That latter part was directed to Savar, not you.
And I don't believe it needed any more time.
VPrime: perhaps he deleted his Windows partition. Maybe not. All he really needs is to be patient, though.
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Disappointed with Steam for Mac?
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That latter part was directed to Savar, not you.
And I don't believe it needed any more time.
VPrime: perhaps he deleted his Windows partition. Maybe not. All he really needs is to be patient, though.
Okay, a few things. First, regarding Civ IV: since they fixed the issue of pre-May 12 owners accessing the game, it caused it to break for all Mac users. Nobody can open it. I assume they are working on getting this working ASAP.
Second, portal rendering: This is a known issue and they are fixing it. For a workaround, start the game in Windowed mode, then move it back to fullscreen when in-game.
Third, regarding the horrendous UI: Nobody is complaining that it *looks* different than OS X. There are plenty of OS X apps that have a distinct look. The problem is that it behaves different, and it violates almost every guideline set forth by Apple for OS X apps. Hopefully they will address these issues over time; a Valve employee at the forums said they are already looking into the Expose/Spaces problems, and moving the Steam folder into Application Support where it belongs.
Second, portal rendering: This is a known issue and they are fixing it. For a workaround, start the game in Windowed mode, then move it back to fullscreen when in-game.
Third, regarding the horrendous UI: Nobody is complaining that it *looks* different than OS X. There are plenty of OS X apps that have a distinct look. The problem is that it behaves different, and it violates almost every guideline set forth by Apple for OS X apps. Hopefully they will address these issues over time; a Valve employee at the forums said they are already looking into the Expose/Spaces problems, and moving the Steam folder into Application Support where it belongs.
It's more stable than Snow Leopard at release
In that case it must be the greatest release ever, solid as a rock.
Fine. But why doesn't scrolling on the magic mouse work right? Why don't two finger gestures for moving forward and backward in web kit work right?
I didn't say it wasn't easy to change. Just annoying.
I don't see the distinction. Waiting is waiting. You say its "setting up the engine"... what engine is that, exactly? Shouldn't portal load its own libraries?
I don't think you really know what Steam is doing. My guess is that it's setting up the social networking/overlay stuff that it adds on top of Portal.
THAT's what I was looking for. I did not realize they were DRM'ed.
I care because I've had to force quit it several times now, and was miffed when I didn't see "Portal" in the process list. I just don't get it -- 5 seconds for them to type in the name Portal.
History doesn't matter to me. I'm coming at this as a newbie. It has UI problems -- see top of my post re: scrolling and gestures.
I saw those options, they didn't have anything to do with starting the game at LOGIN. That's a big deal, because with the MBP you have to log out/log in to switch graphics.
Having steam open when I'm trying to work switch to IGP for battery life is annoying.
It seems like Steam is very much aimed at the hardcore gamer set -- not the average folks who want a normal interface be able to buy and run a few games hassle free.
You say this like its a bad thing? You're correct. I'm a noob. I must be an idiot if I'm new and I don't like certain aspects of the platform.
Found another bug:
10. Steam crashes (or quits intentionally?) immediately after closing Portal. This is really annoying because I'm trying to troubleshoot the portal rendering bug, and I can't just close Portal and then re-open it, I have to close Portal, re-open Steam, then re-open Portal.
The portal rendering bug is infuriating. I've switch GPUs so many times, added various startup options, and gotten it working. But it works for a while and then it just quits.... So damn frustrating.
Anyway, I played through Portal and it is AWESOME. I started going back through on Developer Commentary and it's really even more enjoyable the 2nd time through.
So I'm not a total Negative Nancy here -- just seems like they rushed the beta test or didn't have enough diversity beta users to flush out these obvious flaws.
I'm a software engineer myself, and believe me I understand that sometimes you ship software with known bugs because this is a business and we all have to pay rent and eat. I just think they rushed it a bit, and given another month or two of beta testing probably would have had a much smoother launch.
Un-Mac-Like is fine for Steam IMO. By using the same UI theoretically you'll be able to use all of the Skins from the windows version if they're made right? Which gives us a lot of flexibility. They've just made a big step towards abstracting themselves away from Windows and people expect them to integrate fully with osX.. Then Linux? It's better to have a single GUI deployable across all three from a usability and logistics perspective, I'd say.
