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

mixel said:
I seriously disagree with the notion that Macs are bad for gaming. Not the fastest - but not BAD.. Unless you buy low end ones.
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Even the low end macs aren't that bad. I play TF2 on my ancient (and overclocked) x1600 iMac with everything on medium, looks and runs like a dream. An 8800GS will make these games look superb.
Thing is if the tides are turning now then all these mid-range graphics cards from years ago aren't going to cut it for other engines. The GTX285 for example - a stunning card but when I was pricing up graphics card a year ago, the 285 was already superseded by the 295.

It's a let down for Apple computers. Everything else they use is quite high-end; good displays, good processors, good reliable hard drives, outstanding build quality and peripherals.
 
I hope they can get some of my other steam games over in the near future, source games are good, but my favorites aren't apart of valve :/

and i hope they would release steam within the next two weeks!
 
BeSweeet said:
Another reason is that these games are just ports. Ports are pitiful.
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No, ports aren't pitiful. A port requires a recode, which is exactly what these games have. Source has been rewritten to support OpenGL. There's no emulation taking place. The lack of performance is solely down to Apple's driver support.
 
I hope the Mac version of games I already own come out on Steam that way I can avoid.

*Having to swap disc every time I wanna play.
*Have to search around for the Mac version of patches.

So hopefully these games come out on Steam and they allow me to import/use my existing key so I don't have to repurchase.

*Call of Duty 4
*Call of Duty Deluxe
*Quake 4
*BattleField 2142
*Madden NFL 08
 
Next computer release.

The MacBook Gamer. 15" 1080P HD Screen

Comes loaded with 8GB's Ram. Core i7 Quad Core. Amazing graphics card. And a 8 hour battery life. No Multi-touch track pad so that you can game on it. Price point of 1799.99 even comes with oven mitts...
 
I just puchased my first mac. Love it. So do all games previously purchased transfer to mac? I was thinking about buying plants vs zombies and peggle for PC and was hoping they transfer to mac.
 
BeSweeet said:
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.
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Because.... Steam was on Windows first and this is a beta? :p

For MANY people, Boot Camp is a truly terrible option for gaming. A great option to have exist, and some people will do great with it, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that what you want (or think you need) is the same for everyone.

The value of a game is measured in fun, not specs and stats like FPS. If 60 FPS is the same fun as 75, or if 1600x1050 is the same fun as 1440x900 (which depends on the game—I know detail matters), then the numbers are of interest only outside the game. Many people enjoy specs and bullet points and benchmarks as a hobby—and that’s great. I do too! But not as much as I enjoy games, and I’m able to recognize that they’re separate kinds fun. Not one and the same.

So the benefits of installing in Windows will vary—with the game, with your hardware, with your goals, and with the quality of the port. (Not all ports are “pitiful” as you contend.)

But the downsides of Windows cannot be denied.

* You have to burn money and HD space to install it.

* You have to burn time keeping it patched, running anti-malware, worrying about the next Windows virus (becsuse Mac still has none in the real world) and worst of all: simply keeping yourself educated on security for an insecure (in the real world) OS. Games should be fun. Keeping my Windows machine up to date is not fun. Windows tolerators like to say, “I’ve never had a virus because I’ve had the know-how to stay safe... so far.” (A number of my Windows friends have said exactly that—until a virus came along and wiped out their files.) But I for one really like not having to gain that know-how. It’s like saying it’s OK if your car’s brakes need constant adjustment, because it’s simple to do yourself if you know how. No, that’s not OK with me.

* The BIGGEST reason why Boot Camp is unacceptable: because rebooting is unacceptable. Don’t pretend that if a PC game told the user to reboot Windows every time you played--and than reboot back when done--that this would be fine with Windows users. It would not be fine for Windows users, and it’s not fine for Mac users who expect efficiency and ease. But it’s not just the delay and hassle of it: it’s having to shut down everything you’re working on, all your windows and documents, and then re-launch them when you’re done! Unless all you do on your computer is game, disrupting the rest of your computing activities is a serious drawback. And then, in Windows, you don’t have your usual browser and bookmarks, your email client, your IM client, your text editor for tweaking settings, and all the other tools you use AROUND gaming. To research hints and optimizations. To read gaming articles. To arrange matches with your friends. To do some non-gaming thing in-between rounds. All of that is now gone, and you’re sitting at a whole different computer, with different bookmarks and different settings and apps (many of them lacking the Mac’s quality—and every time you choose one Windows app over another, you’re admitting that quality matters).

