This would presumably let x86 windows games run on ARM hardware.
This is almost certainly meant for the next Valve VR headset, but ARM has so much better power efficiency than x86 that a future ARM based Deck would be a huge improvement to battery life.
Also see this tweet:
VR games that have already secretly pushed Android ARM builds onto the Steam Store are ran via Waydroid (androidARM to LinuxARM)
VR games that do not have an ARM build on Steam (windows x86) are being translated/emulated via ProtonARM and FEX
And the second example is Rosetta 2 for gaming on ARM-based Macs. You mentioned that some emulators running x86 games (on ARM) are inefficient.
That’s the point: emulation is not the same as translation.
Translation is generally more efficient than emulation and can sometimes even match or exceed the performance of native execution.
Apple’s M-chips have dedicated hardware to accelerate rosetta 2 (support for x86 memory ordering), please stop using rosetta2 as a show of what x86 on ARM can do, as it is a vertically integrated piece of software that is not indicative of the current market for anyone outside of apple.
Just take a look at windows on those new qualcomn chips - when they do the translation, the performance is underwhelming to say the least.
Yes, it will improve, but it currently does not exist outside of Apple.