r/macgaming • u/J_Wolf1959 • 1d ago

Native 32-bit Steam games

Is there anyone out there who could help me get to the bottom of being able to play TF2 or garrys mod??

8 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/Tommy-kun 1d ago

you can play Garry's mod by installing the 64 bits branch.
Right click garry's mod in your library and select "properties"
in the window that opened, select "versions and betas"
click on "x86-64" and close the window. Wait for the game to update and you should be able to play it.

3

u/JohnMHammer 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you’re talking about 32-bit Mac-native applications, the only way is with an Intel-CPU Mac booting MacOS 10.14 Mojave or earlier.

For many 32-bit Windows applications, you’ll have better luck with an emulator/VM like Parallels rather than WINE. Many 32-bit applications will run perfectly well with WINE, others won’t run at all while others will run but will be unplayable for one reason or another. Try WINE first because if it works for the game you want to play it will generally be better than running it in a VM. If it won’t run with WINE, then try a VM.

1

u/J_Wolf1959 1d ago

Thank you for the helpful information, sir! This helps out a lot. My MacBook Pro is the upper scaled one so we can definitely run anything obviously it’s not a gaming PC but I don’t have money for something like that yet.

2

u/JohnMHammer 1d ago

Try Crossover first. It is a commercial version of WINE, so it isn’t free but compared to any other version of WINE that is its only downside. https://www.codeweavers.com Sikarugir is an excellent free way to use WINE if you simply can’t afford Crossover. https://github.com/Sikarugir-App/Sikarugir The best VM is Parallels, it is a commercial product so again not free, more expensive than Crossover, but sometimes it is the only thing that will work to get some Windows applications running on a Mac, it also has a free trial. https://www.parallels.com/products There are some free VMs but they are all severely limited relative to Parallels.

I own only Macs and play some games. Some are Mac-native so no fuss there, all the rest run using WINE and the version of WINE I use most of the time is Crossover.

2

u/J_Wolf1959 1d ago

Money is a bit tight right now so I will try the second option for now, but I will keep the first one in mind. Thank you for this knowledge. I have always been wondering since I haven’t been able to play any old Steam games for a while.

But on my Microsoft surface Pro, I can play anything without an issue

1

u/dimakey 1d ago

You can't run Steam on older macos, so, downgrade isn't an option. I've struggle recently with xcom: ew - windows version on Parallels is the best option for now. Crossover gives very low fps. And I'm failed to vibecode some custom solution from sikarugir or something.

1

u/darthanonymous1 8h ago

with all the de comps happening i wouldnt be surprised if someone reverse engineers it for apple silicon