Trying to build a .NET Standard Steamworks.NET.dll that targets Any CPU

[klootas]

I'm building a Godot game that uses .NET 9 (which is compatible with .NET Standard dll:s)., I downloaded your VS solution and I'm trying to make a Windows build that targets Any CPU so it will work regardless of the architecture.

By default your VS solution creates an x86 build that I cannot even call from my .NET 9 in runtime. If I change it produce an x64 dll it works in runtime, but only if running on x64 hardware. Any tips on how to build the dll so it targets Any CPU?

Edit: Then again, I guess they would still have to reference architecture-specific version of the steam_api dll. Any thoughts on how to package this up neatly in a standard .NET app?

Thanks a bunch!

[rlabrecque]

Steamworks.NET doesn't really support that because it was originally made for Unity which explicitly did not have an AnyCPU option. Some 10 years ago we looked at some options but it was pretty hamfisted largely because of the differently named steam_api dlls as you pointed out.

That being said, we're nearly at the point where 32 bit is EOL, given that Win11 which is now almost 4 years old does not have a 32 bit version, and we're some 6 months from Win 10 reaching EOL, MacOS hasn't had a 32 bit version since it dropped the OS X naming IIRC. Steam doesn't even seem to be tracking 32 bit operating systems anymore likely because they don't even add up to 0.01% usage. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

[klootas]

After taking a closer look at the 32 vs 64 bit stats (as best I could find), I can only confirm that there doesn't seem much point in new Steam games supporting both architectures these days.

Thanks for your reply and proving a non-Unity version of your bits 👍

[rlabrecque]

Yeah, It's unfortunate because I'd love for it to just work. But the effort required isn't really worth it IMO.

[Akarinnnnn]

If you reference the package published on NuGet, build system will choose appropriate S.NET.dll for you. Hope this will help to you.

For why AnyCPU is not available, is because the file name of the DLL from steam is different between 64 and 32 bit. Plus we import them by P/Invoke which need const DLL name, resulting S.NET have to provide different DLL for different architecture. Although combining function pointers and NativeLibrary.Load which introduced recent years would help, but they requires .NET 5+, which Unity, the major consumer of this project, haven't adapted yet.

[Akarinnnnn]

Edit: Then again, I guess they would still have to reference architecture-specific version of the steam_api dll. Any thoughts on how to package this up neatly in a standard .NET app?

Some update here. Through Steamworks.NET.dll is still not being Any CPU, but PR #705 aim to pack native steam_api.dlls. Do you interested to have a try?

[Chicken-Bones]

I want to bump this because https://github.com/tModLoader/tModLoader and Terraria are working on supporting ARM natively.

For tModLoader, we ship a 'unified deployment' for all platforms and architectures, and it is difficult for us to select different versions of a managed library based on architecture.

It seems that for the net standard version of Steamworks.NET, the windows and osx/linux versions are the same. It seems all we need for ARM support is to add AnyCPU to the <Platforms> element in Steamworks.NET.Standard and everything worked for us.

It would be great to have this upstreamed so we don't need to maintain a fork or build our own.

[Akarinnnnn]

If tModLoader just reference S.NET binary without ship it, tML itself don't have to care S.NET architecture, as long as you don't touch Steamworks.Packsize or something exposes const architecture-dependent value.&nbsp; IIRC Add AnyCPU to <Platforms&gt; of Steamworks.NET simply won't build a real Any CPU binary without modification, Win64 will break for example.

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---Original--- From: ***@***.***&gt; Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2025 13:53 PM To: ***@***.***&gt;; Cc: ***@***.******@***.***&gt;; Subject: Re: [rlabrecque/Steamworks.NET] Trying to build a .NET StandardSteamworks.NET.dll that targets Any CPU (Issue #699) Chicken-Bones left a comment (rlabrecque/Steamworks.NET#699) I want to bump this because https://github.com/tModLoader/tModLoader and Terraria are working on supporting ARM natively. For tModLoader, we ship a 'unified deployment' for all platforms and architectures, and it is difficult for us to select different versions of a managed library based on architecture. It seems that for the net standard version of Steamworks.NET, the windows and osx/linux versions are the same. It seems all we need for ARM support is to add AnyCPU to the <Platforms&gt; element in Steamworks.NET.Standard and everything worked for us. It would be great to have this upstreamed so we don't need to maintain a fork or build our own. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***&gt;

[Chicken-Bones]

The modern dotnet assembly loader refuses to load referenced managed libraries if their target platform doesn't match that of the runtime. That's our only blocker

[Akarinnnnn]

I have an Any CPU fork for preview, regardless will it be merged. Through it's a little outdated, would you like to have a try? Here is the link: https://github.com/Akarinnnnn/Steamworks.NET.AnyCPU/tree/anycpu

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---Original--- From: ***@***.***&gt; Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2025 17:32 PM To: ***@***.***&gt;; Cc: ***@***.******@***.***&gt;; Subject: Re: [rlabrecque/Steamworks.NET] Trying to build a .NET StandardSteamworks.NET.dll that targets Any CPU (Issue #699) Chicken-Bones left a comment (rlabrecque/Steamworks.NET#699) The modern dotnet assembly loader refuses to load referenced managed libraries if their target platform doesn't match that of the runtime. That's our only blocker — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***&gt;

[Akarinnnnn]

I want to bump this because https://github.com/tModLoader/tModLoader and Terraria are working on supporting ARM natively.

A reminder, as of 2025.5.15, Any CPU draft has not been tested on real projects yet. It's time to verify it in real world.

[Chicken-Bones]

The AnyCPU we have in mind isn't x86 support, just ARM and x64. Unfortunately there's no way to specify that, but at least in our testing it doesn't seem that any extra work is required aside from the csproj TargetFramework value

[rlabrecque]

I don't think Steam runs on ARM natively at all [outside of macOS], or at least doesn't provide the required steam_api.dll/so compiled for arm yet?

[Chicken-Bones]

That's correct. It works on macOS atm, but having an AnyCPU version of Steamworks.NET also lets our app run on Linux ARM servers as long as we don't actually call any of the steam functions. Otherwise we'd have to resort to platform specific conditional compilation, or careful jit dodging