Apple has done some work with their game porting toolkit to support certain flavors of DirectX games with a combo of Wine and Rosetta. But this isn’t officially pitched as tool for end users to run Windows games.
No, they went for running with their own silicon because Intel couldn't be arsed to provide them with actually power-efficient, performant and new CPUs and they were locked in to AMD for GPUs (because that is something Apple doesn't like).
It speaks volumes about just how badly Intel (and AMD) were stuck in the past when Apple blew them to pieces with the M1 performance.
Such as? And does it have Mac keyboard layout? Because it is absolutely superior to anything on non-Mac land.
But you know taste is personal and there are plenty other options.
Anyway. I would never, ever use Linux as a desktop environment over OSX after the experiences I've had with it over the last 20+ years. OSX GUI applications absolutely blow everything that Linux has out of the water. I don't care if we're talking KDE, i3, dwm, cinnamon. The worst part about OSX applications is they aren't cheap. Even small apps like Soundsource a https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/ are usually $30+ but they are fantastic.
The thought of using pipewire and all the configuration hell you have to do to it to make it like Soundsource is a complete turn off. OSX apps work. They integrate. They look great and there are a LOT of them that do pretty unique things that I haven't seen in Windows or Linux.
I work on Linux 8 hours a day from OSX and about 30% of my time is using Win11 on my gaming desktop.
Also, now that I'm on an m1 max there is no way in the world I'm going back to x86 as my productivity machine.
You probably had enough of it. I’d be sick of it after 20 years even if it were the shiniest option out there.
I'm not saying that you should switch to Linux, you do you, and to be honest Linux is not that friendly anyway. But that is not reason to stone linux to death, the parent comment is not even that offensive for MacOS users, it just asks if switching to linux would be an option, as an thought
Per app audio redirection, per app effects, per app volume control, system-wide effects, headphone equalizer, auto change inputs/outputs etc. I haven't worked with pipewire in a long time but I had to use another app with some complicated GUI of "wires" or pipes to get the same affect. I can't remember the name of it now.
edit: Wireplumber or Mixx/Raysession, I forget. It was a huge pain comparatively.
Mixx - https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/mixxx/origin...
wireplumber -https://forum.level1techs.com/uploads/default/original/4X/e/...
To be fair, I was a fan of pulseaudio even in the early days: being able to set up my desktop, with its decent speakers as just another audio sink for my laptop with its horrible speakers was like magic to me back in the day.
Or a single line to install EasyEffects which adds effects in the mix, also with zero configuration.
I'm not exaggerating. Tell me something you think SoundSource can do, and I'll show you me doing the same thing with Pavucontrol or EasyEffects in my entirely stock setup.
But sure. You found a screenshot of the ultimate Pipewire power tool that allows you to do things I guarantee SoundSource doesn't, and ran with it.
>They look great and there are a LOT of them that do pretty unique things that I haven't seen in Windows or Linux.
Oh?
But sure.
pavucontrol https://freedesktop.org/software/pulseaudio/pavucontrol//scr... soundsource https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/images/hero@2x.png
I love those of you who think an OSX user wouldn't know linux/linux apps.
edit: Yeah, this does nothing that soundsource does. I wish some of you would actually read the features and stop posting these volume control apps. Not to mention Soundsource was just a quick example. I could name 50 more apps that don't have a Linux alternative or one that is of any quality.
Literally - "A simple volume control tool (mixer) for the PulseAudio sound server."
For all the talk, it should be trivial for you to make me look foolish right now. Like, so easy, right?
Show me the UI for telling a specific application to redirect its audio output to a specific device automatically.
Show me the UI where I plug in a specific device it switches a specific applications (not all) default automatically to the new device.
Show me it's headphone EQ.
Show me per-app headphone EQ.
Show me per app EQ settings.
Show me the built in 3D/spatial audio for headphones
I didn't say you couldn't do things in XYZ. I said the configuration of doing so sucks compared to doing it in another app. Soundsource was just an example. I don't know why you care so much. I could've said Pixelmator (GIMP?) or 30 other apps.
PS: "For all the talk, it should be trivial for you to make me look foolish right now. Like, so easy, right?"
