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[Mr.PewPew]

Hello,

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this question but does Starsector support Apple silicon? I plan to purchase the upcoming MacBook pro and I still want to continue to enjoy the game. I know there is a MacOS build available to download but it I am not sure if can still work under rosetta stone 2. Thanks in advance.

[Alex]

Hi - honestly, I'm not certain. It's not something I've tried the game on, or heard of anyone doing. I *suspect* it should be ok if other software that works on one works on the other, but it's possible there could be some stumbling block.

[Mr.PewPew]

Thanks for the quick response. I assume apple's Rosetta 2 emulation layer should play the game just fine but apple does intend to remove that feature in the near future. My guess is that they are doing it to incentivize developers to recompile their applications to work on the M series ARM architecture. If that's the case, will you continue to support the MacOS platform or will it be dropped? Their CPU architecture is far superior to equivalent x86 counterparts so it should be a beastly platform for a heavily modded install of Starsector  .

[Alex]

Hmm - that'll depend on whether I can get my hands on a build of Java that's been compiled for Apple Silicon and has a license that allows for redistribution. That'd probably be possible? Probably? But it's not something I can actually promise.

If Apple removes OpenGL support, though, that'd be a much bigger hurdle. If that happens, about the only thing that might make the game run on OS X would be a third party OpenGL-to-Vulkan emulation layer. Which I understand there are people working on them, but that's far from a sure thing. Overall, I don't have any certainty about the future of the game on OS X, but I do have some concerns, mostly about things that are... not *technically* entirely out of my hands, but for practical purposes are.

[HySOqvs0sB8]

Hmm - that'll depend on whether I can get my hands on a build of Java that's been compiled for Apple Silicon and has a license that allows for redistribution. That'd probably be possible? Probably? But it's not something I can actually promise.

If Apple removes OpenGL support, though, that'd be a much bigger hurdle. If that happens, about the only thing that might make the game run on OS X would be a third party OpenGL-to-Vulkan emulation layer. Which I understand there are people working on them, but that's far from a sure thing. Overall, I don't have any certainty about the future of the game on OS X, but I do have some concerns, mostly about things that are... not *technically* entirely out of my hands, but for practical purposes are.

Azul has OpenJDK builds down to java 8

https://www.azul.com/newsroom/azul-announces-support-of-java-builds-of-openjdk-for-apple-silicon/

[Alex]

Thank you, that's great to know!