steam has introduced horrible problems to the core of the hl engine. the majority of the ents in hl are bugged, and never used to be. steam is basically a hack job put together, hence the hundreds of updates that they crank out all the time.
hell they probably go "hmm, *blank* isnt working right, lets just patch this real quick and send it out" they probably dont even test the patches before they release them, probably the reason for so many bugs.
and really what is the deal with "minimum cpu specs for steam: 500 MHz or greater" i used to be able to run ns on a PI 200 MHz with SLi voodoo2's and get 45~ fps on WON, and now my athlon 3000 with a radeon 9800 pro, i get like 20-30 fps when the map gets alot of crap in it on steam, go back to won and get a solid 100 fps.
yes everybody hates steam but does it really matter we can all whine sure but valve or anyone else isnt going todo **** i would also like to say i belive steam has actually helped the community if it wasnt for valve being nice and adding ns under 3rd party or the specialist there might not be as big as a mod community plus steam actually has forums unlike won for people who have problems with hl or steam
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->but valve or anyone else isnt going todo ****<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I already linked the alternative.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->valve being nice and adding ns under 3rd party<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It only needs a liblist and it will be added to 3rd party games, in the same way mods are added to the "Custom Games" under the other system.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> not be as big as a mod community<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The mod community has always been fluctuating, I remember as many mods before, as there are now.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->steam actually has forums unlike won for people who have problems with hl or steam<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-DarkFrost+Jun 27 2005, 01:58 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DarkFrost @ Jun 27 2005, 01:58 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->valve being nice and adding ns under 3rd party<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It only needs a liblist and it will be added to 3rd party games, in the same way mods are added to the "Custom Games" under the other system. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> He meant on the "Third-Party Games" section of the game purchase window.
<!--QuoteBegin-DarkFrost+Jun 27 2005, 02:23 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DarkFrost @ Jun 27 2005, 02:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Cereal KillR+Jun 26 2005, 10:15 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cereal KillR @ Jun 26 2005, 10:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Because people hate confronting change and still think it's hip to stay with won because Steam had a horrible debut (just like WON had a horrible start, but no-one remembers) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> The difference is, steam continues to be horrible, eveery update brings a new problem, and every update seems to push your hardware harder, until it cant even run half-life at a stable framerate anymore... whats the deal with that?
Ofcourse, valve wont see anyproblems with thier software, as it saves them money, aswell as charging over the RRP on the games you buy on it.
I even tried my half-life 2 without steam, extracted the GCF files, and yes, it runs smoother and load times are faster.
Change is good, for the better, this change was, and still is, for the worse. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Steam is getting better all the time from my point of view. Apart from Friends and DoD:S, I have had no problems to complain about lately. And hell, my PIII 1Ghz runs Steam smoothly, and I still get good framerates.
Steam isn't a big pile of crap, it's a program that is much easier for the average player than keeping up with a game's progress by checking its website for updates and patches. You just load up steam and it updates as needed, with absolutely no fuss.
I don't know what you people are doing wrong, or what I'm doing right, that makes steam work wonderfully (apart Friends) on both of my computers and not on yours.
ps: I don't hate steam. I could have lived without it surely and I wouldn't mind if they just scrapped the project and went back to WON, but it's here and I'm not complaining.
* every unessecary software introduces more bugs and makes your system more vulnerable * drm in action (i dont discuss its disadvanteges here but just as a little hint: you only own hl2 form 30 days. it is up to valve to extend this period or not. think about that)
<!--QuoteBegin-Dihard+Jun 26 2005, 09:10 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dihard @ Jun 26 2005, 09:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-sporty+Jun 26 2005, 11:11 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (sporty @ Jun 26 2005, 11:11 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> definitely some interesting information in this thread... id love to play ns again, but not even for ns would i infest my computer with steam another time <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> What makes you think that Steam is an infestation? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> its not mainly about the software, though some of the complaints made here seem valid. my reaon for not permitting steam on my system again (yes, i used it before you absolutely had to and even advocated it because of ns 3bxx <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->) is valves business policy starting with the hl2 release. playing online over steam wasnt as comfortable as won for me, but it worked. steam as a marketing platform for valve games, ok for me even though i prefer boxed games. however, the strict dependance of valve products from steam eventually alienated me. then the problems with 2 seperate eulas for one game... i cant support this trend, and not even ns justifies any support for it. sadly my hopes for ns:d3 were in vain <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
there wouldve been better expressions than "infestation", it sounds too harsh and helped summoning the dreaded "steam yay nay" debate again... my apologies for that.
