different binaries depending if you're on 32-bit x86 or 64-bit x86_64. Without extending that to support arm64, developers would have to include both x86_64 and arm64 binaries in the download for their game for all users. Or put the arm64 binaries into a free DLC.

Problems 1 and 2 are already solved for macOS. They made an arm64 version of the shared library (steamclient.dll on Windows, steamclient.dylib on macOS) which provides the Steamworks APIs for games.

Anyway, the chicken-and-egg problem means that shipping native arm64 games on Windows on Steam is going to be hard or impossible. Which means very few will get shipped, which means no pressure to improve the support for arm64 on Steam. Yay.

Personally, I would be incredibly suprised if it wasn't straightforward for Valve to fix problems 1 and 2 for Windows; the road is already paved by having done it already for macOS. But, honestly, given how much they dragged their feet on doing that on macOS, despite how quickly the market share of arm64 processors grew on that platform (it's now up to 60%), I can't see them doing it for the minuscule market share that arm64 processors have on Windows.

I guess developers could perhaps circumvent problem 1 themselves by building for the ARM64EC ("emulation compatible") ABI, which would allow the game to be able to load the x86_64 Steamworks libraries. Assuming that doesn't open up some other can of worms.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by aiusepsi:

I guess developers could perhaps circumvent problem 1 themselves by building for the ARM64EC ("emulation compatible") ABI, which would allow the game to be able to load the x86_64 Steamworks libraries. Assuming that doesn't open up some other can of worms.

I do believe ARM64EC ABI requires at least Windows 11. Other than that, it can load ARM64EC, ARM64X, or x64 DLLs.

[flayman]

Qualcomm, AMD, and Nvidia have all published their plans to develop new processors specifically for Windows on Arm, and Microsoft is very much on board with this. They've all seen the success that Apple has had with performant low power devices after replacing x86 with Arm. Qualcomm has a soon-to-expire exclusivity deal with Microsoft and is nearly there already with their upcoming Snapdragon X Elite.

Just wait, it won't be more than a couple years before Arm64 becomes the dominant architecture. Steam should prepare for this. x86 is a bloated ISA full of legacy crap that bogs it down.

[lsdninja]

Originally posted by matt f:

Qualcomm, AMD, and Nvidia have all published their plans to develop new processors specifically for Windows on Arm, and Microsoft is very much on board with this. They've all seen the success that Apple has had with performant low power devices after replacing x86 with Arm. Qualcomm has a soon-to-expire exclusivity deal with Microsoft and is nearly there already with their upcoming Snapdragon X Elite.

Just wait, it won't be more than a couple years before Arm64 becomes the dominant architecture. Steam should prepare for this. x86 is a bloated ISA full of legacy crap that bogs it down.

Valve/Steam never prepares for anything, they wait until the absolute last minute and then do the absolute bare minimum to make it work.

[xazax.hun]

Yup, Windows on ARM is getting traction, more and more announcements every week. I think it would be great if Valve could take the lead and start preparing for this in advance.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by xazax.hun:

Yup, Windows on ARM is getting traction, more and more announcements every week. I think it would be great if Valve could take the lead and start preparing for this in advance.

Currently the Hardware & Software Survey has it at about 0.04% of Steam users. It's the MicrosoftXTA processor at https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/