I wish Valve would start making Mac games. Apple has more than enough graphics power in its M series of chips. They had some good ones like TF2, Portal/Portal 2, etc.
They did. Apple screwed them by shifting to 64 bit only. And if Valve had put in the work to transition their catalogue then they'll be screwed again when Apple goes ARM only. And doubtless a few years down the line there will be some other shift that will screw them again. Valve aren't making significant money off their own catalogue, any investment they make in porting old titles is money down the drain, so they won't do that, because Apple will just screw them again and again.
Meanwhile, Half Life works on Windows just as well as it always did, because Microsoft, for all their (many) faults, really care about backwards compatibility.
So by your thinking Apple screwed all developers then...Apple gave all developers plenty of time to migrate their apps to 64-bit. It's not like Apple said you have 90 days to do it. They actually had years to do it and Valve was just lazy and never made the effort. Pretty naive as a developer if you think Apple was never going to switch to 64-bit. The entire industry was going that way. Apple is again providing all developers the tools to convert their apps to ARM and giving them plenty of time to do so in case they need it.
No one is complaining about Apple switching to 64-bit, they're complaining about the lack of maintenance of a compatibility layer to run legacy software that is not in active development, where the developers have no financial incentive to update the software. Developers aren't lazy for not updating software that they're not making any money from, they're financially prudent; it is Apple that are being lazy as platform owners and custodians by throwing away years of accumulated developer effort and customer goodwill by not providing and maintaining a compatibility layer. If Apple can create such layers to run Windows software (i.e. Game Porting Toolkit), and software from completely different ISAs (i.e. Rosetta) then they're more than capable of allowing 32 bits apps to continue. They chose not to, so yes, they screwed people. They made a change and demanded that everyone follow, at their own cost. Of course that meant that some didn't, and now many perfectly good games don't work.
Windows is also 64 bit, but Microsoft are committed to developers and ensure that older APIs remain available so that software has a much longer life. A good number of Windows 95 games work very well on Windows 11! Were those developers that trusted Microsoft's commitment naive?
Love Apple if you like, but you're a fool if you're surprised that others don't or that developers are reticent about working with the platform when Apple have history of acting this way.
Man, wish they’d come out with a new one (non-VR).
Talk about lazy.
Half life was epic. Half life 2 left us wanting much more. Then… nothing for 100 years until… a vr game.
Come on, dude.
There's a game mod to make Half-Life: Alyx playable in 2D.
Remember, Valve does not make trilogies.
Half-Life:Alyx (no-vr) works on Mac too using Crossover:
Potentially playable on Vision Pro but it runs a bit slow on the entry hardware. Might have to run it via a Mac system.
Lol, run a VR game in a non-VR mod on a VR headset, except not on the VR headset, but on a nearby computer, that cannot run it native, but can run the mod inside a compatibility layer.
Ladies and gentlemen, the state of gaming at Apple. The absolute state of it.
It would be without the no-VR mod on the Vision Pro. There are no VR headsets that can run Half-Life:Alyx natively, it needs a PC to run it (minimum 4TFLOPs GPU = Nvidia 1060) while displaying on the headset. Apple Vision Pro (M3) might be fast enough to run it natively on lower settings at 90FPS but Pro/Max Mac hardware will be enough.
Kinda missed the point there.
Do we even know if it will be possible to stream a VR game from the Mac? I've only seen the Mac integration shown as a flat virtual screen.
I wish Valve would start making Mac games. Apple has more than enough graphics power in its M series of chips. They had some good ones like TF2, Portal/Portal 2, etc.
They did. Apple screwed them by shifting to 64 bit only. And if Valve had put in the work to transition their catalogue then they'll be screwed again when Apple goes ARM only. And doubtless a few years down the line there will be some other shift that will screw them again. Valve aren't making significant money off their own catalogue, any investment they make in porting old titles is money down the drain, so they won't do that, because Apple will just screw them again and again.
Meanwhile, Half Life works on Windows just as well as it always did, because Microsoft, for all their (many) faults, really care about backwards compatibility.
So by your thinking Apple screwed all developers then...Apple gave all developers plenty of time to migrate their apps to 64-bit. It's not like Apple said you have 90 days to do it. They actually had years to do it and Valve was just lazy and never made the effort. Pretty naive as a developer if you think Apple was never going to switch to 64-bit. The entire industry was going that way. Apple is again providing all developers the tools to convert their apps to ARM and giving them plenty of time to do so in case they need it.
