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Steam

M

Morathin

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 26, 2006
Messages
161
How does steam work? If you buy and DL game sfrom them do you have to install to your HD or do they run from steams servers?
Also, for old games like xcom: UFO Defense... are there any compatibility issues with windows 7 and such?

Steam newbie here.

A few more things, if I have games at home, how do I add them to steam? If I go to another computer and load my steam account, can I play my games on that computer?
 
Morathin said:
How does steam work? If you buy and DL game sfrom them do you have to install to your HD or do they run from steams servers?
Also, for old games like xcom: UFO Defense... are there any compatibility issues with windows 7 and such?

Steam newbie here.

A few more things, if I have games at home, how do I add them to steam? If I go to another computer and load my steam account, can I play my games on that computer?
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to be mean here, but couldn't you just go to the steam website and view the FAQ or something on how it works? I'm sure it's all explained there.
 
Morathin said:
How does steam work? If you buy and DL game sfrom them do you have to install to your HD or do they run from steams servers?
Also, for old games like xcom: UFO Defense... are there any compatibility issues with windows 7 and such?

Steam newbie here.

A few more things, if I have games at home, how do I add them to steam? If I go to another computer and load my steam account, can I play my games on that computer?
Click to expand...

To answer your questions...

If you buy a game on Steam, you download it to your computer. It installs and runs from your hard drive, not their servers.

Old games are not guaranteed to work. They probably will, but just to make sure, you should visit the Steam forum associated with the particular game you are looking at buying and seeing if others have reported any issues with it. If you want to make sure it works with Win 7, head on over to gog.com. In case you didn't know, they sell old games which are DRM free, tested to work with Vista/7 and in some cases are cheaper than Steam.

You can't add your older games to Steam unless they are Steamworks compatible. Those constitute a very few number of games, and if you have ever installed them, they will already be linked to your Steam account. Otherwise, it can't be done.

And finally, the games are tied to your account. So if you go to another computer and access your account, you will be able to download and play any game you own. This can be done on multiple computers, the only limitation being that you can only login to Steam from 1 computer at a time.
 
Download in progress...

"Steamworks That Way"


Steamworks that way

Steamworks that way

Up an early for the hope of a brand new day
See a game you ain't played since back in the day
Fresh haircut fitted wit a fat ass fade
End of work, we chilling on a Saturday
How you felt when you first heard the data came
Mortal Kombat II hey I had that game
Cooling out with ol girl on a fat ass date
Find a hundred dollar bill wow man that's great
Get promoted at your job up to management
Plot a long time finally a plan has made it
Time I feel I wanna shout, man its real that way
Wanna think of games that you gonna play

Steamworks that way

Steamworks that way

Christmas day when your mamma got you excite bike
Type of feeling when you went and beat the first final fight
How your team felt winning championship games
Celebrate in a huddle dancing in this rain
Have a thought see a shooting star cross your screen
Put in hard work finally youre at the end cut scene
Deaf man get his hearing now in come vibes
Blind man get sight see his first sunrise
Dumb man speaking out, now he's load and clear
Earth through your chout smile so proud ya wear
Going in your third eye for the styles ya hear
Making music that'll bump for a thousand years
Eating right feeling conscience like health is first
Said a prayer that's sincere and you felt it work
Times I feel I wanna shout, man it's real that way
When I'm thinking about games that I wanna play

Steamworks that way

Steamworks that way

All up in her vibe something coming over me
Summer days more likely that you notice breezes
Winter days more likely that you notice heat
When I'm warm more likely that you notice me
In the dark it's more likely that you notice light
In the light more likely that you notice night
Hungry more appreciation for that meal
Dead broke more appreciation for that weekend sale
A bad game'll make you really notice ones that's good
And that'll make things a little better understood
Times I feel I wanna shout, man it's real that way
When I think of 5v5's that you're gonna play
Steamworks that way...

(Ya know its like ahh like the most greatest feeling you could ever feel
you like just total illation. Sunny day, just that day.
You know its just like you know just the most joyous feeling
you could ever comprehend. You know, chilling with your family.
You know just you know just really really feeling,
feeling the moment, with the folks. Ya know really really really just chilling.
It's Steam. It's Steam. It's Steam)
 
Dallows said:
I'm not trying to be mean here, but couldn't you just go to the steam website and view the FAQ or something on how it works? I'm sure it's all explained there.
Click to expand...

