Why I love Steam

[filmguy123]

I hear so many people give Steam crap... and those that don't simply just don't seem to mind it... but I felt compelled for some reason to say I think Steam is great! Why?

It integrates into the games seemlessly... I like how the interface pops up smoothly when I go to change controls or options. I like how I can browse servers and access my controls through the same steam window without alt tabing my game or quitting a game. I like the way it feels and looks so well integrated.

I love never having to check for updates again. Just start up steam and my games are all up to date... no more servers running different versions, no more patch hunting/installing.

I love the way it handles mods. No more sorting folders and making shortcuts... just go to the steam menu and start the mod I want.

Well there's a lot of other things I like as well... but in any case, just wanted to say I for one actually like steam... yes there are people who appreciate it!

 

[Digital_Junkie]

I may be the only one who says this but: I agree with you. Steam has be nothing but good times for me. Excluding the first few months when it was pretty much a public beta test.

The only problem would be if every other software company decided to copy steam. Then anytime you wanted to play a given game you'd have to sort through your "game managers". I suppose it wouldn't be too bad, but it's justified with HL2 because with all the mods to be released you'll need a good organizer and updater.

 

[Dead-Inside]

The thing that sucks about steam is not the services it offers but what it forces on you. It peeks upon you when you're playing a game. This decreases performance (And yes, it is proved).

However, I do love steam for what it does offer, but I do hate it for what it forces upon you.

 

[Lone_Bullet]

@ dead-inside, true, but so what? I personally think that that's no problem, most of us have computers powerfull enough to run it well, and if you play at 60Fps or 55Fps, what's the difference? no loss of gameplay. Also, you can't complain about beeing forced to use steam because you chose for it ( exept for the back-catalogue ) It reminds me a bit of Windows...
@filmguy: guess what , I agree
people these days expect too much, and that is because every game and app. producers shouts in our ear that their product is the best.
I'd say if you've bought HL2 or other steamgame, You got some good bang 4 your bucks....

No offence, but there wiil allways be people who will complain.

Lone

 

[Alieni²]

I hear so many people give Steam crap... and those that don't simply just don't seem to mind it... but I felt compelled for some reason to say I think Steam is great! Why?

It integrates into the games seemlessly... I like how the interface pops up smoothly when I go to change controls or options. I like how I can browse servers and access my controls through the same steam window without alt tabing my game or quitting a game. I like the way it feels and looks so well integrated.

I love never having to check for updates again. Just start up steam and my games are all up to date... no more servers running different versions, no more patch hunting/installing.

I love the way it handles mods. No more sorting folders and making shortcuts... just go to the steam menu and start the mod I want.

Well there's a lot of other things I like as well... but in any case, just wanted to say I for one actually like steam... yes there are people who appreciate it!

Agreed.

 

[Bobcat]

I don't dislike Steam at all, but I did hear that people who cracked HL2 to run without Steam figured out it was seriously hogging resources, and knowing that, it makes me feel annoyed that I might not be getting everything I could be.

But the one thing that has been bothering me the most, is how so many people can have frustrations with Steam, I've never had one single problem, how can that be?

 

[Elkhound]

In the beginning I thought.. Ah man This is crap... But now I think it's great.

 

[The Monkey]

I have had very little trouble with it, so I love it. And when it comes to updates and patches, it's wonderful.

 

[Elkhound]

I have had very little trouble with it, so I love it. And when it comes to updates and patches, it's wonderful.

Indeed :E. No worries about patches and updates anymore

 

[MiccyNarc]

I love Steam, always have, alway will.

People hate Steam because it's the "cool" thing to do.

 

[AMD-GUY]

All of what you say is right but...
When I will be able to play single player games without being forced to be connected to the internet, when I will have a choise of downloading the lame excuses of patches, and when they will release a real patch that will make the source engine look like a normal engine, and not like a beta engine like it looks right now, I might love steam.

 

[ragnar]

Agreed, i love it too :thumbs:

I never had problems with it, NEVER! Also, I really like the fact that you have an app from where you can access all your games. You dont need 10 shorcuts for HL2, CSS, HLS, ... but only the Steam shortcut: You start it, and all games are there.

