Valve is finally bringing long-awaited performance improvements to Mac gamers. With its newest beta update, Steam now runs natively on Apple Silicon Macs. That means no more workarounds like Rosetta 2 emulation. This move clearly shows that Apple is working towards making its Macs more optimised for gaming. It also promises a major boost in speed and efficiency.

Native Steam Experience for M-Series Macs

Valve quietly rolled out a beta version of Steam that’s optimised for Apple’s M1, M2, and M3 chips. Both the Steam client and the Steam Helper app now run natively on Macs without the need for Rosetta 2, which is Apple’s translation layer for running Intel apps on Apple Silicon.

Early beta testers have already noticed a major boost in app launch speed. Navigation across tabs like Library, Store, and Community also feels much snappier than before. 

Earlier the Steam interface was built on Chromium, which has made the macOS version feel sluggish. The current stable version still uses Rosetta 2 and suffers from noticeable lag on newer Mac models. But with this beta, a full native stable release is expected soon, bringing these upgrades to all users. Interestingly, this update came when Apple confirmed that macOS Tahoe will be the final OS update for Intel Macs. 

Rosetta 2 is also set to be officially phased out by 2027, which means apps that haven’t been updated for Apple Silicon will eventually stop working.

While Valve hasn’t confirmed when the stable version will roll out, it’s clear that a universal Steam app is in the pipeline. This could give all Macs the much-needed update and finally make them a more viable option for gaming.