HL2 w/o steam

MaMMa said:
Dood, do you have any idea how much bigger Windows is compared to Valve? Thats like a pinto to a Ferrari. That's not a good argument. The game is what a 4 gig file or so? 1.5 hours is NOT long. I think they're doing great
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Actually, it's how much bigger MICROSOFT is compared to Valve. Windows is the product, Microsoft is the company...but I digress.

About your second point, that's not my problem, your problem, or anyone else's other than Valve's. Valve hopes to sell millions of copies of their game (how else would they make money, after all).

They should've considered the case of every single client hitting the servers at exactly the same time. Worst case analysis is an elementary concept that's taught in Software Engineering I (at least it is at my school)....

And, to clarify, I'm not complaining about how long it takes to download the game data. You're right, it's 4+ GB. that SHOULD take a long time to download (unless you're on Abilene :p ) What I'm complaining about is the steam servers not being up and taking hits at all.
 
i preloaded mine for a month or two before it was released...if you wait until the second its released to DL it, what do you expect?
 
I have a card from an ATI video card, went yesterday and put in all the info, despite all the "info" screens not loading any text, just the fields. I went and it started "preloading" the game, waited until the bar went all the way over (after a number of hours), and then went to play. Screen resolution changed, then nothing. CTRL-ALT-DELETE'd out, tried again. Gave a progress bar for about 2 hours, then ran. This time I got the valve video, then hung. I restarted, ran STEAM, tried to run. Then it gave me the same thing, except this time I got to a blurry picture with "Loading..." at the bottom right. CTRL-ALT-DELETE again, re-run STEAM, and now it says I'm only 75% downloading it....

GRAH!?

So now I'm downloading it for the 3rd friggin time... Hopefully this is it!
 
wolfsburged said:
I have a card from an ATI video card, went yesterday and put in all the info, despite all the "info" screens not loading any text, just the fields. I went and it started "preloading" the game, waited until the bar went all the way over (after a number of hours), and then went to play. Screen resolution changed, then nothing. CTRL-ALT-DELETE'd out, tried again. Gave a progress bar for about 2 hours, then ran. This time I got the valve video, then hung. I restarted, ran STEAM, tried to run. Then it gave me the same thing, except this time I got to a blurry picture with "Loading..." at the bottom right. CTRL-ALT-DELETE again, re-run STEAM, and now it says I'm only 75% downloading it....

GRAH!?

So now I'm downloading it for the 3rd friggin time... Hopefully this is it!
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I think i had somewhat of the same problem as you. it will hang at the loading screen. I see from your sig that you have an ATi card.

The fix that helped me was the driver. You need to get cat 4.12 beta. hope this helps
 
Valve needs to spend alot of time making Steam not be so obtrusive. When playing a single player game I should not have to deal with it at all after their activation. You should be able to click an HL2 icon and it should ask "Do you want to also connect to Steam?" and you click yes or no and the game launches. I dont see what is wrong with something simple like that. Sometimes companies can do something so right, and then turn around and do something so horribly wrong. Is Steam a bad idea? definitely not, but it needs to stop standing in the way of players trying to get to the games.
 
Matrox462 said:
and WHAT is with also needing to have the disc inserted while using Steam?! people who download don't need to have a disc inserted....
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Yeah, I think that kinda sucks, too.
 
Personally I think the concept behind Steam is solid. I think it could improve a tad, but let me give it a hurrah for what it is now. Valve has arrived first for massive content delivery for a new game. And I hope that in the future, companies like Valve won't need a Vivendi.

I am a tech geek... currently a network security admin (CISSP). I am the guy that is always finding new ways to keep his box as absolutely spartan as possible. Only having the drivers I need, the apps that I actually use, and keeping everything else off in almost a fanatical manner. I am the guy that is constantly cleaning up temp files, the registry and making sure everything is up to date. But I enjoy a tight box where every resource is used to the absolute peak of efficiency. I abhor spyware and all forms of malware.

Don't get me wrong, Steam could be horrid. Very easily could be a steaming pile.

But...

There are three things that redeem Steam in my eyes. One you can run in it in offline mode after the inital auth. Second, you can enable the option so it doesn't start up with Windows. And lastly, the interface is small and intuitive. I don't think it is obtrusive at all.

I bought Half Life 2 Silver over Steam. It took 2 hours to download everything. It ran flawlessly on my cable connection. I guess I may I have been lucky, but I thought the experience was awesome. Personally I think this is the future. And I am damn glad it has arrived. I encouraged all my gaming friends to use steampowered.com and abandon the best buy.
 
To those above complaining about retail users needing to have the disc in the drive...

even the Steam purchasers need to have the "disc in the drive". It just so happens that in their case, said drive happens to be their HDD.
 
svet-am said:
To those above complaining about retail users needing to have the disc in the drive...

even the Steam purchasers need to have the "disc in the drive". It just so happens that in their case, said drive happens to be their HDD.
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No its not. The retail version and the downloaded version use the same files on the disc.
 
svet-am said:
To those above complaining about retail users needing to have the disc in the drive...

even the Steam purchasers need to have the "disc in the drive". It just so happens that in their case, said drive happens to be their HDD.
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That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Obviously there's an extra effort to insert a disc every time you want to play, and the HDD space requirements are identical. Meaning the retail and downloaded HL2 take up the same HDD space. It's just that the retail checks to see if the disc in the drive, purely to make sure you still own the disc; Not to actualy be of use.
 
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