64bit Support for macOS Catalina

[alanedwardes]

Hi,

Based on what I have read, it looks like macOS Catalina (slated for release in the next few months) will drop support for 32bit applications. I believe this impacts this SDK, which will mean that my game (Estranged: Act I) and others will cease to run natively on macOS after the user upgrades their OS.

A few questions: 1. Is that assessment correct? I only see 32bit dependencies in this repository for macOS 2. Will this impact Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal? 3. If it does and Valve plans to fix those titles, will that work be upstreamed into this SDK?

Edit - since this is confirmed to be affecting older Valve first party titles, a few questions based on that:

1. Will this be addressed for older Valve first party titles?
2. If it will be, will that work be merged into this SDK?
3. Are there any plans to merge the Vulkan support as described below to this SDK?

Thanks, Alan

[SamWWJD420]

Christopher here nailed it.

On Sun, Mar 7, 2021 at 8:14 PM Christopher Snowhill < notifications@github.com> wrote:

All Hail the Apple Silicon, and the backwards compatibility layer that only runs x86 64 code, not 32 bit, that is already getting code added to facilitate disabling it outright with a notice that it's unavailable in your region, possibly because Intel may sue it out of existence, then even more backwards compatibility goes in the trash, and Steam stops working entirely.

Time to Give Up and admit that the only real gaming platforms on Macs are the Mac App Store and Apple Arcade. And since the games have to exist on mobile devices as well, the only gaming platform Apple truly cares about, maybe the desktop games released there will not languish into development hell. Until some other backwards compatibility hurdle throws everyone under the bus again.

The future of Macs is mobile processors retrofit into desktop or laptop machines. The future of Mac gaming is games designed from the ground up to be mobile games, retrofit with desktop controls.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/issues/481#issuecomment-792448686, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AOIBDYVBRRGCKTPP6PYTTI3TCRFJLANCNFSM4IUPN5DQ .

[jadenquinn]

Just buy a 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. I'm not even kidding in saying that the real world x86_64 performance rivals the new MBPs with the M1 Pro CPU. Seriously! You can run any MacOS version from 10.8.5 to 10.15.X, so you can run 10.14.6 and run all of the steam games, and even if you can't run some games because lazy devs don't take into account the big amount of Mac users that also would love to play games, Boot Camp is still an option. The only thing I would love to see with the 2012 MBP is just more battery life, but it's not awful. Just get a 2012 15-inch Quad-Core MacBook Pro with a 650M and 8GB+ of RAM, and upgrade it to a 512GB+ SSD as you don't really wanna use the HDD it comes with, seriously idk how anyone tolerated HDDs back then. I don't remember them being quite that slow. You can even kinda record on them too! I was able to get good enough performance while recording at 720p30. Also I don't recommend spending extra money to get a 2013, 2014, or 2015 MBP at all, as their retina displays are naturally harder for the GPU to run, making games harder to run in general too, and the MBPs from those three years didn't really get a significant performance boost past the Quad-Core 2012 MBP. Furthermore, STAY AWAY from MBPs from 2016 and onward if you want a good experience, as I believe they made a mistake in removing all USB-A ports from the laptops, and several other things like the keyboards, some of the trackpads, and other things that just make the newer MBPs pains in the ass to use for me and likely many other people, I just wouldn't recommend them, as they also cost more for another small boost in performance.

I swear if I see another f*cking comment on how "mAcS aRe bAd aNd oVeRpRiCeD CrApPy CoMpUtErS" even though they aren't either of those things, I'm just gonna blow them out of the water on how factually incorrect that is on so many levels. Don't make me. If you don't have something helpful to say, you need not click the green Comment button. K? K.

[jadenquinn]

On the comments I'm seeing that say something like "Don't blame Valve for not fixing their software to match the hardware and software it needs to run on nowadays"? Wow. Other people are working on fixes for their stuff anyway, roll with the punches. If you develop have a version for a platform, I and other people very much expect you to keep it updated, and if not that, at LEAST operational. Especially if I pay you money to play. A 64-bit, and even more than that, a native Apple Silicon version of Valve games shouldn't be that difficult to provide, right? I don't quite have the skills necessary to get that done, but if I did I would just get it done my damn self, surely Valve can manage.

