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Steam for Mac Now Live, Portal is Free Until May 24th
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People keep saying that and also that the problem is with Apple's graphic drivers in Mac OS X.
What I find strange is that for me, Call of Duty 4 and World of Warcraft run just as well in Mac OS X as in Windows.
Also I didn't see any performance problem with Torchlight on the Mac.
Portal on the other hand is quite sluggish on the Mac (although it seems the latest update did improve things).
You'd say Portal is a more demanding game than Call of Duty 4? I don't think so.
I can imagine there's a lot for Apple to take care of when it comes to the graphics drivers in Mac OS X, but it's obviously still possible to get game somewhat on par with Windows (FPS wise).
I've got something that may interest some people:
I got an email back from the steam dev team. The folder will be moving to /App Support/!
May of be some interest...
I got an email back from the steam dev team. The folder will be moving to /App Support/!
May of be some interest...
Not that I distrust you but post a screenshot of the email.
It's hardly something major to lie about to be honest, and no I won't be posting a screenshot.
Besides, the devs etc probably get annoyed when people email them and then make it public, I would to be honest.
Quote: "working here to move the content to Application Support"
Dorky question, probably already answered
But I didn't see it when I scanned the thread...
Installed PORTAL on my 2008 iMac. Can move with the ASDW keys, and look around with the mouse, but can't interact with anything. Is this a one button mouse problem? I'm also not hearing any sound, but it may be because I'm bumbling about inside my containment pod or whatever that is.
But I didn't see it when I scanned the thread...
Installed PORTAL on my 2008 iMac. Can move with the ASDW keys, and look around with the mouse, but can't interact with anything. Is this a one button mouse problem? I'm also not hearing any sound, but it may be because I'm bumbling about inside my containment pod or whatever that is.
Update brought me up to 70-90fps. Still not as high as it probably should be, but no longer offensively low.
It should be user-definable. For those of use who know how to symlink I guess it is, but it should be easier for the typical user.
OK, I have a question. Probably a dumb one, but I have to ask.
I'm waiting for my new MacBook Pro to arrive, within a few days. When It arrives, I'll give Steam a try, download Portal, etc.
In the mean time, I've looked through the games, and found three that most interested me: Torchlight, World of Goo, and Osmos. I see that all three games can be bought directly from the maker. So, I'm wondering: What's the advantage of getting these through Valve, with Steam, instead of just getting them directly from the makers? What is the value that the middleman is bringing to the table?
Thanks.
I'm waiting for my new MacBook Pro to arrive, within a few days. When It arrives, I'll give Steam a try, download Portal, etc.
In the mean time, I've looked through the games, and found three that most interested me: Torchlight, World of Goo, and Osmos. I see that all three games can be bought directly from the maker. So, I'm wondering: What's the advantage of getting these through Valve, with Steam, instead of just getting them directly from the makers? What is the value that the middleman is bringing to the table?
Thanks.
Nothing to be honest, I have world of goo anyway and I just added it to the steam window.
@grue, well I don't remember it being user definable in windows either? But it's alot of work for devs to make things userdefinable, and to be honest if your moving the folder your already an advanced enough user to use symlinks, probably best if we made them spend their time on more useful things like black hole portal fixes and performance eh?
ok, am I the ONLY one that cant get this to work at ALL?! I try downloading it, it downloads, I place it in my app's folder, I open it, installs update, then crashes, EVERY TIME! Haven't even been able to run steam at all yet. I have tried rebooting, reinstalling, everything.
Any ideas?? Anyone else having same problem!?
Oh, and there isn't really a way to contact them either, so this whole "now on a mac" thing is crap.
Any ideas?? Anyone else having same problem!?
Oh, and there isn't really a way to contact them either, so this whole "now on a mac" thing is crap.
Yes... Why?
Looked and it specifically says it SHOULD work... :/
"Intel Mac, OS X version Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3, or later.
Two-button mouse strongly recommended"
Nothing to be honest, I have world of goo anyway and I just added it to the steam window.