<!--QuoteBegin-Cereal KillR+Jun 27 2005, 04:29 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cereal KillR @ Jun 27 2005, 04:29 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-DarkFrost+Jun 27 2005, 02:23 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DarkFrost @ Jun 27 2005, 02:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Cereal KillR+Jun 26 2005, 10:15 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cereal KillR @ Jun 26 2005, 10:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Because people hate confronting change and still think it's hip to stay with won because Steam had a horrible debut (just like WON had a horrible start, but no-one remembers) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> The difference is, steam continues to be horrible, eveery update brings a new problem, and every update seems to push your hardware harder, until it cant even run half-life at a stable framerate anymore... whats the deal with that?
Ofcourse, valve wont see anyproblems with thier software, as it saves them money, aswell as charging over the RRP on the games you buy on it.
I even tried my half-life 2 without steam, extracted the GCF files, and yes, it runs smoother and load times are faster.
Change is good, for the better, this change was, and still is, for the worse. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Steam is getting better all the time from my point of view. Apart from Friends and DoD:S, I have had no problems to complain about lately. And hell, my PIII 1Ghz runs Steam smoothly, and I still get good framerates.
Steam isn't a big pile of crap, it's a program that is much easier for the average player than keeping up with a game's progress by checking its website for updates and patches. You just load up steam and it updates as needed, with absolutely no fuss.
I don't know what you people are doing wrong, or what I'm doing right, that makes steam work wonderfully (apart Friends) on both of my computers and not on yours.
ps: I don't hate steam. I could have lived without it surely and I wouldn't mind if they just scrapped the project and went back to WON, but it's here and I'm not complaining. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Its not necesarily things people are doing wrong, its just th elack of testing prior to updates.
Like now im on a an xp2800 with a gig of ram, but still need to lower the hl.exe process to get a stable game, due to a hack job update a couple of months ago.
Valve seem to not be arsed with compatabilty checking and real fault correction. Way too many hack jobs have been going on.
And in reply to the post further up with regards to steam having forums, yes they do and the usefullness is? The popularity of the HL series seems to have given valve the right to provide some of the worst and slowest tech support in history.
Although Steam in principle is a Fantastic Idea, just gonna need to wait 5 years for it to be anything special
It only needs a liblist and it will be added to 3rd party games, in the same way mods are added to the "Custom Games" under the other system. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> He meant on the "Third-Party Games" section of the game purchase window. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> yes that is what i meant
yes steam has problems but won also has problems you may so oh no it doesnt but yes it does
one of the main reasons steam was even thought of was becuase of the large amount of players who simply downloaded hl1 of a p2p server or such they probally lost alot of money steam was there idea and it worked
hackers where a big problem in won they still are in steam but with vac most cheaters are caught and banned
this is my last thing to say btw i dont want to get into a bigass discussion about which one is better or worse
Well it might not be something done wrong, but my point is, on both of my PC's, Steam works more than fine (one of them being a PIII 1GHz/256 SDR/GeForce 3, the other a XP 2500+/1 GB DDR/9800 Pro)
I never get unstable games and it works as smoothly as it ever did in WON.
Now possibly there are certain combinations of componentss that don't work well, but I seriously doubt it.
About DRM: What's bad about that? They can't just suddenly say "let's delete this account" because they feel like it. They need a reason, and being a serious company, that reason should probably be valid.
<!--QuoteBegin-hiveonos+Jun 28 2005, 12:47 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (hiveonos @ Jun 28 2005, 12:47 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Woah, the majority of NS players use non-steam versions of the game..? Is this true? If so what version? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> All versions work without steam.
seriously. get a grip. i remember how frustrating won was. especially before modern hl netcode. god. you guys have it easy nowadays. fact of the matter is, valve has to release patches to its software, because, get this, everyone has a different system and they cannot possibly be expected to deal with each and every single problem that could arise from trillions of possible hardware setups. plus that the fact that theyre only human, and 99% of those that complain about how "****" valves products are would be hard pressed to produce something near the quality that steam is currently at.
