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Serpico

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heatlesssun said:
Portal 2 the greatest Valve game ever? I loved Portal but I think that combined HL2 and E1 & E2 represent Valve's best efforts to date and I don't see Portal 2 changing that but we'll know this fall. However I would suspect what's next in the HL series will be another hallmark.
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My statement was based on the observation that every single game Valve releases is an improvement on what they did before. Each HL2 episode was better than the last. The new L4D2 campaign has IMO among the best map design and coolest environments of any game they've made so far. It will not surprise me if their next full length single player game, in this case Portal 2, represents the best of their single player game design experience.

One thing is certain, Portal 2 won't motivate me or anyone else to buy $1500 worth of GPUs. Not a knock on the game just simply a fact, I'm looking forward to it as well.
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The kind of person that buys $1500 worth of GPUs is also statistically irrelevant. Look at the number of people on the Steam hardware survey using GPUs anywhere close to that price range and tell me that it matters. :) It may be an aspirational benchmark but it is also a negative benefit to developers when your game doesn't scale well and only looks good on very expensive systems.

Anyway, congrats on taking yet another thread way off-topic once again. ;)
 
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heatlesssun

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Serpico said:
And I think you have a hard time proving this. The game was a relative flop when it came out.

Crysis is a textbook case that the days when a single game would motivate people to upgrade hardware, like the mid-90s through the early-2000s, are over. Quake 3 motivated me to upgrade my video card back in the day. People didn't do hardcore upgrades in droves so they could run Crysis, this is reflected in its sales numbers and hardware statistics gathered by Steam. Hard numbers over personal opinion and anecdotal evidence. Hardware eventually caught up to it and people can just happen to play it now, but by no means did Crysis motivate large numbers of people to upgrade their PCs.

You're a nice guy but you should really step back and consider that your opinion is an extreme niche. You are literally the only person I know that truly believes the tm2 is a good notebook and that went SLI with Fermi GPUs. Both are totally fine by me, but don't assume that your opinions are anywhere in the neighborhood of the mainstream. :)
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How many millions of copies did it sell and how many millions more were pirated? Sure Crytek would have liked to see more sales and why Crysis 2 will be on the consoles but how many people complained BITTERLY about Crysis' performance?

Yes Crysis like few gamea in the last five years drove hardware sales. Need proof. You're looking at it. Sites like this are full of that proof. Look at all of the digital ink that has been dedicated to Crysis performance and people putting a LOT into getting it to work.

Extreme niche, sure. So why are nVidia and AMD making cards like the 480 and 5870 and dual GPUs like the 5970 Black Edition that cost $1k a pop? Why does Intel sell $1k CPUs? Why is nVidia even bothering to make the GTX 480, a card that it loses money on with every sale? And soon as stock arives they're selling in a matter of minutes. These are FACTS that have nothing to do with anyone's opinion.

The extreme niche DRIVES this industry and what was once niche becomes mainstream. If it didn't you'd never see games like Crysis or hardware like the GTX 480. Or technologies like Eyefinity which this site's owner is a HUGE proponent of and just look at all of the multi-monitor setups just for that technology. The stuff that I'm using and others like me in a few years down the road BECOMES the mainstream. Just like the iPad (you bought up the tm2). Been doing most of this stuff and a lot more for years. Now the average person can do some of it. The extreme niche drives it. And it spends a lot of money in the process by the way.

You're discounting something that's right under your nose. This site is about pushing the limits with people with pretty deep pockets for this stuff. It ain't called [E]asyForum after all. Not everyone of course but some like me think iMacs and MBPs are cheap, prisewise that is!;)
 
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Serpico

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I wish there was a way to LOL posts. :)

Crysis did not sell that well upon release and unreasonable hardware requirements were a reason for that. Look at Steam's hardware survey, hard statistics on a broad range of gamer hardware. Again, Crysis coming out did not push people into buying a huge number of high end rigs and upgrades when the game came out. Fact of the matter is that mid-range cards are just now catching up with the performance requirements of that game, which is why you finally see people playing it. Quake 1 through Quake 3, those games drove high-end hardware sales and upgrades like crazy. I remember because I was there. Crysis, not so much. Arguing against this is ignoring reality.

Hardware sites using Crysis in benchmarks isn't a product of its popularity, it is a product of its extreme hardware requirements. If you want to show how a card does at high resolution with a taxing game, use Crysis. It is no indication of quality to me, you might as well as me how much I enjoy playing a Futuremark benchmark.

I have 160 friends on Steam, almost all of them hardcore gamers, and only about 40 of them own Crysis, the majority of which were bought during the sales in December. By contrast about 120 have Left 4 Dead 2 and 110 have Bad Company 2. I have more friends on Steam that own Modern Warfare 2, a game that is mainly played on the 360 and which there was big backlash against in the PC community. I know more people that own Unreal Tournament 3, a flop for the franchise. Crysis doesn't even rank in the top 75 games played this week: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Obviously there are people that bought retail copies, but given Steam's popularity combined with Crysis' sales I'm willing to give credence to their statistics.

And no kidding that the extreme eventually becomes the mainstream, that's how technology goes. What does this obvious point have to do with anything?