[nex86]

Just buy a 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. I'm not even kidding in saying that the real world x86_64 performance rivals the new MBPs with the M1 Pro CPU. Seriously! You can run any MacOS version from 10.8.5 to 10.15.X, so you can run 10.14.6 and run all of the steam games, and even if you can't run some games because lazy devs don't take into account the big amount of Mac users that also would love to play games, Boot Camp is still an option.

Yea I had a 2012 Macbook Pro before and it doesn't even come close to the performance of the 2020 M1 Macbook I have now. We're talking about 10 year old tech here that doesn't even support Metal, yet alone all my apps and games I had running on this Macbook run a lot faster on my M1, even through Rosetta.

yea the CPU "might" be faster with some X86 applications, especially emulators because you don't have to double-JIT... but that is stuff that I rarely use..

and we're not gonna talk about the GPU. Intel 2nd and 3rd gen iGPUs are horrendous, like I said, they won't even support Metal.

[booherbg]

Just buy a 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. I'm not even kidding in saying that the real world x86_64 performance rivals the new MBPs with the M1 Pro CPU. Seriously! You can run any MacOS version from 10.8.5 to 10.15.X, so you can run 10.14.6 and run all of the steam games, and even if you can't run some games because lazy devs don't take into account the big amount of Mac users that also would love to play games, Boot Camp is still an option.

Yea I had a 2012 Macbook Pro before and it doesn't even come close to the performance of the 2020 M1 Macbook I have now. We're talking about 10 year old tech here that doesn't even support Metal, yet alone all my apps and games I had running on this Macbook run a lot faster on my M1, even through Rosetta.

yea the CPU "might" be faster with some X86 applications, especially emulators because you don't have to double-JIT... but that is stuff that I rarely use..

and we're not gonna talk about the GPU. Intel 2nd and 3rd gen iGPUs are horrendous, like I said, they won't even support Metal.

Just to throw on here -- my daily driver is a fully upgraded 2012 15" macbook pro and it ROCKS. Yes, benchmark-wise it clearly shows its age but damn this thing amazes me every day. I put a 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM, and these 8x virtual i7 cores still crush it, and the dedicated graphics card still does OK (not excellent, but great for development work).

I can boot up from a cold staart in 13 seconds, and run 8 workspaces, dual monitors, VS Code, webpack, node/express server, postico/postgres, 200 tabs in chrome, slack, spotify, and lord knows what else with no lag what-so-ever. It's honestly impressive! This thing will outlive me I think.

Before I put the SSD in, I wanted to throw this thing off a cliff. The 5400rpm HDD that shipped with these was terrible and I think mine was failing (but OSX tried its damndest to limp it along). I went from 15mbps read/write to 350mbps read/write and it makes all the difference in the world.

[jadenquinn]

Just buy a 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. I'm not even kidding in saying that the real world x86_64 performance rivals the new MBPs with the M1 Pro CPU. Seriously! You can run any MacOS version from 10.8.5 to 10.15.X, so you can run 10.14.6 and run all of the steam games, and even if you can't run some games because lazy devs don't take into account the big amount of Mac users that also would love to play games, Boot Camp is still an option.

Yea I had a 2012 Macbook Pro before and it doesn't even come close to the performance of the 2020 M1 Macbook I have now. We're talking about 10 year old tech here that doesn't even support Metal, yet alone all my apps and games I had running on this Macbook run a lot faster on my M1, even through Rosetta. yea the CPU "might" be faster with some X86 applications, especially emulators because you don't have to double-JIT... but that is stuff that I rarely use.. and we're not gonna talk about the GPU. Intel 2nd and 3rd gen iGPUs are horrendous, like I said, they won't even support Metal.

