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183 points ahamez | 2 comments | 09 Apr 25 12:17 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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moolcool ◴[09 Apr 25 13:04 UTC] No.43631589[source]▶
Is there any hope that Proton might eventually work on MacOS?
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LorenDB ◴[09 Apr 25 13:44 UTC] No.43632012[source]▶
Probably not unless Apple provides a way to run 32-bit binaries or some really dedicated hacker figures out a way to make it work. Even Valve's own titles have 32-bit macOS versions (e.g. Portal 2) that won't work on modern macOS, so Proton on macOS today would only work with more modern 64-bit games. Not a problem for some people, but Valve really likes to support everything.
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1. soraminazuki ◴[09 Apr 25 14:01 UTC] No.43632242[source]▶
Wine's WoW64 build can run 32 bit Windows binaries. Apple's support for running 32 bit macOS binaries isn't relevant for running 32 bit Windows binaries, as long as Wine itself is 64 bit and calls 64 bit system libraries.

The more pressing concern is the eventual removal of Rosetta 2. It hasn't been announced so far, but it's unlikely that Apple will keep maintaining it forever.

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2. Rhedox ◴[09 Apr 25 14:32 UTC] No.43632611[source]▶
One problem for that is that most 32bit games use x87. x87 optionally supports 80 bit floats so Rosetta runs software emulation for x87 math code. That's extremely slow to the point of making even some ancient games unplayable. For example the FMod audio library, which was extremely widespread, uses x87.

Linux x86 emulators work around this by offering an optional reduced precision mode that turns those into either 64 bit or even 32 bit floats. Some even do it by default.

Microsoft also does that with their Prism x86 emulator. They can be somewhat confident in doing that as Microsofts compiler stack has defaulted to configuring the x87 hardware to use 64 bit floats.

Apple should really add that as an option to Rosetta but I doubt that's gonna happen simply because it only impacts 32 bit code.