I would have but I'm at work and steam is blocked. I know I should have read all this info when I registered on Steam but I got sidetracked.

Also learn to Google.
Click to expand...

I could google it, but again, work would block the sites with game listings. I could do it at home, but by the time I get home I would probably have forgot about this question.

Anyways, thanks for all the answers everyone.
 
You can't go wrong with Steam! One warning though, be careful of the sales or you'll end up with a bazillion games LOL.
 
Install Steam on the largest hard drive you have and/or can afford.
 
Morathin said:
How does steam work? If you buy and DL game sfrom them do you have to install to your HD or do they run from steams servers?
Also, for old games like xcom: UFO Defense... are there any compatibility issues with windows 7 and such?

Steam newbie here.

A few more things, if I have games at home, how do I add them to steam? If I go to another computer and load my steam account, can I play my games on that computer?
Click to expand...

Steam has come along way from what it was and from a person that said this would be a bad idea I have done a complete 180 and as a friend of mine said I am one step away from going door to door preaching the works of Steam. I've never had a problem with it and all the games I bought through it.

Once it's setup it keeps track of everything. If you get a new computer or have to refortmat all you have to do is download Steam, sign in, and start downloading your games. Sure there is there is going to be some time you have to wait for this depending on your connection speed but I think it's worth in it that I don't have to mess with anymore CDs. Also if you want to make a CD/DVD backup of a game Steam has the ability to let you do that as well.
 
Morathin said:
Also, for old games like xcom: UFO Defense... are there any compatibility issues with windows 7 and such?
Click to expand...

Should work fine. What steam does in the case of X-Com is to load an instance of dosbox and run the game through that.
 
Morathin said:
Also, for old games like xcom: UFO Defense... are there any compatibility issues with windows 7 and such?
Click to expand...

I have not had issues with X-COM on Win7. For X-COM they repackaged it with DOSBox (can't remember 100%.. if not DOSBox it's something similar) so that everything runs similar to how it did "back in the day". I'm wouldn't be surprised if most of the older games are reworked in a similar way.

Last time I got Retail X-Com running (on bare OS) the screen scroll went so fast it was terribly annoying to try to play. Steam fixed that and the game is as much fun now as it was then. :D
 
What happens is you pay extra to download a game in the time you could buy it retail for cheaper, and remove your ability to sell it on or return it. And then you get to run something in the background at the same time as the game instead of just running the game.

It's a good system, more info on their site.
 
the can't sell/cheaper retail is balanced by awesome sales, no disk management and unlimited installs (for most games).
 
Jellylesg said:
What happens is you pay extra to download a game in the time you could buy it retail for cheaper, and remove your ability to sell it on or return it. And then you get to run something in the background at the same time as the game instead of just running the game.

It's a good system, more info on their site.
Click to expand...

Rarely pay extra to have access to all my games where ever I am and never have to worry about discs, cd-keys, or patching. Now that I have Steam it is the only messaging program I use. I get games so cheap on Steam is would take more than effort than it is worth to sell them.

That being said Steam was a horrifying piece of shit on release. It has come a long way to be something I don't want to live without.
 
Jellylesg said:
What happens is you pay extra to download a game in the time you could buy it retail for cheaper, and remove your ability to sell it on or return it. And then you get to run something in the background at the same time as the game instead of just running the game.

It's a good system, more info on their site.
Click to expand...

Hmm, all of my $1-$5 games beg to differ.

I honestly think Steam is a godsend for indie games. Triple A games will get bought through other means no matter what... but damn every now and then you find a cheap gem of an indie game that surprises you on steam.

Also, the system isn't black and white. Steam is just another way to purchase games. A smart consumer will shop around no matter what. You don't have to marry steam to use it.
 
Dallows said:
I'm not trying to be mean here, but couldn't you just go to the steam website and view the FAQ or something on how it works? I'm sure it's all explained there.
Click to expand...

SixtyWattMan said:
Also learn to Google.
Click to expand...

Wow... wtf.

This is a gaming forum and he asked questions about a gaming client. FYI... that's what this forum is here for.

Answer his questions or GTFO.
 
WasntMe said:
Wow... wtf.

