Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

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Yes, I understand that. I'm just saying that it's probably more work than the return. At least for Linux desktop (which is less than 2% of the market).

Unless you have something like Stadia (where I assume Google is subsidizing the port) or if the Steam handheld is real, then Value can work with developers to get the ports done.

Developers port to Playstation because there is a ton of money in that market. And Valve could be successful with this console, in which case the ROI would be there.
 
AMD have already done a custom CPU/GPU with RDNA2. It is called the Xbox X and PS5...
Yeah but nothing for the consumer space, and the Xbox chip isn’t full it’s pretty customized and cut down.
 
Yeah but nothing for the consumer space, and the Xbox chip isn’t full it’s pretty customized and cut down.
Explain cut down? It's 52 CU's, so yeah its 8 CU's less than the 6800 lol. The Xbox series X is no slouch at all. its an 8 core CPU with a 52 CU RDNA 2 graphics card on a single die. Not sure what else you want AMD to do for a top of the line all in one APU?
 
Right, but look how huge the Xbox and PS5 are, and the power/heat requirements.

AMD would have to do a lot more to get it down to a portable size.
 
Explain cut down? It's 52 CU's, so yeah its 8 CU's less than the 6800 lol. The Xbox series X is no slouch at all. its an 8 core CPU with a 52 CU RDNA 2 graphics card on a single die. Not sure what else you want AMD to do for a top of the line all in one APU?
I was under the impression it was t running all the same instructions as the PC versions. But aren’t the also still struggling with the yields on the Xbox? Don’t know but I do know I don’t want a Vega APU.
 
Right, but look how huge the Xbox and PS5 are, and the power/heat requirements.

AMD would have to do a lot more to get it down to a portable size.
agreed, which is why I look at the Xbox series S, which runs at 80-85w. You can easily cut that down to 20-30w and still play at 1080p settings.
 
I was under the impression it was t running all the same instructions as the PC versions. But aren’t the also still struggling with the yields on the Xbox? Don’t know but I do know I don’t want a Vega APU.
Yeah I have no idea on yields, not even going to speculate. But, totally agree they cannot use Vega cores for much longer at all.

Luckily we know that RDNA2 does scale pretty well. Also something to think about, we know AMD is working on RDNA3. would be cool to see a Zen3/4 RDNA3 custom SOC for the steam console? who knows lol
 
Yeah I have no idea on yields, not even going to speculate. But, totally agree they cannot use Vega cores for much longer at all.

Luckily we know that RDNA2 does scale pretty well. Also something to think about, we know AMD is working on RDNA3. would be cool to see a Zen3/4 RDNA3 custom SOC for the steam console? who knows lol
The only thing I know for sure about the yields is that Sony called out AMD in an investors meeting for their bad yields causing their failure to reach their expected 15m units and they had to settle with 11m instead. But yeah an RDNA 3 APU would be tight. Hoping to hold out on a new laptop until then.
 
It is going to have to be some sort of SOC from AMD or Intel. Hopefully its AMD, because I am not even sure how good that Intel Xe graphics is going to be.....

Interesting times ahead.

It is rumored to be AMD Van Gogh APU


https://videocardz.com/newz/valve-steampal-handheld-gaming-console-rumored-to-feature-amd-apu


In details posted by Moore's Law is Dead, it is reported that the Van Gogh Ryzen APUs will come with quad-core designs. The AMD Zen 2 powered chips will be based on the TSMC 7nm process node and will feature a monolithic design composed of the CPU, GPU, and I/O IPs.

MLID reports that the APU is expected to feature a total of 8 Compute Units based on the RDNA 2 GPU architecture.

As for Infinity Cache, it is already confirmed that AMD won't be featuring that on its Van Gogh APUs as confirmed in the latest Linux Kernel patch.

https://wccftech.com/amd-van-gogh-apus-bring-power-of-rdna-2-in-ultra-low-power-ryzen-notebooks/
 
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I've seen a few of these Switch sized handheld PC's now over these past few months. They all have promise but the one issue they seem to have that would keep them from being a true Switch competitor is the price. To get one of these Switch sized handheld PC's, you're paying as much as you would for a mid-range ($850-$1250) gaming laptop. The Switch is still just $300 for just the console. That's where it still has a bit of the edge here. Where I say bit of an edge is you get the console but most people like to spring for the carrying case and MicroSD card for added storage which drives the price up by about $80-$140 on average for adding both. Out!
 
How sure are they about this? I don't really see any source information in that article.

From what I've heard it's more likely it's a stand alone VR headset. I suppose Valve could be doing both, but that article is so extremely scarce on details. I could easily see them getting information like it's a stand alone device and has a screen then jumping to that conclusion.

As seen in this video that just came out, and seems to have a lot more information:
relevant information starts at 3 minutes

I think this VR idea makes more sense coming from Valve than a Switch-like handheld.
 
I have to suspect that there is a technical reason for them not using their RDNA2 stuff as an onboard. I don’t know what it is but their entire product stack is devoid of it. It has to be for a reason, because pairing them together would seem to be an obvious win.
It's a financial reason, not technical. As people pointed out, the PS5 and Xbox Series X show that this can be done, because it has been done. The cost of making an APU that powerful plus how it can cannibalize their GPU business is probably why we don't see RDNA in APU's. Once Intel starts to pump up their APU's is when AMD will have no choice but to use RDNA2.

