Last year, Valve announced plans for three new devices: the Steam Machine, an improved Steam Controller, and the Steam Frame. So far, only the Steam Controller has been released, garnering positive reviews and praised for enhancing the PC-console experience promised by the Steam Machine. The Steam Frame, however, remained in the shadows until Valve released Proton 11.0-1 Beta 3. This update introduces crucial FEX emulation improvements for Linux Arm64, paving the way for the Steam Frame to support Windows games and applications.
Valve’s products often achieve success, particularly in their game releases. While devices like the Steam Deck have been a hit, others, such as the original Steam Machine launched a decade ago, were less fortunate and soon discontinued. The first Steam Controller in 2015 also faced a similar fate, leading to its eventual discontinuation.
Proton 11.0-1 Beta 3 Updates to FEX-2605 with Bug Fixes and Performance Enhancements
The Steam Frame represents Valve’s latest hardware innovation as their first foray into VR headsets. While detailed specifications are still emerging, it’s known that the device will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 256 GB of storage. It boasts 2,160 x 2,160 pixel per eye pancake lenses, a 110° horizontal FOV, and a refresh rate ranging from 72 to 144 Hz. The headset will function as a standalone computer, making it capable of gaming.
As its launch approaches, Valve has released Proton 11.0-1 Beta 3, with its primary change being an update to FEX-2605. This might seem minor, but FEX-2605 brings significant performance improvements to the emulator, enabling Windows games and applications to run on Linux Arm64 devices like the Steam Frame.
The update includes optimizations for x87 instructions such as ATAN, FYL2X, FSCALE, and F2XM1, which are now expected to perform 2 to 4 times better. A bug that caused excessive memory consumption in games has also been fixed, along with an issue leading to unexpected shutdowns on ARM64EC systems and with controllers like the Sony DualSense when Wine closed threads.
Steam Frame Utilizes FEX Emulator for Running Windows Games on Linux Arm64
Further enhancements in Proton 11.0-1 Beta 3 address issues with the Snapdragon X2 Elite, Qualcomm’s latest and most powerful SoC for laptops and Arm devices. While Linux support is still in its early stages, Valve anticipates that a functional GPU will be available with Linux kernel versions 7.1 or 7.2. Currently, RNDDR5 continues to fail as it did with the Snapdragon X1 Elite, and the system is limited to ARMv9.0-a with a 19.2 MHz cycle counter.
Positively, support for SVE2, KVM virtualization, and atomic operations has been achieved. The Steam Frame is unlikely to encounter these specific problems as it uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, a proven and well-supported chip in smartphones. While not the absolute top-tier in performance, it should be sufficient for playing a variety of PC games, especially with the optimized emulation provided by SteamOS and Proton.
