Steam for Mac Now Live, Portal is Free Until May 24th

[Inconsequential]

Does it really matter where Steam keeps its files? Surely your documents folders and app/app support folders are on the same HDD.. Steam manages games like iTunes manages music, you never look at the data anyway.

It hasn't been that buggy for me.. Only weird thing is how it switches colour profiles when you're running Portal. Oddly Crossover used to do the same thing but they fixed it at some point.

It is a big matter. Documents folder is for documents.

By boot drive/apps drive is not backed up because there is nothing on there that I care about loosing.

Why I should backup XXGb of game data which need not be there was a stupid decision.

What about people who have multiple accounts? They going to have the same data over and over and over again?

Stupid decision to put it there, end of. Why the BETA testers did not pick up on this I do not know. Maybe they did and steam just ignored the problem.

Should be in the steam package in the apps folder IMO.

iTunes manages music yes, but music I backup. Games I do not.

 

[Mystikal]

Even though there is nothing currently on Steam that I want to play, tried out Portal, did not care for it, I think it is a step in the right direction and if they keep releasing new games each Wednesday, hopefully more IN DEMAND games and not these little Diner Dash games, then that will be great.

My Windows bootcamp days end the day COD MW2 becomes available, until then, I just wait for the the News Update that COD is now available.

If youre calling portal a "Diner Dash" game then youre crazy. I want to say it was GOTY of 2007 but correct me if im wrong.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Of course it matters. Many, many people have their documents folder syncing to the likes of Dropbox. Because it's for documents. Not 5gb of game data.

Agreed.

 

[Garsun]

Out of Steam ?

I keep getting the "The Steam servers are currently too busy to handle your request." Error

Is it just me or has the mac demand exceeded expectations

 

[Mystikal]

SEVENTEEN FPS when looking through a portal on my i7 330m. WTF?

 

[MorphingDragon]

SEVENTEEN FPS when looking through a portal on my i7 330m. WTF?

Thats Valve for you.

Welcome to the Orange Box experience console owners get.

 

[bchreng]

SEVENTEEN FPS when looking through a portal on my i7 330m. WTF?

*shrugs* Poor optimization I guess.

 

[VoR]

Thats Valve for you.

Welcome to the Orange Box experience console owners get.

I don't think it's really down so much to valve, more the poor graphics performance of osx. It's not as if they haven't got any experience of making opengl engines/games.

It'll be interesting to see how linux fares and compares once steam is released - until then I'll just assume that snow leopard is still plagued with rubbish drivers and 3d performance.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_windows_part3&num=1

'Beaten' by ubuntu ootb (hardly the most cutting edge or streamlined os) in 'real world' benchmarks is pretty poor show.

 

[G4-power]

I suppose Valve is having a lot of traffic on their servers right now, but I recommend for anyone having problems in download speed to quit and reopen Steam. I have a 5/5 Mbps connection, and downloading Portal crawled down to a 5 KB/s rate. When I quit Steam and opened it again, boom, 400 KB/s.

 

[JeromeOD]

SEVENTEEN FPS when looking through a portal on my i7 330m. WTF?

Without saying what options & resolution you're running, your data is useless.

 

[Mystikal]

Without saying what options & resolution you're running, your data is useless.

Native 1600x1050 or whatever it was. Im sure thats why. Of course in windows when playing TF2 i get a constant 30 when running it at that resolution.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I don't think it's really down so much to valve, more the poor graphics performance of osx. It's not as if they haven't got any experience of making opengl engines/games.

It'll be interesting to see how linux fares and compares once steam is released - until then I'll just assume that snow leopard is still plagued with rubbish drivers and 3d performance.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_windows_part3&num=1

'Beaten' by ubuntu ootb (hardly the most cutting edge or streamlined os) in 'real world' benchmarks is pretty poor show.

The PS3 and 360 have far from rubbish drivers and rendering frameworks. Yet there were parts where the games were unplayable, on both consoles.

Its Valve, the lead designer has stated many times his hate of anything other than Windows and Direct X.

--

Those benchmarks are misleading, the games for which they compare with Ubuntu are optimized for Linux.

 

[ltldrummerboy]

Does anyone have any games missing in their games list? TF2 isn't in my list in Steam for Mac.

 

[VoR]

The PS3 and 360 have far from rubbish drivers and rendering frameworks.

Its Valve, the lead designer has stated many times his hate of anything other than Windows and Direct X.

Well, I assume some of the reasons windows and directx are so popular is because they both perform well and have great support/documentation to code for.

I thought the ps3 has had all sorts of coding issues throughout its history

But seriously, since when has any port to/from a console been any good? It's probably just a load of accountants pushing for multiple platforms, quickly and cheaply - Who cares about the performance or control of games? (apart from those that play them...)