Steam gives valve the ultimate control over halflife and halflife 2's futures, as well as any other games released. it cuts out 3rd party publishers completly, if valve so chooses, which can only mean more time and money going back to valve, which leads to much higher quality games (although i dont think you can get many higher quality first person shooters to be honest), and gives valve total creative control over their games. hell, they can even release a patch to fix an error while you sleep, and patch it for you.
As for those who moan about steams "high" system requirements, then, on valves behalf, i apologise for designing a modern games distribution system for everyone else while your computer remains in 2001. kthxbai.
People can hate steam, and people can love steam, I simply gave an alternative.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->modern games distribution system for everyone else while your computer remains in 2001<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't get it do you? Even though I built my PC in 2003, it can play ANY game, at playable levels, the fact that when I removed half-life 2 from steam, and ran it independantly I gained +135fps, and saved diskspace in the process - why do gcf files take up more disk space than when you extract them?
Your use of modern games is so misplaced, if you are talking about half-life 2, a game released too late for its technology used. The only technology it _will_ have that is new will be HDR. And good luck running that.
That is one game I am very upset I bought, its singleplayer was terrible, and its multiplayer is worse. It brought nothing new to the games world, and is about to be surpassed, some believe it already has, as a graphics engine.
I believe the only reason the game wasn't a failure, is that its bundled with counter strike, although I have to admit, I never saw the appeal of the game, I can't deny how much of an impact on online gaming that game has had, it is in many ways, a masterpiece, without which valve would have gone the way of many developers, and continued its life as a "Didn't they release <X>? I wonder what they are doing now."
Oh and good for you, you managed to get a steam that works better than the old system, many of us however, have clients that crash continuously on load of games, and cripple our systems, this has been the trend for a while now. Where I can load half-life on a system built in 1998, and run it at 100fps, I can not do that on a 2 year old machine when using steam, yet without steam, it gives constant, and thats 11 bots and me in a room style constant, 100 fps.
And for the record, I prefer to play with cl_lc 0 cl_nopred 1 (they took this out why?!) cl_lb 0 and cl_lw 0.
[/snip] <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> the autopatcher was run by sierra. your missing the point.
As for running HL better out of steam, well whopdedoo. steam is not just a games distrubution system, or method of control. its also one giant bit torrent network. when updates are rolled out, everyones bandwidth is put to good use, and everyone benefits.
won didnt have anything remotely close to that.
and yes, you did only offer an alternative. i applaud you for that, aint nothing wrong with giving people a choice, and i wish you all the best. however, i will argue with you on this because i believe steam is far superior to the old won system. vac's come leaps and bounds since then.
dont even mention hlguard. that things been a joke since day one.
Edit - To clarify some things, Steamless does not use WON, it is a new server network using a combination of the best bits from the old WON network and the new Steam network, for example, it allows clients to run games at very good performance, while still having a system in place that globally bans people. A mod running on this platform instantly gets VAC support in the form of VAC2, and therefor someone banned on a DoD server, will also be banned on a NS server.
On top of that, their Anti-Cheat software is updated often.
This network certainly has potential enough to split the half-life community in two.
Edit 2 - Sorry it uses WON2 VAC
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The WON2 Valve AntiCheat System is the Next Generation version of the original VAC system for Half-Life, which is closed down by Valve. The WON2 VAC system is not only a replacement of the original VAC, but is also an improved version. VAC was (/is) well known as a does-not-detect-all-cheats system. WON2 VAC made a difference in that. Daily our WON2 VAC team updates the modules with anticheat libraries from the original VAC system (which is now for Steam only), and detections from other smaller anticheat solutions, making a total-solution of Anti-Cheat for your server. WON2 VAC supports a variety of MODs, including Counter-Strike 1.5, Day of Defeat and the Counter-Strike Betas (for as far a certain Beta version supports VAC). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[/snip] <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> the autopatcher was run by sierra. your missing the point.
