Steam on OS X

0ptional said:
Yup quoting myself.

Got home a while ago, no CS:S Beta in mine, some guys on Steam forums got it randomly too, have fun with it guys! Jealous!
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There is a limited beta for CS:S which opened up some more spots last week. I played it on my PC on Friday and its decent. It adds a lot of stuff that's been in TF2, detailed stat tracking, achievements (complete with Modern Warfare style achievement graphics popping up with rock music playing, haha), and it brings the Source engine up to date with the newest version so some additional visual effects are added. The problem in terms of visual updates is that it doesn't really feel like much of one because the geometry is exactly the same as the game that was released in 2004: big and blocky and boxy.

As for the game, eh, its good but nothing fundamental has changed about it, right now its just a couple of things that have been tacked on. I'd rather play TF2, L4D2, BC2, or Starcraft 2. :)
 
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Serpico said:
There is a limited beta for CS:S which opened up some more spots last week. I played it on my PC on Friday and its decent. It adds a lot of stuff that's been in TF2, detailed stat tracking, achievements (complete with Modern Warfare style achievement graphics popping up with rock music playing, haha), and it brings the Source engine up to date with the newest version so some additional visual effects are added. The problem in terms of visual updates is that it doesn't really feel like much of one because the geometry is exactly the same as the game that was released in 2004: big and blocky and boxy.

As for the game, eh, its good but nothing fundamental has changed about it, right now its just a couple of things that have been tacked on. I'd rather play TF2, L4D2, BC2, or Starcraft 2. :)
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Yeah I was aware of the updated CS:S being in Beta, but not that it was pushing to Mac clients also that was the news part to me.

I'd rather play all of those games too, but for now, the CS:S Beta is the only Valve Multi-Player game on Steam for Mac, so yeah.
 
450 said:
So HD5xxx parts are coming soon? I know this wont happen, but if the Mac Mini had eyefinity capabilities, I'd buy 2. I'm guessing it'll come to the Mac Pro and iMacs only.
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iMacs are highly unlikely given that it is an all-in-one design and there is only so much room for ports and headers. It may happen but I really don't see anything more than the single mini-DP port already in it. A 5xxx card with EFI for the Mac Pro seems inevitable, but the MP's high price given the Xeons in them makes them super impractical for someone that just wants to play games on them. It would be like someone buying a Dell Precision with Xeons just for games, kind of pointless given the high cost of the CPUs and how little you get from them in practical game performance.
 
Serpico said:
iMacs are highly unlikely given that it is an all-in-one design and there is only so much room for ports and headers. It may happen but I really don't see anything more than the single mini-DP port already in it. A 5xxx card with EFI for the Mac Pro seems inevitable, but the MP's high price given the Xeons in them makes them super impractical for someone that just wants to play games on them. It would be like someone buying a Dell Precision with Xeons just for games, kind of pointless given the high cost of the CPUs and how little you get from them in practical game performance.
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I realize that a Mac Pro isn't a gaming machine, but I was thinking more about the people who use it as a workstation and have 3 monitors. Now with only 1 card, they can have 3 monitors, or 6 monitors with 2 cards. It might be useful if you need to save a PCI-E x16 port.

Is there a way the mini-dp can output two separate streams? I remember reading about how you could use one dp output for more than monitor. I didn't hear much about it after 2008 though.
 
450 said:
I realize that a Mac Pro isn't a gaming machine, but I was thinking more about the people who use it as a workstation and have 3 monitors. Now with only 1 card, they can have 3 monitors, or 6 monitors with 2 cards. It might be useful if you need to save a PCI-E x16 port.
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I see. Yeah, a Mac Pro can already drive eight 30" displays, but that involves loading up every PCI-E slot. Eyefinity would be useful for people that want to drive a bunch of monitors and still have room for other cards if they need them.
 
Some interesting stats:
  • OS X comprises of 8.46% of Steam machines
  • The GeForce 9400M is sitting at 4.05% (up from 0% last period — that's a shitload of 9400Ms)
  • The percentage of mic'ed machines, of which all Intel Macs except the mini and Mac Pro are, went down, for some reason
  • Systems using NTFS went down 8.39%, which makes sense given the 8.46% OS X figure
  • The 2560x1440 resolution isn't listed, so no real indication of how many 27" iMacs are running Steam :(
 
Another interesting stat from the resolution listing.

