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?

[+KZ]

it would be nice

[Cathulhu]

Well, how many games on Steam do you know that natively support M1?
I know of ONE.

[Anonymous Helper]

yahyagonder の投稿を引用：

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?

Because there is no need or demand for it currently? Apple users make up ~2,5% of Steam's total user base, many of whom still use Intel based Macs. There's also currently only few native M1 games available on Steam and developers aren't in a hurry to support it either. Also who knows when is the next time Apple decides to render old applications obsolete without any consideration to developers or it's user base.

You'll probably have to wait until most of the Mac users have migrated to Arm based macs. I doubt Steam is interested to maintain two clients for Macs. Same goes for the game developers.

[yahyagonder]

It doesn't matter how much or little the Steam Mac app is used. These devices already exist and are more powerful than most computers. In the game world, M1 support has to start somewhere. If Steam doesn't want to do that as a game marketplace, game developers pretty much don't.

[Cathulhu]

yahyagonder の投稿を引用：

It doesn't matter how much or little the Steam Mac app is used. These devices already exist and are more powerful than most computers.

Actually, no. While the M1 is impressive in some ways, it is in no way competitive with a gaming PC.
M1 does have some co-processors for certain tasks like handling Video encoding/decoding which makes them great for video editing, but if it is simply CPU based, the M1 reaches its limits rather early.

https://linustechtips.com/uploads/monthly_2020_11/image.png.80be2c30b41c418a1f5aafb59de99374.png
https://linustechtips.com/uploads/monthly_2020_11/image.png.80be2c30b41c418a1f5aafb59de99374.png

Even current AMD APUs beat the M1 and if we add desktop CPUs, it's not even a contest.
Apple M1 does have some beastly energy efficiency, but their top performance is ok or good, depending on the task.

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m1-vs-amd_ryzen_9_5900x
There you can see how the M1 is simply crushed by a common AMD CPU.

[yahyagonder]

actually i use m1 pro and also there is not only m1 in this family. There are m1 max and m1 ultra in the market. I'm a mac user and I have the right to claim this. I don't think anyone has the right to comment as if it's true that Steam doesn't officially support the M1 family. Especially for people who have nothing to do with mac..

[violet_athena]

Probably because the user base is still small and solving the problems of compiling the code are not worth the engineer's time atm. Eventually they will since Apple will drop Rosetta 2 and they will have to switch. If you want to know, wait for WWDC and see if they are going to announce end of support.

I just want to address some of the comments above.

There are at least a few games that support M1 and new MacOS titles more often tend to rather than not. You wouldn't know though, since starting through the client will force them to use Rosetta. This is an issue for all the MacOS customers that have M1 machines.

Which brings me to the point that although low user base is an excuse for why the thing isn't ready yet, it's not an argument for why it shouldn't be. Obviously Steam are making some profit through the MacOS market and as such, thinking about the support they provide to their paying customers should be a thing. In fact, this argument is completely mute if the profit from those customers is enough to hire a single developer that can recompile this for an M1.

[Homy]

yahyagonder の投稿を引用：

actually i use m1 pro and also there is not only m1 in this family. There are m1 max and m1 ultra in the market. I'm a mac user and I have the right to claim this. I don't think anyone has the right to comment as if it's true that Steam doesn't officially support the M1 family. Especially for people who have nothing to do with mac..

You're absolutley right. PC guys like to cherrypick benchmarks. First of all, CPU Monkey as a source? M1 with 8 CPU cores and 15W against AMD with 24 threads and 105W? Okay then, here is a fairer comparison where M1 Ultra with 60W and 20 cores "crushes" AMD: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m1_ultra_64_gpu-vs-amd_ryzen_9_5900x

Even the fastest AMD APU 5700G with Vega 8 is twice slower than the base M1 Pro with 14 GPU cores in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider which isn't even native for M1, 22 fps on ultra vs. 46.