Steam as a platform; maybe it's easier to swallow if think of it like a Games Console running on your Mac/PC.. If there were big differences between the client on different OS it'd cause confusion and probably arguments between the userbases. Steam doesnt follow any HIGs on any system.. It's just Steam. It does need to be smoother but it IS pretty, just different.. And nobody forces you to buy stuff from it. XD (and you'll be able to skin it to look osXy very very soon)
It's Un-Mac-Like, it's un-windows-like, it's un-linux-like.. Its just Steam-like, and millions of people *LIKE* that. Its better for switchers if it's familiar too.
Steam as a platform; maybe it's easier to swallow if think of it like a Games Console running on your Mac/PC.. If there were big differences between the client on different OS it'd cause confusion and probably arguments between the userbases. Steam doesnt follow any HIGs on any system.. It's just Steam. It does need to be smoother but it IS pretty, just different.. And nobody forces you to buy stuff from it. XD (and you'll be able to skin it to look osXy very very soon)
It's Un-Mac-Like, it's un-windows-like, it's un-linux-like.. Its just Steam-like, and millions of people *LIKE* that. Its better for switchers if it's familiar too.
Back to that user interface. This whole un-mac-like discussion sucks. Guys, what makes a Mac so great? That every ****ING developer TRIES to adopt at least a part of Apple's guidelines. Which are GREAT and WORK – a reason for many users to switch to a Mac.
Now, Windows doesn't have that. Or at least, never featured them so prominently as Apple. So for all I care, you can do whatever you want on Windows. Hell, I USED Steam on Windows, it never bothered me. Not once. It felt sluggish (always had) but hey, I didn't expect anything else.
On a Mac though, the whole thing feels out of place. It feels out of place even compared to iTunes (which is the most troubled standard app of OS X, still coded in the old format, and so on). Why? Because navigating around (once it has, as iTunes, done its own things and is no longer busy) is still unresponsive and clunky at best. Valve hasn't done its job on this one. Normally they do. In a PC world they do their job perfectly. From a gamer's point of view they do their job perfectly (their DRM is great compared to Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA). But from my third point of view, from the point of view of a Mac user they did a pretty bad job. Not with Portal. Not with their DRM (which is the same). Not with the fairness towards the consumer (I already own their games on PC, I get them for free on a Mac). But with the fricking UI and their Steam client they did a bad job. Go look at the Steam forums. Mac users are complaining. They have to explain to Valve the 101 of Mac dock icon design (yes, there are tutorials for that). They have to explain to Valve the 101 of Mac UI. That should not be the case. Especially with a great company like Valve.
Now, Windows doesn't have that. Or at least, never featured them so prominently as Apple. So for all I care, you can do whatever you want on Windows. Hell, I USED Steam on Windows, it never bothered me. Not once. It felt sluggish (always had) but hey, I didn't expect anything else.
On a Mac though, the whole thing feels out of place. It feels out of place even compared to iTunes (which is the most troubled standard app of OS X, still coded in the old format, and so on). Why? Because navigating around (once it has, as iTunes, done its own things and is no longer busy) is still unresponsive and clunky at best. Valve hasn't done its job on this one. Normally they do. In a PC world they do their job perfectly. From a gamer's point of view they do their job perfectly (their DRM is great compared to Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA). But from my third point of view, from the point of view of a Mac user they did a pretty bad job. Not with Portal. Not with their DRM (which is the same). Not with the fairness towards the consumer (I already own their games on PC, I get them for free on a Mac). But with the fricking UI and their Steam client they did a bad job. Go look at the Steam forums. Mac users are complaining. They have to explain to Valve the 101 of Mac dock icon design (yes, there are tutorials for that). They have to explain to Valve the 101 of Mac UI. That should not be the case. Especially with a great company like Valve.
Adium is nicer looking than iChat.. The CS suite and many other apps have non standard icons, as do many other high profile apps. Apple ignore their own HIGs whenever they see fit.
Responsiveness is important. But having it look like every other osX app isn't to everyone. People.complain about everything.. More Win users hate Steam 2010 than mac users.. Because it's slightly different to what they're used to as well.. Oh no!
Responsiveness is important. But having it look like every other osX app isn't to everyone. People.complain about everything.. More Win users hate Steam 2010 than mac users.. Because it's slightly different to what they're used to as well.. Oh no!