Of the resolutions polled, machines with 1280x800 of the 13" Macbook went up 2.83%, far and away the largest percentage increase in the group. 1440x900 resolution of the 15" MBP went up 1.21%, the second largest increase only to "other", which probably includes the unlisted 2560x1600 and 2560x1440 resolutions. All other resolutions were flat to negative.

Its pretty safe to assume that a large number of the Steam installations are running on 13" Macbooks and Macbook Pros. I hope that the 2560x1440 numbers are added, but then again it doesn't list 2560x1600 either.
 
BrotherLen said:
All I can say is, it's about time Apple came through with this. I think that Steam/Valve has been working towards this for awhile now. It's a win/win for all involved. Good selling point for Apple, Steams opens up to more customers/ and end users get the better sales on games and convinces of Steam.
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Apple didn't come through with this, it was Valve that had to do it. ?


i really am glad for this, it just means more people online who i can kill once games get ported over :D

What i am not going to like is the fanbois from either side now, it is going to just get worse now that Mac's can game, that was always a main arguement tossed out.
 
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LithiumRage158 said:
Well, looks like TF2 was released today... Who else was hoping for CSS or Day of Defeat?
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http://www.tf2.com/post.php?id=3923&p=1

Considering yesterdays post on the TF2 blog? No, I was only expecting TF2.

I wouldn't hate CS:S, but me and DoD never got along, so w/e I could skip that personally.

I figure they wanted to complete the orange box which so many new Mac users purchased recently instead of doing the other stuff, plus TF2/Portal/HL2:ep2 were at least already on the same version of the Source engine, so they were probably the easiest to bring up to snuff.

Now that they've had some practice with HL2 and Ep1 updating to the new engine model, CS:S should be next, plus the update has been in Beta for a long time coming, with all the engine enhancements, so that's what I honestly expect next, then DoD sometime down the road.
 
Just played through a game, I mean, at 1680x1050 w/ Vsync on it was perfectly fine, not huge stutters, I basically require Vsync though, tearing and me don't get along.

But yeah, so far the Steam experience has been good, while it's not 300fps on a 8800gt like it is on Windows, they also have years and years of optimizations on the DirectX side, where as OpenGL is all new, so I'm happy it's so smooth at this stage, no complaints.

Hopefully 10.6.4 which has been rumored to improve performance dramatically even by Valve employees will keep my average at 60 more than 30 like it does now, but it's still perfectly playable and fun.

Also got my earbuds equipped lol, yay.
 
New, pretty PIE CHARTS!

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

- MBPs dominate @ 46.8%, Mac Mini is barely visible @ 3.4%
- Over 50% of all Mac systems have at least 4 gigs of memory
- Interesting that the iMac is leading the Macbook
- Filtering results for Mac reveals that 5% are using the 27" iMac
- HyperThreading is supported on 7.39% of Macs
- 0.94% of all Macs are classified as "other." Those Hackintoshes are taking over! haha

In other news, Win7 (32 + 64) has surpassed XP. :p
 
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The distribution of "Physical CPUs" over PCs and Macs are interesting:

- "2 cpus" are accounted by 55% of PCs, and 90% of Macs
- "4 cpus" are seen on 26% of PCs, 7% of Macs

Mostly accounted for by the sheer number of MBs and MBPs out there (duh). Must also mean the vast, vast majority of iMacs have been sold with dual core CPUs.
 
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I just had time to finally install Steam this past weekend on my Macbook Pro. I played a little Torchlight, and man did it suck down the battery. 45 minutes and I went from 80% to 20%, but it was fun.

I haven't tried TF2 yet, and I had one more game that I play on the list, plus the 3 Half Life things that I haven't ever played.

I am looking forward to CS:S on the Mac though.
 
I'm sticking with bootcamp. Installed Steam and TF2 on late 2007 MBP, and it was unplayable. I turned all settings to low, no AA, ext. and the game was literally unplayable. There were no other programs running on my Mac.