As for running HL better out of steam, well whopdedoo. steam is not just a games distrubution system, or method of control. its also one giant bit torrent network. when updates are rolled out, everyones bandwidth is put to good use, and everyone benefits.
won didnt have anything remotely close to that.
and yes, you did only offer an alternative. i applaud you for that, aint nothing wrong with giving people a choice, and i wish you all the best. however, i will argue with you on this because i believe steam is far superior to the old won system. vac's come leaps and bounds since then.
dont even mention hlguard. that things been a joke since day one. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Get off your high horse for a second and read out the rubish your typing out.
Steam is a giant FAILED bit torrent network when patches and updates are released the network regulairly dies and locks up. Although platform game download a lot smoother.
Also Steam cannot be held accountable for the trillions of hardware combinations ehh? So how about just a handfull then?
I also agree that in many, many ways Steam is superior to WON but its the tiniest of stupid, rushed mistakes that are really hurting it right now.
Quit getting so personal with these things, we have always had issues with valve products, its just that Steam was the one that has taken the longest to be resolved, and since the whole Vivendi thing Im hopefull that was a giant contributant and things will slowly start to improve.
As long as Valve pull their fingers out of their ears, open the closet door and start listening to people things may start to move back in the right direction.
You really gotta be kidding me. lets reflect back at the old won way of doing things, compared to steam.
In steam, you:
connect to the steam network, if you have the updated game set to autodownload, the patch/update will automatically install for you.
this may take some time, perhaps an hour or two, depending on how congested the network is. patch downloads, installs, you play.
in won:
you log on to your game to find your favourite server isnt working. you spend five minutes hopping around trying to figure out why, before it finally dawns on you that theres been an update. you go swing by the website, and click the download link.
1kB/s? because all the bandwidth is being soaked? hell no.
Looks like im going to have to sit in a fileplanet 2 hour queue just to download the damn file. thats not even counting in the extra hour it takes to actually download it. then you gotta go manually install it, and then, if you didnt **** up royal, you get to play.
thats the cold harsh reality.
As for "taking this personally". I have taken nothing personally. i have used no flames, or crude language. im stating facts to back up my beliefs and am using logic and forthought to counter arguments presented to me. how is this "taking it personal"?
and yes. the steam network can get congested. but like i said, nothing is perfect. it provides perfect performance 99% of the time for me.
and yes. the steam network can get congested. but like i said, nothing is perfect. it provides perfect performance 99% of the time for me. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well perhaps thats the point you should be taking on board. Steam has been nothing but a bane to many many people. And checking a website daily for update news on the old WON system was never a problem, neither was downloading them if you knew where to look.
You may also trying to argue the point to anti-steam users is never going to work <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> only valve can change our views
valve may have the ultimate solution to "getting updates on the fly" but they dont have the solution to having quality updates.
with won, they would release a patch every couple of months, that included alot of TESTED bugfixes. valve on the other hand probably has a couple of guys that play the games, see a bug, and fix it without testing if it causes engine instability or other hardware incompatibilities.
example of this is in hl2, ever since they did those updates to the engine, more people are crashing out from stupid errors in every hl2 mod "0x476543 address cannot be "read" from address 0x386593." or " Cut Linked List Overflow" or "Engine error: Tell a Programmer 32875 > 32768."
and who knows what they did that made hl eat up 280+ megs of ram while running hl in steam, and cpu hogging. it feels like im playing on my old PIII 550 with 256 megs of ram while in fact its about 6x faster than that.
Comments
hell they probably go "hmm, *blank* isnt working right, lets just patch this real quick and send it out" they probably dont even test the patches before they release them, probably the reason for so many bugs.
and really what is the deal with "minimum cpu specs for steam: 500 MHz or greater" i used to be able to run ns on a PI 200 MHz with SLi voodoo2's and get 45~ fps on WON, and now my athlon 3000 with a radeon 9800 pro, i get like 20-30 fps when the map gets alot of crap in it on steam, go back to won and get a solid 100 fps.
steam = crap
true
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->but valve or anyone else isnt going todo ****<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I already linked the alternative.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->valve being nice and adding ns under 3rd party<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It only needs a liblist and it will be added to 3rd party games, in the same way mods are added to the "Custom Games" under the other system.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> not be as big as a mod community<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The mod community has always been fluctuating, I remember as many mods before, as there are now.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->steam actually has forums unlike won for people who have problems with hl or steam<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The forums were run by sierra.
