Is 32-bit Steam Client Application going to be discontinued old games made for Earlier versions of Windows/Mac/Linux games are removed?

[Jonathan McEvoy]

I would want to see if Steam Client Update gets the 64-bit support for Windows, Mac and Linux because on 1st January 2019 they will discontinue support for Steam on Windows XP and Vista because they are the oldest OS and in the future is Valve going to optimize the Steam Client App to 64-bit so that they would get the Windows, Mac and Linux to only support 64-bit for Steam and I would hope they would discontinue the 32-bit Steam, 64-bit is more secure for future users and then in the future by either late 2018 or early 2019, they would optimize it for 64-bit for Windows 7/8.1 and 10. Mac OS says they had the 64-bit released but the system report hasn't said its 64-bit...

Version: 1.5
Obtained from: Identified Developer
Last Modified: 23/08/2016, 18:31
Kind: Intel
64-Bit (Intel): No
Signed by: Developer ID Application: Valve Corporation, Developer ID Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
Location: /Applications/Steam.app

I would hope that Valve would hopefully change the system report to 64-bit instead of 32-bit and update Steam to become 64-bit only?

[Snapjak]

It'll eventually happen but right now there's no reason to force a 64-bit client.

[Start_Running]

What does the client being 64-bit have to do with discontinuing 32-bit games?
You can run 32-bit games on your 64-bit operating syste after all.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

The Beta version for MAC is already 64-bit.

You have a thread...

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/1735465524719150040/

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/3/1729837292634519171/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/2/1732089092439020417/

How many are you going to make?

[Jonathan McEvoy]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

The Beta version for MAC is already 64-bit.

You have a thread...

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/1735465524719150040/

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/3/1729837292634519171/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/2/1732089092439020417/

How many are you going to make?

:qr:

Even if I uninstall and reinstall Steam again it still says the same thing...

Version: 1.5
Obtained from: Identified Developer
Last Modified: 23/08/2016, 18:31
Kind: Intel
64-Bit (Intel): No
Signed by: Developer ID Application: Valve Corporation, Developer ID Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
Location: /Applications/Steam.app

I would hope it doesn't say the same thing like this again next year?

[Jonathan McEvoy]

Originally posted by Eisberg:

Originally posted by Jonathan McEvoy:

Even if I uninstall and reinstall Steam again it still says the same thing...

Version: 1.5
Obtained from: Identified Developer
Last Modified: 23/08/2016, 18:31
Kind: Intel
64-Bit (Intel): No
Signed by: Developer ID Application: Valve Corporation, Developer ID Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
Location: /Applications/Steam.app

I would hope it doesn't say the same thing like this again next year?

Apparently the beta branch is 64bit, so opt into the beta branch to get 64bit.

I have found the update for 64-bit and it's x64 launcher and How can I get the Steam up to date to say (64-bit) on the Windows Computer?

Found Steam/bin and that's where 64-bit launcher is?

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Jonathan McEvoy:

Originally posted by Eisberg:

Apparently the beta branch is 64bit, so opt into the beta branch to get 64bit.

I have found the update for 64-bit and it's x64 launcher and How can I get the Steam up to date to say (64-bit) on the Windows Computer?

Found Steam/bin and that's where 64-bit launcher is?

Simple answer: Dont. Just keep on using Steam tue way youve been using it.

[Jonathan McEvoy]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Jonathan McEvoy:

I have found the update for 64-bit and it's x64 launcher and How can I get the Steam up to date to say (64-bit) on the Windows Computer?

Found Steam/bin and that's where 64-bit launcher is?

Simple answer: Dont. Just keep on using Steam tue way youve been using it.

If Mac OS 10.15 was released next Autumn and it said "Steam is not updated because its 32-bit" then it would be a real disaster for the Mac users

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Jonathan McEvoy:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Simple answer: Dont. Just keep on using Steam tue way youve been using it.

If Mac OS 10.15 was released next Autumn and it said "Steam is not updated because its 32-bit" then it would be a real disaster for the Mac users

Steam for MacOS is 64 bit already. Plus, were not in the Steam-for-MacOS-forum. Theres not the slightest sign of Windows removing 32 bit support anytime soom (except for freetard rambling, but they alao claimed batch scripts wont stop runnimg soon amd Windows Vista would prevent you from playing your MP3 collection, so lets not listen to freetards). From what I can tell, Linux isnt leavimg 32 apps in the dust either. Sure, you may have to install some packages to get them to run (because having things just work isnt the Linux way), but that has been the case for years now and its not even that complicated.

[aiusepsi]

Originally posted by Jonathan McEvoy:

If Mac OS 10.15 was released next Autumn and it said "Steam is not updated because its 32-bit" then it would be a real disaster for the Mac users

It would be. But that's not going to happen. Stop worrying.

Originally posted by Eisberg:

There is zero good reasons for them to get rid of 32 bit application support.

That's not true. There are many good reasons. For one, it means every single system library doesn't have to have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, which will reduce the disk space the OS takes up. Or being able to guarantee a non-fragile Obj-C ABI means system frameworks can evolve because they don't have to worry about the fragile base class problem. There's others, too.

