Steam for Mac Available May 12: System Requirements

by Jordan Yerman | May 12, 2010 at 08:31 am

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Steam for Mac Released May 12

Steam for Mac has finally arrived, seven years after first launching on the Windows platform. Steam is an online gaming platform, allowing users to buy and preview video games over the Internet. Basically, it's an iTunes store for gamers, and the platform for online play. Steam for Mac will be available for download on May 12.

Valve, the company behind Steam, will be rolling out content slowly, even as it patches the initial release. Counter Strike, Left for Dead, and Half Life won't be immediately available. Steam itself is a free download, though users must pay for the actual games.

Steam for Mac System Requirements

System requirements should be the same for Intel Macs as they are for PCs, since the components are essentially the same:

512MB RAM
1GHz processor
1GB HD space
Steady Internet connection

These requirements are met by even entry-level Macs. The average modern Mac has 1GB RAM and at least a 2GHz dual-core processor. In terms of video memory, most Macs have 256MB of video RAM, even the Mac Mini.

However, most Macs use integrated graphics cards, so you'll be sharing RAM across video and the other software/OS needs. More RAM is always better.

Portal, in addition to supporting Steam Play, will be the first of Valve's Source engine based games available on the Mac. Native OS/X support for the Source engine is also available immediately to licensees for use in their games.

Fortunately, Valve spared no expense in bringing Steam to the Mac. This isn’t some duct-taped Java port that limps along with a fraction of its Windows counterpart’s features. Valve used native Cocoa tools, even going so far as to re-engineer the Steam client and store on Windows to use Apple’s WebKit rendering engine—which, in turn, was one of the original hints that a Mac version was in the works.