It only needs a liblist and it will be added to 3rd party games, in the same way mods are added to the "Custom Games" under the other system. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
He meant on the "Third-Party Games" section of the game purchase window.
The difference is, steam continues to be horrible, eveery update brings a new problem, and every update seems to push your hardware harder, until it cant even run half-life at a stable framerate anymore... whats the deal with that?
Ofcourse, valve wont see anyproblems with thier software, as it saves them money, aswell as charging over the RRP on the games you buy on it.
I even tried my half-life 2 without steam, extracted the GCF files, and yes, it runs smoother and load times are faster.
Change is good, for the better, this change was, and still is, for the worse. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Steam is getting better all the time from my point of view. Apart from Friends and DoD:S, I have had no problems to complain about lately. And hell, my PIII 1Ghz runs Steam smoothly, and I still get good framerates.
Steam isn't a big pile of crap, it's a program that is much easier for the average player than keeping up with a game's progress by checking its website for updates and patches. You just load up steam and it updates as needed, with absolutely no fuss.
I don't know what you people are doing wrong, or what I'm doing right, that makes steam work wonderfully (apart Friends) on both of my computers and not on yours.
ps: I don't hate steam. I could have lived without it surely and I wouldn't mind if they just scrapped the project and went back to WON, but it's here and I'm not complaining.
* drm in action (i dont discuss its disadvanteges here but just as a little hint: you only own hl2 form 30 days. it is up to valve to extend this period or not. think about that)
What makes you think that Steam is an infestation? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
its not mainly about the software, though some of the complaints made here seem valid. my reaon for not permitting steam on my system again (yes, i used it before you absolutely had to and even advocated it because of ns 3bxx <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->) is valves business policy starting with the hl2 release.
playing online over steam wasnt as comfortable as won for me, but it worked. steam as a marketing platform for valve games, ok for me even though i prefer boxed games.
however, the strict dependance of valve products from steam eventually alienated me. then the problems with 2 seperate eulas for one game... i cant support this trend, and not even ns justifies any support for it. sadly my hopes for ns:d3 were in vain <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
there wouldve been better expressions than "infestation", it sounds too harsh and helped summoning the dreaded "steam yay nay" debate again... my apologies for that.
The difference is, steam continues to be horrible, eveery update brings a new problem, and every update seems to push your hardware harder, until it cant even run half-life at a stable framerate anymore... whats the deal with that?
Ofcourse, valve wont see anyproblems with thier software, as it saves them money, aswell as charging over the RRP on the games you buy on it.
I even tried my half-life 2 without steam, extracted the GCF files, and yes, it runs smoother and load times are faster.
Change is good, for the better, this change was, and still is, for the worse. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Steam is getting better all the time from my point of view. Apart from Friends and DoD:S, I have had no problems to complain about lately. And hell, my PIII 1Ghz runs Steam smoothly, and I still get good framerates.
Steam isn't a big pile of crap, it's a program that is much easier for the average player than keeping up with a game's progress by checking its website for updates and patches. You just load up steam and it updates as needed, with absolutely no fuss.
I don't know what you people are doing wrong, or what I'm doing right, that makes steam work wonderfully (apart Friends) on both of my computers and not on yours.
ps: I don't hate steam. I could have lived without it surely and I wouldn't mind if they just scrapped the project and went back to WON, but it's here and I'm not complaining. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its not necesarily things people are doing wrong, its just th elack of testing prior to updates.
Like now im on a an xp2800 with a gig of ram, but still need to lower the hl.exe process to get a stable game, due to a hack job update a couple of months ago.
Valve seem to not be arsed with compatabilty checking and real fault correction. Way too many hack jobs have been going on.
And in reply to the post further up with regards to steam having forums, yes they do and the usefullness is? The popularity of the HL series seems to have given valve the right to provide some of the worst and slowest tech support in history.
Although Steam in principle is a Fantastic Idea, just gonna need to wait 5 years for it to be anything special
It only needs a liblist and it will be added to 3rd party games, in the same way mods are added to the "Custom Games" under the other system. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He meant on the "Third-Party Games" section of the game purchase window. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes that is what i meant
yes steam has problems but won also has problems you may so oh no it doesnt but yes it does
one of the main reasons steam was even thought of was becuase of the large amount of players who simply downloaded hl1 of a p2p server or such they probally lost alot of money steam was there idea and it worked
hackers where a big problem in won they still are in steam but with vac most cheaters are caught and banned
this is my last thing to say btw i dont want to get into a bigass discussion about which one is better or worse
I never get unstable games and it works as smoothly as it ever did in WON.