 

[pr0nking]

I hear so many people give Steam crap... and those that don't simply just don't seem to mind it... but I felt compelled for some reason to say I think Steam is great! Why?

It integrates into the games seemlessly... I like how the interface pops up smoothly when I go to change controls or options. I like how I can browse servers and access my controls through the same steam window without alt tabing my game or quitting a game. I like the way it feels and looks so well integrated.

I love never having to check for updates again. Just start up steam and my games are all up to date... no more servers running different versions, no more patch hunting/installing.

I love the way it handles mods. No more sorting folders and making shortcuts... just go to the steam menu and start the mod I want.

Well there's a lot of other things I like as well... but in any case, just wanted to say I for one actually like steam... yes there are people who appreciate it!

Steam for me is ok, i've never really had a problem and I think its easy enough to use and it keeps everything organised. In time it'll become better.

 

[Sid Burn]

Yeah... at first I though steam was crap... but then I learned that it helps the developers to get more money. That's why thanks to steam.. Valve will have enough budget to make HL3.

 

[PvtRyan]

All of what you say is right but...
When I will be able to play single player games without being forced to be connected to the internet,

When? Right now! Offline mode.

when I will have a choise of downloading the lame excuses of patches,

Just stop the game from updating automatically! Simple enough.

and when they will release a real patch that will make the source engine look like a normal engine, and not like a beta engine like it looks right now, I might love steam.

Has jack shit to do with Steam.

 

[MiccyNarc]

All of what you say is right but...
When I will be able to play single player games without being forced to be connected to the internet, when I will have a choise of downloading the lame excuses of patches, and when they will release a real patch that will make the source engine look like a normal engine, and not like a beta engine like it looks right now, I might love steam.

^^ Now this kid is cool because he hates steam.
Congrats :thumbs:.

 

[diluted]

I will never forgive Steam for forcing me to wait more than 3 hours to play HL2 on release day. NEVER! :naughty:

 

[Zeus]

I hated steam until they fixed the bug that made me have to keep validating my game. But now that it's fixed I have had 0 problems with steam

 

[Solver]

There are good things about Steam. The one I like is that it gives devs money, I hate it when publishers get most of the revenues. However, I still hate Steam with a passion. You can't remove patches that are set up with Steam, and you can't really control them, that's one thing. Integrated server browsers, etc., I've seen that all done in other games, after all.

However, the worst thing is Steam being a resource hog. Even if you optimie your RAM, Steam will use 5 MB of it - I know it's little, but this is just to compare, as all other processes will go to 1MB or less then. The real problem, though, is this - I spend my money for the game, and I get a worse product than those who pirate it. Guess what, pirates never had the stuttering problem. And they get better performance. And that's the single worst thing for a game, when a pirated version works better! And I don't really like Steam transmitting something when I play. Why should all that be forced on me?

 

[noQ]

I just wish they would get the friends thing running stable.
except that, I love it.

 

[Chris D]

I've always loved Steam

 

[Hectic Glenn]

aye, i agree n all. Does everything i want under one roof, which is just class. People say it has this drain on resources, i dont notice it tbh, ive never had a problem, even when it was first released it was smooth all our times together. Friends is the only hitch which seems to be stable now for the past fortnight or so. Its a shame that people only make discussion on steam errors and problems, rather than ones like this to praise it. I'm still intrigued on what valve will update steam to in a few years...Steam 2? product description : runs all HL1 - 8!

 

[Dasparov]

i like it sometimes, hate it other times

 

[acme420]

I don't dislike Steam at all, but I did hear that people who cracked HL2 to run without Steam figured out it was seriously hogging resources, and knowing that, it makes me feel annoyed that I might not be getting everything I could be.

But the one thing that has been bothering me the most, is how so many people can have frustrations with Steam, I've never had one single problem, how can that be?

rofl hoggin resources. its using like 28 megs of ram. unless you have some sort of crap system with 256mb of ram or less 28megs just inst anything to complain about. windows uses 256+ megs of ram all the time.

and trust me all these people complaining about steam hoggin resources are the same idiots who are like damn i alt tabbed out of the game cuz of a popup. i mean who the **** has popups on their computer except people with 0 clue about computers.

