Ubuntu is one of the slowest distros around. Fact. Linux itself is generally snappier than Windows. Get a distro that runs faster, if this is an issue for you.
+ 1 <3 to steam. I love not needing disks to install my games. I get 700kb/s download speeds, so thats not an issue with me. I love being able to reformat and then just install steam, let things download over night, and wham, got all my games again for the very next day. Ive never had any problems with the community overlay, and love not needing some 3rd party app to communicate with people. Plus Steam has a shit ton of awesome games for sale, and with more and more companies selling through it, I can foresee a future where ALL my purchases are through steam. God damnit I love steam.
The "Steam can't complete this task in Offline mode" error when entering Offline mode always gets me.
I don't see too many complaints about Steam these days, now that Valve have ironed out most of the problems with it. I joined the HL2 community in early 2005, and back then people were complaining all the time about Steam and writing cute mini-essays about how it violates their human rights and Valve are Nazis/Commies and how Steam will ultimately fail(lol, guess how that turned out). I don't even want to know how people were pre-HL2 when Steam was truly flawed. The only valid complaints about Steam that you can make nowadays are that it takes up system resources while playing games and doesn't support 56k users very well. And the first one will soon become a non-issue as the average amount of RAM and CPU power in computers rapidly increases.
I bought the old half life series on disc as well as steam. i love steam, i thinkl its great that i dont have to go out to the shop to buy a game thats proberbly sold out or they dont sell it anymore instead i can get a shower while its downloading. Great stuff.
I mainly use Windows for Steam, but on occasion I'll try it out on my Gentoo Linux machine under Wine. It works pretty well for HL1 games, but I haven't tried HL2 games on it yet, cause the hardware's kinda meager (FX5200, 512MB ram, etc).
STEAM OWNS! I CAN OPEN UP STEAM AND BE LIKE "BOOM HEADSHOT" but seriously folks, <3 Steam just as much as you love the Boston Bruins (lol /bostonfan)
Everone that lives away from civilization with no high-speed access, like me. Quoted from a similar thread I responed to recently. The concept of Steam is great and I would truly love it if it just wasn't so far ahead of it's time. Technology needs to catch up so everyone can have access to hi-speed. Guarantee you there would be far less complaints about Steam if this was accomplished.
Saturos, it's not that we're all better than you. It's just that you suck. XD Kidding. But Steam is just so awesome when you have hi-speed interwebs.
I had not played Steam/Valve for over three years. But now I have a much better computer, monitor and intarweb connection. Not bragging but 3.2 GHz HyperThreading, 2 GB RAM, x1300 256 MB ATI card, and Dell FP2001 20" LCD, together with ComCast HSI 2 MB download speed. When I finally decided to try playing HL2 again, it was a completely different experience from the *relatively* slow 200 Kb DSL I had before, and 2 GHz P3 with a half GB RAM and <dear God how did I live without a video card before?> AnyHoo, all my downloads only took a half hour before I was playing again. I was shocked, SHOCKED I tells ya, that I could reinstall it on my new machine :cheers: I never finished HL2 back then because there were updates every frickin day and they took an hour or two every time I started up. Again, now that I have 2 MB down (and sometimes even way faster) it is much more pleasurable:afro:
You should be able to play with that card. as far as driver support goes I dont know. but i had a ubuntu system running a 1.6Ghz processor 512mb of ram, and an nvidia fx4000. Granted it was fairly slow, it was running running steam and css through wine. I was oddly getting a fairly playable 12-18 fps, broken windows would render as wire frame, but other then that it ran. so i should think it would work.
Steam is the future! Piracy will be a lot harder once everyone sells games through applications such as Steam, and viola PC gaming will be the huge market it should be. Seriously, I love steam and it gives me 750+kbs download speeds so no complaints here.
I dislike Steam purely because its unnecessary for standalone shop-bought games yet forces you to use it anyway. I can buy a copy of most non-Steam games and install them in a matter of minutes. Many have a one-off online verification (such as Bioshock), but Steam requires a constant internet connection while it downloads hundreds of megabytes of updates for your game whether you want them or not. As an example, I recently bought the Orange box and had to spend hours watching the installation bar creep up because Steam is downloading every update under the sun -- for an OFFLINE game! I shouldn't need to tell you how bothersome it is when you just want to install it and start playing. Granted online games need to be updated in order to keep things uniform amongst players, but Steam tars every game with the same brush. And yes I know there's an offline mode, but it doesn't seem to work for initial installations. So, while I wait for my updates to crawl along at a ridiculously slow pace (Seriously, are they using pocket calculators for a server!?) I have to be content with enjoying my other Steamless games in the interim while a certain application hogs my system resources. Its fun to play Devil's Advocate!
For some reason the Steam store has no scroll bars now, so I'm forced to highlight downward/upward/left & right to even see anything. What.
Oh, so you think because you're getting slow speeds, that MUST mean their servers are crap. I manage to get up to 800kbps - other members get much higher, so I don't think there is something wrong with Steam. With you? Yes.
