Friday Facts #446 - An ARM and a Frame

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-446

[luziferius]

There's a weird referer URL in the debootstrap link in the blog post. Is that supposed to be there?

But it is very nice that you link to everything used, makes it a great reference for others to learn from!

[ledow]

Run things on Linux rather than (equivalent) Windows machines, they get faster.

Run things on ARM rather than (equivalent) x86 machines, they get faster.

It's always been true, we are still lumbered with the slowest piece of junk for gaming / performance just because it's "mainstream".

I was coding games on AA-battery-powered ARM Linux handhelds 20 years ago and they are so much nicer to code on and get more out of the machine.

So glad I ditched Windows entirely last year (always had Linux but for the first time in over 30 years, I've no Windows anywhere at all). Just a shame that ARM hardware is still so niche on the desktop/laptop market.

Hell, ARM actually outnumbers x86 processors in my house by quite a margin. Even if you include the 80386SL that's inside the NetportExpress that keeps my 25-year-old Centronics-only laser printer working. I have a rack of Pi's doing all kinds of jobs for far, far, far less electricity than even a single x86 machine would pull.

[burninghey]

Crazy! Android next?

[raiguard]

There's a weird referer URL in the debootstrap link in the blog post. Is that supposed to be there?

But it is very nice that you link to everything used, makes it a great reference for others to learn from!

Thanks, that was not intended and I have removed it. The debian wiki appears to do an anti-AI-scraper challenge when I open it from Kagi (my search engine of choice), but not from Google. That is bizarre.

[BlueTemplar]

EDIT : Congratulations on all the porting work !

We had to work with Valve to implement a workaround which involves shipping both binaries to all players and using a shell script to launch the correct binary based on the host architecture.

Factorio has been working for years in a portable, cross-platform way by just copying the binaries for both Linux and Windows into the /bin/x64/ folder.

Well, and having to change /config/config.ini :
between

Code: Select all

[path]
read-data=__PATH__executable__/../../data
write-data=__PATH__executable__/../..

and

Code: Select all

[path]
read-data=__PATH__executable__\..\..\data
write-data=__PATH__executable__\..\..

With the big CAVEAT that you could NOT UPDATE the game any more (because only one of the binaries would be updated).

So now, how about having a truly portable, cross-platform version with ALL the binaries ?
And with update support !
(Factorio's overall installer size has grown so much that some people might appreciate the convenience despite the cost of a slightly larger installer size...)

----

the best options were tied to companies whose ultimate motivations and privacy standards are not acceptable to me

Speaking of, maybe remove links to Reddit (and Facebook / Twitter / Discord) on your website ?
And maybe avoid linking to GitHub / Reddit / YouTube in official blog posts ?

[Rseding91]

Speaking of, maybe remove links to Reddit (and Facebook / Twitter / Discord) on your website ?
And maybe avoid linking to GitHub / Reddit / YouTube in official blog posts ?

No.

[sicksock]

Very cool. Thanks heaps. Now I am considering getting a VR headset so I can rule over my factory like a giant spidertron.

[raiguard]

So now, how about having a truly portable, cross-platform version with ALL the binaries ?
And with update support !
(Factorio's overall installer size has grown so much that some people might appreciate the convenience despite the cost of a slightly larger installer size...)

Each binary is several hundred MB, and there is little to no point in shipping a cross-platform "fat" binary. It would just add more deploy targets and make deploys take even longer than they already do for no real benefit.

Speaking of, maybe remove links to Reddit (and Facebook / Twitter / Discord) on your website ?
And maybe avoid linking to GitHub / Reddit / YouTube in official blog posts ?

Having links to popular social media sites is nowhere near the same thing as wearing a VR headset with cameras whose privacy policies allows [company] to store pictures of your living room on their servers.

[erectile_pisfunction]

Finally I can host natively on RPi servers!

Considering how ARM64 has been increasing in popularity over the last decade, maybe in another 10 years we will get an official RISC-V port when the single board computers start getting more stable OS targets...?

[bombcar]

Wait, have I been playing Factorio on Mac on Rosetta these many years?

unpossible!

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-371

whew

Interesting that the Mac arm64 wasn't the source of the Linux arm64.

[eugenekay]

Of course we are going to support the Raspberry Pi, especially considering that I used mine to obtain the initial sysroots used in development! Unfortunately, the Pi's OpenGL support is rather limited, so while you can easily host servers from a Pi, you cannot play the game with graphics.

You can override the OpenGL driver auto-detection (to fake Pi's compatibility with 4.3, while also forcing the Pi to use specific profile):

$ MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.3 MESA_GLSL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=430 ./bin/arm64/factorio

After waiting a LONG TIME at the loading screen:

20260918_10h07m27s_grim.png (1.78 MiB) Viewed 1513 times

Not perfect, but the game runs! I will have to do more experimenting with OpenGL profiles to fix the rendering issues - and switch to a Raspberry Pi 5 for better performance.

Thanks a bunch!

[Oktokolo]

So will there be VR treadmill support for moving the player character when the player moves?

[Npl]

yay, headless arm64 build finally?

kinda ridiculous for it to take VR glasses and Valve Advertisment, and given that theres a MAC build, cross-compile shouldve already be a thing?

Ps. on debian distros you can just install arm64 binaries, compile for arm64, and run the binaries (unit tests) like native binaries automatically using qemu.

```
# the installed "sysroot" should be also usable from clang.
apt install g++-aarch64-linux-gnu qemu-system-arm
dpkg --add-architecture arm64
apt update
# eg. openssl for arm
apt install libssl-dev:arm64
```

[simonmicro]

Hey @raiguard I love your shirt - what a fitting choice while playing on Linux. I was a bit surprised by the video under the "Experience" heading - do I see that correctly, that your devkit-frame has a non-monochrome outside camera? Because it should be monochrome, according to https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/s/FpXGgN9sg1

Also, in case you need another architectures sysroot - checkout https://buildroot.org/, it does not only build the (cross-)toolchain, but also directly a target sysroot with many supported libraries and (disk-)image (e.g. for use with QEMU).

Have fun and thanks for all the work!

[zipsegv]

After a few failed attempts having to do with incompatible glibc versions (which is a dynamic dependency that we, unfortunately, cannot avoid)

Is there a reason you can't use musl and statically link that? Do you rely on glibc-specific functionality?

[motmontheinternet]

do I see that correctly, that your devkit-frame has a non-monochrome outside camera?

You do not see correctly. That's just what the monochrome camera on the Frame looks like.

[gallomimia]

So, what exactly is needed before any graphical play of Factorio is possible on a raspberry Pi? That seems like an essential thing for learning worldwide!

[GalegO]

Question: I have a Steam Deck but I don't like the UI for it, how can I change it to the same as Desktop? Cannot find into the config menus.

[gallomimia]

So will there be VR treadmill support for moving the player character when the player moves?

You better hope it doesn't get realistic when we use modded tier 4 and 5 armor with dozens of exo!