https://www.notebookcheck.se/AMD-Ryzen-7-5700G-i-en-recension-8-kaernig-desktop-APU-baserad-paa-Zen3-med-Vega-grafikenhet.592130.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html?
https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performance-review/6
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-amd_ryzen_7_5700g-vs-apple_m1_pro_10_cpu_14_gpu

With that said Steam not being native app doesn't matter much since it's only a kind of web browser for authenticating games and fps overlay. One of the major hurdles was fixed though in Sep 2021 when Valve added support for arm64 libraries. It means developers can distribute their games without problem which wasn't possible before. Before M1 native games could only be purchased on Mac App Store but not anymore. Here is a video about it: https://youtu.be/X5uCc1BJGX0

[aiusepsi]

Anonymous Helper の投稿を引用：

I doubt Steam is interested to maintain two clients for Macs.

So, literally part of what I do for a living is maintain the build of software written in C++ for multiple OSes and architectures. Added ongoing maintenance burden of having multiple architectures is basically zero, especially if the two you want to support are x86_64 and arm64, which are easily the two most popular architectures in the world.

Homy の投稿を引用：

With that said Steam not being native app doesn't matter much since it's only a kind of web browser for authenticating games and fps overlay.

Web browsers are actually one of the worst-case scenarios; if a browser is running under Rosetta, the Javascript engine in the browser is using a JIT compiler to compile Javascript into x86_64 instructions at runtime. Rosetta then has to jump in and JIT compile those x86_64 instructions into arm64. Tremendously wasteful.

It's not like Valve has to go to crazy lengths to port the web browser component of Steam to arm64; it's Chromium Embedded Framework, and it compiles for arm64 just fine[cef-builds.spotifycdn.com].

[Papacito62]

I play WT regularly on my MAC M1 and while it is unstable, when it does work it absolutely kicks my Intel PC to the curb. But it freezes about every 4th match, so for 4 games it totally screams at Ultra HQ.. If you all knew how good it could be, you would understand M1 Mac users frustration.

[monkeyraven2000]

I’ve gamed on intel based machines most my life and recently switch to Apple silicon (spec’d out M1 Max, specifically). I thought I’d never say this… but ARM SOC is the future. It overcomes so many limitations of existing architectures. As a data scientist, the unified memory is a game changer. And while I’m not a hard core gamer, the games that run native on Apple silicon really demonstrate how efficient everything is. I can run games at max specs for 6-8 hours on battery power without searing my legs. Never could do that with intel.

[Gordio]

> Web browsers are actually one of the worst-case scenarios; if a browser is running under Rosetta, the Javascript engine in the browser is using a JIT compiler to compile Javascript into x86_64 instructions at runtime. Rosetta then has to jump in and JIT compile those x86_64 instructions into arm64. Tremendously wasteful.

True. That's why I can't use Steam on my M1 for shopping. but with some success I can use streaming (with some "why so slow" pain in the … :D ).

P.S. With Metal support some games "go even further" in gorgeous performance xD

[dan]

Cathulhu の投稿を引用：

Well, how many games on Steam do you know that natively support M1?
I know of ONE.

I don't think that's quite fair. The idea is Valve made their client for macOS, you could have asked that question then "Why make the client for macOS?" But they did.
So for that same reason, I'd expect a Apple Silicon version.
If you go that route.. it's a vicious circle. Why develop a game if there's not even a native client? Etc.

[Scott, President of Dominos]

dan の投稿を引用：

Cathulhu の投稿を引用：

Well, how many games on Steam do you know that natively support M1?
I know of ONE.

I don't think that's quite fair. The idea is Valve made their client for macOS, you could have asked that question then "Why make the client for macOS?" But they did.
So for that same reason, I'd expect a Apple Silicon version.
If you go that route.. it's a vicious circle. Why develop a game if there's not even a native client? Etc.

Cathulu’s a moron. Don’t bother. Look at Homy’s post that debunks everything he says (not that it will stop him from posting disinfo in other threads)

[Joey Tribbiani *]

I think this is a day dream... No game dev go support Mac.