January 29, 2026
Emulation Wars: Popcorn Ready
Box64 Expands into RISC-V and LoongArch territory
Gamers cheer, purists nitpick, geopolitics crash the party
TLDR: Box64 v0.4 makes Steam run on RISC‑V and LoongArch, promising faster, leaner game translation and even Battle.net support. Comments split between hype for multi‑platform gaming, nitpicks over “Milk‑V” versus Sophgo chips, and a fiery sanctions debate over Loongson’s future outside China — all eyes on faster CPUs next
Box64 just dropped a big update and the comments went nuclear. The open‑source tech that translates PC games to run on other chips now says Steam runs on RISC‑V and LoongArch (alongside ARM). Fans are hyped about old favorites booting on weird new hardware, while devs tease speed boosts from a cleaner “instruction decoder,” smarter memory use, and early support for NTSync that testers claim brings huge frame‑rate gains on Loongson chips. Gamers yelled “more platforms, more fun,” and yes, Battle.net launches and Hearthstone plays — cue the “my grandma’s laptop can game now” jokes.
Then the thread detonated over details. One eagle‑eyed commenter corrected a video callout: it wasn’t a “Milk‑V processor” at all — Milk‑V sells boards; the chip is likely the 64‑core Sophgo SG2042 — sparking memes about “64 cores of sadness” and “Steam on a space heater.” Optimists claim this is the beginning of hardware freedom, skeptics clap back that emulation isn’t magic and the chips still need to get faster. And the geopolitical subplot? Spicy. Some call U.S. bans on China’s Loongson “anti‑competition,” others say “national security first,” noting most readers won’t ever touch those CPUs anyway. Want receipts? Check Box64 and meet Loongson.
Key Points
- •Box64 v0.4 (released early January 2026) expands support to RISC-V and LoongArch, enabling the Linux version of Steam to run on both architectures.
- •The RISC-V backend gets major dynarec upgrades, including better x87 emulation and expanded opcode support, improving compatibility with legacy games.
- •A rewrite of x86 instruction prefix handling across interpreter and dynarec backends adds support for rare instructions and simplifies the codebase.
- •DynaCache now recycles dead native code blocks to lower memory usage, and early NTSync support (with specific kernel/Wine-GE) yields up to 80% FPS gains on LoongArch hardware.
- •Compatibility improvements include working Battle.net launcher and better support for DRM-protected launchers like Battle.net, EA App, and Rockstar Launcher.