• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

STEAM - announcements, updates and WIN

Status
Not open for further replies.
Blizzard said:
I have a weird question. Is there a way to get the general Steam news popup to come up again? I closed the one that just came up (about the left 4 dead 2 weekend, and 3d minigolf, and the FUEL demo, and something else) and then wanted to read something on it again, and I can't find that collection of news anywhere in the Steam news or website itself...

Random side note, it's funny that searching for "golf" doesn't produce the minigolf game, but searching for "minigolf" does, even though typing in "golf" makes a popup come up with the name of the game in it...

Well, the last Steam news is always at the right of the Steam windows, just below the spotlight.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Chiaroscuro said:
Well, the last Steam news is always at the right of the Steam windows, just below the spotlight.
Yeah, but those are just the text releases, and not the news with the graphics saying "Here's some Left 4 Dead stuff, here's a story about minigolf, here's a story about a competition, etc." It's no big deal, I was just curious.
 

Lothars

Member
crimsonheadGCN said:
Well, in Saints Row 2's case, they used Steam as DMR.

Yeah it's the same with Dawn of War 2 case as well, in both cases you can just enter the cd key into Steam and it appears on your list.
 
From the hour or so that I've played Saints Row 2, the port seems to be badly optimized. The game looks pretty bad, since I have turn down all my settings to low. Even with all the graphical stuff on low, the game stutters a lot while driving and the fps seem to be hovering between 15-25FPS. My specs are:

E7200 @ 2.53GHz
8GB Ram
Sapphire ATi HD4850
ASUS P5Q Pro
Vista 64-bit

So I should be getting better performance from it.
 

Parham

Banned
crimsonheadGCN said:
From the hour or so that I've played Saints Row 2, the port seems to be badly optimized. The game looks pretty bad, since I have turn down all my settings to low. Even with all the graphical stuff on low, the game stutters a lot while driving and the fps seem to be hovering between 15-25FPS. My specs are:

E7200 @ 2.53GHz
8GB Ram
Sapphire ATi HD4850
ASUS P5Q Pro
Vista 64-bit

So I should be getting better performance from it.

Something is definitely wrong. Is you video card driver up to date?
 
azentium said:
Something is definitely wrong. Is you video card driver up to date?

All my drivers are up to date. Did a clean install last week with the latest drivers. It's just that the port is awful and there are many problems with it from what I've read, but yet to experience. It was ported by a team at CD Projekt (not the witcher team, but someone else) and they stopped supporting it with new patches or dlc.
 

Proc

Member
Such an amazing week for steam deals.

what did everyone end up getting?

I'm waiting until tomorrow to finalize my cart but this is the way its looking...

51bv4x.jpg
 
Proc said:
Such an amazing week for steam deals.

what did everyone end up getting?

I'm waiting until tomorrow to finalize my cart but this is the way its looking...

I bought way too much:

King's Bounty
Penumbra Complete
Titan Quest Gold
X3 Complete
Men of War
Dawn of Discovery (Anno 1404) - Wasn't a deal but been eying it for a while. Was holding off due to DRM but fuck it.
HL: Episode 2 (So I can play Research & Development as well as replay Ep:2)

I also have Sins of a Solar Empire being shipped from newegg. All that plus my current backlog (I refuse to post that giant list it would depress me too much) = I should be set for a while. Steam deals are ruining my life!
 

Zzoram

Member
Is it worth it for me to buy Dawn of War II on D2D for $25 to put the code into Steam for just the single player? I tried the DoWII multiplayer beta and thought it was terrible, but I hear the singleplayer is completely different. Is it long?
 

Frawdder

Member
Steam takes my money again. Bought Europa Universalis III Complete and oh god do I have no idea what I'm doing...I'll figure it out eventually.
 

Zyzyxxz

Member
Zzoram said:
Is it worth it for me to buy Dawn of War II on D2D for $25 to put the code into Steam for just the single player? I tried the DoWII multiplayer beta and thought it was terrible, but I hear the singleplayer is completely different. Is it long?

I got bored of it fairly quickly its pure point and click rushing with your units.

Not that much strategy to it and there is no resource management, it tries to play like a tactical squad based game.
 
