They still make games lmao. Did people seriously forget about Half Life Alyx?
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Steam to End Support for macOS Mojave and 32-Bit Games
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They still make games lmao. Did people seriously forget about Half Life Alyx?
Ha yeah I know it was sarcasm but of course, those games don’t need more than 4 gigs of ram.
I suppose emulation is still an option. Except now that I think about it I’m not sure a lot of platforms can even emulate 32 bit code these days short of a full hypervisor.
I'm patiently waiting for an AS native Steam client, please Gabe
They are working on a ARM version of Steam...for Chromebooks.
Steamworks Development - Steam on Chrome OS Alpha - Steam News
Run Steam games on the latest Chromebook hardware
We probably won't see an Apple Silicon native version of Steam until after Steam for ChromeOS is done.
Give into temptation. You know your heart and mind wants it.
Plus you can use it as a regular workstation, which many do. UCLA for example uses Steam Decks to control their robots
A DJ in Japan uses a Steam Deck to drive his turntable
But even bigger than that, is the Steam Deck is being used in war. The Ukrainian Army is using Steam Decks to control their remote sentry turrets to turn the invading bears into sunflowers. (Slava Ukraini)
Steam Deck in the Ukraine War: How it controls guns remotely
Valve's handheld Steam Deck is being used by Ukrainian soldiers to control stationary MGs.
www.pcworld.com
So not only do you have your favorite games with you wherever you go, you are free to do whatever you want with your Deck since the handheld is 100% open, both in software and hardware. Valve even lets you completely uninstall SteamOS 3 and install Windows should you so choose (but hardly anyone does since they don't need to due to how good SteamOS 3 is)
As an aside, someone turned their Steam Deck into a Hackintosh
This Steam Deck game console can run full macOS
In theory, macOS was designed to work exclusively with Macs. However, there are many ways to install Apple’s operating system...
9to5mac.com
Again Mac is loosing more games…. Sad and no I don’t consider flappy bird a game
Well, this freaking sucks. I guess I couldn't play them on my current MBP anyways, but really? Why now?
At least the 64-bit version of Garry's Mod exists. And I really hope that the Game Porting Toolkit gets much better for older games.
At least the 64-bit version of Garry's Mod exists. And I really hope that the Game Porting Toolkit gets much better for older games.
EXACTLY, they had YEARS to update their games and they still haven't.
That doesn't make sense. If most Mac users who have Steam are on 10.15 (Catalina) or higher then they've already lost the ability to run 32 bit games by virtue of their version of macOS not supporting them, even if Steam had them available.
Once people are unable to go online in Steam due to not being supported, they will be unable to connect and download games .
Best bet now for people who are about to be unsupported is to install all the 32 bit games they have bought while they can.
Most of the 32 bit games should run in offline mode with the exception being any DLC that requires a Steam online connection.
As the article states if you read it fully it's because Chrome is losing support for the older versions of macOS, which Steam uses. If Valve had things their way they'd keep supporting the 32 bit games for Mac, but because Apple is being Apple, their hands are tied. So long story short, it's all Apple's fault gaming on Mac sucks, as usual
Read my reply from page 1 to why Valve didn't update their games to 32 bit:
The Steam client is just an Electron app and Electron has supported Apple Silicon since early on. There really isn't much tinkering they need to do to make it native. I suspect their lingering 32 bit support is what prevented them from adopting an Apple Silicon-native version of Electron, but since they're dropping 32-bit then they could pretty easily adopt the Universal version.They are working on a ARM version of Steam...for Chromebooks.
Steamworks Development - Steam on Chrome OS Alpha - Steam News
Run Steam games on the latest Chromebook hardwarestore.steampowered.com
We probably won't see an Apple Silicon native version of Steam until after Steam for ChromeOS is done.
Why do we even need an ARM native version of Steam ? It runs well in Rosetta 2 and shouldn't affect the performance of the actual game being played.
