Native Apple M1-Family Support

[yahyagonder]

Why doesn't the Steam app natively support the Apple M1 processor? When I look at the Activity Monitor, it looks Intel-based, when do you plan to build an arm(apple)-based application?

[cocanard]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

I keep having to point out the obvious, but I’ll do it again:

That’s because Valve is going to drop Mac support entirely.

Or they simply do the bare minimum to still get the 1.5% of mac users while spending a minimum amount of ressources.
I don't see them completely abandon the mac version, although macOS is a small percentage of their users, steam is still the main game store on the OS, and they updated steamwork to work under arm64 (which let devs publish a version that is apple silicon native) a long time ago already which probably wouldn't happen if they planned to stop supporting macOS.

[taneriiim]

Diposting pertama kali oleh SlickDrickle:

i love coming to these forums and seeing Mac users cry that steam isnt developed specifically for them when they are such a small insignificant portion of steams user base

Actually it is the opposite: Mac is a way better platform to develop for than a Steam Deck for example, bc Apple Silicon Chips are way more powerful and have much higher sales.

[Scott, President of Dominos]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Mawthra:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

I keep having to point out the obvious, but I’ll do it again:

That’s because Valve is going to drop Mac support entirely.

Source with link to actual verified news from Valve would quell any skepticism about that claim

Why on earth would they announce that? It’s more profitable to pull the rug out from Mac users than risk them not buying more games off Steam.

Diposting pertama kali oleh cocanard:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

I keep having to point out the obvious, but I’ll do it again:

That’s because Valve is going to drop Mac support entirely.

Or they simply do the bare minimum to still get the 1.5% of mac users while spending a minimum amount of ressources.

Think with your head.
I don't see them completely abandon the mac version, although macOS is a small percentage of their users, steam is still the main game store on the OS, and they updated steamwork to work under arm64 (which let devs publish a version that is apple silicon native) a long time ago already which probably wouldn't happen if they planned to stop supporting macOS.

The ARM64 support is for Chromebooks, which are increasingly popular with younger gamers.

If it was for Mac support specifically it would be under Aarch64.

And SteamOS already overtook MacOS in the Steam Survey. Why would they continue paying contractors for a Mac client when it’s easier (and more profitable) to tell those users (who likely already have a gaming PC along side their Mac) to buy a Steam Deck or the upcoming Steam Machines?

[HFM]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

Diposting pertama kali oleh HFM:

So everyone but Valve is capable of creating an app for Apple Silicon... even all my VST plugins (aka.. A LOT) have released Apple Silicon versions but ONE, and they are working on it. These are some esoteric plugins by small teams. And the mulit-billion dollar company Valve can't write an Apple Silicon native client application? BS.

They could do it, it's just not a priority due to revenue it would generate not being worth it to them. I mean the existing client does work, it's just not as good as it could be and has some pretty glaring bugs.

I keep having to point out the obvious, but I’ll do it again:

That’s because Valve is going to drop Mac support entirely.

Going to need a citation on that. Obviously you won't be able to provide one.

The only ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ news they have given regarding macOS support is that they are ending support for macOS 10.13 and 10.14 in Feb 2024. Even the verbiage of that advisory tends to hint toward ongoing support for 64bit only software on macOS. (makes perfect sense)

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/743F-2E0E-C9A5-C375

[Mawthra]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

Why on earth would they announce that? It’s more profitable to pull the rug out from Mac users than risk them not buying more games off Steam.

So that exists only in your head, thanks for confirming that

[Scott, President of Dominos]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Mawthra:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

Why on earth would they announce that? It’s more profitable to pull the rug out from Mac users than risk them not buying more games off Steam.

So that exists only in your head, thanks for confirming that

Okay, you don’t have to listen then. It’s going to be your problem when it happens anyway.

Diposting pertama kali oleh HFM:

Going to need a citation on that. Obviously you won't be able to provide one.

The only ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ news they have given regarding macOS support is that they are ending support for macOS 10.13 and 10.14 in Feb 2024. Even the verbiage of that advisory tends to hint toward ongoing support for 64bit only software on macOS. (makes perfect sense)

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/743F-2E0E-C9A5-C375

I really, really don’t understand what’s so hard to believe here.

Let me repeat it, once more.

Valve doesn’t have a single Mac developer in their offices, the Mac Steam Client is compiled by contractors.

They don’t fix bugs on the client, and ignore any issues related specifically to the Mac client.

Linux is their baby, and they can’t ignore the behemoth that is Windows. But Mac is barely a rounding error to them.

They plan on releasing VR-capable Steam Machines, and their development has heavily invested in their own hardware and operating system.

It’s blatantly obvious what their plans are if you’re not sticking your head in the sand.

Those contractors are watching their yearly renewals closely. If at any point you hear that contractors at Valve are not getting renewed, I expect an apology.

[cocanard]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

The ARM64 support is for Chromebooks, which are increasingly popular with younger gamers.

If it was for Mac support specifically it would be under Aarch64.

And SteamOS already overtook MacOS in the Steam Survey. Why would they continue paying contractors for a Mac client when it’s easier (and more profitable) to tell those users (who likely already have a gaming PC along side their Mac) to buy a Steam Deck or the upcoming Steam Machines?

Okay but who cares if it was initially for chromebook ? that doesn't change the fact they updated steamwork to support apple silicon, they could have done nothing and games that were apple silicon natives would have to use some tricks to get rid of the steamworks.

