this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Valve reportedly cooking native Linux version of Half-Life: Alyx, optimized for Steam Frame VR (www.tweaktown.com)
submitted 6 days ago by cm0002@no.lastname.nz to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
105 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

TL;DR: Valve launched the Steam Frame VR headset with an Arm-based Snapdragon chip, aiming to run Half-Life: Alyx natively and streamed from PC. The new hardware features a "Frame Verified" status for optimized games, while rumors suggest two upcoming Half-Life titles supporting PC and VR cooperative play.

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[–] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 33 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Does this mean steam is soon to distribute ARM Linux native builds?

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Would hope so. Maybe that means linux phones will be able to run steam.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 19 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What I wouldn't give for a Valve Phone now that you mention it.

[–] missphant@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Valve engineers fed up with software, singlehandedly make arch-based handheld, arch-based gaming console, arch-based VR headset, arch-based smartphone, arch-based EV.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 6 points 5 days ago

How to print infinite money

[–] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

Just had a funny thought of a tech bro with the Arch based EV, deciding to install Manjaro instead, and breaking their EV after a bad update.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You can already run Steam games on Android, using the same protocol as Valve (FEx) with an app called GameNative.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Not Android, phones based on a desktop Linuc distro (e.g. PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch)

[–] trigonated@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

GameNative works on Android. Not sure what it uses behind the scenes to run windows software, tho.

Edit: I might've misinterpreted what you wrote, oops. Nonetheless, I'll keep this as it's still afaik correct info.

[–] barkingspiders 13 points 6 days ago (4 children)

probably not, they've been building a translation layer called FEX that does x86 -> ARM, reasonable to expect it's an x86 build optimized for FEX and the hardware specs of the Frame https://github.com/FEX-Emu/FEX

but honestly who knows, they might just release an ARM native build, it's their own damn game, they were one of the earliest gaming companies to port games originally written for windows to linux, it's entirely possible they'll do a full port (am I remembering wrong internet?)

the FEX thing is underrated, I know FEX isn't new but the news that we can expect to performantly run almost our entire steam catalogue on ARM hardware is wild

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 14 points 6 days ago

Steam Frame is going to have a snapdragon processor and will "be a computer".

So there will be an ARM native Steam client (and Steam OS that may or may not be SteamOS). Just a question on whether that gets a wider release.

But yes. Games themselves will be heavily dependent on FEX.

[–] Hazzard@lemmy.zip 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Eh, if they're doing it for Half Life Alyx, it'll likely work like Proton, where Steam will automatically install a native version if it's available, and you can "force a compatibility tool" if you'd prefer to run the original version through FEX. Presumably any dev would be able to upload a native ARM version for Steam Frame/a hypothetical Steam Deck 2, but I imagine very few will.

Edit: Valve engineers pretty much confirmed this to Gamer's Nexus, as they described Steam automatically installing the best version for your device, and that you can manually override that.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Honestly these days the list of things you can't easily compile natively for ARM is getting pretty scarce. It's actually kind of surprising to me that there would even be a significant need for an emulation layer, versus just working directly on compiler and runtime support directly.

[–] Natanael 3 points 5 days ago

FEX will have a performance penalty for CPU bound games (not for graphics if it supports Vulkan (yay passthrough)) so native is better

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

We'll see ARM Steam before 64bit Steam.

[–] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago

Isn’t 64bit Steam Client due to drop for Windows imminently? They end 32bit support at the start of next year supposedly.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

I doubt "soon." but hopefully this is a step in that direction.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

No, they are building a translation framework for x86

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think they meant the Steam client.

Plus they already said that they would support game binaries built for ARM. Would be stupid not to.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Support meaning in their build system. They've already added that as a build option awhile ago. Just means you can set a flag to build for more platforms now, and they have arm64 machine types to handle the builds.

Devs still need to do optimizations to support this in most cases. Some games based on open frameworks won't have much to do but flip the switch.