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First Impressions of Steam for Mac Including Portal and Team Fortress 2

Does anyone know if the original, NON-SOURCE Half-Life 1 will be available for the Mac? Because I have loads of mods for that and I can't live without them, I currently run them via Crossover Games. I'm also hoping that maybe one day Steam for Mac will support Source Mods like Black Mesa (currently under development). I just want to get rid of the clumsy Crossover Games if I can!
 
I can't wait for this. Only thing is, it comes out a week before my exams :rolleyes:
 
maghemi said:
I love watching this 'graphics cards are crap on macs' stuff :)

I'll be enjoying my steam games in all their glory with my GTX285
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Indeed.. I'm looking forward to this on my 8800GS iMac.. Considering these games run ok in Parallels, and very nicely in Crossover games it seems likely the native ports will fly on many people's Macs.
 
Its great to hear Valve has rewritten the games to run natively on opengl, but just somehow I can't seem to stop thinking that they will be crappy ports inferior to the windows version.

However, maybe I'm in for a surprise :) I've come a long way trying to get windows games run on osx, from waiting for a dev to port it to parallels to crossover. All provided inferior performance. Hoping this will change.
 
mixel said:
Indeed.. I'm looking forward to this on my 8800GS iMac.. Considering these games run ok in Parallels, and very nicely in Crossover games it seems likely the native ports will fly on many people's Macs.
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The 8800GS is a 2 year old, mid-level graphics card though.

maghemi said:
I love watching this 'graphics cards are crap on macs' stuff :)

I'll be enjoying my steam games in all their glory with my GTX285
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The problem is they do have nice cards, it just takes a lot longer to get them, they're usually nowhere near their laptop range and they can cost double what their PC version costs.
But I am hoping all this Steam hoohah forces Apple to put more thought into graphics card and drivers. That would be so very excellent. My 9400M runs these games on mid-high settings under Bootcamp, so this is telling me Apple really do need to look into their drivers.
 
You are talking about power, but how about heat??

Is it safe to play a lot of time TF2, HL2 or even L4D2 in a 9600 laptop??

I've never known if fans running out of control is safe for laptops,

does the heat can deform any component of the laptop?

What about the battery, does the heat generated harm it in some way?
 
Dagless said:
The 8800GS is a 2 year old, mid-level graphics card though.
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I know, that's the funny thing about people saying macs are terrible for games.. The 8800GS outperforms the 360/PS3 for most stuff. RE5 is gorgeous on this spec. It might be "outdated" but its still very powerful, and catered for well by the vast majority of games.

I seriously disagree with the notion that Macs are bad for gaming. Not the fastest - but not BAD.. Unless you buy low end ones.
 
robj said:
You are talking about power, but how about heat??

Is it safe to play a lot of time TF2, HL2 or even L4D2 in a 9600 laptop??

I've never known if fans running out of control is safe for laptops,

does the heat can deform any component of the laptop?

What about the battery, does the heat generated harm it in some way?
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I play hours of gaming on my 9800 MBP.. The fans sometimes kick hard but it seems totally safe. It must be really.. Not noticed any drop in battery charging, or any problem with reliability.
 
Veri said:
mac-pc-games.jpg
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Sorry dude, cant read it.
 
juulie said:
That depends on the price it gets:
If it gets a reasonable price (what i think you meant) then sure it'll sell more then those products...

Hell, itll be the best sold laptop, problem is though that the other models will sell less because the gaming laptop has more value for money, and so apple would make less (as the gaming laptop gives them less profit per unit sold).
So gaming laptop will never, never see the daylight
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Why would it get a reasonable price? If it performs well, it will be worth the money and people will pay accordingly. You say it will never never exist? You mean to tell me a gaming macbook would never exist just because that's what your assumed interpretation of someone elses comment is?

Awesome logic.
 
