Valve pulls Counter-Strike 2 support for MacOS, DirectX 9 & 32-bit operating systems
While cutting off Mac players might sound intense, Valve claims all of the systems it's cutting support to represented less than 1 percent of its players.
It looks like Valve is making some big decisions regarding Counter-Strike 2’s support for legacy software and operating systems, as well as Mac players. In a recent developer update, Valve shared that it no longer plans to support MacOS systems, DirectX 9, or 32-bit operating systems in future Counter-Strike 2 updates. 64-bit Linux and Windows PCs will remain supported for the foreseeable future.
Valve posted this update on Counter-Strike 2 legacy system support in a recent Steam Developer Blog post. According to the post, Valve feels Counter-Strike 2 is one of its greatest undertakings yet the developer also feels some of the legacy systems it’s supporting are holding the game back. With that in mind, it specifically mentioned MacOS, DirectX 9, and 32-bit operating systems in the list of software and hardware it’s cutting support for. It also justifies itself in saying that all of the players for everything for which support is being cut represent less than one percent of the overall Counter-Strike 2 player base.
Source: Valve
Valve goes on to say that if players affected cannot play Counter-Strike 2 going forward, there will still be a legacy version of CSGO where the servers are still active throughout the rest of the year. Unfortunately, Steam also reveals that these servers will eventually be shut off:
It’s a shame to see support pulled from an entire platform to be sure, but Valve seems more than confident that the end of support for MacOS, 32-bit systems, and DirectX 9 will not heavily affect many players. Stay tuned for more Counter-Strike 2 updates and news, including server status, right here at Shacknews.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Valve pulls Counter-Strike 2 support for MacOS, DirectX 9 & 32-bit operating systems
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# 2 for prize pool, # 3 for peak viewers according to https://escharts.com/top-games
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For context, what was CS:GO numbers like this before CS 2 was released?
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Yeah Valve took CS:GO and made a bunch of minor tweeks internally, added volumetric smoke (which is very cool in it's implementation) and switched up it's rendering engine to Source 2 and called Counter-Strike 2.
I kind of wish they had made some new maps along with all that. Doesn't seem like much as changed other than volumetric smoke.
Obviously that's a hot take but that's my take on it.-
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Overwatch's problem is that they started OWL years too early. OW2 is when it was finally viable as an esport both for competitors (terrific balance that is better than any meta ever was in OW1) and for viewers (everything is way more readable with so much ability spam and CC removed while the game is more exciting).
I said back when OWL launched that it wouldn't be a viable esport for about five years because that's generally how long it takes these kinds of competitive games to get figured out organically. That's usually the time it takes for other good esports. Dota is a perfect example of this. Instead they chased those franchise dollars and launched a non-starter in OW1. Now the whole esports bubble has popped and here it is. -
Oh yeah absolutely. Valve will get criticized either way.
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Valve’s stewardship of Dota 2 has also been exemplary. It’s no easy feat to get everyone on board with a new version.
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This has been Apple's problem with gaming for a couple decades now: They make a big deal about games on some new hardware, pay for a handful of prominent ports, and then decide not to bother with the long-term investment of manpower and money needed to make MacOS a real gaming platform.
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Yeah for two years in a row at WWDC they've made a big splash about Mac gaming - 2022 they had the announcement of Metal 3 and ports like RE:V and NMS, and in 2023 they had the Game Porting Toolkit and the Death Stranding announcement.
I agree it would be really smart to go to Valve and throw money and engineers at the situation. Fix up all the aging Source/Source2 ports, and maybe while you're at it get Alyx ported to Vision Pro (not that it makes financial sense to lay out $3499 to play that one game but still).
The big innovation in GPTK was D3DMetal, a DirectX 12 (the Direct3D part) to Metal translation layer. They could totally do something similar for Vulkan or hell, toss some resources towards MoltenVK to help get it up to snuff (it's great but it's been playing catchup since Metal 3 came out).
They have a long way to go before they'd be at the point where Microsoft is, those guys have decades of gaming experience and an actual game console platform under their belts, but in Apple terms they've given signs that they haven't given up on long term investment.
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