Well Valve does publish proton... you can install proton yourself just like wine (its a fork) and install DXVK yourself and run it with proton or wine, without running steam at all. (many Linux gamers use Lutris to make things a bit easier as they publish known to work profiles for games that install specific versions of proton or wine ect. I have mostly just run the latest beta version of wine with DXVK and find most stuff works reasonably well)
I use Wine Staging with DXVK and VKD3D-Proton and it works... sometimes. I don't see any Wine forks that have Proton Patches to increase their compatibility. There are ways to use Proton outside of Steam but it's hacky.
Also you can actually install third party software in the steam linux client and run it with proton.
Since Proton was released I find Lutris to be less supported and getting useless.
I have faith it will happen... lots of agnostic changes coming to computing over the next few years with ARM moving in on x86 as well. The newer game engines are very good at compiling out to different OSes and now even CPU archs.
Having ARM as an option for gaming is not going to help with the adoption of Linux. How many games you see with an ARM build? How many consoles you see that use ARM? If we try to get builds for ARM then we introduce a huge new set of problems that nobody wants to deal with.
 
Having ARM as an option for gaming is not going to help with the adoption of Linux. How many games you see with an ARM build? How many consoles you see that use ARM? If we try to get builds for ARM then we introduce a huge new set of problems that nobody wants to deal with.
This right here, Linux has a forking problem already, the last thing it needs is to have its forks forked for spoons.

ARM and Linux will always be a great pairing, but I don't expect to see it as a mainstream thing for a good number of years and when it does come I think we are going to look back at it and thank Apple for it. Apple will be responsible for getting more "high performance" arm cores out into consumer's hands than anybody else (outside the mobile phone market) and Apple is probably going to be the ones to normalize it. What would be a solid boost would be if NVidia could get an ARM CPU paired with one of their GPUs into a non-Nintendo console. I say non-Nintendo because Nintendo is never going to port that stuff to another platform unless they are emulating it on another one of their platforms.

And yeah I know its way too early to think about new consoles but really neither the new Xbox whatever it's called, and the PS5 really exist and given constraints they are going to remain in stupid short supply till well into 2022, and I bet both Microsoft and Sony are pissed about that, and they are probably looking at AMD going "you fucked us" so now would be NVidia's best shot if they were going to plead their case.
 
AMD didn't do the dirty deed, it was basically an act of nature (both from the world and human nature) that brought us to this point.

I don't think Nvidia would have done any better, had they got the contract.
 
ARM and Linux will always be a great pairing, but I don't expect to see it as a mainstream thing for a good number of years and when it does come I think we are going to look back at it and thank Apple for it. Apple will be responsible for getting more "high performance" arm cores out into consumer's hands than anybody else (outside the mobile phone market) and Apple is probably going to be the ones to normalize it. What would be a solid boost would be if NVidia could get an ARM CPU paired with one of their GPUs into a non-Nintendo console. I say non-Nintendo because Nintendo is never going to port that stuff to another platform unless they are emulating it on another one of their platforms.
If anyone puts ARM into the spot light, it'll be Nvidia. Apple is no friend to anyone Linux or ARM. I think Apple just dumped CUPS recently which Linux depends on for printers. I believe that Apple's version of ARM in the future will deviate from the ARM standard, just because Apple feels it's better. Nvidia buying ARM wants to dump R&D cash into their hands to outperform X86. Nvidia knows the APU future is coming, and they have no place in it without an x86 license. While Apple wants to outperform x86, they aren't too concerned about desktop and gaming. Nvidia is concerned about desktop, gaming, and servers.

ARM's problem is that they need to get fast enough before x86 becomes efficient enough. Once x86 becomes as efficient as ARM then you can forget it.
And yeah I know its way too early to think about new consoles but really neither the new Xbox whatever it's called, and the PS5 really exist and given constraints they are going to remain in stupid short supply till well into 2022, and I bet both Microsoft and Sony are pissed about that, and they are probably looking at AMD going "you fucked us" so now would be NVidia's best shot if they were going to plead their case.
HA! No... Both Sony and Microsoft have had bad dealings with Nvidia in the past. Why you think for the past two generation's they used AMD?
 
AMD didn't do the dirty deed, it was basically an act of nature (both from the world and human nature) that brought us to this point.

I don't think Nvidia would have done any better, had they got the contract.
Well, their launch schedule didn't help they are short supplies across the board and I do know Sony called out AMD in their investors report for their lower than expected sales as AMD has shorted them some 5M units so far. AMD straight-up released too much in too short a window with no real means to actually meet their known demand. So yes there are lots of external factors but that only count for so much, and Sony knows enough about the inner working of the supply chain to know that. So it very likely is true that NVidia couldn't have done a lot better, but NVidia has done a lot better at getting their products to market than AMD has, and NVidia has a much smaller portfolio to work with so that gives them leeway. AMD is running on every bit of room TSMC can give them and while Samsung fabs might not be as advanced as TSMC's they had room to accommodate increased demand to a far larger degree than TSMC did. I mean this is 100% speculation and hindsight and all that jazz, but if NVidia was going to make their case as to how they could have done better and can do better for them in the future now would be the time,
 
Maybe, but those contracts were probably signed years ago, before the world went to shit. No one could have known.
 