MisterAnderson said:
Dawn of Discovery (Anno 1404) - Wasn't a deal but been eying it for a while. Was holding off due to DRM but fuck it.
As long as you're fine handing in your bitch about DRM membership card.
 
Zyzyxxz said:
I got bored of it fairly quickly its pure point and click rushing with your units.

Not that much strategy to it and there is no resource management, it tries to play like a tactical squad based game.

Not to mention the "boss" fights.....
 

zoku88

Member
Proc said:
Such an amazing week for steam deals.

what did everyone end up getting?

I'm waiting until tomorrow to finalize my cart but this is the way its looking...

51bv4x.jpg
If I were you, I wouldn't buy EUIII off of Steam. You can get it from Amazon for $9 and you can register the CD key with gamersgate so that you can dl it anytime you want.

Although, I guess you have to pay shipping with Amazon.


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001EK7S82/?tag=neogaf0e-20
 

Proc

Member
zoku88 said:
If I were you, I wouldn't buy EUIII off of Steam. You can get it from Amazon for $9 and you can register the CD key with gamersgate so that you can dl it anytime you want.

Although, I guess you have to pay shipping with Amazon.


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001EK7S82/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Ah, its a shame I reside in Canada. By the time I pay duty/tax I'd be well over the steam deal. Thanks for trying to help me save some money though.
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
Zzoram said:
Is it worth it for me to buy Dawn of War II on D2D for $25 to put the code into Steam for just the single player? I tried the DoWII multiplayer beta and thought it was terrible, but I hear the singleplayer is completely different. Is it long?
I loved it, and would say it's a good deal. The single is polished, and doesn't play as an RTS at all. It's more of a....squad based, tactical game with fun loot. Choose 4 squad members out of a possible 6, equip your guys with wargear, buff up their talents. Pretty entertaining, and it lasts a good 10 hours.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Proc said:
Such an amazing week for steam deals.

what did everyone end up getting?

I'm waiting until tomorrow to finalize my cart but this is the way its looking...

51bv4x.jpg

Bought all that minus X3. Awesome.

I'm tempted to get X3...but really, EU3 is probably enough of a hardcore game for me at the moment.
 

Proc

Member
TheExodu5 said:
Bought all that minus X3. Awesome.

I'm tempted to get X3...but really, EU3 is probably enough of a hardcore game for me at the moment.

I ended up cutting out EU3 since I've decided I'll be buying HoI 3 near launch. HoI 3's time period appeals to me much more as well. I can't believe how cheap Men of War is.

edit: I might cave by the end of the night and pick up EU3..I enjoyed the trial quite a bit.
 

KaYotiX

Banned
Picking up Dawn of Discovery soon.....demo is very very fun. Just grabbed SF4 on the PC and i must say its better than the console versions.
 

Seagoon

Member
_tetsuo_ said:
Ive heard that Saints Row 2 is a god awful port.

It is a terrible port, most if not all people have issues with the terrible stuttering while driving (regardless of specs) among a host of other problems.

The developer announced that the PC version will not be receiving any more patches and will never see the DLC that the consoles got.

If you do plan on buying this game, make sure you have a controller as the keyboard and mouse controls are too twitchy to use. (unless you like your car handling like a pinball :lol )
 

mrgone

Member
KaYotiX said:
Picking up Dawn of Discovery soon.....demo is very very fun. Just grabbed SF4 on the PC and i must say its better than the console versions.

I'm waiting to see how that Tages backlash shakes out for Dawn of Discovery :/ By the time something (or nothing) happens with that we'll probably see a decent Steam sale anyways.
 

Draft

Member
Zzoram said:
Is it worth it for me to buy Dawn of War II on D2D for $25 to put the code into Steam for just the single player? I tried the DoWII multiplayer beta and thought it was terrible, but I hear the singleplayer is completely different. Is it long?
I'm digging it. Pretty fun.

Multi's crazy too, and that patch is right around the corner.
 

Blizzard

Banned
I tried the FUEL demo. It ran well, looked pretty, but most of the wasteland gave me the impression of being a bit repetitive.