 

[Solver]

rofl hoggin resources. its using like 28 megs of ram. unless you have some sort of crap system with 256mb of ram or less 28megs just inst anything to complain about. windows uses 256+ megs of ram all the time.

and trust me all these people complaining about steam hoggin resources are the same idiots who are like damn i alt tabbed out of the game cuz of a popup. i mean who the **** has popups on their computer except people with 0 clue about computers.

You don't sound like a computer guru either. You should understand that not everyone has lots of money, so many people are running this with 256 MB of RAM - beause they can't afford it. Besides, even with 512 MB of RAM, Steam will still take over 5% of your memory.

Next... Windows does not use 256 MB of RAM. Not even unoptimized. It uses maybe 150. If you run a decent tool like TweakXP to optimize RAM, you'll notice that the usage drops dramatically. And yes, it's a bad thing about Windows.

Oh, and people who do really have tons of spyware/popups and get kicked out of the game because of them, are likely to not even know how to see how much RAM Steam uses.

 

[BetaMaster]

Haha, good rebuttle, Solver. I hate it when people pretend they know what they're talking about. :thumbs:

 

[diluted]

rofl hoggin resources. its using like 28 megs of ram. unless you have some sort of crap system with 256mb of ram or less 28megs just inst anything to complain about. windows uses 256+ megs of ram all the time.

and trust me all these people complaining about steam hoggin resources are the same idiots who are like damn i alt tabbed out of the game cuz of a popup. i mean who the **** has popups on their computer except people with 0 clue about computers.

Actually, Steam can use up to 50mb of RAM (possibly more, i haven't seen it do that though). So it seems you're the one who doesn't know what they're talking about. -_-

http://img123.exs.cx/img123/9809/taskmanager8gu.jpg

 

[hegele]

Well I didn't have it when the legendary bugs and glitches appeared during its first few months but I have to say I find it an amazing tool.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Actually, Steam can use up to 50mb of RAM (possibly more, i haven't seen it do that though). So it seems you're the one who doesn't know what they're talking about. -_-

http://img123.exs.cx/img123/9809/taskmanager8gu.jpg

Well i think its different for each person, i just checked mine, and its at 10mb...fooking sorted! my IE is using more

edit: 1000 posts thank u people!

 

[diluted]

Yes, my Steam starts out at about 10mb too, but the longer I use it the more RAM it uses, peaking at about 50mb.

 

[the_lone_wolf]

steam was on for a few minutes this morning, after i rebooted, went to make a cuppa and it was using 47MB when i got back, i have 768MB to play with but seriously, how much RAM does it need to sit in the taskbar and do fcuk all? explorer was using 30MB or so at the time, right now steam is on 13MB and explorer is on 8, why does it need to be using it when it's clearly not doing anything?:dozey:

 

[Solver]

You know, the only explanation I can imagine for Steam using more and more memory (mine also starts at about 15 and grows to 30 or even more sometimes) is memory leaks. However, many memory leaks are generally poor coding. Now, judging from the cames, the programmers at Valve are definitely decent, and certainly better than to write a program with a crapload of memory leaks. Does anyone know who coded Steam, BTW?

One of those days, it might be interesting to take a look at Steam with a packet sniffer and a debugger. I'm curious if it sends any data that it shouldn't (unfortunately a lot of software does now), and maybe what does it actually do when idle.

Hmm, just came back from some HL2DM, now Steam's sitting there with 29 MB RAM usage and 0 CPU usage. Well, the latter is good, but it was definitely using less RAM before I started playing (I optimize RAM before I play). Maybe it doesn't unload the GCF cache entirely when the game is shut down.

 

[CyberPitz]

I have had very little trouble with it, so I love it. And when it comes to updates and patches, it's wonderful.