Have you had any luck getting it to start? I've tried everything I can think of without results, and still no response from Support.
Scrolling will probably be fixed. It is the first release, I doubt valve could go and test EVERY mouse out there to see how they react. Report the bug.
The engineI am talking about is the Source engine. This is the engine that Portal uses, Counterstrike source uses half life2, team fortress and every other valve game.
You are right though, I don't know exactly what it is loading. I can only guess. That being said, I know the load time is the same as it is on windows.
It is not because of the in game overlay, as this same load time was there BEFORE they even introduced this feature.
It's very buggy and unpolished, which is something that has never happened with Valve before so this is very surprising. I'm sure they'll really fix it up over time, but right now it just feels like Valve isn't serious about Mac gaming, even with the release of Steam.
Can't wait for Team Fortress 2, though.
Can't wait for Team Fortress 2, though.
Not sure if this is discussed but I mam trying to play Portal but I get a message that I have an unsupported graphics card. I have first gen Mac pro (when they first came out). Is this something Valve beta issues or I am screwed cause I have older graphics card?
Thank you
Thank you
It may get resolved, but having a Mac Pro (not MacBookPro?) gives you the ability if necessary to upgrade your card if necessary. That would not qualify as being screwed.
I'm wondering if this could be a shaders compatibility issue? What kind of card do you have? Right click on the Apple (top left), select "about this mac", select "other info" to launch the Profiler, then look under Graphics.
I was initially disappointed, but after having completed Portal, I'm quite happy.
Steam - and Quake Live (yep, it's old. Nope, I don't care.) are what are getting me back to gaming on the Mac. I have no desire to blow away gigs of disk space for a Boot Camp partition, even with a 500GB drive installed. But I don't have any problem installing Mac-compatible Steam games.
This is what Mac owners have been waiting for since Intel Macs came out. Hopefully this continues to grow. I for one will definitely be supporting it.
Steam - and Quake Live (yep, it's old. Nope, I don't care.) are what are getting me back to gaming on the Mac. I have no desire to blow away gigs of disk space for a Boot Camp partition, even with a 500GB drive installed. But I don't have any problem installing Mac-compatible Steam games.
This is what Mac owners have been waiting for since Intel Macs came out. Hopefully this continues to grow. I for one will definitely be supporting it.
+1
Apple is the handicap here....most users complaining about a 'crappy' port need to understand the drivers are the most important thing from a developer's perspective and it can make or break a game. Plus having laughable graphics chipsets ( atleast in the early models after the switch to Intel ) didn't help.
And its still in essential a Beta. Its not going to be pretty, but it should be atleast usable keeping in mind the potential for a few critical issues cropping up post release.
It really is amazing to see Steam on Mac. Be patient folks, and treat Valve well.
btw, I think a separate section for Steam discussion would be nice. Noticed the change in the forum name, 'Mac and PC games', but there is a Console games section within this so just need to re-organize.
Have something like this :
Games
- Steam for Mac
- General Mac gaming
- Console gaming
- PC gaming
It would also help in making things easier to access.
I understand the mods/admins may have considered this but just throwing this in the open.
Now, I should get back to Portal.
This model probably has the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 graphics. GeForce 7 series are unsupported by Source games because the drivers lack certain required OpenGL extensions. Valve can't fix this, Apple needs to fix this. You do have the option to upgrade your graphics card, which I would do anyway because the 7300 is not that fast.
Oh grow up. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's no different in Windows though. It sounds like your nit-picking.
YES, there will be bugs. YES it isn't perfect. BUT it is a very good START. Give it some time.
Yea, I've been quite positive to it until today. Maybe it's my own fault for not closing Steam down whilst closing my Macbooks lid but after opening it, Steam would not continue my downloads no matter how many times I clicked resume. I closed Steam and it forced an update on me. 32mb on my connection takes around 10 minutes so that was annoying. There was no need for the update.
Hopefully they do fix it all up in the coming weeks and that Apple get some better drivers. I'd like to remove Windows from 1 of my Macs at least!
Nonono, before Steam came along the games forum was quite dead. Why split that apart now? We'd only end up with dead forums and one active one. Hell the console board is pretty much dead and buried now save for literally a few regular posters.
