Valve Officially Announces Steam and Game Library Coming to Mac in April

[oliverb]

so will all the Steam games run on a mac right away?

I am not very familiar with the Steam platform, and couldn't find an answer to this - I did read almost every post in this thread...

I am keen to play some of the existing games on the steam website - like Napoleon Total War, for example. When they move Steam to Mac in April will the existing games work, or only new releases. The press release wasn't very clear (perhaps it is sooo obvious )

 

[hob]

I am not very familiar with the Steam platform, and couldn't find an answer to this - I did read almost every post in this thread...

I am keen to play some of the existing games on the steam website - like Napoleon Total War, for example. When they move Steam to Mac in April will the existing games work, or only new releases. The press release wasn't very clear (perhaps it is sooo obvious )

Everything Valve make will run - Half Life 2, Portal, Team Fortress etc.

Total War doesn't run on Valve's SOURCE engine as far as I'm aware, so presumably won't be available immediately...

 

[oliverb]

Everything Valve make will run - Half Life 2, Portal, Team Fortress etc.

Total War doesn't run on Valve's SOURCE engine as far as I'm aware, so presumably won't be available immediately...

Thanks for the clarification. So I need to click "Valve" under publisher, to get the games that will work right away? Or is there another way to see the SOURCE based games?

 

[cgc]

Wow...what a pleasant surprise. I have quite a few Valve games and can't wait to play them without BootCamp which I will promptly delete once I test everything.

 

[Ramius]

Also included in the announcement is the addition of a new "Steam Play" feature for Steam, allowing purchasers of either the Mac or PC versions of Valve's games to play on the other system free of charge. Third-party game developers distributing through Steam are also widely expected to take advantage of the feature.

Can someone help me understand this better.

I bought Half Life 2 and CSS for my PC many years ago. When it was released in fact. I still have the CD Key, but I have not used it or my steam account for years. maybe as much as five years. Can I log onto Steam on my Mac and download CSS without paying then? Using my old account?

 

[Furrybeagle]

Can someone help me understand this better.

I bought Half Life 2 and CSS for my PC many years ago. When it was released in fact. I still have the CD Key, but I have not used it or my steam account for years. maybe as much as five years. Can I log onto Steam on my Mac and download CSS without paying then? Using my old account?

Yes, unless you have some reason to believe you can’t access your old Steam account.

 

[Antares]

Hopefully, the games will have controller support. I hate playing shooters with a mouse and keyboard.

The game I'm looking forward to the most is Left 4 Dead 2....but hope I can play it on the Mac with a controller. Of course, Portal 2 will be an instant purchase, as well.

This confirmation by Valve is awesome, by the way! However, for Mac gaming to succed, all future games need to be simultaneous Mac/PC releases (going forward). If you have to wait for the Mac version, a lot of people are just going to get the PC version and not not bother getting the Mac version down the line (even though it will be free).

 

[jimmyjoemccrow]

Hopefully, the games will have controller support. I hate playing shooters with a mouse and keyboard.

Saying this is like saying you like to eat with your hands because you can't be bothered to learn using a knife and fork.

What controller would you have them support? XBox360? An MS product?

 

[Droid13]

Brilliant!

I have given up on a new gaming system entirely and recently bought a console instead. But the thought of being able to play my favourite set of PC games - the Half-Life series - and a few others on a Mac without paying for crossing platforms fills me with joy. Yay!!!

All gamers torn between Mac and Windows need now - and I suspect it won't happen - is proper gaming graphics on the Mac platform. Mind you, the HD 4850 in the iMac isn't bad, certainly not for Half-Life, but an HD 4870 would be better. Then there are all the 5xxx series cards that Apple haven't even offered yet, which are pretty good considering they match the performance of some of the 4xxx series cards while consuming less power.

I don't expect them to ever offer an HD 5970 though. Not even in a Mac Pro. Shame really - always made me laugh when those "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" adverts were on, suggesting that the Mac was where fun and games happened despite them having no decent graphics cards.

We'll see though. Best to keep an open mind.