Just to throw on here -- my daily driver is a fully upgraded 2012 15" macbook pro and it ROCKS. Yes, benchmark-wise it clearly shows its age but damn this thing amazes me every day. I put a 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM, and these 8x virtual i7 cores still crush it, and the dedicated graphics card still does OK (not excellent, but great for development work).

I can boot up from a cold staart in 13 seconds, and run 8 workspaces, dual monitors, VS Code, webpack, node/express server, postico/postgres, 200 tabs in chrome, slack, spotify, and lord knows what else with no lag what-so-ever. It's honestly impressive! This thing will outlive me I think.

Before I put the SSD in, I wanted to throw this thing off a cliff. The 5400rpm HDD that shipped with these was terrible and I think mine was failing (but OSX tried its damndest to limp it along). I went from 15mbps read/write to 350mbps read/write and it makes all the difference in the world.

To be fair, if they're gonna implement compatibility with MacOS 10.15, they might as well make it compat with the M1/M# Pro/M2 Macs as well.

[jadenquinn]

Just buy a 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. I'm not even kidding in saying that the real world x86_64 performance rivals the new MBPs with the M1 Pro CPU. Seriously! You can run any MacOS version from 10.8.5 to 10.15.X, so you can run 10.14.6 and run all of the steam games, and even if you can't run some games because lazy devs don't take into account the big amount of Mac users that also would love to play games, Boot Camp is still an option.

Yea I had a 2012 Macbook Pro before and it doesn't even come close to the performance of the 2020 M1 Macbook I have now. We're talking about 10 year old tech here that doesn't even support Metal, yet alone all my apps and games I had running on this Macbook run a lot faster on my M1, even through Rosetta.

yea the CPU "might" be faster with some X86 applications, especially emulators because you don't have to double-JIT... but that is stuff that I rarely use..

and we're not gonna talk about the GPU. Intel 2nd and 3rd gen iGPUs are horrendous, like I said, they won't even support Metal.

Yea don't use the iGPU. You can always use the dedicated GPU.

[jadenquinn]

My 2012 MBP did just as well as an M1 machine, on pretty much anything I threw at it, apart from video rendering/encoding.

[vvv112]

Do you all already have a solution to this problem?

[jbddc]

Do you all already have a solution to this problem?

yeah, buy a windows lappy 😭

[borisyurkevich]

Christopher here nailed it.

The future of Macs is mobile processors retrofit into desktop or laptop machines.

The only thing that Christopher nailed is that Gruber is right and the PC industry is in complete denial over Apple Silicone.

Some people will remain in denial about what Apple has accomplished here for years. That’s how it goes.

Gruber, 17 November 2020

The truth is that the chip Apple developed for mobile performs better using much less energy and cooling than anything Intel or AMD can do. And it's logical to use it for the Mac as well, increasing its size and giving it even more power. Dismissing the Apple Silicone as "mobile" is a huge undersell.

[ikir83]

My 2012 MBP did just as well as an M1 machine, on pretty much anything I threw at it, apart from video rendering/encoding.

In a parallel reality yes. I work with PCs and Macs everyday as an IT specialist and Apple Silicon is the biggest innovation in recent years.

[SamWWJD420]

This gives me loads of confirmation bias lol.

That video render tho...

On Sun, Jul 2, 2023 at 3:09 PM ikir83 @.***> wrote:

My 2012 MBP did just as well as an M1 machine, on pretty much anything I threw at it, apart from video rendering/encoding.

In a parallel reality yes. I work with PCs and Macs everyday as an IT specialist and Apple Silicon is the biggest innovation in recent years.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013/issues/481#issuecomment-1616858434, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AOIBDYQVJ5Q2PBGH3TOWBBTXOHWRHANCNFSM4IUPN5DQ . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

[FlamedDogo99]

I'm a bit late to the party, but with the source leaks I have portal 1 running natively on the Mac without any translation layer. I know people hate the Mac for gaming but I thought it would be worth adding that 64bit support is possible, although Valve likely won't consider it worth their time.

