What is Steam, from a newb

[SirGrotius]

Yeah, I'm a newbie, and I'm wondering what Steam is. It seems such nonsense to me. I have a decent computer, but I've never had a game which took so long to load. Is steam the culprit? Also, it says I can look at the manual using it, but it's never worked for me, I just get a blank, white webpage that never loads.

P4 2 Ghz
1 GB RAM
80 GB HD
500 Watt PS
6800 GeForce w/ 256 MB RAM
Horrible Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Card

Thanks

 

[15357]

Yes, Steam is probably the culprit. Most likely. Steam sucks. Evil. Die.

 

[nagual7]

Yes, Steam tends to be quite a resource sucker. I was quite dissapointed that I couldn't anymore play games that ran perfectly fine on older computers (I'm talking about PII 400mhz with a Voodoo2..) because Steam decided that they would be so laggy as to be unplayable. I used to have a LAN at home :hmph: .

Steam's purposes are to deliver content right at home via the internet (can't really understand how it is so much better than downloading yourself manually the games, also because it wouldn't force updates down your throat) and, most importantly imho, to prevent piracy of their games. You have to live with it. It's relatively unnoticeable if you have a fast computer, it just takes more clicks to reach your games .

 

[Beerdude26]

I'm trying to find a post I once made to another newbie that explained Steam in great detail.

If I don't find it, I'll explain Steam a bit further.

(Code for finding it back : 123SHENS )
STEAM:
Steam is a distribution program. It is a stand-alone program that is used to distribute games. Valve Software designed Steam with this in mind. Their games (HL2, CS:S) are available on Steam, but a few mods for HL2 have also been released over Steam. A few games that are not affliated with Valve in any way (Third-party games) have recently also been made available through Steam. You can easily buy them over Steam using secure money transfers with your credit card.

Steam is also used as an anti-piracy program. Unlike other games, each Steam account is completely unique, and installed games require a unique CD-key that cannot be re-used under any circumstances. This means that when you've used your CD-key in one Steam account, it is bound to that account forever. You would even be able to throw around the CD-key on the internet, but no one would be able to use it (Unless they got hands on your Steam account name and password). Because of all this, pirates (that don't buy the game) cannot play online, and the illegal offline version of HL2 is riddled with bugs and errors that often make the game unplayable.

Thirdly, Steam is used as a news and update program, that gives you the latest info on your favourite Steam games and, when an update has become available, automatically downloads it. (You can choose not to automatically download updates, of course.) This means that everyone immediately has the latest version of the game. No more downloading patches from weird sites that require registration! Just double-click on the game and play

 

[Rizzo]

Why does everyone hate steam? Realy? My Half life 2 got a bug in it so it crashes whenever i vaiperise(spell?) a combine but you dont hear me wine.
And it worked fine before latest update so i blame steam.

 

[Lucid]

I just dislike it as loading maps takes forever.

 

[kirovman]

I think Steam is a good concept, but a lot of optimisation is needed.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

It's a nifty little thing that saves time. I like it.

 

[giant384]

you must all have shitty computers if your complaining so much about steam slowing down your games it barely uses any of my resources on my computer

 

[AJ Rimmer]

you must all have shitty computers if your complaining so much about steam slowing down your games it barely uses any of my resources on my computer

Amen dude.

 

[^Ben]

I love all this, oh shit it might load slow! POINT THE FINGER AT SOMETHING RANDOM WHILE KNOWING JACK SHIT ABOUT HOW THE PROGRAM OPERATES!

You would still get the same load times, steam or no steam*.

*And before that person who usually comes in with the "zomg gfc mke teh loud slaw" here is your answer, no ... it ... does... not.

 

[Cole]

Steam is not the cause of Half-Life 2 having slow load times.
Infact far from it. When your playing HL2 it at mosts uses what 15megs of your precious resources?
If your that memory conservative why the hell are you using the standard windows Shell? Why not switch to a different one that uses less than half than explore.exe uses(about 20). Their are plenty.
Better make sure you don't have Msn Messenger running thats 7megs...

Better not be using the standard Xp look, you better have it lookin similar to 98, those resources are precious!


C'mon! Steam usually uses as much resources as Msn Messenger! It's HL2, It's Source. It's how it handles everything.
Then theres "The Pirated version runs much better", well the pirated version is not the same version as when Hl2 got released.

 

[Dekstar]

Better make sure you don't have Msn Messenger running thats 7megs...

Better not be using the standard Xp look, you better have it lookin similar to 98, those resources are precious!


C'mon! Steam usually uses as much resources as Msn Messenger! It's HL2, It's Source. It's how it handles everything.
Then theres "The Pirated version runs much better", well the pirated version is not the same version as when Hl2 got released.

QFT. Except the last bit - Because as far as I know, the Pirated version still requires a certain program that acts as steam to unlock the GCF files, and therefore uses resources. (<3 steam for making that possible - Pirates and buyers equally screwed) so whether one loads faster is not a moot subject and should therefore be avoided from here-on-in.

And agreed totally with MSN. I have to shut that thing off when playing CSS so my computer doesn't blow up when someone signs in.

 

[diluted]

steam is teh poop

 

[Drackard]

I'm going to be differen't and say -


STEAM FTW OMGZ1 1111!1!!!!!1

 

[SirGrotius]

Thanks for all the responses.

I suppose the takeaways here are:

a) Steam can cause slow down, but only if your computer sucks.

b) Steam is invasive, and has generated negative publicity.

c) Valve fanboys support Steam no matter what.

 

[Beerdude26]

Thanks for all the responses.

I suppose the takeaways here are:

a) Steam can cause slow down, but only if your computer sucks.

b) Steam is invasive, and has generated negative publicity.

c) Valve fanboys support Steam no matter what.

a) Right.
b) Wrong. Okay, so it may seem invasive
c) Right.

 

[Someone]

I'm not a valve fan boy at all, but I've had minor issues and have a middle of the road system (these days anyway).

Some slowdowns, but again...middle of the road system so it's unfair to blame steam for me.

Never even had the "stutter bug" in HL2 from day one...so I'm probably one of the lucky ones there.

Personally, I was rather against Steam originally, but now that time has passed I can see it for what it is and don't mind it in the least.

 

[Link]

Thanks for all the responses.

I suppose the takeaways here are:

a) Steam can cause slow down, but only if your computer sucks.

Whilst this is obviously true (everything you run on your Pc causes some degree of slowdown) if you PC is powerful enough to run HL2, then steam will not cause any visable difference to your PC

b) Steam is invasive, and has generated negative publicity.

What do you mean by invasive? Because you have to use it to run HL2? you have to use windows as well (By design anyway), does that make windows invasive? Anyway, show me anything that is popular on the net that has no negetive opinions about it. This is where the miserable people come to complain

c) Valve fanboys support Steam no matter what.

If you mean that how you put it, well obviously, a fanboy of anything supports the thing no matter what. If you mean "All the people who support steam are valve fanboys", then you are an idiot.

 

[Dekstar]

c) Valve fanboys support Steam no matter what.

Don't agree with that. I consider myself pretty much a fanboy, but I know what's wrong with the system VALVe is using. Only difference is I admit there's problems

 

[SirGrotius]

If you mean that how you put it, well obviously, a fanboy of anything supports the thing no matter what. If you mean "All the people who support steam are valve fanboys", then you are an idiot.

No need to commit any logical fallacies, what I said, "Valve fanboys support Steam no matter what" means what it says (not the reverse).

About being invasive, it's just common sense, most of us have played numerous PC games in the past, and Steam constitutes an exterior program which is always running in the background--something different than what we had been used to. Also, I get offers about upcoming releases every once and a while--I assume I can turn that marketing off, but I can also ask to be placed on a Do Not Call registry, but that doesn't make telemarketing okay.

Just my two cents. It's a shame people have to become so defensive about Steam--it's just an effort to add some prestige and functionality to a FPS, and it also seems to address a certain paranoia, but I suppose you're not really paranoid if everyone's out to get you (or your code).

 

[Dalamari]

I haven't had any problems with Steam ever, so...

steam ftw

 

[Link]

No need to commit any logical fallacies, what I said, "Valve fanboys support Steam no matter what" means what it says (not the reverse).

About being invasive, it's just common sense, most of us have played numerous PC games in the past, and Steam constitutes an exterior program which is always running in the background--something different than what we had been used to. Also, I get offers about upcoming releases every once and a while--I assume I can turn that marketing off, but I can also ask to be placed on a Do Not Call registry, but that doesn't make telemarketing okay.

Just my two cents. It's a shame people have to become so defensive about Steam--it's just an effort to add some prestige and functionality to a FPS, and it also seems to address a certain paranoia, but I suppose you're not really paranoid if everyone's out to get you (or your code).

Fair enough. I just seemed such an obvious statement that I wondered if you were being sarcastic. No hard feelings?

You know, I never thought about the advertising as adware. To be fair, its pretty rare, most of the start up pop ups are just news (New maps, exciting mods etc etc), but I do take you point. I guess I never thought about it because there is rarley a pop up I'm not interested in.