 

[chewietobbacca]

Recent Macs should run it fine, since Source engine is fairly old and isn't very demanding. And to clarify for people - this is ONLY the Valve (Source) games. Not every game on Steam. So those wanting to play say... BF:BC2 or whatever, you'll have to still use Windows

But a lot of you guys comparing your hardware to Steam surveys (which isn't an exact representation of actual PC hardware usage), don't forget that comparing notebook cards vs. desktop cards is a world of difference (A notebook 9600 is inferior to a desktop 9600 for example)

 

[0098386]

^ That's irrelevant since the Source engine is constantly evolving. The Source engine used for CS Source and HL2 is vastly older compared to Left4Dead 2. The Portal 2 one will be more advanced too. It's just Valve games usually scale really well.

The game I'm looking forward to the most is Left 4 Dead 2....but hope I can play it on the Mac with a controller. Of course, Portal 2 will be an instant purchase, as well.

This confirmation by Valve is awesome, by the way! However, for Mac gaming to succed, all future games need to be simultaneous Mac/PC releases (going forward). If you have to wait for the Mac version, a lot of people are just going to get the PC version and not not bother getting the Mac version down the line (even though it will be free).

I wouldn't mention that ingame. You'll be at a disadvantage using a controller if you're playing with people using mice. People get kicked quite often for not helping fast enough/not having great aim especially in competitive modes. People get kicked for not using mics, having bad pings etc.

It's been mentioned that PC and Mac version development runs side by side so we would see simultaneous releases.

 

[tcrown]

"I hate to p**s on peoples chips. But those thinking that the Mac native versions will give the Windows one a run for its money are in for a shock.

http://www.barefeats.com/nehal14.html

Mac OGL performance noticeably trails that of even the dreaded Vista (even at ultra high resolutions, where raw power usually over comes software optimisation), and with ATI and Nvidia locked in a knife fight to the death I doubt serious optimisation for the platform will be along any time soon.

All that aside, this is a great day for Mac gaming fans."



With Grant Devine from id as one of the leads at Apple games division there has been a massive push to get OPGL 3.0 fully up to spec in 10.6.3 and OPGL 3.2 for 10.7. I suspect you will see a release of 10.6.3 with fully optimized OPGL 3.0 before Steam goes live in April.

 

[dscuber9000]

I'll be buying Team Fortress 2, Portal, and maybe the entire Half-Life 2 series day one.

By the way, did anyone else realize that Valve supported Mac before PlayStation 3? Valve sure hates the PS3.

 

[JackAxe]

Excuse my naiveté - I've read this whole thread but am none the wiser...

I have been using Macs for 8 or 9 years now, during which time all my gaming has been done on consoles. I have never tried to run a game on any of my Macs and haven't kept up with PC gaming at all. Whenever I have bought a new Mac, I haven't worried too much about the graphics card because I knew it would be fine for the sort of stuff I would be using the computer for...

This announcement, however, could change things. What I would like to know is whether my current Mac is capable of gaming to what I would consider a reasonable standard.

It's only a few days old: 27" i5 iMac 4GB ATI Radeon HD 4850 (512MB). What sort of performance might I be able to get from this? Could I rival Xbox 360/PS3? Original Xbox? PS2?

Any ideas?

Steve.

Across the board your system is more powerful/capable than any current console. PCs surpassed "current" consoles up about 4 years back. What you'll need to consider though, is your screen's resolution of 2560x1440. You'll probably want to go down to a notch or two on the resolution.

 

[layte]

With Grant Devine from id as one of the leads at Apple games division there has been a massive push to get OPGL 3.0 fully up to spec in 10.6.3 and OPGL 3.2 for 10.7. I suspect you will see a release of 10.6.3 with fully optimized OPGL 3.0 before Steam goes live in April.

Performance will still be heavily dependant on the optimisation of the OGL driver by the various vendors, and their current priority is probably not OS X given how hard fought the Windows gaming scene is.

 

[kstswe]

Thanks for the clarification. So I need to click "Valve" under publisher, to get the games that will work right away? Or is there another way to see the SOURCE based games?

As far as I know the games that will be available are Half Life Series , Team Fortress 2 , Left 4 Dead 2, Portal and Counter Strike.

what the future will hold we shall se...