No one is complaining about Apple switching to 64-bit, they're complaining about the lack of maintenance of a compatibility layer to run legacy software that is not in active development, where the developers have no financial incentive to update the software. Developers aren't lazy for not updating software that they're not making any money from, they're financially prudent; it is Apple that are being lazy as platform owners and custodians by throwing away years of accumulated developer effort and customer goodwill by not providing and maintaining a compatibility layer. If Apple can create such layers to run Windows software (i.e. Game Porting Toolkit), and software from completely different ISAs (i.e. Rosetta) then they're more than capable of allowing 32 bits apps to continue. They chose not to, so yes, they screwed people. They made a change and demanded that everyone follow, at their own cost. Of course that meant that some didn't, and now many perfectly good games don't work.
Windows is also 64 bit, but Microsoft are committed to developers and ensure that older APIs remain available so that software has a much longer life. A good number of Windows 95 games work very well on Windows 11! Were those developers that trusted Microsoft's commitment naive?
Love Apple if you like, but you're a fool if you're surprised that others don't or that developers are reticent about working with the platform when Apple have history of acting this way.
Apple is about going forward, not living in the past. It gave developers had YEARS to convert their apps to 64-bit and kept warning them not only to convert their apps, but to also get their apps on Cocoa and yet some just kept ignoring it. There's no amount of whining that Apple went 64-bit only that will make any sense what so ever. Windows is also a piss poor OS with so much legacy code.
I wish Valve would start making Mac games. Apple has more than enough graphics power in its M series of chips. They had some good ones like TF2, Portal/Portal 2, etc.
They did. Apple screwed them by shifting to 64 bit only. And if Valve had put in the work to transition their catalogue then they'll be screwed again when Apple goes ARM only. And doubtless a few years down the line there will be some other shift that will screw them again. Valve aren't making significant money off their own catalogue, any investment they make in porting old titles is money down the drain, so they won't do that, because Apple will just screw them again and again.
Meanwhile, Half Life works on Windows just as well as it always did, because Microsoft, for all their (many) faults, really care about backwards compatibility.
So by your thinking Apple screwed all developers then...Apple gave all developers plenty of time to migrate their apps to 64-bit. It's not like Apple said you have 90 days to do it. They actually had years to do it and Valve was just lazy and never made the effort. Pretty naive as a developer if you think Apple was never going to switch to 64-bit. The entire industry was going that way. Apple is again providing all developers the tools to convert their apps to ARM and giving them plenty of time to do so in case they need it.
No one is complaining about Apple switching to 64-bit, they're complaining about the lack of maintenance of a compatibility layer to run legacy software that is not in active development, where the developers have no financial incentive to update the software. Developers aren't lazy for not updating software that they're not making any money from, they're financially prudent; it is Apple that are being lazy as platform owners and custodians by throwing away years of accumulated developer effort and customer goodwill by not providing and maintaining a compatibility layer. If Apple can create such layers to run Windows software (i.e. Game Porting Toolkit), and software from completely different ISAs (i.e. Rosetta) then they're more than capable of allowing 32 bits apps to continue. They chose not to, so yes, they screwed people. They made a change and demanded that everyone follow, at their own cost. Of course that meant that some didn't, and now many perfectly good games don't work.
Windows is also 64 bit, but Microsoft are committed to developers and ensure that older APIs remain available so that software has a much longer life. A good number of Windows 95 games work very well on Windows 11! Were those developers that trusted Microsoft's commitment naive?
Love Apple if you like, but you're a fool if you're surprised that others don't or that developers are reticent about working with the platform when Apple have history of acting this way.
Apple is about going forward, not living in the past. It gave developers had YEARS to convert their apps to 64-bit and kept warning them not only to convert their apps, but to also get their apps on Cocoa and yet some just kept ignoring it. There's no amount of whining that Apple went 64-bit only that will make any sense what so ever. Windows is also a piss poor OS with so much legacy code.
OF COURSE they ignored it, they weren't making money from the software any more! Did you even read what I wrote? The victims here wasn't really the developers, it was the consumers, Apple's customers, US, who lost access to a decade and more of software for the sake of Apple's puritanical "not living in the past". And the fact that Apple were so willing to throw that all away makes them a bad development partner. Honestly I'm surprised Valve even bother with Steam for Mac any more, since Apple has repeatedly shown how much contempt they hold for them with broken promises, and negotiating their own exclusives on the Mac App Store.
Windows may be a piss poor OS for many reasons, but compatibility is not one of them. It's the shining star of Windows.
Comments
Windows is also 64 bit, but Microsoft are committed to developers and ensure that older APIs remain available so that software has a much longer life. A good number of Windows 95 games work very well on Windows 11! Were those developers that trusted Microsoft's commitment naive?
Love Apple if you like, but you're a fool if you're surprised that others don't or that developers are reticent about working with the platform when Apple have history of acting this way.
Do we even know if it will be possible to stream a VR game from the Mac? I've only seen the Mac integration shown as a flat virtual screen.
Windows may be a piss poor OS for many reasons, but compatibility is not one of them. It's the shining star of Windows.