I'm curious how Windows on ARM's x86/x64 emulation would handle some older 32-bit (and non-Mac 64-bit) games. I play Galactic Civilizations II and III and Megaman 11 on Windows on ARM via Parallels on a 14" M1 Pro MBP and the performance is excellent and I've not had any compatibility issues. I need to test Cities: Skylines (the first version) to see how well it runs for the eventual day when Rosetta support drops.
Think about all the old software that was developed by single enthusiast developers who did no longer have the time to create a 64 bit version or simply died many years ago. I still remember the Apple keynote with an old grandma that had developed an app. Not sure if she is still alive, but at least her app should live forever. That is especially true for desktop apps. I still use some software from 1998 on my windows PC. It can only work with a single core, but at least it still works.
There also is a lot of software that does not really have any advantage from 64 bit.
Operating systems should support all software indefinitely. Sometimes you spent money on software two decades ago, but it would still work great today, if it still was supported. I do not want to buy new software just because of the operating system, as I hate any kind of updates. I still run Photoshop CS2, which is 18 years old.
There also is a lot of software that does not really have any advantage from 64 bit.
Operating systems should support all software indefinitely. Sometimes you spent money on software two decades ago, but it would still work great today, if it still was supported. I do not want to buy new software just because of the operating system, as I hate any kind of updates. I still run Photoshop CS2, which is 18 years old.
Love that Steam is effectively trying to blame Apple for their decision 😂
Would be nice so Steam isn't using as much power
Also be careful, because talking about compatibility layers will ruffle some feathers here.
I mean it is Apple's fault. Apple forcing app notarization on every compile even small bugfix updates, forcing everyone to use 64 bit only offering no compatibility modes for legacy software like Windows 11 does, and axing all open source APIs forcing everyone on Metal. Mojave and Catalina did longterm damage to Mac gaming, damage that may never be recovered from. Even with the Game Porting Toolkit for many developers it's too little too late as many still are choosing to boycott Apple.
I think the point is that 98% of Mac users already lost access to 32-bit games when they updated past Mojave two or three years ago. The number of people who are still running old versions of macOS in order to play 32-bit games is vanishingly small when compared to the rest of Steam's install base. Honestly, good on them for supporting it this long.
Get a Steam Deck or similar or build a PC. Forget Mac OS as a gaming platform, yes they have made some strides, but when they ditch 32 bit app support and lock it down to enforce that ban, who knows what else they‘ll ditch in the future? 64 bit eventually no problem for Apple. Unless Crossover or Parallels can still run 32bit games and apps?
I'll jump on that bandwagon, as a person who doesn't even have a Steam Deck I find myself becoming shockingly evangelical for them over time. With this latest refresh adding more storage at the same price tiers it becomes more and more likely that my gaming PC will be getting replaced instead of getting the upgrades it desperately needs. 😂
This sucks for another reason, which is that Steam doesn't seem to make any effort to see which apps are actually 32-bit. They rely completely on whoever maintains the product page to set the flag. So there are 64-bit games that are still marked 32-bit.
This is spectacularly lazy of Valve because they collect data on who is playing which games on which operating systems, so they could easily see that players are running (for example) Endless Space 2 or Figment on 64-bit MacOS.
(So why doesn't the developer update the flag? In some cases the developer isn't in charge of their own product page, it's the publisher.)
This is spectacularly lazy of Valve because they collect data on who is playing which games on which operating systems, so they could easily see that players are running (for example) Endless Space 2 or Figment on 64-bit MacOS.
(So why doesn't the developer update the flag? In some cases the developer isn't in charge of their own product page, it's the publisher.)
They can. Even GPTK can run 32 bit games so you can use Whisky as a free alternative.
Which makes Apple's lack of a compatibility mode even more baffling, but hey it's Apple so what did we expect?
For some developers they simply don't know or forgot. When I first switched to Mac I did some testing, found the games that did work, and emailed some developers to inform them to check that box. Only a few responded to my emails and actually did it, like the team behind Outlast.