Not good enough.

So thanks, Valve!

I hope the full Orange Box comes—it’s a good deal. But all I really want right now is TF2! I don’t know if it can challenge my current favorite, Quake Wars, but I’m eager to find out.
 
spyker3292 said:
Not on my beta.

Ysffe.Screen%20shot%202010-05-09%20at%2023:28:21.png


Not sure where you heard that.
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I didn't hear anything - I have it installed.

*EDIT*
added link for image:
http://gallery.me.com/jrainier/100012/Screen shot 2010-05-10 at 9.52.28 AM
 
Happy to hear the beta looks promising. Sad to hear how people are already saying Steam for Mac is useless and everyone should just use BootCamp. :p Can't you just be happy a major developer and publisher is taking the Mac platform seriously?

Anyway, random question to anyone in the beta and running a 8600MGT: How high can you crank the settings up? I'm using a 1920x1080 external monitor and want L4D and TF2 to look all pretty. :)
 
Man I hope more RPG's are ported over.
FO3 would kick ass.
Oblivion too, KOTOR wouldn't hurt.

I'm missing a ton i'm sure.
 
nutritious said:
synthetic benchmarks are stupid. They don't tell the whole story when it comes to real world performance. Geekbench does not even measure graphic performance of graphic cards.
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I agree but all I'm saying is that with the same hardware OSX has a tendency of being more efficient than Windows, but what we're seing in this beta is the reverse with the games being slightly slower than their Windows counterparts. I'm so sceptical because over the years I have seen horribly Game ports from Win to Mac that had worse performance and a the same time looked worse. And from my profession I know OSX is a very fast, efficient OS. Especially SL with it's 1 GB Ram System requirement.
 
Revelation78 said:
I didn't hear anything - I have it installed.

*EDIT*
added link for image:
https://www.me.com/gallery/#100012
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Link doesn't work.

Can you play it? Did you put in the link manually to get the files, or did it just appear?

I don't believe it applies to non-Valve games.
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It does. Whether or not a Game features it is up to the publisher, but so far all the games that we know for sure about do use SteamPlay.

VimyJoe said:
no total war games on the list, any new on these types of games?
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Only Rome: Total War has been ported, but there is no word yet whether any Feral games are coming to Steam. I wouldn't hold your breath.
 
bonecandy said:
I don't think it's OpenGL itself... it's just really bad/unoptimized drivers.
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The OGL drivers aren't terrible, per se. Apple's put quite a bit of work into optimizing them.

The problem is that Apple optimized them to be used a certain way, and for how they get used in the OS itself (since OGL is driving the entire UX for OS X, and has for years). The quick and low-impact design of the UX code comes a bit at the expense of game performance. Low-level design of the OS itself also makes it difficult for a game to monopolize system resources on OS X, which does impact performance.

Contrast to Windows, where the DX/OGL path has always been geared towards making games run as smooth as possible, at the expense of performance for desktop use. That has started to change with Vista, but even then, the GUI winds up being the one suffering from performance issues so that games can keep running smoothly. In addition, applications are more capable of monopolizing system resources, even if they are running at normal priority.
 
It looks pretty mad, I'm curious how the games will run on a terrible spec macbook with no proper graphics card :p
 
spyker3292 said:
Portal and TF2 have been running great on my i7 MBP (330M GT). Portal gets a constant 60fps, with a drop (not too noticeable, just to 40-30fps) when you look into an open portal. TF2 runs great, but I didn't check the FPS for it. I can't wait till it goes public. I really want to replay Half Life 2.

Both games on medium-high settings.
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If its capped at 60 fps you might have vertical sync enabled.

Disable for a constant 100fps.
 
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