Considering my usual download speed on just about every other website or service, there's clearly SOMETHING along the Steam lines which is causing a slowdown. Perhaps my firewall hates steam or perhaps its their servers, who knows. But there are plenty of good reasons to hate Steam. My favourite is the "This game is not ready to be played Offline" error on games like Portal -- an OFFLINE game. This ultimately FORCES you to update the game whether you want to or not, even though I've clearly set the option for not updating in the games menu. Steam sucks. Its a means to an end, and a poor one. But its the only way I'll get to play through Half-Life 2 and Portal, so im stuck with it sadly.
Could not connect to Steam Network. Start in Offline Mode? "Fair enough, let's start in offline mode." /clicks Offline Mode ERROR ERROR ERROR THIS OPERATION CANNOT BE COMPLETED WHILE STEAM IS OFFLINE "But the entire idea is to-" COULD NOT CONNECT TO THE STEAM NETWORK. PLEASE RESET. /goes outside EVERYTHING JUST BROKE. START IN OFFLINE MODE? /crickets
Only thing I don't like is how the Overlay sometimes doesn't work properly in non-steam games. Also, if I go into a chat, leave it or get disconnected, and try to get back it won't work. I have to restart all of steam.
****warning long RANT**** The reason i dont like steam is cause... lets see... First it all started several years ago. Me and my bros want to play hldm online. Start up gamespy click hl and try to start a game... cant intailize won severs ??? wtf... find out ooo hldm is useing something called steam? find website and start downloading create account... try and start up a lan game... we cant even Find each others severs... we start an online game we cant join eachother severs wtf? cant remember much of what happend we had about 4 copys of hl. about a year later of using steam. something happens to our accounts our cd keys are rejected or somthing... we use our other cdkeys they are invalid??? wth? they want use to buy a new copy of hl? We go through support they say we need to ship our cds to valve to get new cdkeys... to much of a hassel and not worth it... somehow my brother gets a couple of accounts for steam not sure how, that lasts us for a while untill he losses the passwords...(think they wernt legit accounts) i stop playing hldm online and start playing it lan only cause u dont need steam for that =P. we had about 5 ppl playing in one game and its awesome best way to play... couple years goes by hl2 comes out i buy it get a new account... i install it play it beat it get hl2dm for free =) play that (there are many bugs) lots of crashes something with my datacachefile or something...i get css for free also. my brother buys the game then trades it for an account that has hl1 then losses that account XD... he then gets his old account back. during these times ive had lots of internet problems from dsl... everyonce in a while our internet would shutdown... and i wouldnt be able to play anything... i try to go into offline mode, wtf??? i cant go in offline mode cause im not connected to the internet? and sometimes when i can go into offline mode only one game would work... and that would be css? wth would be the point in that... if i dont have internet... alll the other games say unplayable in offline mode or something... when internet is on i check online why io cant play certain games... the reason is cause i have to verify the game before going offline... wtf... the offline thing is broke... couple years later my brother downloads cod4 on steam... i start playing his account for it then 2 days after downloading it its doesnt work... i cant remeber the error it just didnt work... i had to aventualy had to reinstall it which toke forever since downloading on steam sucks... ( i had comcast at this time yay 2mbs) 2 days later i was playing again... i also got pretty good on hl2dm but there were tons i mean tons of bugs witch havent been fixed... and rly buggy slams... and i still had the datachache error witch is found to be a problem with steam. i ifxed that by takeing one gig of ram outta my computer and so far hl2dm hasnt crashed. i still love steam im not sure what i would do without it cause i lost all my hl2 cds and there cdkeys... downloading from steam has gotten alot better and the future for steam is looking bright... but also when the friends thing first came out i had so many problems lol...
I think playstation network is coming into its own lately with downloadable games worth buying plus the online isnt laggy or anything so i dont know why youd call it terrible. Secondly I've only recently started using steam for counterstrike and being a console gamer i probably wont really use it until i get a job and can upgrade my computer to handle the games (i'm only 15 and I'm broke) but yea it seems easy to use and convenient so far.
I love Steam, but in recent times I noticed a lack of good titles and some really weird and absurd price differences between european and american downloads. It seems that european publishers are trying to boycott digital distribution platforms to protect retail market. I know, it's not Steam's fault, but I feel that this phenomenon is influencing Steam more than other platforms.
My thoughts exactly. I think it's a noob thing. They don't seem to have grasped the idea that you DON'T BUMP THREADS!!!!!
i want to make love to steam... shit, this is old? in that case, delete this if you must. damn bumpers...
I remember back in 2004 when I bought HL2, I used to have a dial-up connection so the overall waiting was really dreadful. But even then I couldn't hate Steam, I was actually very surprised by the concept. Now that I have fiber optic internet, nothing stands in my way Well, maybe just the funds. So, I <3 Steam too.
Steam rocks I have never had any problems with it and I get great download speeds those who don't should really think of switching from 56k...