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Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

(www.half-life.com)
566 points Philpax | 8 comments | 15 Nov 24 22:18 UTC | HN request time: 1.403s | source | bottom
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inasio ◴[15 Nov 24 23:47 UTC] No.42152655[source]▶
It would be nice if it was again possible to run it in current Mac OS. The original Half life still lists Mac OS but with incompatible information (newer versions of Steam require recent versions, but HL only runs on old 32 bit OSX)
replies(3): >>42153072 #>>42154318 #>>42157621 #
mrpippy ◴[16 Nov 24 00:44 UTC] No.42153072[source]▶
It should work in Wine, although I haven't tested this update yet.

(disclaimer: I work for CodeWeavers, we sell CrossOver which should be a great and easy way to play)

edit: tested out the 20th anniversary update on M2 Pro, it works great!

replies(2): >>42153227 #>>42153482 #
1. inasio ◴[16 Nov 24 01:04 UTC] No.42153227[source]▶
All, or at least most of Valve's games used to run natively on Mac, and now they don't (even on Intel Macs)
replies(2): >>42153420 #>>42156414 #
2. Zamiel_Snawley ◴[16 Nov 24 01:46 UTC] No.42153420[source]▶
Running native or emulated doesn’t really matter if the performance is good enough.

Better translation layers are what made the Steam Deck possible.

replies(1): >>42153705 #
3. satvikpendem ◴[16 Nov 24 02:50 UTC] No.42153705[source]▶
Good enough doesn't mean optimal, though. Every layer adds a performance penalty and that's how we end up in situations where we have layers and layers of abstraction eventually making all programs slow even on ever increasing hardware.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill's_law

replies(1): >>42157284 #
4. Rinzler89 ◴[16 Nov 24 13:51 UTC] No.42156414[source]▶
Is this a problem Valve should invest in fixing because it's an issues caused by them, or a problem Apple created for not caring about backwards compatibility on MacOS the same way Microsoft does on Windows?

If Apple doesn't care about backwards compatibility on their platform, why should Valve or other developers be burdened with the added cost, especially on a platform with small market share that won't drive many sales?

replies(1): >>42157481 #
5. brnt ◴[16 Nov 24 16:40 UTC] No.42157284{3}[source]▶
In fact, Windows gamers are using DXVK to reduce overhead.

One needs to realise graphics APIs have historically not been terribly efficient.

replies(1): >>42158117 #
6. freedomben ◴[16 Nov 24 17:10 UTC] No.42157481[source]▶
Amen. I didn't understand why Apple is one of the only companies that gets to break backward compatibility, and escape all blame when stuff breaks. It always seems to be put on the software developer to update with whatever Apple's new requirements are, even when it's older software (or ancient)!
7. satvikpendem ◴[16 Nov 24 18:31 UTC] No.42158117{4}[source]▶
How do you know that those graphics APIs have not been efficient?
replies(1): >>42181233 #
8. brnt ◴[19 Nov 24 08:42 UTC] No.42181233{5}[source]▶
Benchmarks.

There was a reason Mantle/Vulkan came to be.