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Steam beta gets native Apple Silicon support — the only public Arm version of Steam
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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Apple not keeping legacy cruft is why they were able to move to ARM so quickly. For all the grumbling about cutting 32-bit support couple of years ago, this is what allowed them to do that (among other things). And, as demonstrated, developers like Valve take action only when they are forced to. Windows and Linux on ARM are stuck in the mud with no end in sight while Apple is almost done with the transition.
Linux on ARM is stuck in the mud? Huh? Everything works fine on ARM, including the desktop. There are like a billion ARM devices running Linux right now.
Or did you mean Linux on Apple hardware? Because that's by design.
No, I meant that by setting the same bar for both platforms or by using same evaluation metrics.
Supporting native software is trivial and everyone can do it obviously. How well does Linux on ARM support proprietary x86 software? Is it anywhere near as fast as Rosetta and is it as compatible? If I were to use 100% ARM software can I play any modern video games at all?
Oh, you were still talking about emulating an x86 binary? That's kind of a weird comparison because if you're running Linux and want to run x86 software you can just do it on x86. No corporation is forcing you off of the game's native architecture.
Yes, I’m talking real life use, where there is pre-existing software like video games that I own. Apple accommodated their customers properly by developing ARM SoC that is specifically designed to be performant at emulating x86-64 and compatibility layer with very good compatibility and performance. Not perfect by any means and there are no miracles but nobody comes close.
Nobody is forcing anyone off x86 and so it looks like Windows and Linux users will keep using it indefinitely while Apple users enjoy that sweet low power draw and instant wake from sleep that’s just not possible with x86.
They really did you a favor by breaking your existing, paid for software and then designing a chip to emulate another processor to fix the problem they made.
Anyway, enjoy your low power draw. I'll be over here running my whole Steam library on a handheld device that costs less than your RAM upgrade.
I’ve used Linux on desktop for 15 years and keep using it for servers. I guess you haven’t seen Linux break ABI yet. You’ll get there.