Now possibly there are certain combinations of componentss that don't work well, but I seriously doubt it.
About DRM: What's bad about that? They can't just suddenly say "let's delete this account" because they feel like it. They need a reason, and being a serious company, that reason should probably be valid.
All versions work without steam.
*donk*
seriously. get a grip. i remember how frustrating won was. especially before modern hl netcode. god. you guys have it easy nowadays. fact of the matter is, valve has to release patches to its software, because, get this, everyone has a different system and they cannot possibly be expected to deal with each and every single problem that could arise from trillions of possible hardware setups. plus that the fact that theyre only human, and 99% of those that complain about how "****" valves products are would be hard pressed to produce something near the quality that steam is currently at.
Steam gives valve the ultimate control over halflife and halflife 2's futures, as well as any other games released. it cuts out 3rd party publishers completly, if valve so chooses, which can only mean more time and money going back to valve, which leads to much higher quality games (although i dont think you can get many higher quality first person shooters to be honest), and gives valve total creative control over their games. hell, they can even release a patch to fix an error while you sleep, and patch it for you.
As for those who moan about steams "high" system requirements, then, on valves behalf, i apologise for designing a modern games distribution system for everyone else while your computer remains in 2001. kthxbai.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->get a grip<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Half-life always had an autopatcher.
People can hate steam, and people can love steam, I simply gave an alternative.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->modern games distribution system for everyone else while your computer remains in 2001<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't get it do you? Even though I built my PC in 2003, it can play ANY game, at playable levels, the fact that when I removed half-life 2 from steam, and ran it independantly I gained +135fps, and saved diskspace in the process - why do gcf files take up more disk space than when you extract them?
Your use of modern games is so misplaced, if you are talking about half-life 2, a game released too late for its technology used. The only technology it _will_ have that is new will be HDR. And good luck running that.
That is one game I am very upset I bought, its singleplayer was terrible, and its multiplayer is worse. It brought nothing new to the games world, and is about to be surpassed, some believe it already has, as a graphics engine.
I believe the only reason the game wasn't a failure, is that its bundled with counter strike, although I have to admit, I never saw the appeal of the game, I can't deny how much of an impact on online gaming that game has had, it is in many ways, a masterpiece, without which valve would have gone the way of many developers, and continued its life as a "Didn't they release <X>? I wonder what they are doing now."
Oh and good for you, you managed to get a steam that works better than the old system, many of us however, have clients that crash continuously on load of games, and cripple our systems, this has been the trend for a while now. Where I can load half-life on a system built in 1998, and run it at 100fps, I can not do that on a 2 year old machine when using steam, yet without steam, it gives constant, and thats 11 bots and me in a room style constant, 100 fps.
And for the record, I prefer to play with cl_lc 0 cl_nopred 1 (they took this out why?!) cl_lb 0 and cl_lw 0.
Half-life always had an autopatcher.
[/snip] <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
the autopatcher was run by sierra. your missing the point.
As for running HL better out of steam, well whopdedoo. steam is not just a games distrubution system, or method of control. its also one giant bit torrent network. when updates are rolled out, everyones bandwidth is put to good use, and everyone benefits.
won didnt have anything remotely close to that.
and yes, you did only offer an alternative. i applaud you for that, aint nothing wrong with giving people a choice, and i wish you all the best. however, i will argue with you on this because i believe steam is far superior to the old won system. vac's come leaps and bounds since then.
dont even mention hlguard. that things been a joke since day one.
Edit - To clarify some things, Steamless does not use WON, it is a new server network using a combination of the best bits from the old WON network and the new Steam network, for example, it allows clients to run games at very good performance, while still having a system in place that globally bans people. A mod running on this platform instantly gets VAC support in the form of VAC2, and therefor someone banned on a DoD server, will also be banned on a NS server.
On top of that, their Anti-Cheat software is updated often.
