Valve drops support for SteamVR on macOS to focus on Linux & Windows

oh well if Apple would support Vulkan...

Update: Added a wee bit more info and thoughts.

In case of VR Linux... Linux is a niche and VR is a niche
In case of VR MacOS... MacOS is a niche, VR is a niche and having a MacOS VR capable hardware is probably the nichest of the niches.

It's starting to be a lot of probability layers, against MacOS. Add to this the fact that the Mac ecosystem is a walled garden and does not support Vulkan natively... Waste of time?


Last edited by Mohandevir on 1 May 2020 at 4:30 pm UTC

macOS is a DOA system for gaming. Quite expected. And Apple were doubly dumb by shooting themselves in the foot with their Metal NIH. Apple management doesn't care about gaming in the least.


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 May 2020 at 4:47 pm UTC

I am mostly worried about the reason why they dropped VR for an entire platform that has more users than Linux's. Obviously, financially, it makes little sense.

We can speculate as much as we want.

OK :D

Valve have been the primary driver behind Vulkan, from the glNext days. Apple aren't the least bit interested in Vulkan, using Metal exclusively. When Ubuntu wanted to drop maintenance of 32-bit libraries without a robust containerisation system already in place, Valve opted to only support those distros that could keep everything working. In the same situation, Apple just said "too bad, so sad." Linux doesn't bring Valve a lot of money, but makes Valve's job a lot easier. Apple doesn't bring Valve a lot of money, and makes Valve's job a lot harder. Valve wanted a backup plan should Windows ever be untenable; Apple have made it clear that macOS isn't going to be it. If Valve are going to create a VR future, and they seem to be interested in that, it's too much of an uphill struggle to involve macOS in that.

What makes me angry about valve is that it is not available worldwide. I want to buy one in my country but it doesn't arrive or there isn't one.
I want to go to linux!

You must be confusing SteamVR with Valve Index.

What is SteamVR, then?

Gaming will only get worse for Mac users when Apple finally drops the ball and entirely removes their deprecated OpenGL support. This will mean only 64-bit Metal games will work and all the past games not updated for it will be SOL. It also means that it will completely break OpenGL-based WineD3D that Wine uses for DirectX 9 support for Mac games. In fact, Wine is completely broken on Catalina and requires a special build of Crossover that supports 32 to 64 bit thunking and introduces new bugs and problems.

Furthermore, Apple is reportingly planning to slowly transition their Macs to the ARMv8 platform that their iPhones and iPads use. When that happens, it's fair to assume that Steam will no longer work at all or it will have to run with with an x86 translation layer, reducing performance due to overhead.

If you like PC gaming, stay away from Apple Macs like the plague, unless you plan to install Windows or Linux on your x86 Mac. IMO, It's better not to give Apple your money in the first place.


Last edited by Xaero_Vincent on 1 May 2020 at 6:17 pm UTC

The Apple has gone rotten lol.

It doesn't take a genius to see the direction a company is headed to predict the future. Years back their refusal to update to current OpenGL, and then their hostility toward holding back Steam from a update on the App Store and then refusal to allow Vulkan on OSX -- and now for "reasons" Valve is dropping their experimental OSX support -- I guarantee it's because Apple made it difficult and lent no hands -- I mean why would they when they both make money on a % of App Sales -- they are direct competition in that model.

I'm just so glad I swore off their products 10 years ago after the absolute shit-show it was to download and upload music to and from a iPod

Download Music From Your iPod ???

!<!>!<!< bUUt ThAt WoULd bE STeALiNg !.!.!>!>!>!

F. Apple
F. Facebook
F. Google

Back in the day it just used to be Microsoft shafting users -- now all these companies have joined the club. May they Rot in pieces, we don't need them or want the trash they're pushing.

I would like to know who was using SteamVR on the Mac?
1) most of them simply do not have the GPU power to do it. Unless you get an expensive eGPU.
2) what software worked in VR? They have to wrap VK through Metal
3) Who still games on a mac? I'd think most mac users who game do it on either a Win/Lin computer, or on game consoles.
4) Most hardware that used to be game worthy have stopped getting new OS updates made for them (specifically the nvidia based ones).

I'm just wondering what sort of hardware was even required that Apple provides that could handle VR?

What makes me angry about valve is that it is not available worldwide. I want to buy one in my country but it doesn't arrive or there isn't one.
I want to go to linux!

You must be confusing SteamVR with Valve Index.

What is SteamVR, then?

SteamVR is the software that works with all the VR headsets vs Valve Index is the Hardware head mounted display.

Most power right now is probably with the Hackintosh users. Which still use the official nvidia drivers.

I am mostly worried about the reason why they dropped VR for an entire platform that has more users than Linux's. Obviously, financially, it makes little sense.

