finally

Does anyone know what the average delay is between a beta update and the update landing in stable?

It really depends on how many bugs their are. But I'd expect it in a couple of months at the most

Anyone know why it took so long? Wasn't important?

Wine couldn't run 32 bit games without 32 bit libraries. They added experimental support for WoW64 a few years ago and now it's considered stable. There was probably just no rush to make Steam 64 bit if it still needed 32 bit libraries for older games.

Thanks :)

Distros have been pushing really hard for this since Ubuntu in 2019, then fedora in 2025 because it's very hard to keep maintaining multilib and i686 for basically only wine and steam. So with this change we can finally get rid of that baggage.

It's about time!

Linux gaming is on fire 🔥, 2026 ♥️

Yeah. My rig is janky but it's still an exciting time.

And running inside the same steam runtime used for games. Oh well.

Electron

Next stop, IPv6!

technically CEF, which is mostly the same but somewhat more efficient

Noob question here, but what’s the benefit of moving an application like Steam to 64bit? I understand for memory intensive applications it allows for more memory usage (it was a big deal when Stellaris made the change) but does Steam often use more than 4 GB of memory?

Wow slow down there buddy!

are we now supposed to update or uninstall and reinstall?

One of the benefits is only needing to have 64 bit libraries. With this change most people can drop their 32 bit stuff.

Bits are literally "binary digits". So more bits means bigger numbers. The reason you get more memory, is because when the code says "put this data in memory spot (number bigger than 32 bits)" .. you cant with only 32 bits. How do you represent that number.

Imagine that you want to put something in memory spot 150, but you only have 2 digits. You cant. Bumping it up to 4 digits, you can say "put this data in memory address 0150" and its fine. "bigger numbers == more addresses == more places to put stuff"

So anywhere you need a number bigger than 32 bit represents, you can either just use a 64 bit number, or do a bunch of shenanigans. Those shenanigans require extra calculations inevitably. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,147,483,647 If youve ever seen this number before, it's probably because of a 32 bit limitation. It shows up all sorts of weird ways.

Bigger numbers here aren't about taking up more space, just representing literally bigger numbers. "9999" only takes up 2x as much "space" as "99" but it repesents a number ~100x bigger.

Sorry, I'm tired and rambling.

The benefit to/for Steam itself is marginal. The benefit to the entire community is significant, because there's now an entire metric shitload of obsolete 32-bit shit that can be safely deleted and forgotten for 95% of the Linux world and efforts can be focused on things that actually matter in the 64-bit world. The entire 32-bit ecosystem of libraries and system layers still had to be maintained and supported basically only for Steam's sake, Steam was the only thing still using them for the vast majority of people. It's not that Steam needs 64-bit, it's that 64-bit is the standard now and has been for a long time, and Steam was the only thing that had no 64-bit version.

It's kind of like cutting loose the anchor that the community has been dragging around everywhere for years for no purpose. It was a totally unnecessary effort that just caused suffering and added no value.

That's actually pretty impactful. Nice

I can probably disable multilib repo soon, which is nice.

Kinda funny to think that I won't be living through any more migrations to the next power of 2. They happened so rapidly at first.

Started writing a lengthy response, then came across this Wikipedia link which slamdunks it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit_computing#Pros_and_cons 😅

The advantage to Steam going 64-bit is that most people can now remove all their 32-bit libraries.

Previously you needed 32-bit libraries for most of the actual games you ran through Steam, so it didn't really matter if Steam used them too.

One of the reasons Steam held out for so long was that a lot of the games they host are 32-bit only. Games are built by a company, many of which have gone belly-up, so rebuilding the game from scratch is impossible. Making Steam 32 bit even though it could be 64 bit is a really effective way to guarantee a large chunk of their legacy products will still run. In a lot of ways, because of the nature of the gaming industry, Steam has it worse than most package managers/app stores.

No, it’s about bits /s

Moore's Law finally caught up with our ability to make rocks calculate for us. It was going to happen eventually, I find it somewhat comforting that hardware has finally plateaued, and will only get incremental changes for a while. It means that the next computer I build, I can expect it to last for multiple decades, rather than just one.

I'm not sure as that's about Steam the client though not on Proton thus Wine, which I bet will keep on supporting 32bit apps.

Remember that the portion of Steam users that use Proton regularly is less than 10%, if you include Deck users. That number is rising and is probably a major factor in the decision to switch, but it's still a minority.

Back when the very first Linux port of Steam was released, there were a couple of Atom CPUs still 32 bit and Valve is relatively slow to change the fundamentals of the Steam client.

IMO one of be bigger mistakes Valve made and also the reason why I switched to the Steam Flatpak early.

Same question

What does this mean for GOG games? I have some old games that I'm running through Lutris.

I don't think it works like that. 64 bit Steam can manage 32 bit games just like a 64 bit OS can run 32 bit games.

Well given that GOG games have nothing to do with Steam I'd imagine it means nothing for them.

Now we need it and Proton to support wayland and we're good

The thing is though that now build quality is going to matter WAY more. Like you need that laptop chassis built like a tank. Which is harder to find in new devices these days.

What is this meme called?

Does this mean I won't need the multilib Arch repo anymore? Or at-least after it has matured enough to not need 32bit stuff?

Stop doing math / Stop doing X

Yeah, and power supplies and such that aren't limited by silicon but capacitor cycling are going to matter more and be limiting factors. Replaceable batteries and power management in phones, laptops, etc are going to be crucial

I meant in the sense that will distros as a whole drop support for games that use 32bit packages? Will proton and wine stop supporting 32bit games, etc etc

My question was predicated upon the fact that Steam is a market mover, and what are the downstream ramifications of this transition.

I'm also on Arch btw, btw. 😆

This was basically one of the big reasons I opted to install Steam via Flatpak.

To me those were always the same, practically speaking.

I just installed from Flatpak for years now. No multilib headache.

They now have AI agents to hold their hand while going through everything, perhaps.

If your game currently runs on your hardware with your distro then it is very unlikely it will stop running unless you change your handware or your software (like a major update). Can I promise 32 bit will be supported forever? No. But it's certainly not going to suddenly stop working because of this.

640 bit ought to be enough for everyone!