From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


(Holy Betteridge's Law of Headlines, Batman!)



So, this article here: https://www.androidauthority.com/gamenative-interview-kill-handheld-pcs-3664176/
discusses the app for Android called "GameNative" and wonders what it
means for handheld gaming PCs like SteamDeck or its clones.

GameNative is, as the title suggests, an Android app that and
invisibly translates x86 code to run on ARM systems. Basically, it's a
turnkey emulation layer aimed at making games written for Windows run
on Android systems. It's not the only such layer (Winlator and GameHub
are two others that come to mind) but it's seen some rapid advances
since its release back in 2023.

Now, the question of "will an emulated game run better on Android than
on native hardware" sounds like an easy one to answer: obviously not!
A high-end PC will always have the advantage. But there's the rub:
handheld gaming PCs like SteamDeck are /not/ high-end PCs. They are
x86/x64 chipsets crammed into a mobile framework. And powerful as
x86/64 can be, it is /not/ well suited for the cramped, low-power
requirements of hand-held gaming. That it works as well as it does is impressive, but its always a mass of compromises to get it to work in
that format.

Modern ARM SOCs, designed from the start as a mobile platform, have
significant advantages. Compared watt-by-watt (or square millimeter by
square millimeter), they can cram more performance into a smaller
device than can x86/x64 stuff.

[Arguably, past a certain point, ARM doesn't scale up to
match full PC performance, so PCs will always have an
advantage on the higher end... but in mobile? There's a
reason almost nobody uses Intel/AMD chips in their hand-
held devices]

So the question if Android will one day be the preferred choice for
playing Windows games on handheld devices isn't as obvious a no-sell
as it first appears. ARM SOCs are cheap, tiny, demand less from the
battery and their performance advantages are still going up. While not
yet matching AMD's x64 SOCs (like those used in SteamDecks currently)
in performance, they're getting closer and closer despite the fact
that they have to run a translation layer just to get the Windows
games to run.

Valve didn't pick the AMD Zen2 SOC for its SteamDeck out of any
loyalty to x86. They picked it because it offered the easiest way to
run Windows games with the best performance. But if newer Snapdragon
ARM chipsets and speedy emulation layers like GameNative steal away
those advantages, there's less and less reason to stick with x86. ARM
devices have better battery life, better performance at the
resolutions handhelds use, and even have the benefit of running ARM
apps. I can well imagine Valve looking at shims like GameNative when considering the design of SteamDeck 3.

There will likely always be a place for AMD/Intel x86/x64 chips on
desktops and laptops... but for the tiny hand-held PCs? I can imagine
the market moving to ARM.


What do you think? Will ARM systems supercede x64 on hand-held PCs or
will Intel/AMD maintain their hold on that market?


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