Also btw what's the point of comparing the steam survey numbers ? linux was in the same situation as macOS only one or two years ago yet there has been a linux version available for a long time (even though this must have been mostly to prepare for the steam deck but I'm not sure they were thinking about that in 2013).

I don't know how Valve calculate its profit but I'm pretty sure having a partially automated build for a platform that is 1.5% of its userbase still is more profitable then stop the support with the "go buy a windows pc or steam deck" argument.

[cocanard]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

Linux is their baby, and they can’t ignore the behemoth that is Windows. But Mac is barely a rounding error to them.

They plan on releasing VR-capable Steam Machines, and their development has heavily invested in their own hardware and operating system.

No sh*t sherlock who could have known their steam client is not the only thing they are working on thanks for letting me know that.
Of course they are not focusing on macOS, linux is "their baby" as you said as it powers their hardware obviously they will focus on that but this isn't an argument to prove they will drop the mac version.

[Mawthra]

Diposting pertama kali oleh cocanard:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

Linux is their baby, and they can’t ignore the behemoth that is Windows. But Mac is barely a rounding error to them.

They plan on releasing VR-capable Steam Machines, and their development has heavily invested in their own hardware and operating system.

No sh*t sherlock who could have known their steam client is not the only thing they are working on thanks for letting me know that.
Of course they are not focusing on macOS, linux is "their baby" as you said as it powers their hardware obviously they will focus on that but this isn't an argument to prove they will drop the mac version.

This guy has no idea what he's talking about (straight up admitted he has no basis for his claims), it's a waste of time entertaining him

[alexmaru]

In February they are deprecating Mojave (because the new Google Chrome will not build anymore). They will need to update Xcode too. Latest Xcode 15 can build for all MacOS, including Catalina (what is next to Mojave).

It this 8 years leap some APIs was deprecated and fully removed, like gamepad's API, so they will need to rewrite the code a bit (like it was with Witcher 2 update).

Of course, it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what "its umbelivable hard to make Steam for arm, bla...bla", they just don't wan't to hire 1 or 2 people with 10k salary/month in total, because its "unvelivable price for a multy millioneer company".

Also, they can make the same Proton work on Mac easely, and all 32 bit games will work the same, as it works on Steam deck. You can check it by yourself, using Wine (Crossover, GPTK, ...). Proton - it's just the Wine, installed inside Steam.

[dan]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

If it was for Mac support specifically it would be under Aarch64.

They are the same thing. Chromebooks and Macs use the same architecture.

[Scott, President of Dominos]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Mawthra:

This guy has no idea what he's talking about (straight up admitted he has no basis for his claims), it's a waste of time entertaining him

I said it was based on conversations with contract MacOS developers. Sorry though, I couldn’t get them to make a notarized written statement for you.

Diposting pertama kali oleh cocanard:

No sh*t sherlock who could have known their steam client is not the only thing they are working on thanks for letting me know that.
Of course they are not focusing on macOS, linux is "their baby" as you said as it powers their hardware obviously they will focus on that but this isn't an argument to prove they will drop the mac version.

And Valve isn’t willing to put in the effort for barely 1.5% of their users when they can make more money by telling them to get a Steam Deck or ♥♥♥♥ off.

Diposting pertama kali oleh dan:

They are the same thing. Chromebooks and Macs use the same architecture.

Incorrect, Aarch64 has Apple specific instructions extended from the ARM set.

[aiusepsi]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

Incorrect, Aarch64 has Apple specific instructions extended from the ARM set.

No, that's actually incorrect. "AArch64" is Arm's own term, nothing to do with Apple at all.

The Armv8-A architecture introduces the ability to use 64-bit and 32-bit Execution states, known as AArch64 and AArch32 respectively. The AArch64 Execution state supports the A64 instruction set. It holds addresses in 64-bit registers and allows instructions in the base instruction set to use 64-bit registers for their processing.

https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/A-Profile%20Architecture

And if you want to target arm64 Linux, you'll configure your compiler with the aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu target triple. For example, that's a tier-1 supported target triple for the Rust language[doc.rust-lang.org].

[Mawthra]

Diposting pertama kali oleh aiusepsi:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Makise Kurisu:

Incorrect, Aarch64 has Apple specific instructions extended from the ARM set.

No, that's actually incorrect. "AArch64" is Arm's own term, nothing to do with Apple at all.

The Armv8-A architecture introduces the ability to use 64-bit and 32-bit Execution states, known as AArch64 and AArch32 respectively. The AArch64 Execution state supports the A64 instruction set. It holds addresses in 64-bit registers and allows instructions in the base instruction set to use 64-bit registers for their processing.

https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/A-Profile%20Architecture

And if you want to target arm64 Linux, you'll configure your compiler with the aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu target triple. For example, that's a tier-1 supported target triple for the Rust language[doc.rust-lang.org].

I wound up blocking that Steam level 0 troll... it's not worth the time going around in circles when he has no factual basis to his claims other than hearsay

[Scott, President of Dominos]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Mawthra:

Diposting pertama kali oleh aiusepsi:

No, that's actually incorrect. "AArch64" is Arm's own term, nothing to do with Apple at all.

https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/A-Profile%20Architecture

And if you want to target arm64 Linux, you'll configure your compiler with the aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu target triple. For example, that's a tier-1 supported target triple for the Rust language[doc.rust-lang.org].

I wound up blocking that Steam level 0 troll... it's not worth the time going around in circles when he has no factual basis to his claims other than hearsay

again, I expect an apology when you're wrong.