[MACOS / Steam] - How to run the 32 bits speed
3 months ago
Midi-Pyrénées, France

Hi! I'm new to speedrunning, and I intend to do a run on Mac for this game (Greatest of All Time). btw : darkid, you are my hero.

As some may know, since macOS 10.15 Catalina, MacOS can only run 64-bit apps. The speedrun-244371 version is 32-bits and seemed unplayable so far on OSX. Croteam released a 64-bit version of the game (legacyosx in the beta tab). This version poses challenges for speedrunning, especially for the 60FPS category, as some tricks I learned from @darkid's guide do not work on this version (RIP BLCJ and some cube stack tricks).

Guides on the internet would recommend either using Bootcamp or a virtual machine to run the game inside a Windows environment. It can be troublesome and a lengthy process (And... Some could say that's heresy to do so).

I tried something this afternoon, and it worked. Here are the steps to make it work:

  1. Install Talos Principle from Steam.
  2. In Steam, go to The Talos Principle "Settings -> Betas" tab and select the legacyosx version of the game. Wait for it to download and update the game files.
  3. Go to the "/Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle" folder. Copy the x64 folder to another location of your choice. 3*) If the Library folder is not visible, right-click inside your user folder and select "show presentation options" (I don't know if this option name is right; my OS is in French). Then click on "Show library folder." The folder should now be visible.
  4. In Steam, go to The Talos Principle "Settings -> Betas" tab and select the speedrun-244371 version of the game. Wait for it to download and update the game files.
  5. Copy the x64 folder you saved earlier from the location of your choice back to the "/Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle" folder.

I tested this trick on every LTS version from 10.15 (Catalina) to 14.1.2 (Sonora 23B92) on an Intel Mac.

EDIT : Should I move this to the guide section ?

Edited by the author 3 months ago
Washington, USA

I think this is a known workaround for the legacy versions, I don't know if we have notes for Mac specifically.

@apple1417 is the one who owns the guide, maybe he can add a note for mac behavior?

Midi-Pyrénées, France

It would be a pleasure ! Even tough, it seems that this workaround is what darkid downpatcher acheive. But manually. I did not try the downpatcher.

New Zealand

What's the version number in the top right in menus? When you reset checkpoint into a portal, can you immediately tap w to go through it, or do you need to wait a second? This sounds to me like you're really just running the legacyosx build, but frakensteined into the old supporting game files. The standard workaround on windows/linux is to fill the x64 folder with the same files from the base x86 folder (copy/symlink), from the same version - creating a frankenstein version isn't going to be allowed since it's not a build that ever actually existed.

If you don't have instant portals, there's no need to stay on 244, you can just use the "legacy" beta instead, which most people also report performs much better.

Edited by the author 3 months ago
Midi-Pyrénées, France

Oh my.... You are right. I created a monster.

It's so dumb >_< Dumber than trying to speedrun this game on mac !