You're this heated up because I like an OSX app more than Linux options? You're acting like I personally care about "winning" this argument. Even if it has these features I still wouldn't use the app. Aesthetics and ease of use is important to my day to day machine. Win the "argument" all you want.
> You're this heated up because I like an OSX app more than Linux options? You're acting like I personally care about "winning" this argument. Even if it has these features I still wouldn't use the app. Aesthetics and ease of use is important to my day to day machine. Win the "argument" all you want.
I use osx myself and do not like desktop linux for multiple reasons. Though, the fanboys like you are exactly the reason I want to migrate just to not have anything in common with that group.
You want to change your OS and leave m1 processors because random people on the internet think that OSX has better applications than linux. Hilarious. Like we sit with you at the coffee shop with our lit up Apple logos embarrassing you or something.
Talk about judgmental.
Mind your own business, fanboy.
This is obviously a personal opinion, but just isn't close to true for me. I stopped using apple laptops 3 years ago, and I've never found a non-apple device with a trackpad as good as the mac.
Maybe Value should give more an 10% of a thought to the Mac and make Steam not be terrible on the Mac first.
They don’t care about the Mac. They only care about Linux because it lets them ship the Steam Deck and have a hedge against MS.
The Mac is worse than an afterthought.
I would say Valve stand on the shoulder of giants with Wine and Vulkan, they just had tl connect the dots between the two.
If Apple itself would respect its gamer users it could spend sometime on these open projects, but knowing Apple, if they do anything it would be on a closed-source vendor lock-in style
Games have their own issues (you mentioned some). But the client is inexcusable.
It used to be dog slow and horribly buggy but recently it's been quite fine. More and more games run native as well.
Don’t know. But that’s what they’ve done.
If I were Apple, I wouldn’t partner with someone who clearly didn’t give 2 shits about my platform.
(In reality Value doesn’t need Apple. And Apple would never partner anyway, they don’t do that)
You can use any tool to make apps and sell them online without having to get them approved in the Mac App Store (which almost no one buys from).
Very smart to leverage that failure of Steam Machine into a portable form factor. A bit ugly and clearly some cut corners, but the price saved on no Windows license speaks for itself.
If you can afford a Mac, you can afford a Steam Deck.
No it’s not. You can download and install anything you want from the web. Just like Windows.
The Mac App Store isn’t required. Largely NO ONE uses it.
But compared to the iOS store it’s kind of a ghost town. Tons of popular software isn’t in it. It’s quite normal to just download software instead of even looking to see if it’s in there.
And if it is, App Store software must be fully and tightly sandboxed. Which prevents a lot of useful software from ever appearing in it.
> Largely NO ONE uses it.
Furthermore,
> App Store software must be fully and tightly sandboxed
I get that many things will not be able to function due to these restrictions, but for most software they are a good thing.
For a lot of things I’m happy for sandboxing. Why should random games or todo apps need more access? But the fact you can’t get good backup software like Backblaze is a problem. They need more options for levels of sandboxing, including possibly none (with heavy review).
And just like with Windows Valve is trying to build on an open platform instead.
It stands to reason that Steam on Mac is bad in comparison because of Apple.
How? It’s software like any other. There’s TONS of great software on the Mac made by 3rd parties. It can be nice. It can run fast. MS does it. Adobe does it. Indie developers do it. So why is it Apple’s fault?
The story tends that gets passed around is that no one at Valve (more or less) works in it.
I’m not talking about the games Steam sells. I’m talking about the Steam client.
If they rewrote it in Electron (instead of whatever custom thing it uses) they could do a terrible job and it would still be faster.
I’m not even asking for it to be “Mac like”, just act like showing a store page isn’t a Herculean effort.
Apple also fully dropped 32-bit support, breaking a lot of older games that had been ported to Mac on Steam.
Even Windows running on ARM has emulation for 32-bit x86 apps.
On Valve’s side they gave very little love to the Steam client on Mac and didn’t bother to update their own games (Half Life, Portal, Counterstrike, etc) to 64-bit to keep them working on Macs.
The biggest thing that has changed is now Apple ships much better GPU power even in its cheapest Macs. They still aren’t equivalent to dedicated gaming PCs but are plenty to run a huge library of casual and older games, if only there were a convenient and well-maintained path to running them.