I finally tried the Men of War demo today. It looked too complicated for someone with a tiny brain like me to figure out, plus the cutscenes were jerky at fullscreen 1680x1050, and rapidly panning the camera with the numpad also didn't seem smooth. I was running vsync, my 4850 was really cool, and the e8400 didn't seem to be sweating much, so I have no idea why any sort of fullscreen cutscene stuff or camera panning ends up jerky. :( With some games, it's almost like the codec itself can't handle fullscreen, unless it's some issues with Win7 RC 64-bit, or the CPU not keeping up.

*edit* I had something in flash playing on Firefox in the background, I just noticed. That might have affected it, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the cutscene codec thing before with other games.

Anyway, I saved $7.50, I'm so proud. =P
 

Bernbaum

Member
Yup. Tropico, the expansion and Tropico 2.

Do I get it? Never played a Tropico game before, but the 3rd one will be out in a month or two.
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
I have a game installed called "ValveTestApp490". Anyone know what this is?

24odqte.jpg


I can't delete it and it doesn't do anything (that I'm aware of)
 

webrunner

Member
D4Danger said:
I have a game installed called "ValveTestApp490". Anyone know what this is?

24odqte.jpg


I can't delete it and it doesn't do anything (that I'm aware of)


Hm, 490 isn't a known steam game id either.. do you have any installed files for this? How much space is it taking up?


Here's some 'close' ids, if it helps the figuring it out:

# 400 Portal

* 401 Portal Content
* 405 Portal English

# 420 Half-Life 2: Episode Two

* 421 Half-Life 2: Episode Two Content
* 422 Half-Life 2: Episode Two Materials
* 423 Half-Life 2: Episode Two Maps
* 428 Half-Life 2: Episode Two English

# 440 Team Fortress 2

* 441 Team Fortress 2 Content
* 442 Team Fortress 2 Materials
* 443 Team Fortress 2 Client Content

# 500 Left 4 Dead

* 513 Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools
 

TheExodu5

Banned
D4Danger said:
I have a game installed called "ValveTestApp490". Anyone know what this is?

24odqte.jpg


I can't delete it and it doesn't do anything (that I'm aware of)

Can't see the pic at work. Could they be binaries for users who opt-in to Steam beta tests?
 

Frawdder

Member
It's 40MB. A quick look at the Steam forums and they seem to think it's Steam Client related, when you click update history it gives you the Steam Client history.
 
D4Danger said:
I have a game installed called "ValveTestApp490". Anyone know what this is?

24odqte.jpg


I can't delete it and it doesn't do anything (that I'm aware of)

From looking at it's update history, it's probably the next Steam Client beta that was accidentally added to the games list by someone at Valve. it's not the first time that something like that has appeared.
 

webrunner

Member
I have it too.. says it takes up about 40 megs

There's also a winui.gcf in steamapps/ that's about 40 megs.. seems to mostly be just.. steam UI stuff.
 

FatBaby

Member
Tolkienfanatic said:
Hmm I have that TestApp as well.

On another note, does anyone know what the current Client Beta is for?

From the forum:

Starting a new thread about the client beta. We pulled the old one yesterday, and today we have a new one ready that should be stable to test. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Steam Client Beta, and then allow Steam to restart itself. Here are the specific changes:

- Made connections to misbehaving content servers timeout and retry a new server correctly
- Fixed the client sometimes forgetting a game exists after a content update on Steam
- Fixed several rare crashes and memory corruption bugs
- Workaround for a Firefox 3.5 bug where they activate random windows after minimizing which would confuse the state of some Steam windows

7/16/2009

- Fixed internet tab in the in-Steam ServerBrowser not updating sorting as more servers are refreshed
- Fixed crash in the new CS connection timeout code

7/17/2009

- Added extra tracking for when the Steam Service fails to start
- Fixed a few memory leaks

7/20/2009

- Fix an issue with improper paths being formed leading to some files in-game not loading (missing textures/sounds, mostly in third-party mods)
- Fix the first time launch "Installing ..." dialog which is shown while installing things like DirectX for a game taking too much CPU and making the install take a long time
- Fix the sorting of the games list to be case insensitive and fix the mini-games list to use the same sorting method as the full games list

7/23/2009

- Fixed Change User menu option not logging you out correctly
- Fixed one case of downloads getting stuck
- Fixed a potential crash in D3D8 games switching between windowed and full screen caused by the in-game overlay
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom