Question about Steam

[PowerMetalRocker]

This is kind of a stupid question but how do I use offline mode? I remember a while back like it was new and stuff and when you right clicked on the steam icon in the system tray you could like hit offline mode or something, and now its not there anymore. I need to figure out how to use it because hl2 is coming tomorrow and both my Dad and I want to play it. Hes not going to play online but I need to get the singleplayer working on his PC.

 

[^Ben]

If you don't have a connection to the net it will ask you if you wan't to go onto offline mode.

But you have to connect to steam atleast once on his PC.

 

[LordBug]

Well, firstly you update the game. Ensure it works, check the properties and make sure it's at 100%.

Then, right click the Steam icon in the taskbar and choose "Exit".

Remove the 'net connection. Restart Steam. Choose offline mode when prompted, and hope that it didn't lie to you before.

Just make sure he has no 'net connection whatsoever. If Steam can sense a connection, it will connect, no buts about it.

 

[MrBongo]

Is there a setting to turn it off within Steam, IE. not having to pull out my modem every time I plan on playing the game offline? It would be possible, I suppose, but what if other people in my household wanted to use the internet on our second computer?

 

[sHaDdoW]

buy a router and unplug the ethernet connection instead

 

[^Ben]

Or block it's access witha firewall.

 

[Bedwetting Type]

There's got to be a better way to force it into offline mode. I have ICQ 2003a, and it runs a little applet at Windows startup that looks for a net connection. Well sometimes it conflicts with Steam, and Steam immediately says it can't connect. If we could figure out what's happening and reproduce it, that would be nice.

Or, we could ask Valve for a fix, but that's gotta be low on their priority list. Not to complain...

 

[MrBongo]

I have a router, so like I said, I could simply unplug it. However, that would mean the rest of the household would be without an internet connection (bad).

Does Steam have an impact on performance ingame? (I have a 2.4ghz pentium, ATI 9700 Pro, 512gb ram...)

 

[PowerMetalRocker]

Thanks for your help guys! I'll test it out tomorrow. We have a router so i'll just unplug the cable to his pc. Once it goes into offline mode can I hook the net up again? Or will it connect again?

 

[RAST]

I have a router, so like I said, I could simply unplug it. However, that would mean the rest of the household would be without an internet connection (bad).

Right-click on My Network Places. Select Properties.
Right-click on Local Area Connection. Select Disable.

This effectively turns off your network connection.

To re-enable your network connection just do the reverse (except select Enable)

Naturally you could just reach around and unplug the network cable in the back of your PC, but that sounds like work to me