Latest news with #Rosetta2
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Yahoo
Valve does its homework the night before deadline: Switches Steam to run on Mac chips right as Apple announces it's ditching Intel for good
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. I've said it before and I'll say it again: my 2020 MacBook Air is the best gaming laptop I've ever owned. Not because it can run anything I throw at it (it can't) or because it's some ungodly-powerful slab of RGB (it's not). But it runs everything I want it to run—Infinity Engine RPGs, KOTOR 1 and 2, things of that nature—silently and with battery life out the wazoo. It does that because it's one of the first bits of Apple kit to use the megacorp's own, bespoke ARM line of M-series CPUs, breaking a dependence on Intel chips going all the way back to 2006. Which is neat, but there was a problem—damn near every app out there is built to work on x86 chips like Intel's, and not ARM. Apple solved that little issue with a thing called Rosetta 2, which effectively translated x86 apps to ARM on the fly when you tried to run them on ARM-based Macs. But nothing gold can stay: at this year's WWDC, Apple quietly pointed out to devs that, two macOS generations from now, Rosetta would pretty much be going the way of the dodo. Devs would have to make their apps ARM-native or sling their hook. Which brings us to Steam. Valve being Valve—and macOS making up an absolutely infinitesimal percentage of overall Steam users—it never bothered to create an Apple Silicon-native version of Steam in all these past five years. Until yesterday. With Apple suddenly putting a time limit on how long devs could rely on Rosetta, Valve has gotten its act together and released an ARM version of Steam as part of yesterday's Steam client beta. Gotta be honest, it's very relatable. It reminds me of all the university essays I scrambled to write the night before they were due. I imagine Gabe sitting on his yacht, watching Apple's coiffed execs intro WWDC, suddenly sitting bolt upright as he realises they forgot to make Steam run on modern Macs. The Apple-native version of Steam is currently only available in beta, which you can swap to by heading to your preferences, then Interface, then selecting the beta version of Steam from a drop-down menu. It works well! In my very limited (10 minutes or so) of mucking about with it, I've had better luck getting the Steam Overlay to work and game recording seems to actually function now (albeit without game audio, because Apple makes it borderline impossible to record system audio on Macs for some reason) which wasn't the case last time I messed with those features—which was admittedly a few updates ago. Anyway, the perhaps dozens of people playing Steam games on Mac can heave a sigh of relief. For a minute there, I wondered if Valve would bother to update Steam for Apple Silicon at all. Macs are a tiny fragment of its audience and Apple Silicon users are a tiny fragment of that. I'm glad Gabe still cares enough about those of us who love overpaying for hardware to keep things in working order. 2025 games: This year's upcoming releasesBest PC games: Our all-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest RPGs: Grand adventuresBest co-op games: Better together
Forbes
7 days ago
- Forbes
Steam For Mac Is About To Gain Native Support For Apple Silicon
If you've played games in your Steam library on the Mac, you'll know that switching from an Intel Mac to one with Apple Silicon, you suddenly needed Rosetta 2, the emulator built into macOS, to do it. It was a smooth process, so you might not have even noticed it. But Rosetta 2 has its last days ahead, so it's good news that Steam has just revealed a way to play its games natively. Steam is about to get native support for Apple Silicon Macs. At WWDC25, Apple announced that Rosetta 2's support is coming to an end. 'Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27 – as a general-purpose tool for Intel apps to help developers complete the migration of their apps. Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks,' Apple said. Rosetta 2 is tightly integrated into the Mac, but it had its downsides, such as slower performance and an experience that could be 'clunky,' as 9to5Mac puts it. Valve has just released a new version of Steam for Mac as part of a beta update and it works directly on Apple Silicon as it's what's called a Universal app, which signals it will work faster. 'Under the hood, the key change is that Valve has moved the Chromium Embedded Framework from Intel-only to Apple Silicon. That cuts out one of the biggest performance bottlenecks in the entire app,' 9to5Mac says. If you'd like to try the beta, open the Steam app, choose Steam from the menu bar, then choose Preferences, which will open the Steam settings menu. Here, click on Interface and look for Client Beta Participation. It'll say No beta chosen but you can now select Steam Beta Update and you'll be steered to restarting the app. It will download the update (around 230MB) and relaunch Steam. Initial reviews, such as this on YouTube by Andrew Tsai, suggest that the result of installing the beta is an improved experience, with faster launch, smoother scrolling and more.
The Verge
13-06-2025
- The Verge
Steam is finally adding native support for Macs with Apple Silicon
Steam will soon fully support Macs equipped with Apple's in-house chips. In the latest Steam client beta spotted by 9to5Mac, Valve says the 'Steam Client and Steam Helper apps now run natively on Apple Silicon.' That means Steam will no longer need to use Rosetta 2 to run on Macs with M-series chips. Rosetta 2 is the emulator that allows Intel-based apps to run on Apple Silicon's ARM architecture. Native support for Apple Silicon should make Steam run more smoothly. The update follows Apple's announcement that it will stop launching major updates for Intel-based Macs after macOS Tahoe. The company has also confirmed that Rosetta 2 will only be available through macOS 27. 'Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks,' Apple says.