Personally I get defensive of steam because I know it is the future of gaming, and people with generic "Oh shit, something new, run away" paranioa could hold it back. (Not aimed at you, others are like that though, which is why people get so defensive about steam). The trouble is, people can't see the long term, especially the people that complain. They just want everything now, future be damned. But imagine in 10 years, when everyone has 100mb fiber optic broadband etc etc. At that point, every publisher will have a steam like product, and I hope, online sales will outsell retail sales.

 

[SirGrotius]

I see, point taken. Steam is very cutting edge, I'm sure in the future the process can be implemented in such a way as to make even more conservative customers such as myself appreciative.

 

[15357]

I love all this, oh shit it might load slow! POINT THE FINGER AT SOMETHING RANDOM WHILE KNOWING JACK SHIT ABOUT HOW THE PROGRAM OPERATES!

You would still get the same load times, steam or no steam*.

*And before that person who usually comes in with the "zomg gfc mke teh loud slaw" here is your answer, no ... it ... does... not.

Actually, I've tried both steam and non-steam (I know, warez) versions of HL2.

-2gb RAM-

Steam: 50 seconds on first load, 43 on afters
Non-steam: 45 Seconds on first load, 28 on afters.

I've tried it multiple times, and they come as the same with very minor differences.

 

[Link]

Bravo 3 - I think even you have to realise what a poorly formed argument that is...

Dude, do you know why they didn't release the version that was stolen? Because, and this is important, it wasn't finished. This means they put more stuff in. Which has to be loaded when you start the map. Which means oh come on, you haven't figured out where I'm going with this yet?

Further, the amount of ram you have is almost irrelivent for loading times. Loading is what happens when data is taken from the hard drive and placed on the ram, and trust me when I tell you, it is not the ram that slows this process down.

Finally, even if your warez vs retail theory did hold up, steam is only really active during updates etc. The rest of the time it sits there in the background, using a couple of resources, yes, but not interacting with the game. Anyway, like I said, slow loading is down to slow hard drives, how would steam effect this?

Now, unless someone has some real evidence that using 7 megs of ram and sod all process time causes problems in HL2 or any other game for that matter, don't argue that it does.


SirGrotius - I was actually thinking further than that. Right now, if someone says "I'm gonna buy game X", you automatically assume they are going into town, to a game shop to buy it there. In time, this will be placed by the assumption that they are going to buy it through steam (Or equiv). Personally I cannot wait for this, and protesting steam slows this down.

 

[Drackard]

Further, the amount of ram you have is almost irrelivent for loading times. Loading is what happens when data is taken from the hard drive and placed on the ram, and trust me when I tell you, it is not the ram that slows this process down.

I beg to differ, on my old system i upgraded the ram from 256mb to 768mb DDR and noticed a considerable increase in loading speeds.

 

[Link]

Well yeah, but thats because thats barly enough ram to even run the OS properly, so its having to do even more loading and unloading in the background. I meant assuming you have a functional amount of ram (enough to hold everything being loaded without first unloading other stuff), the RAM isn't going to affect the loading time.

 

[Zephos]

I like steam, a little download here and there to fix a bug that popped up say a week ago is always better than waiting for a patch that might come out every 3 months or so and is around 300mb. Loading times are fast for me, if you can't put up with 20 second loading times, then you would faint when playing Battlefield 2.

 

[Drackard]

Yeah thats a good point, the loading times in BF2 are a complete joke compared to hl2 or any source related game for that matter.

 

[Cole]

15357, somethings just up with your HD, not HL2 in any way.
Hell I run the game with 1gig of ram and turn out MUCH better times than that. I love my HD.

Have you tweaked this like adding certain command lines on your steam version? Stuff like that which Valve changed before the release can make all the difference between a 20 second load and a minute load.

 

[Shasta]

Steam and software like it is most likely the future of content delivery / updates etc. At the moment though, it is an invasive piece of crap that is forced down your throat.

The problem is choice. You dont have any. It is built on the assumption that, among other things, everyone has access to fast internet, with no download limits, and you want steam to be up to date. This is not the case in todays world.

There are MANY improvements to be made before programs like steam are a helpful and desireable addition to everyones system, regardless of connection speeds and other limitations. If your PC can play the game without any problems, then steam should be able to be configured by the user, to suit and help any way it can, not force them to wait an insane amount of time to update itself (not even the game, I mean steam updating itself), and so on before you can play the single player game you wanted to , half an hour ago, just because you can't get a fast internet connection, etc. With any updates, I would like to know how big they are, so I know how long it will take (for the BIG ones) and how much of my MB limit it will use up if I have one. Just to name a few possible improvements.

Also, (and I have a fast broadband connection) using the bandwidth monitor, I have found that Steam can offer pathetic download speeds, that fluctuate between 0kps and 130kps, and it goes up and down, up and down, often lingering on the lower end like 10kps. This does not make use of my connection speed, and I would like to have the option of downloading my game updates somwhere else that had better bandwidth.