I'm extremely disappointed in Steam for Mac so far. I hoped for better.
 
EQTakeOffense - Yup, Source on OS X is basically beta software at this point. Its running better than day one but its still crazy slow compared to Source on Windows. Well, TF2 specifically, the single player games are all pretty good at this point. Left 4 Dead will need a LOT of work given that it is by far the most hardware taxing game Valve makes.

Blizzard games play almost identically across both platforms, but its probably because they are developed with Mac and Windows compatibility from the start while Valve has all this catch-up porting to make it work as well in OS X.

It'll improve, slowly but surely, but I'm not so sure about them selling Source games to people in the state that the engine is currently in. Oh well, better late than never, and hopefully it'll be close to 1:1 performance by the time Portal 2 comes out next year.

What are the specs on your 2007 MBP? Aside from my current i7 MBP, I've only run TF2 and L4D on a March 2008 MBP (2.5ghz C2D with 8600m GT), and while it ran great on that machine I would not want to run it on anything older without seriously dialing the settings back. TF2 on OS X hitches like crazy on my MBP while its butter smooth in Windows, so it must have been single digits on your machine. What GPU is in your MBP, one of the ATIs?
 
Serpico said:
What are the specs on your 2007 MBP? Aside from my current i7 MBP, I've only run TF2 and L4D on a March 2008 MBP (2.5ghz C2D with 8600m GT), and while it ran great on that machine I would not want to run it on anything older without seriously dialing the settings back. TF2 on OS X hitches like crazy on my MBP while its butter smooth in Windows, so it must have been single digits on your machine. What GPU is in your MBP, one of the ATIs?
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2.2 C2D
4GB RAM
8600M w/ 256MB

I gotta give Blizzard credit for their ability to produce high-quality Mac 'ports' of their games. I was expecting the same level of quality from Valve, but now I know better. I was hoping I could ditch Bootcamp later this year and game on OS X, but I think that still might be a few more years down the line.
 
Sebastian de With, who has designed several OS X/iPhone icons and application interfaces, designed a replacement for the Steam icon (a.k.a. EL GRANDE). To replace the existing Steam.app icon, open the replacement ICNS file in Preview, hit Command+C to copy it, open the info pane for Steam.app (Command+I), click the Steam icon in the top left corner of that info pane (it will glow blue) and paste.

He also mocked up more Mac-like interface for Steam (same link). Didn't really go far enough, in my opinion, since Steam would really benefit from a Finder/iTunes-like sidebar, but the changes he made look good. I just wish Valve would take a hint: OS X users want OS X applications to adhere to OS X human interface guidelines, not over-designed fluff.
 
EQTakeOffense said:
I gotta give Blizzard credit for their ability to produce high-quality Mac 'ports' of their games. I was expecting the same level of quality from Valve, but now I know better. I was hoping I could ditch Bootcamp later this year and game on OS X, but I think that still might be a few more years down the line.
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Its because Blizzard builds their games for Windows and OS X from day one, same with id software. Valve is porting Source to OS X after it has been optimized for Windows after how long, six years? Yeah, it'll take a little bit of work to get them somewhat on par. :)
 
phide said:
Sebastian de With, who has designed several OS X/iPhone icons and application interfaces, designed a replacement for the Steam icon (a.k.a. EL GRANDE). To replace the existing Steam.app icon, open the replacement ICNS file in Preview, hit Command+C to copy it, open the info pane for Steam.app (Command+I), click the Steam icon in the top left corner of that info pane (it will glow blue) and paste.

He also mocked up more Mac-like interface for Steam (same link). Didn't really go far enough, in my opinion, since Steam would really benefit from a Finder/iTunes-like sidebar, but the changes he made look good. I just wish Valve would take a hint: OS X users want OS X applications to adhere to OS X human interface guidelines, not over-designed fluff.
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I honestly think that icon is terrible, I much prefer the stock Steam one, although it should be a tad smaller.

I also don't give a shit for either for either of the things you said Valve should do to fix up Steam on the Mac, Steam is Steam, let it continue to be Steam, it keeps the experience the same across platforms and that's its purpose, if Valve wanted to modify Steam and split the code base between Mac/PC that'd be even more work that they're already undertaking porting Source to OpenGL, which I personally think they're doing just fine.