My words exactly. I've had maybe...1 or 2 actuall problems with Steam, but that's a givin, since it's software. I'll love Steam until it formats my HDD

 

[The Mullinator]

Steam for me never uses anymore than 10mb of RAM and I am pretty certain the reason is because Steam will reduce minimize how much RAM it uses in relation to how much of the computers resources are needed by other programs.

I have never had it use more than 10mb of RAM even after leaving it on for literally 2 days. I also run a grid computing program that is designed to use up every last bit of extra computing power that wasn't being used.

 

[Narcolepsy]

I agree that the genius of Steam is how it handles mods and patches. I also like how the server browser is integrated into the platform itself and can search for all Valve games and mods.

The only problems in Steam come from the fact that the world simply isn't ready for it yet. There are two many remnants of the 56k era, too many buggy internet connections, and too many rogue firewalls. It takes up too much RAM and has too many bugs. The offline mode has a few odd quirks.

Overall, I like Steam, but I can understand how those who are not familiar with it and what it offers, or those who it does not work for, would hate it with a passion.

What I really hate, though, are all of the adware and spyware conspiracies. People actually write reviews on Amazon.com/Gamespot warning that the game installs spyware called Steam onto your computer. I want to import these reviewers into Garry's mod and have some fun with them. :E

 

[Solver]

Well, mod handling has been done very well in many other games as well. Start the game, and select a mod from its menu - not that hard. The Steam handling of patches, though, is what I actually dislike.

 

[Narcolepsy]

Well, mod handling has been done very well in many other games as well. Start the game, and select a mod from its menu - not that hard. The Steam handling of patches, though, is what I actually dislike.

Why do you not like the method of handling patches? And it is a better idea to start a mod before you start the original game - that way, if you're loading a Total Conversion, you won't have to reload all game data twice.

 

[Solver]

Why do you not like the method of handling patches? And it is a better idea to start a mod before you start the original game - that way, if you're loading a Total Conversion, you won't have to reload all game data twice.

As for Total Conversions, agreed. Running such a mod from Steam is less hassle than setting up a separate folder, etc.

As for the patch handling, the reason I don't like it is that I have no control and can't revert. Suppose a patch get installed and screws things up (it has happeed a lot in the industry). Now, I can't revert it in any easy way. With non-Valve games, before I install a patch, I always check what it modifies (if it isn't obvious already) and back up the according files, so that I can in that or another way restore the game. With Steam, the only way to backup and revert would be to back the huge GCF files up and then try to put them back... much more complex. It just seems the whole system is designed for users who don't want to do anything technical, which is OK, but it's extremely inefficient for power users.

 

[okeydokey89]

I hear so many people give Steam crap... and those that don't simply just don't seem to mind it... but I felt compelled for some reason to say I think Steam is great! Why?

It integrates into the games seemlessly... I like how the interface pops up smoothly when I go to change controls or options. I like how I can browse servers and access my controls through the same steam window without alt tabing my game or quitting a game. I like the way it feels and looks so well integrated.

I love never having to check for updates again. Just start up steam and my games are all up to date... no more servers running different versions, no more patch hunting/installing.

I love the way it handles mods. No more sorting folders and making shortcuts... just go to the steam menu and start the mod I want.

Well there's a lot of other things I like as well... but in any case, just wanted to say I for one actually like steam... yes there are people who appreciate it!

u see what i see!!!??... steam w'll fail...ok...just waite :cheese: :O :bounce: :farmer:

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Nice grammar and thanks for the big text okeydokey89, it just proves your point oh so much more

Steam only screwed up on my 3 times forcing me to reinstall... But considering I have broadband I just set it to download everything (Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Counter-Strike: Source, Source Dedicated Server, and the Source SDK and the files it needs for source engine) and next morning, everything is ready to go! Seems to have fast transfer speeds as long as their isn't a big update during the time I'm downloading everything

Steam starts up in like 5 seconds, and it's very easy on the eyes to me, plus ability to skin is great, though I don't use it.

Auto-patching is absolutely fantastic, I wish every game had that.... I hated loading up new games and having to install multiple patches just to get them to a online playable state...

Only downside is Friends, but hopefully they willl fix that soon enough I remember it being more stable in beta for some reason?