I was hoping civ4 would be ported. I was almost tempted by the $10 bundle deal Steam had, but alas. Cart before the horse....
 
stodge said:
I was hoping civ4 would be ported. I was almost tempted by the $10 bundle deal Steam had, but alas. Cart before the horse....
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There's already a port of Civ 4 (and its extensions). I've only played it on my late '09 iMac w/ Radeon 4850, and obviously, it was perfectly smooth, but that doesn't tell us how well it'd run on older hardware.
 
The Games So Far

Two Source engine games, Portal and Team Fortress 2, are essentially finished and available for play in the beta. Both games run natively using OpenGL.

Portal and Team Fortress 2 feel and play like their PC counterparts, though they may not look quite the same for all users. I, for example, had to do a bit of software-side tweaking to achieve fluid experiences: my 15" Macbook Pro -- rocking the integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M video card only, 4 Gigs of RAM, and 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo -- couldn't handle either game on its "High" settings. Keep in mind that integrated graphics represent the low-end of graphics hardware and those with discrete chipsets should fare much better.
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okay so this is really cool. but i still love CS! bring it on! :D
 
So will Steam on the Mac be entirely online based then?

By that I mean I take it you won't be able to walk into a store, buy a copy of Half Life 2 for the Mac, come home and then install both Steam and the game from a DVD?

What kind of prices are they asking for the games?
 
MorphingDragon said:
Sorry dude, cant read it.
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Mac: So PC, what are you doing?
PC: Just playing some games.
Mac: Really. Which ones?
PC: Oh, you know... all of them.

It's not my work, but even as a very occasional gamer, I'd have to agree with it. When my main workstation was an iMac, it was a matter of Bootcamping into Windows, and then getting annoyed at the lack of proper GPU. Even if you have a decent GPU, it seems Apple's "quick OS change" project - which would give you identical experience on every game rather than waiting for work on each game - is way overdue.
 
White MacBook user here.

2.1GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM, Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics card.

Can I get myself some of that Team Fortress 2 love?? I currently got it on the PS3 but I know the PC version is far superior.
 
Ninja Dom said:
White MacBook user here.

2.1GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM, Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics card.

Can I get myself some of that Team Fortress 2 love?? I currently got it on the PS3 but I know the PC version is far superior.
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If you ran windows you could.
 
WeegieMac said:
So will Steam on the Mac be entirely online based then?

By that I mean I take it you won't be able to walk into a store, buy a copy of Half Life 2 for the Mac, come home and then install both Steam and the game from a DVD?

What kind of prices are they asking for the games?
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You should be able to buy the Windows boxed version on HL2, then you have a code that unlocks it on steam.. You'd have to download it - which might seem funny as you'd have a disc, but it'll work. I doubt they'll sell boxed copies specifically for the Mac, it'd be pointless - but i wouldnt be surprised if Valve games in future will install on either OS from disc.

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/ - Orange Box is very cheap for what you get. TF2 is probably some of the best value in gaming.
 
As I've been saying forever, there isn't anything special about this version of Steam. It's an exact copy of the Windows version that was quickly written up to run properly on Mac OS X. Why do I say this? Well, just add a non-Steam game to your library, go into the Properties for the game, then try and change its icon. What kind of file is it asking for? A .EXE. Why? You tell me.

Also, ALL games won't perform nearly as well as they will in Windows. Why do I say this? For one, Mac OS X's display drivers are quite horrible. Your GPU will perform helluvalot better in Windows (and even Linux, for that matter) than in Mac OS X. Another reason is that these games are just ports. Ports are pitiful.

If you want real gaming on your Mac, install Windows. Simple. I'd rather go for a better gaming experience than to put up with some half-ass crap.

Some of you guys are funny. You're acting like you've NEVER been able to play games on your Mac. Bootcamp? That's STILL (and always will be) the best solution to gaming on the Mac. CrossOver/WINE? Games run shockingly well in there (like CS:S, CS 1.6, Crazy Taxi, FlatOut 2). Performance is nowhere near playing them in Windows, but it's nice and has been around for nearly ever.
 
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