While it seems this way, when you think about users of a graphics API it makes more sense. What apple did with metal is cut down the likelihood someone would develop for it. This is due to the fact the metal API is only for 3% of the market. Vulcan due to being on windows and Linux has a much larger target base and is a better sell.

The success of VR depends on the graphics API, and apple kind of shot themselves in the foot in terms of adoption


Last edited by miawgogo on 2 May 2020 at 10:34 am UTC

No one here is to blame but MacOS, one of the richer companies on the world, still they want to force developers to use Metal and other closed source crap they own.

I wonder if this is somehow related to the HP/Valve/Microsoft headset that has been teased. That partnership had me a bit concerned so I'm glad about this announcement.

No one buys a mac to game on..period.

Most power right now is probably with the Hackintosh users. Which still use the official nvidia drivers.

Which Valve can't directly say they can support it, as they're definitely on the gray side of legal.
That's like a couple macbooks that were given to me, the only way to go beyond El Capitan on them is to use a hacked installer for the newer releases, to include drivers that were yanked out of the macOS releases. There literally is no other reason they can't still support systems from 2008/9, beyond they don't want to, and because nvidia and Apple can't get along.

Of course I don't know all the details of that, but from an Apple fan's perspective, it's because nvidia's drivers are crappy, and Apple had to write their own?

I think nvidia's drivers are actually pretty damned good, it's pretty much the only reason I chose them over AMD.

Oof, RIP SteamVR for macOS.

I'm curious if this will shift the focus of developers, or if VR on macOS wasn't in their interest at all. Though I have still have a MacBook Pro from 2011, I never tried VR as I think its hardware is way too weak. There were already a handful of native VR games on Linux since the beginning of VR, but I was not aware of any native macOS VR titles.

In the Steam Hardware survey macOS has a higher share than Linux, and it was (almost) never an issue for devs to support macOS... so might this be the start of the end for games on macOS? Maybe mac gamers are switching to Linux, as Windows users apparently didn't with the end of the support of Windows 7.

Though I'm a big fan of having the freedom of choice, and dropping support for a platform is limiting choice, I have to admit, that I'm happy it wasn't the drop of Linux support.

Oof, RIP SteamVR for macOS.

I'm curious if this will shift the focus of developers, or if VR on macOS wasn't in their interest at all. Though I have still have a MacBook Pro from 2011, I never tried VR as I think its hardware is way too weak. There were already a handful of native VR games on Linux since the beginning of VR, but I was not aware of any native macOS VR titles.

In the Steam Hardware survey macOS has a higher share than Linux, and it was (almost) never an issue for devs to support macOS... so might this be the start of the end for games on macOS? Maybe mac gamers are switching to Linux, as Windows users apparently didn't with the end of the support of Windows 7.

Though I'm a big fan of having the freedom of choice, and dropping support for a platform is limiting choice, I have to admit, that I'm happy it wasn't the drop of Linux support.

Oh Windows 7 will have diehard people still using it and refusing to upgrade for at least another 5 years. Pretty sure there are still people using XP, and I've even seen a continual service pack being created / added to for 98SE...

I wonder how many of the percentage of mac vs linux users on Steam are due to simpler games, like say the hidden object type games, that aren't very hardware intensive. Your average macbook would be able to handle those fine.

When was the last macbook pro you could even get a dedicated GPU on? Not many people are going to be playing games on the trash can or the new mac pro that has a crazy cost.

Here's the real question that should be asked though. It's not macOS having higher share than Linux. It's 'How many macOS users has a VR system connected to it vs how many people with Linux machines have a VR system connected to it?' I bet you it's probably 0% compared to not 0%. :)

Oh Windows 7 will have diehard people still using it and refusing to upgrade for at least another 5 years. Pretty sure there are still people using XP, and I've even seen a continual service pack being created / added to for 98SE...

I'm still using the "unofficial" Win XP for synchronize/back-up my dad's 11 years old Sony Ericsson phones. :P

I am mostly worried about the reason why they dropped VR for an entire platform that has more users than Linux's. Obviously, financially, it makes little sense.

The first thing that comes to my mind is, sure, MacOS may have more users than Linux in absolute terms, but what if you just compare the number of VR users? From the points others have raised in the comments it's not too far-fetched to think that there are more Linux VR users than Mac ones. We might not have access to those numbers, but it's a safe bet that Valve does. From that perspective (plus all the difficulties people have raised with developing for MacOS), this probably is the financially sensible solution.

Though it's also Valve, who do their own thing. :) Betting on Linux was hardly financially sensible*! They could just be tired of dealing with MacOS, or have something else in mind.

*at the time, obviously I and they both think it's a good long-term investment but I'm hardly sure we've collectively spent enough money on Steam to pay off the work done on Linux support yet.