The Khronos Group, the organization behind the Vulkan graphics API that forms the backbone of gaming on Linux, has officially listed the Valve Steam Machine on its database of conformant products. The Steam Machine showed up on the Vulkan database on May 23 sporting Vulkan 1.4 support and AMD Navi 33 GPU hardware. The spec sheet listed in the database indicates that the Steam Machine in question is still on the Linux kernel version 6.16, which is the latest version recently released in the SteamOS Beta 3.85 in mid-May.
While there is no launch date or other novel information listed in the Vulkan database, the addition of the Steam Machine to the database is an indication that Valve may be preparing for an imminent Steam Machine launch. This is also reinforced by the fact that the Steam Machine was submitted to the database with a current version of SteamOS running—even if it is a beta version—suggesting that SteamOS support for the Steam Machine has progressed beyond the previously indicated “initial support” phase. At this point, it seems like one of the last, if not the last, remaining roadblocks hindering the launch of the Steam Machine is the current RAM crisis and its associated hardware shortages.