Put more choice into Steam, and it will actually start to be a usefull program.

 

[Cole]

Im a 56ker, I don't have a problem, please let 56kers argue over if it is good for us, not people with high speed.

It works with those who have Broadband the best, but I would have to get the updates anyway to play Cs:S. Leaving my computer on over the night isn't some difficult task.

 

[SirGrotius]

Speaking of load times, and I'm going off on somewhat of a tangent here, but I'm the original newb in this post, so I'll take some liberties...anyway, I think it's been established that Steam does not cause increased load times, and if it does, only by a very minute amount.

In general, is it worth it to upgrade one's harddrive? I have a very old one (three years), which is only 80 GBs large, and I'm assuming it's slow, 7200RPM, I think (if that's the correct term).

On a secondary note, if it is worth it from a functional perspective, is it very complex to complete from a technical perspective?

thanks

 

[Shasta]

Im a 56ker, I don't have a problem, please let 56kers argue over if it is good for us, not people with high speed.

It works with those who have Broadband the best, but I would have to get the updates anyway to play Cs:S. Leaving my computer on over the night isn't some difficult task.

Well I was a 56ker untill recently, so I do know what I'm talking about. And leaving your PC on all night may work for you, but other people may find that very inconvenient. They may have a noisy PC that is in their bedroom, so it disturbs their sleep. They may have a monitored home alarm, that interrupts the net at 4am when it does it's daily check-in to the alarm company. They may have a flatmate that needs to make / recieve calls at night / early morning, for work or whatever. And so on. And what about the people who just want to play the damn game they paid for, and could play last week, but now must wait for an unspecified amount of time for Steam to update itself?

All of these problems could be solved by ADDING MORE CHOICE to steam. Please don't say things like "Leaving my computer on over the night isn't some difficult task." It may not be for you, but you are not the only person in the world on 56k.

Remember, most of us just bought HL2 because we thought it was a kick ass game, not because of steam. I didn't even know what Steam was, and was horrorfied to be forced to wait wait about 3 hours to play the damn game I had just paid for. I didn't give a crap about having an up to date version, didn't know you could turn off GAME updates (although you can't after it has started to update). I just wanted to get into it! Update later after I had had a taste of the action! That should be my choice to make. I didn't care if steam was up to date. That should be my choice to make also. We all know that updates are usually necessary, and helpful, but I should be able to decide when and where, just like with most other games. But now we are here discussing 3rd party software that was FORCED onto us, that is creating an inconvenience for a lot of us, and not the game that brought us all here.

Way of the future? Not yet. Not by a long shot.

 

[SirGrotius]

Well I was a 56ker untill recently, so I do know what I'm talking about. And leaving your PC on all night may work for you, but other people may find that very inconvenient. They may have a noisy PC that is in their bedroom, so it disturbs their sleep. They may have a monitored home alarm, that interrupts the net at 4am when it does it's daily check-in to the alarm company. They may have a flatmate that needs to make / recieve calls at night / early morning, for work or whatever. And so on. And what about the people who just want to play the damn game they paid for, and could play last week, but now must wait for an unspecified amount of time for Steam to update itself?

All of these problems could be solved by ADDING MORE CHOICE to steam. Please don't say things like "Leaving my computer on over the night isn't some difficult task." It may not be for you, but you are not the only person in the world on 56k.

Remember, most of us just bought HL2 because we thought it was a kick ass game, not because of steam. I didn't even know what Steam was, and was horrorfied to be forced to wait wait about 3 hours to play the damn game I had just paid for. I didn't give a crap about having an up to date version, didn't know you could turn off GAME updates (although you can't after it has started to update). I just wanted to get into it! Update later after I had had a taste of the action! That should be my choice to make. I didn't care if steam was up to date. That should be my choice to make also. We all know that updates are usually necessary, and helpful, but I should be able to decide when and where, just like with most other games. But now we are here discussing 3rd party software that was FORCED onto us, that is creating an inconvenience for a lot of us, and not the game that brought us all here.

Way of the future? Not yet. Not by a long shot.

I forgot about that complaint, Steam really did cause some delayed gratification when I first purchased the game. I too didn't know I could turn off the updates, so it felt like a year waiting for the damn thing to load. I thought to myself that maybe it was going to take up about 70GBs of space.

 

[Varsity]

Thanks for all the responses.

I suppose the takeaways here are:

a) Steam can cause slow down, but only if your computer sucks.

b) Steam is invasive, and has generated negative publicity.

c) Valve fanboys support Steam no matter what.

Smells like a shill to me.