Fermi cards sell out as soon as they get in stock because yields are abysmal, I thought you'd know that. ;)

And again with you and the off-topic sidetracking. What do your points have anything to do about the root topic? I say that I won't miss playing Crysis on OS X because I've played it on PC and think it is a boring game, and then you completely switch topics as usual. WTF man, you're a nice guy, please post better. :)
 
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heatlesssun

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In post #60 I asked what games were the most demanding on the Mac and in post #61 you mentioned Crysis and said it wasn't a good game. Fair enough. I was simply trying to give a little perspective on the matter by saying that many a hardcore hardware guy built a rig to run this game in all of its glory well because it defined the gold standard in a great performing rig for some time, indeed "Can it play Crysis" is a an inside joke in this world that I'm sure you've heard more than once. This site has a strong crowd of people who spend a lot of money not to run just one game, but ALL games FLAWLESSLY. Too this day, if it can run Crysis well, the rig will crush pretty much any game. The only exception I've found to this is Metro 2033. That game has now define a new level in what a performance gaming rig should be. Its not about game play, its about being able to RUN the game without compromise.

Extreme niche sure. But its why nVidia is selling GTX 480s at a loss. It appeared to me that you were discounting folks like me as nuts that don't matter or drive anything and I was simply saying that nothing could be further from the truth. For people that don't matter there's a TON of money spent in performance gaming rigs and hardware. Perhaps I misunderstood.

That is all I have to say on the matter and I won't bother you anymore on the subject.
 
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Serpico

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Ah. There is a misunderstanding as I was using Crysis as an example of a game that is not available on the Mac. It is Windows only, although one could Boot Camp into it.

It was irrelevant to the whole Mac gaming thing as it doesn't run natively in OS X, while other games like Valve, id, Epic, many EA titles, and Blizzard's do run in OS X. Talking about Crysis requiring a beast of a rig was kind of this whole side discussion as this is about games running in OS X, and I was using Crysis as an example of a high power game that didn't run under OS X, but that I also didn't miss it on the platform because I'm not a fan of the game, especially since you've got badass Blizzard and (soon) Valve games on the platform.

Ask me about how I like Far Cry 2 and really watch me go off. ;)

I think we're cool on this. :)
 
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Serpico

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MurderCityDevil said:
sooooo, to get back on topic. has anyone been accepted into the beta? I hear the closed beta has begun.
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I spoke with someone in the closed beta last week. Um, its Steam except on OS X and only with Portal running on it. Not much else to say. :)
 
0ptional

0ptional

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May 12th PVT (Pacific Valve Time), Valve is so unpredictable with these things they have their on time zone. Seriously, ask anyone.
 
0ptional

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AVT said:
Yeah, but you've got an extra "Pacific" in there. It's coming May 12th - Valve Time.
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Well consider I live like, right down the street from Valve and I have a few friends that work there... Pacific (Seattle, WA) Valve Time is what I've seen it called a few times before as well based on the location, and yes I know about their wiki entry, PVT just makes more sense to me.
 
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ozziegn

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I'm so curious to see how HL2 is gonna run on my 27" 3GHz iMac. this is way too long awaited. :)
 
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heatlesssun

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ozziegn said:
I'm so curious to see how HL2 is gonna run on my 27" 3GHz iMac. this is way too long awaited. :)
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HL2 will run great on just about anything for the last four years with just about any kind of dedicated GPU and even runs well on 2 year old IGPs, won't even break a sweat. Source is a very old engine now.
 
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450

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Installed it. I only have 4 mac games available...

Osmos, Torchlight, Portal, and Braid. I'm downloading Braid now.

Someone gifted TF2 to me a few months ago but for some reason its not on my list of games....
 
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phide

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TF2 is to be released later. Valve says they're doing a release every Wednesday.
 
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rflcptr

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I look forward to the results of the next Steam hardware survey refresh! :)
 
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Serpico

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Funny thing on the HOCP front page is Steve is posting that Portal is free. What he skips is that it is to commemorate Steam launching on OS X, and he also hasn't once posted a story on Steam coming to OS X. Check the front page on any given day and he clearly finds the time to post any other Apple negativity he wants.

The fanboy is unbelievably strong with that one. ;)
 
mrgstiffler

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Got it installed and downloaded Portal. Also bought the Steam Play bundle, Torchlight and QuantZ. Steam servers are being hit pretty hard right now.
 
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450

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Serpico said:
Yeah, curious to see the number of OS X users that show up, ditto Linux users whenever that port happens.
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I hope the numbers are good enough that Valve continues to produce games for OS X and Linux.
 
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Serpico

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450 said:
I hope the numbers are good enough that Valve continues to produce games for OS X and Linux.
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I think they're committed at this point, given that the investment into getting Source over to OpenGL has been made. Whatever extra cost is made in terms of porting games over should be negligible going forward.

As for the rest of the catalog, I'm very happy to see that so many other companies are committed to SteamPlay. Popcap, Torchlight, Braid, Civilization 4, World Of Goo, Lucasarts adventure games, etc etc, are all yours on both Windows and OS X from just buying it once on Steam.

That's really awesome.
 
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pxc

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Wooooo! Portal is playable with low shader detail at 1280x800 on the 9400m. :p

Not really looking forward to how badly other games are going to run on the mini.
 
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