Everything is as it should be. /zen
Steam has already been updated quite a few times since it launched.. If you have not reset steam since then- that update was probably one of those that it needed to do.
As someone who's using Steam forever, I'm glad to say that your assumption is very, very wrong. In the early days, Steam on Windows was a complete mess of epic proportions. But it evolved and improved over the years. And that's exactly why I'm hopeful: Valve is constantly fixing, polishing and updating stuff - they already updated Steam for Mac several times since release, up to two times a day. There have been two Mac specific updates to Portal in not even a week as well.It's very buggy and unpolished, which is something that has never happened with Valve before so this is very surprising. I'm sure they'll really fix it up over time, but right now it just feels like Valve isn't serious about Mac gaming, even with the release of Steam.
Can't wait for Team Fortress 2, though.
are you freaking kidding me? people are complaining about this?
they release a free service that gives you (or will shortly give you) access to hundreds of games and demos and videos that were previously not available at all on the mac, or were spread out all over the whole internet at considerably higher prices, and to top it off, they give away a game that two days ago was 20 bucks JUST BECAUSE they want you to see that they are serious about Mac Gaming, and you freaking losers are COMPLAINING?
Do me a favor and uninstall it right now, please. Just go. I don't want to risk the possibility of running into any of you in a game online.
Just go back to your WoW account or play Halo again or whatever it is you guys do.
Steam has 2-3 actual bugs right now. Apple has shatty graphics drivers that are causing all kinds of problems, in some cases on computers that have been around for 4-5 years...the fact that you need 2-3x the graphics card in OS X to do the same thing you can do in bootcamp on the same machine should tell you something. Apple doesn't give a **** about gaming unless they can take their 30% cut off the top from the App store.
Apple doesn't care about their own UI guidelines, either. They break the rules all the time. Steam follows its own rules, and your Steam experience will be the same on Windows, Mac or soon, Linux machines. Since you can set up Steam to launch any game you have on your machine, it makes sense to adapt to that system instead of the system adapting to the Mac. Adobe didn't adapt their UI or interface to the Mac, they just run right over it, assigning keyboard shortcuts to things that conflict with OS X universal kb shortcuts and everything else. And you know what? I disabled those things in OS X because I use them in Adobe apps more often. I prefer Adobe's choices for KB shortcuts in most cases where they conflict with OS X. The OS is a means to an end. Steam is a means to an end. Grow Up.
they release a free service that gives you (or will shortly give you) access to hundreds of games and demos and videos that were previously not available at all on the mac, or were spread out all over the whole internet at considerably higher prices, and to top it off, they give away a game that two days ago was 20 bucks JUST BECAUSE they want you to see that they are serious about Mac Gaming, and you freaking losers are COMPLAINING?
Do me a favor and uninstall it right now, please. Just go. I don't want to risk the possibility of running into any of you in a game online.
Just go back to your WoW account or play Halo again or whatever it is you guys do.
Steam has 2-3 actual bugs right now. Apple has shatty graphics drivers that are causing all kinds of problems, in some cases on computers that have been around for 4-5 years...the fact that you need 2-3x the graphics card in OS X to do the same thing you can do in bootcamp on the same machine should tell you something. Apple doesn't give a **** about gaming unless they can take their 30% cut off the top from the App store.
Apple doesn't care about their own UI guidelines, either. They break the rules all the time. Steam follows its own rules, and your Steam experience will be the same on Windows, Mac or soon, Linux machines. Since you can set up Steam to launch any game you have on your machine, it makes sense to adapt to that system instead of the system adapting to the Mac. Adobe didn't adapt their UI or interface to the Mac, they just run right over it, assigning keyboard shortcuts to things that conflict with OS X universal kb shortcuts and everything else. And you know what? I disabled those things in OS X because I use them in Adobe apps more often. I prefer Adobe's choices for KB shortcuts in most cases where they conflict with OS X. The OS is a means to an end. Steam is a means to an end. Grow Up.
If only you could award rep on these forums! I completely agree. Steam, Source and Portal itself will continue to improve. The PC launch was much, much worse than this.
Best of all... everyone now has one of the best PC games for free. They're very dedicated to this Mac cause. They never gave out free games before! (now they did give out HL2 Deathmatch and others for people ATi graphics cards)