Steam now supports Apple silicon

JollyJamma · 15 Jun 2025 at 13:33

…which is crazy and amazing.

Going to try it on my Mac Mini sometime.

Mac gaming just leveled up – Steam finally runs natively on Apple silicon

Steam is making the jump

www.techradar.com

eurokage · 15 Jun 2025 at 17:45

Nice, will give this a whirl.

Martini1991 · 15 Jun 2025 at 18:19

Title is inaccurate
Sounds like it's just a native steam client, not SteamOS

Spleen Sauce · 15 Jun 2025 at 18:21

It is just the client. It’s now Apple Silicon native (at least in beta form) so it is much quicker. Makes no difference to games though yet as far as I can tell.

Raymond Lin · 15 Jun 2025 at 21:31

It loads up much faster than before on my M4.

Rilot · 15 Jun 2025 at 21:31

Changed thread title. SteamOS is a complete OS and absolutely does not support Apple Silicon. The Steam client beta does though.

Stu999 · 15 Jun 2025 at 21:50

Rilot said:
Changed thread title. SteamOS is a complete OS and absolutely does not support Apple Silicon. The Steam client beta does though.

Also needs to be in the software board.

randal · 15 Jun 2025 at 21:54

Does it support Proton?

demonix · 17 Jun 2025 at 15:58

randal said:
Does it support Proton?

Proton only does directX to vulkan translation, it doesn't support metal.

reflux · 23 Jun 2025 at 15:16

Finally, was amazed that the client was still not native. Will probably wait for it to move from beta to stable first though.

Cromulent · 1 Jul 2025 at 19:04

The official patch is out now for Apple Silicon support in the desktop app.

demonix · 3 Jul 2025 at 16:36

Cromulent said:
The official patch is out now for Apple Silicon support in the desktop app.

It's only for the steam helper app.

the main steam application is still running through rosetta 2.

Cromulent · 3 Jul 2025 at 16:48

demonix said:
It's only for the steam helper app.

the main steam application is still running through rosetta 2.

I see. Thank you. Still feels faster to load though.

arty · 5 Jul 2025 at 11:55

I see that it's still not actually possible to install Steam on a modern Mac without Rosetta

rp2000 · 5 Jul 2025 at 12:13

demonix said:
It's only for the steam helper app.

the main steam application is still running through rosetta 2.

Are you certain about this?

I installed it a week or so ago and it is definitely much kinder on battery life, loads faster now and also shows as "apple" in Activity monitor whereas previously it said "Intel" (Rosetta).

I guess it could just be the placebo effect. I only really play Balatro on my M3 laptop, but since the patched Steam client the battery can last many hours playing the game, previously it was like 2 hours ish and some fan noise!

rp2000

Grim5 · 5 Jul 2025 at 13:30

arty said:
I see that it's still not actually possible to install Steam on a modern Mac without Rosetta

Matters not, Mac users are not real gamers anyway

RaiderX · 6 Jul 2025 at 16:50

This only applies to the beta, so you still need to install the stable release using Roseta then switch to the beta client.

demonix · 6 Jul 2025 at 17:42

rp2000 said:
Are you certain about this?

I installed it a week or so ago and it is definitely much kinder on battery life, loads faster now and also shows as "apple" in Activity monitor whereas previously it said "Intel" (Rosetta).

I guess it could just be the placebo effect. I only really play Balatro on my M3 laptop, but since the patched Steam client the battery can last many hours playing the game, previously it was like 2 hours ish and some fan noise!

rp2000

I'm certain, and I just took that shot of activity monitor.

Also, from the patch notes

rp2000 · 6 Jul 2025 at 17:55

demonix said:
I'm certain, and I just took that shot of activity monitor.

Also, from the patch notes

Hmmmmmmm.....

Need a 3rd screenshot for tiebreak purposes

Edit: screenshot is a bit small, and I have too many steam helpers running, but still!

rp2000

demonix · 6 Jul 2025 at 18:00

rp2000 said:
Hmmmmmmm.....

Need a 3rd screenshot for tiebreak purposes

Edit: screenshot is a bit small, and I have too many steam helpers running, but still!

rp2000

You'd better make sure you're not running the beta version of the steam client...

Just to be 100% certain.