Valve To Drop Steam Support For 32-Bit Windows Versions Next Year (tomshardware.com)
- Reference: 0179368276
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/09/19/1154205/valve-to-drop-steam-support-for-32-bit-windows-versions-next-year
- Source link: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-to-drop-steam-support-for-32-bit-windows-versions-next-year-says-its-no-longer-compatible-with-core-client-features-only-0-01-percent-of-players-actually-used-it
> Steam has been available on Windows for more than two decades and, therefore, was built with 32-bit systems in mind. Today, every modern computer is 64-bit, with compatibility layers built in to support older 32-bit apps. So, even though 32-bit apps have carried forward, there's really no place for 32-bit operating systems anymore -- which is why Valve is axing support for them.
[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-to-drop-steam-support-for-32-bit-windows-versions-next-year-says-its-no-longer-compatible-with-core-client-features-only-0-01-percent-of-players-actually-used-it
Can we get 64 bit for Linux? (Score:2)
Just ship with all the 32 bit libraries already, so we can stop needing multiarch for Steam.
Re: (Score:2)
> Just ship with all the 32 bit libraries already, so we can stop needing multiarch for Steam.
As long as distros continue to do the work to build 32-bit libraries, why should they? Canonical (as one of the largest desktop distributions) needs to announce the end of multiarch as a forcing function to see it happen (FWIW, some enterprise distributions have entirely dropped 32-bit libraries, but those are not expected to be used for desktop gaming).
Re: (Score:2)
That's chicken and egg though. I use Bazzite, Fedora Kinorate with some gaming tweaks. Fedora wanted to drop 32 bit and there was a lot of noise as things like Bazzite or any gaming usage at all from that distro would break.
But , if Steam went 64 bit then that's 80%-90% of the issue solved straight away, and the last 10-20% would quickly sort themselves out in response. Summary is the distros have already indicated they don't want to do the work, and it's userland that's holding them back right now. Would
Re: (Score:2)
gah - Kinoite. Spelling.
Re: (Score:2)
> But , if Steam went 64 bit then that's 80%-90% of the issue solved straight away
Actually, not for all. While steam being 64-bit would be good (and likely will happen at some point (it is already true for Apple systems)), some games themselves need 32-bit libraries, and unless steam ships the libraries themselves, the games will not run. If Canonical dropped 32-bit libraries, Valve would need to provide the 32-bit libraries for the 32-bit games (and then steam would also have access to those libraries).
Re: (Score:2)
It's mostly WINE though isn't it? Well, Proton but still. That has the 64bit-32bit thunking layer required. Native Linux builds would need to be 64 bit true, but that's where I was going with the "10-20%" bit.
I run 32bit Windows games on ARM via Rosetta/MacPortingToolkit. So long as the game itself is tricked into believing it's in a 32bit universe, it's happy.
32 (Score:2)
> ... there's really no place for 32-bit operating systems anymore ...
As an embedded software developer, I suspect that most operating systems are running on 32-bit ICs today. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I've moved beyond definitions of specific numbers of bits.
I'll just use however many bits the vibes tell me to.
Re: (Score:2)
I see you build hardware.
Hardware guy once made an API for me that returned an 6 bit signed integer in an eight bit field, sign not extended. It was just easier for him. 21 bits, 25 bits, it didn't matter to him, it was all the same.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll bet that had you chomping at the bit.
I'm a trifle surprised (Score:2)
I'm not surprised that Valve is dropping 32-bit support; the 'gaming on 32-bit windows' market cannot be all that large or all that lucrative; what does surprise me a little bit is that the announced end of support doesn't line up with anything I immediately recognize. End of 2025/beginning of 2026 actually puts them considerably later than most stuff using chromium for UI rendering(not sure if they've been doing a bunch of backporting or if they consider the fact that they are mostly rendering their own co
You Never Own Digital Games Anyway (Score:3)
RIP to all the hobby machines running 32-bit Windows for old games. Download your archival copies now.
hammer don't jam (Score:2)
This could have been a webpage.
Re: (Score:2)
Well everything that uses unix timestamps for timekeeping.
Which is about 99.99% of all desktop and server software.
Lucky me (Score:3)
It's a good thing my Windows 7 game laptop is 64 bit.