If anyone puts ARM into the spot light, it'll be Nvidia. Apple is no friend to anyone Linux or ARM. I think Apple just dumped CUPS recently which Linux depends on for printers. I believe that Apple's version of ARM in the future will deviate from the ARM standard, just because Apple feels it's better. Nvidia buying ARM wants to dump R&D cash into their hands to outperform X86. Nvidia knows the APU future is coming, and they have no place in it without an x86 license. While Apple wants to outperform x86, they aren't too concerned about desktop and gaming. Nvidia is concerned about desktop, gaming, and servers.

ARM's problem is that they need to get fast enough before x86 becomes efficient enough. Once x86 becomes as efficient as ARM then you can forget it.

HA! No... Both Sony and Microsoft have had bad dealings with Nvidia in the past. Why you think for the past two generation's they used AMD?
I don't mean that Linux would be on Apple, but Apple has lead the charge showing what can be done in the consumer space with it, and other companies are going to be envious and will try to emulate it which will lead to more products which leads to a larger base, and that means more people playing with more ARM which will make good things happen.
And I am not so sure Microsoft and Sony, exactly had bad experiences with NVidia in the past but they weren't able to do it as cheaply as AMD could as AMD had both the GPU and CPU in their portfolio, the alternative would have been an Intel NVidia collaboration which gets costly to have them play together on a custom SOC like that, and I doubt that they could have worked together to make a product with the desired performance in the expected price range. The recent advances to ARM change this greatly, when AMD started working with the consoles what were their options at that stage they were basically circling the toilet and those console contracts were the only things that kept them from being chopped up and sold to the patent trolls, so they were desperate for the contract.
 
I don't mean that Linux would be on Apple, but Apple has lead the charge showing what can be done in the consumer space with it, and other companies are going to be envious and will try to emulate it which will lead to more products which leads to a larger base, and that means more people playing with more ARM which will make good things happen.
I don't believe Apple will have that knock on effect. My belief is that Apple will even push users back to x86 Windows just because of software compatibility and performance issues. Development for Apple in terms of cross development is painful. On Linux it's easy since everyone uses OpenGL and Vulkan, but not Apple. As Gabe Newell puts it, "I totally see why Sony wants people to write code that runs on 7 SPE's and a cell processor unit because that code is never gonna run well anywhere else. Right? They're saying make your code run on anything not ours and we're betting we'll have market share that's so high that everyone will have to right code for our platform and everyone will just stave the air from the other platforms by absorbing everyone's R&D budget by making their code less portable." Replace Sony with Apple along with 7 SPE's with ARM+Metal and you have the same situation.

The problem with Apple's ARM is that it's useless for ARM adoption. The other platforms using ARM are Android and iOS and they've been around forever and you still don't see the same level of adoption as you do on x86. My belief is that the people who bought those Apple M1's are probably going to throw them in the corner in favor of their Intel Macs or just use a x86 Windows PC. The same thing happened to Microsoft Surface ARM devices. Not many developers are going to write code for a very small market that is technically even smaller thanks to ARM. This works better on Linux because we have lots of repositories that have had ARM builds for a very long time, but not much in proprietary code. Linux also supports open API's like OpenGL and Vulkan.
And I am not so sure Microsoft and Sony, exactly had bad experiences with NVidia in the past but they weren't able to do it as cheaply as AMD could as AMD had both the GPU and CPU in their portfolio, the alternative would have been an Intel NVidia collaboration which gets costly to have them play together on a custom SOC like that, and I doubt that they could have worked together to make a product with the desired performance in the expected price range.
From what I remember the original Xbox was a pain for Microsoft because Nvidia wouldn't reduce pricing. Sony has also reported to having a miserable time dealing with Nvidia. Nvidia even screwed Apple by supplying crap chips which broke down and costing Apple big money.
The recent advances to ARM change this greatly, when AMD started working with the consoles what were their options at that stage they were basically circling the toilet and those console contracts were the only things that kept them from being chopped up and sold to the patent trolls, so they were desperate for the contract.
They could have gone with ARM with the PS5 and Xbox Series X, but they didn't. AMD has better graphics and a better CPU, plus backwards compatibility with PS4 and Xbox One. There isn't anyone else that could really support something that compelling, and remember the PS5 consumes 200 watts of power while running. That's pretty efficient for something that powerful and using 7nm. Like it or not, x86 is well established and it'll take a lot more than Apple to dethrone it.
 
I'm sure back compat was a huge factor. Of course you could do emulation, and they've tried, but it has yet to work well as a generic solution. And these are the people that designed the machines, they have everything and they still couldn't pull it off.
 
Xbox One S / PS4 performance & hardware with open source OS support. RIP Nintendo Switch but thank you for the design.
 
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