3 ms·

I'm really curious how exactly they'll wind up phasing out Rosetta 2. They seem to be a bit coy about it: > Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Appl

by jchw 1y ago

I'm really curious how exactly they'll wind up phasing out Rosetta 2. They seem to be a bit coy about it: > Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27 – as a general-purpose tool for Intel apps to help developers complete the migration of their apps. Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks. However, that leaves much unsaid. Unmaintained gaming titles? Does this mean native, old macOS games? I thought many of them were already no longer functional by this point. What about Crossover? What about Rosetta 2 inside Linux? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running-intel-binaries-in-linux-vms-with-rosetta https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run... I wouldn't be surprised if they really do drop some x86 amenities from the SoC at the cost of performance, but I think it would be a bummer of they dropped Rosetta 2 use cases that don't involve native apps. Those ones are useful. Rosetta 2 is faster than alternative recompilers. Maybe FEX will have bridged the gap most of the way by then?

toast0 1y ago
> However, that leaves much unsaid. Unmaintained gaming titles? Does this mean native, old macOS games? I thought many of them were already no longer functional by this point. What about Crossover? What about Rosetta 2 inside Linux? Apple keeps trying to be a platform for games. Keeping old games running would be a step in that direction. Might include support for x86 games running through wine/apple game porting toolkit/etc
- warpspin 1y ago
  > Apple keeps trying to be a platform for games. Keeping old games running > would be a step in that direction. Might include support for x86 games > running through wine/apple game porting toolkit/etc Well... They'd need to bring back 32-bit support also then. This is what killed most of my Mac-compatible Steam library.... And I do not see that happening.
guappa 1y ago
They dropped rosetta 1, what makes you think they will keep supporting this one?
- jchw 1y ago
  Rosetta 1 wasn't really useful for much because PowerPC was a dead platform by the time Apple switched off of it. Rosetta 2 is used for much more than just compatibility with old macOS apps.
- GeekyBear 1y ago
  Rosetta 1 was licenced third party technology back when the company wasn't exactly rolling in money. https:/www.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit If you have to pay the licensing fee again every time you want to release a new version of the OS, you've got a fiscal incentive to sunset Rosetta early. Rosetta 2 was developed in-house. Apple owns it, so there is no fiscal reason to sunset it early.
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    > Apple owns it, so there is no fiscal reason to sunset it early. Except not having to pay to maintain it.
  - 15155 1y ago
    > so there is no fiscal reason to sunset it early. Silicon (or verification thereof) isn't free.
twoodfin 1y ago
I think they’re trying to maintain the stick for ordinary “Cocoa” app developers, but otherwise leave themselves the room to keep using the technology where it makes sense.

by jchw 1y ago

toast0 1y ago

> However, that leaves much unsaid. Unmaintained gaming titles? Does this mean native, old macOS games? I thought many of them were already no longer functional by this point. What about Crossover? What about Rosetta 2 inside Linux? Apple keeps trying to be a platform for games. Keeping old games running would be a step in that direction. Might include support for x86 games running through wine/apple game porting toolkit/etc

warpspin 1y ago
> Apple keeps trying to be a platform for games. Keeping old games running > would be a step in that direction. Might include support for x86 games > running through wine/apple game porting toolkit/etc Well... They'd need to bring back 32-bit support also then. This is what killed most of my Mac-compatible Steam library.... And I do not see that happening.

guappa 1y ago

They dropped rosetta 1, what makes you think they will keep supporting this one?

jchw 1y ago
Rosetta 1 wasn't really useful for much because PowerPC was a dead platform by the time Apple switched off of it. Rosetta 2 is used for much more than just compatibility with old macOS apps.
GeekyBear 1y ago
Rosetta 1 was licenced third party technology back when the company wasn't exactly rolling in money. https:/www.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit If you have to pay the licensing fee again every time you want to release a new version of the OS, you've got a fiscal incentive to sunset Rosetta early. Rosetta 2 was developed in-house. Apple owns it, so there is no fiscal reason to sunset it early.
- LtWorf 1y ago
  > Apple owns it, so there is no fiscal reason to sunset it early. Except not having to pay to maintain it.
- 15155 1y ago
  > so there is no fiscal reason to sunset it early. Silicon (or verification thereof) isn't free.

twoodfin 1y ago

I think they’re trying to maintain the stick for ordinary “Cocoa” app developers, but otherwise leave themselves the room to keep using the technology where it makes sense.