There is zero good reasons for them to not support OpenGL 4.2+

This I can kind of understand. OpenGL implementations are big and complex, and contain tons of legacy cruft. The logic of keeping an older version around, but encouraging new investments to either be targeting Metal or a higher-level engine (say, Unreal, Unity, or perhaps Apple's own SceneKit) kind of makes sense.

Where not having up to date OpenGL mostly hurts because of not having a graphics API lingua franca that works across multiple systems. Which brings us to...

There is zero good reasons for them to not support Vulkan

Yeah. Apple should totally support Vulkan. It would make the OpenGL pill a lot easier to swallow if they did.

it is very clear that Apple do not give a rats butt about gaming, and it is time to move away from them.

Yeah, if you care a lot about games, macOS is probably not the place to be. It's great for a lot of things, but gaming is not one of them.

I think you generally should judge platforms by what they're trying to be, not by what you wish they were. Windows is all about jumping through hoops in order to always always always keep old stuff running, no matter what. You should read blogs like "The Old New Thing" to see the outrageous lengths they go to shim old buggy apps to still work on new OSes.
That's a noble goal, but it has costs. Imagine how much extra time it takes to fix a bug in the OS when you also have to also add in a way to expose the old buggy behaviour to particular old apps so that the old app doesn't break.

On the Apple side of things, they are always aggressively carving away legacy stuff and pushing onwards. They've been doing that for years! Remember the howls of outrage when they stopped putting floppy disk drives in computers? Pushing forwards and leaving the past behind, is in its own way, a noble goal too. If it's not a goal you agree with, then yeah, you should use something else.

[tacoshy]

There no 32bit and 64bit libraries. If a game requires 64bit has nothing to do with Steam.
Also 64bit games doesn't require less space.

The only advantage of 64bit Steam would be, that Steam itself (not games on Steam) could use more then 4GB on its own. Since that will never be the case, there is no reason to lock 32bit users out (like every tablet).

[ReBoot]

Well, there's other advantages. Like mandatory SSE2 registers (although this has become boring as Windows requires SSE2 anyway, even on 32 bit), more and wider registers overall allowing for less function calling overhead, but that's hardly beneficial to Steam. On the other hand, 64 bit processes are larger, as a rule of thumb by about 30% due to increased word size. I may be wrong, but I fail to see how Steam would benefit from the better register bank as it's runtime is mostly governed by disk & network I/O which doesn't care whether the process is 32 or 64 bit.

Of course, 64 bit binaries have the horrendous disadvantage of not being able to run on 32 bit systems and there are still many of those around. On the low end, sure, but that's still a market. And having 2 Steam installers would needlessly confuse too many people. Let alone roughly doubling QA and depending on the code structure, development effort needed.

Most of this of course doesn't matter if the OS is hard-switching to 64 bit. I mean, I know I would be pissed if an OS upgrade rendered my old games hard-unplayable without any tweaking I could do to rescue things, but I don't use MacOS. One way or another, offering 64 bit-only for MacOS makes sense when Apple hard-switches.

[aiusepsi]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

One way or another, offering 64 bit-only for MacOS makes sense when Apple hard-switches.

Shipping 64-bit only makes sense for macOS today, because the oldest version of macOS that Steam supports (10.11 El Capitan) doesn't have a 32-bit version, only 64-bit.

And indeed, the main Steam steam_osx executable is 64-bit only on macOS now. There is a stub application which contains a 32-bit steam_osx, but that does nothing but launch the 64-bit steam_osx, which then does the job of actually running the client. This is only the case because the stub application doesn't get autoupdated.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by aiusepsi:

And indeed, the main Steam steam_osx executable is 64-bit only on macOS now. There is a stub application which contains a 32-bit steam_osx, but that does nothing but launch the 64-bit steam_osx, which then does the job of actually running the client. This is only the case because the stub application doesn't get autoupdated.

I suppose that means that the whole topic of 32 vs. 64 bits for Steam on MacOS is moot as it's simply over.

[Jonathan McEvoy]

Originally posted by aiusepsi:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

One way or another, offering 64 bit-only for MacOS makes sense when Apple hard-switches.

Shipping 64-bit only makes sense for macOS today, because the oldest version of macOS that Steam supports (10.11 El Capitan) doesn't have a 32-bit version, only 64-bit.

And indeed, the main Steam steam_osx executable is 64-bit only on macOS now. There is a stub application which contains a 32-bit steam_osx, but that does nothing but launch the 64-bit steam_osx, which then does the job of actually running the client. This is only the case because the stub application doesn't get autoupdated.

It might say "App not optimized" if you have installed Steam on Mac OS for the first time on Mojave?

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Jonathan McEvoy:

and I would hope they would discontinue the 32-bit Steam, 64-bit is more secure for future users

Do you hope they discontinue 32 bit?
Or do you hope they have 64bit because your mac demands it for some reason?

If your os restricts you from using old games with 32 bit, the problem is the os. In other words, if you have less games with that os than before, its not the future, its the past.

If 32 bit wasnt secure enough, how did we survive?