We think customers are better off if a developer can focus on the one best version of their game, rather than making and maintaining many separate builds-- especially if one build ends up as a second-class experience missing some testing or updates. We've spent a lot of effort making it as easy as possible to run that best version on Steam Frame. For most developers that probably means running Windows x86 via Proton and FEX.

For VR developers that have already spent the effort to make a mobile optimized version of their game for other hardware (typically Android Arm64), we think it makes sense to run that version on Steam Frame.

Steam Frame natively runs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (Arm64) chip on SteamOS (Linux Arch-based) and includes a range of compatibility layers for other Operating Systems and architectures.

Windows via Proton

Windows games can be run via Proton. Proton is a compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Linux by using a modified version of Wine and a collection of high-performance graphics API implementations such as dxvk which translates DirectX to Vulkan (Steam Frame's native graphics API).

Android via Lepton

Android games can be run via Lepton. Lepton is a compatibility layer that allows Android games to run on Linux. It is implemented as a container to minimize overhead.

x86 via FEX

x86 (32-bit and 64-bit) via FEX. FEX translates x86 compiled games to Arm64 instructions, but forwards API calls to native host system libraries like OpenGL or Vulkan to reduce emulation overhead, and leverages code caching to minimize in-game stuttering as much as possible.