 

[flottenheimer]

Valve rocks. What a way to kick off the store!

Real games on the Mac... I have been waiting for years. Thought it would never happen. Steam marks a historical day in the life of the Mac platform.

DLing Portal at 1.2 MB/s.

Can't wait for Counter Strike Source...

 

[MorphingDragon]

Well, I assume some of the reasons windows and directx are so popular is because they both perform well and have great support/documentation to code for.

OpenGL has plenty of documentation. Microsoft just implement their API in a way that's friendly to make games. OpenGL is aimed at workstation graphics and designed as such.

I thought the ps3 has had all sorts of coding issues throughout its history

The Cell is well documented, most developers are just lazy. Its no excuse for poor coding. You don't see Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Whoever makes GOW, Sucker Punch complaining.

But seriously, since when has any port to/from a console been any good?

Lets see off the top of my head,

Assasins Creed series, Gears of War series, Mass Effect series, Red Alert 3, Borderlands, Battlefield, Call Of Duty, and ID software game thats been ported to a console.

Gamers need to stop making excuses for poor game coding, make the developers accountable.

 

[aiqw9182]

The textures looks blurry for me in Portal (compared to how it looks in Windows). Even if I run at the displays native resolution things look blurry. I've tried different settings but it doesn't seem to do anything. Also I'm surprised that the performance is so bad compared to the Windows version on the same hardware, at least on the hardware. It don't think it's fair to blame Apple for lousy drivers, I mean Call of Duty 4 which is a game that was released several years after Portal is running just as smooth as in Windows for me. Same goes for World of Warcraft –*it runs just as well in Mac OS X as Windows for me.

Also surprised about the laggy scrolling in the Steam client. There are some things to work on for Valve here, but I'm happy it all started!

Turn off color correction.

 

[RVNA]

I'm getting a constant 90-120fps in Portal with the exception of it dropping to 58ish when I get to the fire.

I'm running a 27in iMac with an Intel Core 2 Duo and an HD 4670.

With a high-medium video settings, I was getting a solid 30 fps.

Anything below 60 is unacceptable in my standards.

 

[0098386]

Just tried Portal, running almost as good as my Bootcamp/Windows XP version! This is most promising. Can't wait to see TF2 running natively on my Macs.

Now onto Apple for some better OpenGL drivers and a mouse acceleration fix.

 

[Shadez]

Hi guys is there a way i can check my FPS while running portal without downloading program and if not what program would you all recommend for the task?

 

[bindle]

Hi guys is there a way i can check my FPS while running portal without downloading program and if not what program would you all recommend for the task?

Go to the advance keyboard settings in the game, and enable the developer console.

Then when your playing, bring up the console by pressing ~
Then type "net_graph 1" or "cl_showfps 1" to show fps
Set the flag to 0 to turn it off

 

[mixel]

It is a big matter. Documents folder is for documents.

By boot drive/apps drive is not backed up because there is nothing on there that I care about loosing.

Why I should backup XXGb of game data which need not be there was a stupid decision.

Tell it not to back up then? Certainly in Time Machine thats as simple as dragging the steam folder into the exceptions list.

What about people who have multiple accounts? They going to have the same data over and over and over again?

Stupid decision to put it there, end of. Why the BETA testers did not pick up on this I do not know. Maybe they did and steam just ignored the problem.

Now that I really DO agree with, a very, very strange thing for them to have done. I can't imagine them not fixing that up.. In the Windows version you can put it wherever you like and use symlinks, I have a seperate external drive for most of my steam games and keep my most used ones on my main windows partition.. Hopefully someone will make a util to make this sort of thing easy on the Mac too.

Should be in the steam package in the apps folder IMO.

iTunes manages music yes, but music I backup. Games I do not.

Ideally thats where I'd want stuff, or in /Library/Application Support/ but I back up everything anyway.. For most users it makes no practical difference I suspect.

 

[JeromeOD]

Does anyone have any games missing in their games list? TF2 isn't in my list in Steam for Mac.

You couldn't make it up really. Couldn't even read one page back.

 

[krzyglue]

Seriously man, it's free FOREVER. Get the game, and then go to steampowered.com and log in there (in your browser). Somewhere inside your account management, it lists all the games you own. Portal is listed as a "complimentary copy", which implies that they've essentially given the game to you.

Sorry, I can't post screenshots as steampowered.com is blocked on the network I'm on.

Oh, and I've been using Steam for years: limited play games have a big timer next to the name in the Library. Nothing like that for Portal

 

[ltldrummerboy]

You couldn't make it up really. Couldn't even read one page back.

I'm not seeing the post. Could you link directly to it? All I know is that I'm missing TF2 from my game list. Everything else is there, including all my other Windows games.

I realize that it's not available for Mac yet.