Chromebooks have long been popular among students, teachers, and parents because they are durable, budget-conscious, and capable laptops

Productivity aside, Chromebooks have rarely been effective gaming machines; Chrome Unboxed has discovered a Chromium OS build configuration of a Chromebook (codenamed "Mushu") with an AMD discrete GPU The company claims to have found a Chromium OS build configuration While not verified, this could be a big deal since it would be the first Chromebook with a discrete GPU and thus the first Chromebook with enough rendering power to run graphics-intensive PC games

But wait, can a Chromebook play the latest and greatest PC games while running the Linux-based Chrome OS?

The answer is that you can't, unless companies like Epic and Valve work with Google to make PC game storefronts like the Epic Games Store and Steam available on Chrome OS, Android Police reported in 2020 reported in 2006 that Google is working with Valve to make that happen; when interviewing Google executive Kan Liu at CES 2020, the Android Police team told him that the Chrome OS team is working with Valve's Steam client on Chrome OS team to bring Valve's Steam client to Chromebooks, presumably with Valve's help

Now that sharp-eyed Chromium watchers have discovered build configurations of Chromebooks with AMD discrete GPUs, Liu's comments make more sense Today's premium Chromebooks (like the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 pictured above) can run many browser-based games and Google Play games can be run properly, but getting them to run the latest 3D games is a difficult proposition And that's after sorting out the potential pitfalls of running games on Chrome OS using vectors like Steam for Linux and the Steam Link Android app

But all that could change if Google makes a concerted push to improve the PC gaming situation on Chromebooks: the Chrome Unboxed team will allow Steam to run in a container on Chromebooks They are looking at a branded Chrome OS app called Borealis They also note code comments in Chromium that suggest Google is working on a "game mode" for Chromebooks

Of course, we'll have to see how well these projects work out before we start praising Chrome OS as the next big thing in budget PC gaming But if this all comes to fruition, we may see Chromebooks rubbing shoulders with the best gaming laptops in the near future