I don’t have the fastest ARM machine in the world, but arguably the most open (a MNT Reform laptop) and I was very pleased to see how advanced Linux ARM support is now when I first got it. With a few exceptions, there’s essentially zero things you can do on amd64 that you can’t do on aarch.
And since the only games that interest me are more or less turn of the century or older, it’s plenty fast enough for my gaming needs.
Hey, that’s an interesting laptop, thanks for sharing! One question about it if you don’t mind. On the website, they position the notebook as “Open Hardware”:
Open Hardware
All sources public
Modifiable & reproducibleHowever, if I go to the details, I see that the CPU is an ARM Cortext-A76/55. That is not open is it? Not all sources are public for it, it’s not modifiable or reproducible. Is the CPU an implied exception to their statement above? Are you aware of other “exceptions”? Or maybe I don’t understand something? It does look this way though.
It’s as open as humanly possible, is a better way of putting it. Indeed ARM CPUs aren’t fully open. Also, depending on your particular compute module and options, other things aren’t open, like GPU or Wifi driver binary blobs. But the non-open bits are listed when you configure the machine, if this is particularly important to you.
If you absolutely insist on 100% open, there’s theKintex-7 FPGA compute module: you can do whatever you want with it and it’ll be totally open. But the price is… fantastical. But hey, it exists if you have the money 🙂
As of when? My M2 (base) MacBook Air is not the fastest ARM computer in the world, but it’s been able to play Cyberpunk since what, May? June? Whenever it came out on Mac. Though, the ARM port of Cyberpunk exists because of the Switch 2. Other ARM platforms just benefit from it.
Watched the first half of the video. The video does mention the M4 Mac mini, and the neat thing about M4 (they’re up to M5 now) is that it supports ray tracing natively.
So whether you’re on an iPhone, an Android phone, a Switch or Switch 2, a Mac, or a PC running ARM, it’s long since past time to retire the notion that ARM means weak. It hasn’t for a long time. It’s still more power efficient than x86-64. It’s a fine platform for browsing and casual work. For AI stuff and high end gaming, you might still want x86-64 for its power throughput, but ARM is getting very punchy for games. The last few generations of iPhone are very good for gaming, at least for rendering games. Jury’s still out whether a 6.5" (average) touch panel is the best way to game (I think not). But the CPU/GPU are there. Android is catching up. And of course on the desktop you have more options. More room, better cooling. Macs are leading the charge in desktop ARM, but PC ARM is picking up, too, and Qualcomm is making some impressive hardware there as well.
Note that my M2 MacBook Air gets better performance than his rig. I get around 20-25FPS, but I get no traffic or pedestrians. They made some interesting compromises to make the game work. My M2 Pro Mac mini plays it a little better, but I’d just rather play on Xbox.
