Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Qualcomm, ARM, and Open Drivers

  • Many see Valve+Igalia’s Turnip work as doing what Qualcomm “should” have done: robust Vulkan drivers for Adreno instead of weak, closed offerings.
  • Commenters describe ARM/Android GPU support as terrible: SoCs advertised with Vulkan ship with it disabled, and handheld vendors often treat software as a grudging afterthought.
  • Qualcomm is caricatured as “a law firm with a chip side hustle”; ex-GPU devs note lots of effort goes into drivers but product cycles, NDAs, and lack of timely updates sabotage quality.
  • Debate on open-sourcing: some argue vendors lack incentives for long‑term maintenance on short-lived mobile SKUs; others counter that keeping code closed is more about control than real “secret sauce.”

Hardware vs Software and Driver Maintenance

  • Multiple perspectives on whether hardware or software is “harder”:
    • Hardware: intense up‑front validation, expensive to fix post‑tape‑out, conservative tooling, huge risk of one bug killing a $5M SoC.
    • Software: continuous breakage (especially on Linux with unstable driver ABIs), social/political overhead of upstreaming, and unbounded complexity.
  • Linux’s evolving kernel interfaces mean vendors either upstream drivers (Valve’s route), maintain out-of-tree code forever, or abandon support after a snapshot.

Valve’s Motives, Ethics, and DRM

  • Two readings of Valve:
    • Cynical: they’re protecting Steam from Microsoft’s store and “commoditizing Windows,” and Linux work is self‑defense.
    • Optimistic: they’ve shown doing relatively right by users (refunds, open devices, Proton) yields intense loyalty.
  • Extensive argument over loot boxes and skin gambling:
    • Some say Valve normalized exploitative microtransactions and benefits from a gambling ecosystem.
    • Others reply that cosmetics are mostly non‑pay‑to‑win, tradable on a market, and less predatory than typical mobile/gacha or Korean MMOs.
  • Loot boxes spark broader talk about self‑control vs regulation: are dark patterns a personal-responsibility issue or something that needs systemic limits?
  • Steam’s DRM:
    • Critics: “always‑on” client, forced updates, fragile long‑term setups.
    • Defenders: DRM is optional for publishers, offline modes exist, and the overall experience is far better than rival launchers.

Impact on Linux Gaming and Open Hardware

  • Many non‑gamers bought Steam Deck purely as an open Linux gadget and ended up gaming more due to its seamless suspend/resume and flexibility (emulation, HTPC, dev box).
  • The Deck is praised as properly user‑controlled (install any OS, repairable hardware), contrasting with locked-down consoles and phones.
  • Some argue Valve’s FOSS sponsorship (KDE, Mesa, Wine/Proton, kernel work) meaningfully improved Linux gaming for all users, including those running non‑Steam titles.
  • Others push back: benefits are tightly aligned with Valve’s needs (gaming, Steam DRM) and don’t obviously advance non‑entertainment or general desktop computing.

Valve, Corporate Structure, and Incentives

  • Several comments credit Valve’s private ownership and lack of external investors as key to avoiding “enshittification” and short‑term profit chasing.
  • Valve’s self‑described “flat” structure is cited as part of its “secret sauce,” enabling teams to self‑organize around useful work.
  • Others reference “the tyranny of structurelessness”: even in flat orgs, informal hierarchies appear and can become opaque and unaccountable.
  • Broader takeaway: company behavior is mostly a response to incentives—competition and antitrust matter more than hoping for “good guy” corporations.

Future Steam Devices and ARM Prospects

  • Many infer that the Qualcomm work plus FEX (x86→ARM translation) positions Valve for an ARM‑based Steam Deck 2 or “Steam Deck Mini.”
  • Counterarguments:
    • No currently purchasable ARM SoC matches AMD APUs on both GPU performance and Linux driver maturity.
    • Apple silicon is powerful but proprietary; Nvidia Tegra‑style options suffer from poor mainline Linux support.
  • Some foresee a split strategy: a high‑end x86 Deck and a smaller ARM handheld for indie/retro titles and streaming.
  • Existing ARM handhelds (Retroid, Anbernic, Ayn Odin/Thor) already run Linux or Android with Winlator/GameHub, but suffer from fragmented software, weak update support, and variable drivers.

Steam Frame and VR Use-Cases

  • Steam Frame excites people as a “giant virtual screen” for regular PC games.
  • Wishlist items:
    • System‑level 2D→3D conversion similar to VorpX or 2010s 3D TVs, ideally standardized and Valve‑maintained.
  • Current understanding: Frame will support projected 2D screens in VR; true stereoscopic or head‑parallax 3D for flatscreen games is speculative and unconfirmed.

Role of Igalia and Open-Source Consultancies

  • Igalia is widely praised as an under‑the‑radar powerhouse doing hard, low‑level work (Mesa, WebKit, kernel, compilers) for multiple vendors.
  • Commenters highlight the value of open‑source consultancies (Igalia, Collabora, Codethink, etc.) as a sustainable model: vendors pay them to improve upstream projects instead of maintaining huge internal forks.