my main gripe about steam...

A2597

A2597

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OK, this REALLY annoys me.

every single freaking game you own that valve created will ONLY work out of steam.

No hl.exe, no tfc.exe. no comand line short cuts, no exe specific display settings...

you want to play a game with full AA/AF? change the settings yourself, then open steam (Which zaps ten megs of Ram) and THEN you can play.

way to go valve. Make everything so damned integrated you can't add mods, or have specific settings, etc etc.

I WANT TO BE ABLE TO INSTALL TO A FOLDER WITH AN EXE, Not have an entire game get added to a freaking cache file where I can't touch anything in it!

Thats almost enough to make me not buy HL2...my hope is some hackers will make it so we don't need steam to play HL2 offline.

gah.
 
grow up.
you sound like a 3 year old who got his candy taken away.
if you cant convey your point without gettin all upset, dont convey it at all.
 
Steams good

The only problem i have with it is that it doesnt support Blue Shift and the HL hi def pack



and yes you can add mods, in fact i have about 7 mods on steam right now (and no im not talking about dod or cs)
 
my point, very simply is.

I'm pissed at valve for FORCING us to use steam to play their games.
I wouldn't be QUITE as mad if they let us have exe's to execute games, I would be happier if they didn't convert my paid for games into freaking CACHE files, and would be MUCH happier if they only forced steam for online play as a cheat gaurd.

it's a crappy idea with even worse implementation.
 
elaborate on why not being able to have exe's to execute games is such a problem, if you will.. same with the cache.. whats the big deal here..
 
I fail to see where valve came to your house, put a gun to your head, and forced you to download steam


If you dont like it uninstall it and don't use it
 
Most games die out after 2-3 years , its been 5 coming on 6 and instead of disolving there trying to make the support and service better asking only patience and help from the community, go play somthing else if it annoys u that much.

You can create shortcuts that launch steam straight into the game, which can be used offline to.

If you so desperately need to access the game-files, although i cant see why, you can use GCF Scape, available from all good half-life file sites.
 
the reason for useing steam is for much more updates and it makes updateing the bames MUCH more easier
 
Um. I have a half-life executable in my steam folder.

T'is only 80KB, so either Valve make really good use of DLLs or just a loader for the engine that's been hidden away by steam.

Use that for your AA/AF profiles. Not that it makes much of a difference in HL anyway.
 
I think you'll find it's more of a great idea but it did have a very poor implementation.

Read my article about it here.
 
a few reasons:

#1: No game specific display profiles. ANY program that does this is exe specific.
#2: Steam eats RAM/CPU
#3: No target line parameters. ala "console"

Why did Valve have to **** around with the 10+ year established install game to folder and play?

I've had steam for 24 hours, and can tell it hasn't changed from the beta.
I deleted it then, and am deleting it now, seeing as how it is just a crappy program that serves no purpose but to make end users lives more complicated.
 
I installed steam for the first time several months ago. I though it was utter garbage. But I reinstalled steam couple of days ago when Codename Gordon came because I wanted to play it. I am quite happy with how steam performs now. I haven't had a problem with steam yet.

But could somebody answer 2 questions (well really 1) for me? Why does steam use 27 megs of RAM for being inactive? And why does it constantly use 2% of my processor speed every two seconds or so?

I like to keep my computer lean and mean even though I have a gig of RAM and a Athlon XP processor. :)
 
1. I have no idea what you mean, Steam does use the hl.exe to launch the game.
2. Not as much as gamespy arcade.
3. You can have target line parameters if u right click the game and enter the properties, and the ingame console is exactly the same except it has nifty spell checker.

As for your last comment: Good Bye. Dont come back now you hear?
 
There's a different copy of the exe in each mod folder. I reckon they all point to the files in the Half-Life engine GCF, but it should be enough to con your video card drivers into having different display profiles. I have to admit that I haven't tried messing about with display profiles yet though.
 