EQTakeOffense said:
I'm sticking with bootcamp. Installed Steam and TF2 on late 2007 MBP, and it was unplayable. I turned all settings to low, no AA, ext. and the game was literally unplayable. There were no other programs running on my Mac.

I'm extremely disappointed in Steam for Mac so far. I hoped for better.
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I have no issues playing TF2 at 1680x1050 on med/high on my machine, totally playable, not sure what so ever, and there's a few guys on youtube with videos at 1080p on 9600m gt's playing just as well. It's probably just the 8600M GT's lack of brute strength vs the other cards compared to the lack of current optimization on the OpenGL side, it'll get better, but I doubt they'll ever be equal.
 
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To each his own. I thought some might prefer an alternate icon considering how awkward the existing icon looks in the dock.

With respect to the interface, suffice to say that the human interface guide was published for a reason. While Windows lacked an up-to-date and well-defined set of UI guidelines for developers to adhere to (which resulted in a massive degree of application UI segmentation), Apple's guidelines have always been pretty concise and clearly defined. Departing so substantially from those guidelines doesn't seem to be in Valve's best interest considering their goals.
 
No one, but they're competing for customers. I'm not suggesting that Mac users are going to shy away from Steam because the interface is a good deal different from what's conventionally seen in OS X software, but I'm not sure if the approach they've taken with the UI is what's best for "winning over" Mac users. Apple's inadvertently (or perhaps deliberately) set something of a standard framework for OS X application design with the Apple Design Awards, where developers strive pretty hard to win by aligning their UIs closely to applications that have won in the past, and that translates to a more consistant and, presumably, more positive experience for users. You have basic interaction paradigms that don't vary too widely from application to application, for the most part, and that means easier entry for new users.

I'm pretty much of the opinion that desktop applications on a given OS should, optimally, respect the UI guidelines of that OS if the developer wants to attract the greatest number of potential users. Steam's interface only seems more problematic on OS X given the greater degree of consistency across third-party applications there than most users are accustomed to with Windows, but it's an issue in Windows as well, in my opinion.
 
Apple also stopped doing those design awards and only has them for iOS apps now..

I believe Valve realized there was a huge segment of users out there with PC desktops and Mac laptops who would appreciate a unified UI across platforms and it's not like the Steam UI is difficult to understand, and the new one is much better and much more stylish compared to the previous one anyway.
 
0ptional said:
me and DoD never got along, so w/e I could skip that personally.
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Just curious, but did you ever play the real DoD? Like before it was mucked up and became the Valve standalone? I don't play it much anymore because well... really they improved the graphics and messed everything else up. Less weapons, mods, maps, worse hitboxes... and all we got in return was upgrade models ... :( That said the old mod up through 3.1 was a blast. Pity they wrecked it.
 
MattyC said:
Just curious, but did you ever play the real DoD? Like before it was mucked up and became the Valve standalone? I don't play it much anymore because well... really they improved the graphics and messed everything else up. Less weapons, mods, maps, worse hitboxes... and all we got in return was upgrade models ... :( That said the old mod up through 3.1 was a blast. Pity they wrecked it.
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Yup, I had a whole slew of friends that played it religiously at the time before Valve picked it up and they gave it up after, but even before, I didn't like it either, oh well. Not so much a fan of war games, not even Modern Warfare appeals to me and I got that for a present... can't wait to trade it in, ugh, it's sucking life from my shelf.
 
0ptional said:
It's probably just the 8600M GT's lack of brute strength vs the other cards compared to the lack of current optimization on the OpenGL side, it'll get better, but I doubt they'll ever be equal.
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FWIW, I don't think a 256MB 8600m GT is enough to play TF2 now- even on Windows. I think the bare minimum for TF2 should be 512MB 8800GT.

It *was* enough two years ago- at 1280x800 and med/low settings. (I have an Asus G1S and it did fine) But they've added a lot of stuff since then, and not just hats. It's a tad too chunky for my outdated laptop now...same for LFD2.
 
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