This network certainly has potential enough to split the half-life community in two.
Edit 2 - Sorry it uses WON2 VAC
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The WON2 Valve AntiCheat System is the Next Generation version of the original VAC system for Half-Life, which is closed down by Valve.
The WON2 VAC system is not only a replacement of the original VAC, but is also an improved version. VAC was (/is) well known as a does-not-detect-all-cheats system. WON2 VAC made a difference in that. Daily our WON2 VAC team updates the modules with anticheat libraries from the original VAC system (which is now for Steam only), and detections from other smaller anticheat solutions, making a total-solution of Anti-Cheat for your server.
WON2 VAC supports a variety of MODs, including Counter-Strike 1.5, Day of Defeat and the Counter-Strike Betas (for as far a certain Beta version supports VAC).
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Half-life always had an autopatcher.
[/snip] <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
the autopatcher was run by sierra. your missing the point.
As for running HL better out of steam, well whopdedoo. steam is not just a games distrubution system, or method of control. its also one giant bit torrent network. when updates are rolled out, everyones bandwidth is put to good use, and everyone benefits.
won didnt have anything remotely close to that.
and yes, you did only offer an alternative. i applaud you for that, aint nothing wrong with giving people a choice, and i wish you all the best. however, i will argue with you on this because i believe steam is far superior to the old won system. vac's come leaps and bounds since then.
dont even mention hlguard. that things been a joke since day one. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Get off your high horse for a second and read out the rubish your typing out.
Steam is a giant FAILED bit torrent network when patches and updates are released the network regulairly dies and locks up. Although platform game download a lot smoother.
Also Steam cannot be held accountable for the trillions of hardware combinations ehh? So how about just a handfull then?
I also agree that in many, many ways Steam is superior to WON but its the tiniest of stupid, rushed mistakes that are really hurting it right now.
Quit getting so personal with these things, we have always had issues with valve products, its just that Steam was the one that has taken the longest to be resolved, and since the whole Vivendi thing Im hopefull that was a giant contributant and things will slowly start to improve.
As long as Valve pull their fingers out of their ears, open the closet door and start listening to people things may start to move back in the right direction.
O.o i found a ns 3.0.4 server on won2 w00t.
In steam, you:
connect to the steam network, if you have the updated game set to autodownload, the patch/update will automatically install for you.
this may take some time, perhaps an hour or two, depending on how congested the network is. patch downloads, installs, you play.
in won:
you log on to your game to find your favourite server isnt working. you spend five minutes hopping around trying to figure out why, before it finally dawns on you that theres been an update. you go swing by the website, and click the download link.
1kB/s? because all the bandwidth is being soaked? hell no.
Looks like im going to have to sit in a fileplanet 2 hour queue just to download the damn file. thats not even counting in the extra hour it takes to actually download it. then you gotta go manually install it, and then, if you didnt **** up royal, you get to play.
thats the cold harsh reality.
As for "taking this personally". I have taken nothing personally. i have used no flames, or crude language. im stating facts to back up my beliefs and am using logic and forthought to counter arguments presented to me. how is this "taking it personal"?
and yes. the steam network can get congested. but like i said, nothing is perfect. it provides perfect performance 99% of the time for me.
and yes. the steam network can get congested. but like i said, nothing is perfect. it provides perfect performance 99% of the time for me. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well perhaps thats the point you should be taking on board. Steam has been nothing but a bane to many many people. And checking a website daily for update news on the old WON system was never a problem, neither was downloading them if you knew where to look.
You may also trying to argue the point to anti-steam users is never going to work <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> only valve can change our views
with won, they would release a patch every couple of months, that included alot of TESTED bugfixes. valve on the other hand probably has a couple of guys that play the games, see a bug, and fix it without testing if it causes engine instability or other hardware incompatibilities.
example of this is in hl2, ever since they did those updates to the engine, more people are crashing out from stupid errors in every hl2 mod "0x476543 address cannot be "read" from address 0x386593." or " Cut Linked List Overflow" or "Engine error: Tell a Programmer 32875 > 32768."
and who knows what they did that made hl eat up 280+ megs of ram while running hl in steam, and cpu hogging. it feels like im playing on my old PIII 550 with 256 megs of ram while in fact its about 6x faster than that.