A2597 said:
a few reasons:

#1: No game specific display profiles. ANY program that does this is exe specific.
#2: Steam eats RAM/CPU
#3: No target line parameters. ala "console"

Why did Valve have to **** around with the 10+ year established install game to folder and play?

I've had steam for 24 hours, and can tell it hasn't changed from the beta.
I deleted it then, and am deleting it now, seeing as how it is just a crappy program that serves no purpose but to make end users lives more complicated.
Click to expand...
You're going way over the top.

1) I still don't get what you mean by that. The Steam engine has an .exe file for each game that you run, but to work you need to open it through Steam. I can have my Counter-Strike set up to run at 1024x768 and my DOD set up to run at 1280x1024.

2) Steam doesn't eat that many resources any more. I never notice it running.

3) You can add command line parameters through the properties menu of each item on the Steam menu. Right click the game, click Properties, click Launch Options.
 
Someone's not a happy camper; but I'm glad that only one out of thousands dislikes steam this much, or we'd be overrun with hate threads everywhere.

Just deal with it man, as time goes on, they'll listen to the community and implement more features and functionality. Wait it out, if it doesn't work out for u in a couple of years (yes, that long) get rid of it--or get rid of it now, like you said you would, but stop whinning!!! Thanks :)
 
#2: Steam eats RAM/CPU
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, a whopping 15 MB, my IE with 2 screens open eats up more.

Stop bitching, and uninstall it if you don't like it. I'm very tired of this mindless bitching at Steam.
Steam works perfect for online play, I download custom maps from servers in 30 secs (try doing THAT with WON) and C:G was downloaded at a steady 2.2 Mbit/s.
 
steam running idle in the background is using 29MB ram At the moment. I have 768, but thats an insane amount IMHO.

ok, found one of my main problems.
no exe's exist until you have started the game...well, that helps. (odd, but ok...)

having the exe's back fixes my main gripe...and offline play....
would be nice if there was some better documentation for this stuff!
 
I download custom maps from servers in 30 secs (try doing THAT with WON) and C:G was downloaded at a steady 2.2 Mbit/s.
Click to expand...

Nice connection :D

Steam is quite good indeed.
 
A2597 said:
steam running idle in the background is using 29MB ram At the moment. I have 768, but thats an insane amount IMHO.

ok, found one of my main problems.
no exe's exist until you have started the game...well, that helps. (odd, but ok...)

having the exe's back fixes my main gripe...and offline play....
would be nice if there was some better documentation for this stuff!
Click to expand...
And also I've instructed you how to use the command line parameters too.

The only problem you have now is the RAM - and even that isn't a massive amount.

Also:

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=support
 
A2597 said:
steam running idle in the background is using 29MB ram At the moment. I have 768, but thats an insane amount IMHO.

ok, found one of my main problems.
no exe's exist until you have started the game...well, that helps. (odd, but ok...)

having the exe's back fixes my main gripe...and offline play....
would be nice if there was some better documentation for this stuff!
Click to expand...

Some of the crazy stuff people run out there takes up more than 29, and when ur ingame the memory would be redundant anyway.

Your right about documentation being a bit sparse though, Heres a tip..

Steam Bunker, Take a left at main entrance, 2nd door on the right, Down stairs, Next to dingy filing cabinet with sign marked "Beware of the Leopard", Manual should be there.
 
um...you can play the retail games offline without even installing steam....or you could at least with CS:CZ(the only example we've had so far).
You can still edit the game files/etc., just recreate the folders like they would be in the original hl/mod directory, and add the files you want. those files will override the ones in the .gcf file.
Any commandline variables you could add to a normal .exe you can add to each game-specific steam.exe shortcut.

and actually, steam makes the average end-user's life a lot simpler in every aspect, and it is no harder for the advanced user to tweak things than it was the old way. its just different. not hard, different(and barely at that).

just because you know how to work a 6 year old system does not in any way mean you should automatically know everything about a brand new one. you just need to actually learn about steam, like you learned about the old format so many years ago.

all it takes is a cool, rational attitude.

im not familiar with hardware profiles very well, but there are .exe files in each game folder. (BTW, look in C:/program files/steam/steamapps/[email protected]/. Guess what? there is all the good old stuff!)

