Front page layout
Site theme
Sign up or login to join the discussions!
Kyle Orland –
In true Musk style, the informal announcement of those plans came via a thrown-off tweet in a thread expressing admiration for CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 (a game that has previously been demoed running on the infotainment system for the Model S Plaid). «We’re working through the general case of making Steam games work on a Tesla vs specific titles,» Musk wrote. «Former is obviously where we should be long-term.»
A car’s infotainment center may seem like an odd fit for many of the high-end games available on Steam. But Tesla cars have long sported high-end graphics cards at the heart of both their Media Control Units (for the infotainment console) and the Electronic Control Units used to power the cars’ autopilot self-driving systems.
At the Computex conference last June (as reported by The Verge), AMD CEO Lisa Su said the company was working with Tesla to provide Ryzen APUs and «a discrete RDNA2-based GPU that kicks in when running AAA games, providing up to 10 teraflops of compute power.» That would put the system roughly on par with a modern console like the PlayStation 5, though some of that 10 teraflops may be split among other components (like the ECU) that can’t be used for gaming.
Su added that «we look forward to giving gamers a great platform for AAA gaming,» a statement that takes on new meaning in light of Musk’s tweet about Steam. Tesla Autopilot Analyst Dan James also tweeted back in May about an opportunity for «Linux game devs to work on something extremely exciting at Tesla!» Reading between the lines a bit, that could also be a reference to plans for integration with Steam and the Proton-powered Steam Play system that lets Windows-based games run on Linux platforms such as the Steam Deck (and Tesla cars).
You must login or create an account to comment.
Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox.
CNMN Collection
WIRED Media Group
© 2022 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20) and Ars Technica Addendum (effective 8/21/2018). Ars may earn compensation on sales from links on this site. Read our affiliate link policy.
Your California Privacy Rights | Do Not Sell My Personal Information
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.
Ad Choices