@grue, well I don't remember it being user definable in windows either? But it's alot of work for devs to make things userdefinable, and to be honest if your moving the folder your already an advanced enough user to use symlinks, probably best if we made them spend their time on more useful things like black hole portal fixes and performance eh?
Oh for sure, there are bigger things to worry about first, but they should fix that later. I've got it symlinked off to a different drive already anyway, but I like to bitch and moan about minor things a lot.
Thank you.
In that case – I still don't quite understand.
If the answer is "nothing", then why are so many people excited about Steam servers for Mac? People are saying "Hooray!" and proclaiming how this is one of the biggest things to happen in the Mac world in a long time, etc. There must be something more to it than "The middleman has arrived!" So, what am I missing?
Again, thank you for your patience.
WoW was written initially for both PC and Mac. CoD4 is based on the ancient Quake3 engine so I would expect Portal to be on a par with that game. WoW and CoD were both written with OpenGL in mind. Portal was written with DirectX in mind. This isn't a very good excuse for the poor performance but it does explain why CoD4 runs as well as Portal.
Well, the game is the same, no matter where you buy it, but other than that it's easy to see the benefits. It's a platform that gives developers visibility, so they may be more interested now to port games on mac than before, and the users have a place to browse available games that they might have missed otherwise. They put on frequent special offers that let you buy single games or bundles at discounted price. And then there's the service, which gives you automatic patch updates, an online social network like the one you find on consoles, your games only in one place without multiple logins on different sites and licence keys to remember, the the option to download your game on any pc you want, while your savegames are saved on their servers and you don't have to move them from pc to pc. What's not to like?
Well, the game is the same, no matter where you buy it, but other than that it's easy to see the benefits. It's a platform that gives developers visibility, so they may be more interested now to port games on mac than before, and the users have a place to browse available games that they might have missed otherwise. They put on frequent special offers that let you buy single games or bundles at discounted price. And then there's the service, which gives you automatic patch updates, an online social network like the one you find on consoles, your games only in one place without multiple logins on different sites and licence keys to remember, the the option to download your game on any pc you want, while your savegames are saved on their servers and you don't have to move them from pc to pc. What's not to like?
Thank you, KinSlayer.
As for the benefits being "easy to see": perhaps "easy" if you are already familiar with the system, or if someone shows you what those benefits are. It's not so easy for someone on the outside to see, someone who has no familiarity with Steam, who knows nothing about it except for having heard "Steam is here; this is big".
But your answer is exactly the kind I was hoping for, giving a more concrete explanation, so that the benefits are now easier to see. I appreciate that.
Now that I better understand, I have to say that my initial impression is that none of those reasons make me feel compelled to patronize Steam. I'll give it a try, and see if I change my mind. At least, now, I know what to consider, in seeing if this is for me.
My impression is that I'd rather do things directly than through a mediator, and I'd rather have stuff local than in the "cloud". But we'll see.
Well I just got done playing through Portal and didn't have any issues as far as graphics performance was concerned, on a 9400m of all things. Maybe at my age, I care more about gameplay than graphics or something.
It's more the steam games themselves.
World of Goo etc arn't made by steam. They are in these cases, middlemen.
Half-life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Counterstrike, etc are "Valve" games (Who make steam).
All the fuss is about the valve games, anything else is just a bonus
It's more the steam games themselves.
World of Goo etc arn't made by steam. They are in these cases, middlemen.
Half-life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Counterstrike, etc are "Valve" games (Who make steam).
All the fuss is about the valve games, anything else is just a bonus
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks. I didn't realize they were makers, as well as distributors.
I just looked up those games; first-person shooter games are not generally what I prefer, but I'll check them out on one of Steam's promotional free weekends, and see what I think.
Cheers.
back in the late 1990's when DirectX first came out John Carmack was one of the last holdouts to use OpenGL. Almost every game was DirectX but he kept on using OGL for Quacke. Forgot when he switched over.
OpenGL was written as a workstation graphics API. DirectX was written for games. it also has a faster development cycle and adds new features as Nvidia and AMD add them to their cards