EDIT: look what i get when i get up to get something to eat in the middle of my post....waste of time.
 
Why do you keep saying there's no exe? C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\[email protected]\gamedir\hl.exe

IE: C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\[email protected]\condition zero\hl.exe

Each seperate game has a different exe, what's the problem?

(Edit: I'm aware this has been said, but might as well stress it..)

All of your "issues" are really non-issues and have workarounds/are doable
 
Thx for a good laff. The attitude put it over the top.
Next time I am having a bad day I'll msg ya to post another one of these threads.
All the things you pointed out are null. btw
 
Valve forces an extremely invasive program on its paying customers and brainwashes them into thinking its a good idea. They have a pretty sweet set up.
 
Asus said:
Thx for a good laff. The attitude put it over the top.
Next time I am having a bad day I'll msg ya to post another one of these threads.
All the things you pointed out are null. btw
Click to expand...

You have no right to patronise him, you havent even offered a counter-argument. Or wait, perhaps he is supposed to abandon his gripes on a simple say-so from you without any goddamn reasoning whatsoever?
 
Nasum said:
Valve forces an extremely invasive program on its paying customers and brainwashes them into thinking its a good idea. They have a pretty sweet set up.
Click to expand...

Explain what you mean by "extremely invasive," Steam has nothing invasive about it.
The spyware claims -- false
The unwanted preloads -- fixed

uhm, that's about all I can think of.. care to tell me what's so "invasive" about it?
 
I hope you don't think I will msg him like I said, do you? I'm sorry. It was sarcasm. I know it's hard to tell online. The part about the attitude wasn't though...
I wasn't going to debate his complaints. I just don't think they are big issues and he over looked his solutions while being quick to complain. Since this isn't the place for Steam complaints...that's what steampowered.com is for. IMO
 
I STILL want to know how Steam is invasive, Nasum. I'm waiting :)
 
....Good Point.......

They'll replace it with the message:

Buy Valve games...... Only Valve games....

Not that that is a bad thing........
 
Valve are forcing you to download a platform and install it, log on to the internet, log in to steam, and wait while it sits on your desktop, using ram, and downloads content. All this is being added to a process that should be as simple as sticking a cd into your computer. That is invasive.
 
Nasum said:
Valve are forcing you to download a platform and install it, log on to the internet, log in to steam, and wait while it sits on your desktop, using ram, and downloads content. All this is being added to a process that should be as simple as sticking a cd into your computer. That is invasive.
Click to expand...
Oh like Gamespy?!

I buy CS:CZ at store.
I insert CD.
I play CS:CZ.

I assume the same will be possible with HL2 and future games.
 
Time to play devil's advocate :devil:

Why can't they make steam like gamespy where you activate it only when you want it to use up your ram/processing power?

Why does steam use 27 Mb of RAM and use 1% of my processing power when it is apparently doing nothing? Steam isn't accessing the internet or doing anything.

Probably the biggest problem is how unintuitive steam is. Some programs are naturally intuitive, steam isn't one of those programs. You want an example of an intuitive program, check out itunes.

:angel:

Now, I have nothing against steam at all. I just want to throw some stuff up for debate. This debate is remarkedly oneside for such a contreversial piece of software. :cheers:
 
Nasum said:
Valve are forcing you to download a platform and install it, log on to the internet, log in to steam, and wait while it sits on your desktop, using ram, and downloads content. All this is being added to a process that should be as simple as sticking a cd into your computer. That is invasive.
Click to expand...

No they are not. They are providing you with the option of doing that, as many people find it easier this way. You can still install your game from the CD and play it with the latest non-steam patch. You won't find any online games, but thats because everyone else has seen the benefit of steam, natch :)

Oh, and "Valve have got it sweet"??? They are providing this service for free at a cost to themselves. Tip: Engage brain before typing a post...
 
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