But the games above are all classics, since beta 5.2 on Counterstrike I was hooked, even if my days are taken by TF2 now.

 

[ReviewPC]

I see this as a huge boon to the gaming industry on the Mac platform. I can't wait until this is in place and more games are announced. Games like Supreme Commander 2, and a few other RTS games. The Mac has always been the best when a RTS or Sim (ah, the days of Maxis) is made for it. IMO.

 

[/dev/toaster]

....and Urban Terror for the mac has not ben updated for ages.

Its still a fun game don't get me wrong, but I have been playing it off and on since the first public release LOL.

 

[offwidafairies]

my dad (an avid gamer) just bought an iPhone the other day. he has been using windows since dos, and has not been planning to change. he was so impressed with the iphone he said he is (finally!) considering switching to mac. if he can play civilization on a mac he would be stoked!! the only thing a mac can't do right now is run autocad. he needs it (as does my mum - she would switch to mac if dad did...). i have no idea how well it runs on boot camp or parallels or fusion???

anyway, cool news for gamers.. i'll report back to the dad!

 

[92jlee]

Does this mean ALL steam games will be converted?

I have a warhammer dawn of war II for PC, but you have to use Steam to install and update it... Does that mean I can use that on my iMac?

 

[santaliqueur]

my dad (an avid gamer) just bought an iPhone the other day. he has been using windows since dos, and has not been planning to change. he was so impressed with the iphone he said he is (finally!) considering switching to mac. if he can play civilization on a mac he would be stoked!! the only thing a mac can't do right now is run autocad. he needs it (as does my mum - she would switch to mac if dad did...). i have no idea how well it runs on boot camp or parallels or fusion???

anyway, cool news for gamers.. i'll report back to the dad!

For Autocad, you could use Fusion's Unity mode (or Parallels' equivalent) and Autocad would look like just another OS X application. It's totally smooth and seamless. As long as it's not a game, needing to use a Windows-only application is no reason to not switch to OS X. It's just such a non-issue now.

 

[ReviewPC]

Does this mean ALL steam games will be converted?

I have a warhammer dawn of war II for PC, but you have to use Steam to install and update it... Does that mean I can use that on my iMac?

No, not yet. Only Source games have been "converted" so far. Let's hope the others follow suit soon.

 

[cmaier]

Does this mean ALL steam games will be converted?

I have a warhammer dawn of war II for PC, but you have to use Steam to install and update it... Does that mean I can use that on my iMac?

No. Only those games that developers decide to port will be converted.

 

[gregorsamsa]

I am not very familiar with the Steam platform, and couldn't find an answer to this - I did read almost every post in this thread...

I am keen to play some of the existing games on the steam website - like Napoleon Total War, for example. When they move Steam to Mac in April will the existing games work, or only new releases. The press release wasn't very clear (perhaps it is sooo obvious )

That & "Empire: TW" will do me, even if we have to wait for them a good while yet. Not fussed about "Medieval 2" as long as Feral give us a boxed version to go alongside their excellent port of "Rome", which I think they will.

Everything Valve make will run - Half Life 2, Portal, Team Fortress etc.

Total War doesn't run on Valve's SOURCE engine as far as I'm aware, so presumably won't be available immediately...

AFAIK, Valve have confirmed that some 3rd party developers are already on board, so it'll be interesting to know how many & who exactly, though I'm confident that number will grow in time.

By the by, I've dithered about getting Snow Leopard to give my iMac a general speed increase & Windows 7 for extra gaming choice for a while now. Since this story broke I've ordered Snow Leopard only, but postponed getting Windows 7 for the foreseeable future (if I get it at all).

 

[DougB541]

I see this as a huge boon to the gaming industry on the Mac platform. I can't wait until this is in place and more games are announced. Games like Supreme Commander 2, and a few other RTS games. The Mac has always been the best when a RTS or Sim (ah, the days of Maxis) is made for it. IMO.

ahhh i remember my PowerMac in the 90s ran Sim City 2000...good times.


Some advice i'll give to those entering FPS world....i'm highly doubting the Magic Mouse will be comfortable for long play sessions. Time to look at some logitech/Razer/MS (yes MS) mice.