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Valve appears to be testing a version of its Proton translation layer – which facilitates playing Windows games on Linux – built for Arm processors (as opposed to x86 CPUs).
Tom’s Hardware spotted that in Valve’s recent round of testing a large number of PC games with Proton, there seems to be an Arm64 version of the tool (called ‘proton-arm64ec-4’) which is also being tried out with a whole bunch of titles.
Tom’s notes that this includes the likes of Left 4 Dead 2 and Shadows of Mordor, to pick a couple of more high-profile examples.
For some, this hints at the possibility Valve could be considering releasing a version of SteamOS for Arm64, meaning a potential Steam Deck running with an Arm chip as its engine – like the silicon that powers Copilot+ PCs, the new Snapdragon X processors – as opposed to an x86 AMD (custom Zen 2) CPU, which powers the Deck currently.
Analysis: Eyeing the potentially explosive growth in Copilot+ PCs?
What would the point be of such an Arm-toting Steam Deck? Well, we could be looking at a more wallet-friendly Deck with better battery life, in theory. Although that said, x86 is making big strides in terms of improving battery life as it is (just look at Intel’s new Lunar Lake mobile chips). Also, as Tom’s points out, the entry-level Steam Deck is already pretty affordable as it is – particularly when it’s on sale.
Rather than this being part of the future plans for Valve’s gaming handheld, what’s probably more likely is that Valve is simply looking more broadly to make a version of Steam for Arm-based Windows 11 laptops like the aforementioned Copilot+ PCs.
After all, we’ve been hearing quite a lot about how the sales spike in these Copilot+ PCs will be huge in 2025, if analysts are to be believed (add seasoning, naturally). So, perhaps Valve is eyeing that potential casual gaming market.
Of course, Arm-based Snapdragon X-powered Copilot+ laptops already do emulation of x86 PC games, using Microsoft’s Prism technology – but while this works well enough for a good number of titles, there have been a surprisingly large amount of games left out in the cold. Gamers feel that Microsoft hasn’t fully delivered on its big gaming promises with Snapdragon chips.
At any rate, what’s happened here only represents an early hint that Valve is working on developing Proton for Arm chips, and nothing may come of it. In short, we need to watch this space, but there’s bound to be plenty of speculation about where Valve’s going with this – if anywhere.
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