Tesla Is Removing Steam Gaming in New Model S and Model X Vehicles

May 20, 2024

By Karan Singh

Tesla is removing Steam gaming support in newer vehicles

Not a Tesla App

Tesla is no longer including Steam support in any of its newer Model S and Model X vehicles, according to messages received by customers who are awaiting deliveries of the flagship vehicles.

Tesla previously introduced the Steam beta to newer versions of the Model S and Model X refreshes which had 16GB of RAM as part of the 2022 Holiday Update. This update didn’t support slightly older vehicles with only 8GB of RAM, but a retrofit was available for $2,000 USD.

Tesla No Longer Supporting Dedicated GPUs?

The Cybertruck also did not receive a dedicated graphic processing unit (GPU), with many people noting that they did not have access to Steam on their Foundation-series Cybertrucks and GreenTheOnly later confirmed the Cybertruck did not include a GPU. The Cybertruck also shipped with only 8GB of RAM, matching the Model 3 and Model Y MCU 3 versions based on AMD Ryzen chips.

This could be an indication that Tesla is phasing out the GPUs, as well as the larger RAM packages that came bundled with their top-end vehicles, likely due to cost-cutting, hardware streamlining, and optimization.

Tesla is removing Steam support on newer vehicles

Randall

Future of Steam Support

While the AMD Ryzen RDNA-2 APUs that are built into every Tesla MCU are quite powerful and very capable of rendering 3D or 2D graphics when in mobile configurations, there has been a distinct lack of Steam support on other vehicles, due to the 8GB of RAM.

Given the removal of GPUs from the flagship vehicles, there is also a chance that the RAM on newer Model S and X vehicles will also be facing a reduction similar to the Cybertruck. The Steam Beta could very well be on its way out.

The other possible alternative would be an updated Steam Beta that supports 8GB of RAM, and does not require a powerful GPU, as people may not do too much hardcore gaming on their vehicles.

Gaming Alternatives

Some gaming applications still live on in Tesla’s Arcade Mode, including the ever-popular Cuphead, Sky Force Reload, and Vampire Survivors. We previously discussed Tesla’s lack of Google Casting and Apple Airplay, but a fantastic alternative would be providing HDMI pass-through support on the Glovebox USB-C port.

Imagine being able to connect your phone to Tesla’s displays and gaming on a much larger 19” screen (screen size comparison) as seen on the Cybertruck.

The Future of Tesla Compute

Elon Musk mentioned in the 2024 Tesla Earnings Call that the unused compute power of Tesla vehicles not being driven was equivalent to a larger computing system like Amazon’s AWS. One idea floated by Musk was to use the computers of parked vehicles to conduct inference, data processing, and other tasks – selling the compute capabilities of vehicles to external organizations, while also paying back the owner.

Tesla Releases FSD V12.4.3 to Employees

July 4, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

Following the recent release of V12.4.2 to employees and early access testers, Tesla has now released V12.4.3 to employees, according to X user Farzad. The update is version 2024.15.15.

While we haven’t received a full set of release notes to compare against, it seems that this update won’t bring much other than bug fixes. We recently took a deeper look at the new features available on V12.4.2 here.

Update: As expected, the release notes remain the same as FSD v12.4.2 and this update just includes bug fixes.

Given how rapid-fire Tesla has begun releasing updates to internal testers, employees, and early-access customers, it seems there could be a couple more iterations of V12.4 before it hits customers, as Tesla tunes FSD.

Why so many Versions and Delays?

While nobody is happy about delays, one needs to keep in mind that Tesla has to keep safety as a priority for FSD releases. If a release goes out wide to hundreds of thousands of vehicles that are unsafe, there could be considerable impacts on people’s lives.

Beyond that, each subversion is Tesla adjusting their AI model, fine-tuning it to be able to better drive in both normal and edge cases. As such, watching these subversion releases go by is a good thing – at the end of the day, we’ll end up with a better, safer product.

Every version also has to be tested internally first among their dedicated ADAS testers, then among employees, and finally with Tesla’s early-access customers. Once all these people give a green light, and most errors and major bugs are addressed, does a release get the green light to go wide.

So, stay tuned for when this release goes out wider than this leak and possibly comes to your vehicle with nag-free FSD.

First Look at Tesla FSD v12.4.2 - The Update That Removes The Steering Wheel Nag [Video]

July 4, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

Tesla’s FSD V12.4.2 has landed in the wild – at least among early-access customers this week. There have been a few videos and some folks have begun to provide feedback on X, on the update and how it's going.

For now, it hasn’t gone wide to customers and only early-access testers and employees have it on their vehicles. FSD 12.4.2 is update 2024.15.10 and it’s expected to be available to everyone on update 2024.14 who owns or subscribes to FSD… eventually.

Consistent, Confident

Early-access testers have found FSD V12.4.2 to be considerably more confident, and more consistent when it makes decisions. V12.4.2 seems more confident when making unprotected left turns and encountering construction or complex interchanges.

They’ve also had more consistency and confidence with the Auto Speed feature, which adjusts the vehicle’s speed automatically based on traffic conditions, and also noted that it has improvements with lane selection, which was a larger issue in V12.4.1.

Users have also noted that the Vision-Based Driver Monitoring System is more confident and can see better at night. On V12.4.1, the Vision-Based DMS was unavailable at nighttime, and nags would still occur – but on V12.4.2, this restriction appears to be removed.

Regressions

There are still some regressions, with @DirtyTesLa on X noting that V12.4.2 seems to fail a left turn on an unmarked dirt road that it has previously made.

@WholeMarsBlog also noted that he had one critical safety intervention and that FSD missed a turn onto the highway, noting it was a regression from his experience on V12.4.1. Overall, he has had multiple intervention-free drives.

Overall Conclusions

It seems that besides a few minor regressions, V12.4.2 is shaping up to be a good update. There are improvements to the Vision-Based Driver Monitoring System, as well as improvements to decision-making and lane selection.

It is highly possible that V12.4.2 could be the version that unleashes the floodgates of nag-free FSD.