Steam Cuts the Cord For Legacy Windows, macOS

The latest Steam client drops support for operating systems older than Windows 10 or macOS 10.15 Catalina. 'That means Mac users can't run 32-bit games anymore, as all macOS versions from Catalina onward only run 64-bit binaries,' reports The Register. From the report: [I]f you have a well-specified older Mac, here is another reason to check out Open Core Legacy Patcher. For now, macOS 10.15 Catalina will do but we suspect it won't for long. This version of Steam uses the equivalent to Chrome 126: 'Updated embedded Chromium build in Steam to 126.0.6478.183.' However, versions since Chrome 128 require macOS 11 or newer. For now, Catalina will work -- but the next significant Steam update will update Chromium as well, and there's a high probability that that will drop support for 10.15.

So, if you're using OCLP to install a newer macOS, you should probably go directly to Big Sur. In The Reg FOSS desk's testing, we found that Big Sur ran reasonably well on a machine with Intel HD 520 graphics, although the same hardware ran very poorly with macOS 12 Monterey. Unfortunately, the inevitable end is in sight for older Macs. That said, the November 2024 Steam client update brings several 'wins,' including a built-in Game Recording feature, an upgraded Chromium browser engine, and the new 'Scout' Linux runtime environment for improved compatibility and performance, especially on the Steam Deck and Linux distros. Additionally, it delivers bug fixes and enhancements for modern OS users.

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