If anybody is interested, here's the repository: https://github.com/nillerusr/source-engine

[axu2]

Just tried it following this guide: https://jxhug.notion.site/Guide-to-Installing-Portal-Using-Source-Engine-on-macOS-660803f9ced149cfa1647d38fd5a7092

Confirms it works on m2.

[Wadmodder]

It's been five years now, and no 64-bit updates have been made to the macOS versions of Valve's titles outside of the legacy version of CS:GO and Dota 2, so it's safe to say that Valve will likely discontinue support for their older macOS games catalog later after Steam stops working on macOS 10.13 and 10.14. Better yet, why not have Valve just delist the macOS versions of their titles altogether.

[ikir83]

It's been five years now, and no 64-bit updates have been made to the macOS versions of Valve's titles outside of the legacy version of CS:GO and Dota 2, so it's safe to say that Valve will likely discontinue support for their older macOS games catalog later after Steam stops working on macOS 10.13 and 10.14. Better yet, why not have Valve just delist the macOS versions of their titles altogether.

Shame on Valve

[Wadmodder]

It's been five years now, and no 64-bit updates have been made to the macOS versions of Valve's titles outside of the legacy version of CS:GO and Dota 2, so it's safe to say that Valve will likely discontinue support for their older macOS games catalog later after Steam stops working on macOS 10.13 and 10.14. Better yet, why not have Valve just delist the macOS versions of their titles altogether.

Shame on Valve

In otherwords, why not just delist all 32-bit only macOS titles from Steam completely, and just discontinue macOS support from GoldSrc, Source 1 & Source 2 completely.

Also, F*** @kisak-valve from Valve's GitHub pages for trying to make Valve a wannabe member of the ESA (Entertainment Software Accociation) & SSIIA (Software and Information Industry Accosiation), preventing any unofficial patches from being published and labeling them "Instant Copyright Infringement".

[glyph]

In otherwords, why not just delist all 32-bit only macOS titles from Steam completely, and just discontinue macOS support from GoldSrc, Source 1 & Source 2 completely.

For what it's worth, a TON of 32-bit titles are misclassified, and actually work fine on recent macOS (even on apple silicon). And vice versa — there are a few 32-bit titles misclassified as 64-bit, which look like they should work but give an error when 'play' is clicked.

Given that the error message that comes up correctly identifies the binary as 32-bit on these misclassified titles, it's a bit of a mystery to me as to why Valve doesn't auto-update the metadata for these games since they could trivially collect thousands of telemetry data points to validate their profiles without any real concerns about privacy.

[kode54]

Maybe the problem is, the current classification system is entirely developer voluntarily clicking a checkbox.

Scanning would require unpacking the entire install from the depots to scan them for their binary architectures. This would also solve the problem of macOS and Linux depots containing Windows binaries by mistake. It would also involve a lot of bandwidth and processing power and time.

[Wadmodder]

No longer possible, as now the 64-bit updates for every Source 1 game on macOS has been officially cancelled by Valve, as they have removed the macOS binaries for all the Source 1 games.

[MaddTheSane]

Do you have a source for this?

[Wadmodder]

Here it is, IT IS Official:

https://www.imore.com/gaming/valve-just-dropped-mac-support-for-its-biggest-titles-team-fortress-2-portal-2-and-half-life-all-get-the-axe https://appleworld.today/valve-releases-patches-for-several-games-that-remove-macos-support/

It's now true, the 64-bit macOS updates for Valve's Source games have been cancelled.

[MaddTheSane]

I don't see an official announcement from Valve.

[glyph]

I don't see an official announcement from Valve.

It's not clear to me what "removed macOS support" means in this context. These games have been marked as not working on 64-bit systems for a while now, and I can still "install" them to get their files on a mac version of steam, and they still don't launch.

I am not holding my breath for a port (it's been a decade, after all) but I don't think this news changes anything. It seems like some database field has been updated to clarify their status, not any kind of real policy change.