Elon Musk has asserted that development work to get the PC’s Steam library of games working in Tesla vehicles is in progress. In a tweeted reply to CD Projekt Red’s official Cyberpunk 2077 account and IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey, Musk said that Tesla was working to make Steam games available to its vehicle owners in general, rather than just supporting one-off titles. This level of support is almost up there with the promise of the Steam Deck – in other words if any particular Steam game isn’t supported, it will be regarded as a bug.
We’re working through the general case of making Steam games work on a Tesla vs specific titles. Former is obviously where we should be long-term.February 22, 2022
In a follow-up quip on Twitter someone asked whether there was a Cyberpunk on the Cybertruck guarantee, to which Musk simply replied “100%.” Elon Musk has previously stated that users will be able to play Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 on the revamped in-car entertainment system, so that much was known before today’s Tweet. However, the goal of wider compatibility with the full gamut of the PC Steam library is the big news today.
Tesla pushed the boundaries with in-car infotainment possibilities right back when the first Model S premium electric sedan was launched in 2012. However, the entertainment potential of these big screens is being given a significant lift with Tesla moving on from systems running Intel Atom chips to AMD’s modern Ryzen APUs, wielding powerful multi-core CPUs and GPUs. Vehicles with the new AMD processors are already rolling off the production line, as we reported at the New Year.
So, what kind of performance might a Steam gamer expect from their new Tesla with an AMD APU literally under the hood? Some early tests we have seen showed the AMD powered infotainment system performing three or four times faster in general application usage, compared to the Intel based system of old. For gaming, we have to take Tesla’s word for it for now, and the company has said that the revamped infotainment system has more muscle than a PlayStation 5.
The latest specs we have for the AMD APU being used, suggest it is a custom Ryzen YE180FC3T4MFG with a quad-core 12nm 3.8 GHz Zen+ CPU with 4MB of L3 cache, with a 3D accelerated helping hand provided by built-in RDNA2 graphics cores. Tesla systems use a customized Linux OS.
Even with its powerful driver assistance system, we don’t expect drivers to be indulging in Steam gaming while in control of a vehicle. However, the in-car entertainment system could be a boon for passengers, and for times when drivers are making a charging pit stop.