This is a gaming forum and he asked questions about a gaming client. FYI... that's what this forum is here for.

Answer his questions or GTFO.
Click to expand...

It's not that so much as how often this particular thread type gets posted.
 
A few bits about steam that don't look like they are covered yet.

You install steam client and log in. That client will show a list of games you have access to. The games, if installed, will launch. If not installed, they will download. In many cases, patches will get pushed out automagically.

Assuming you have multiple computers, the way it works is you install whatever you want on the local machine. The steam client will reach out to the net. If if finds you logged in twice, it logs out all instances. You have to be logged in to play. I've got some games that play nicely on my laptop, some on my main workstation. You login when you want to play.

If you go off-line, it will go into an offline mode. If the laptop is on a plane, no net access. As long as I was able to log into that box once, then go off the net, I can still play all those local games. After something more than a week, you will need to log in again. Not sure how long that time limit is. If, for some reason the laptop blue screens... you may need to log in again. (Had some nasty work software that did that).

Any game you add to your collection is tied to that username/password. IE - you cannot resell individual bits, you have to sell the entire library. That is a pain.

Games are cheap - expect a series of mind blowing sales again this black Friday and Christmas. Five bucks here, $20 there, next thing you know you have spent hundreds of dollars.

Of all the game services, I would say Steam is the best. I'll forgo retail media (and no more CD check) if I can get it for about the same on Steam.
 
Jellylesg said:
What happens is you pay extra to download a game in the time you could buy it retail for cheaper, and remove your ability to sell it on or return it. And then you get to run something in the background at the same time as the game instead of just running the game.

It's a good system, more info on their site.
Click to expand...

Of course, nowadays even a lot of retail games use Steam for authentication (and try to make you download the game from Steam even if you have the disk - Civ 5 I'm looking at you).
 
When I search google, it takes me to forum threads that say, "search google." :p (it does happen)

Better than searching google, is to grab Steam and download some free demos. I think the OP was looking for the bullet points. The good and the bad.

If you want your games to take care of themselves and you're always online, then you'll love steam. If you just want to play a game offline (without "steam is offline" warning messages popping up) and patch the game yourself, or revert to and older patch, then you might find Steam annoying. You also do not want to get it for mods that work off an unencrypted .exe. But that's rare.

Regardless of how high or low your opinions of Steam are, Steam will have some hot deals on not-so-new games. I can't wait to see what they have for Christmas season sales. But I like impulse better, since I don't have to run through their client to play my games. Plus, I don't have to go into annoying "offline mode" if I want to be offline.




Edit.. it might look confusing when some people say Steam is expensive, while others say it's cheap. What's expensive is when you buy games new. And their non-sale prices for even older games are generally higher. However for the patient person, steam will occasionally offer special deals for amazingly low prices. As mentioned, watch out for Black Friday and the Christmas season sales. But they usually don't have their hot deals for fresh new games.
 
Last edited:
I have gotten steam to give me a refund on a game before to. Bought some game that refused to work online for me (was a common problem). Steam worked with me and let me buy and game or combination of games as long as the total was as much or more than the original game.

While its not a real refund it was way better than being stuck with a broken game.
 
Steam is awesome, no mess with discs, installation, patching. Its unlimited as well. Install it on your main machine, work machine, laptop etc.

WasntMe said:
Wow... wtf.

This is a gaming forum and he asked questions about a gaming client. FYI... that's what this forum is here for.

Answer his questions or GTFO.
Click to expand...

Interesting little bit of hypocrisy here... Telling people to answer his question or GTFO while offering absolutely nothing to the thread. :rolleyes:
 
This has been a great thread about Steam. I have a Steam account and there is much in here about the service I wasn't even aware of. Very worthy topic imo.
 
Droc said:
Thats a very important point I wish I knew before I started using steam.
Click to expand...

Couldn't you just move your game files from Steam into a new Steam directory on the big drive? Probably could also just create a junction too.
 
I've used Steam for years but have never used the Steam Cloud feature...does it save all of your game progress and are there any issues with it?
 
Not every game uses it. A couple examples. In TF2, if the cloud is down, you can't access your 'extra' weapons. You can play, but won't unlock achievements, etc. Torchlight will give you the option to play off line, and then syncs your current state with the stuff in the cloud. Most games don't seem to use it, from what I can tell.
 
It has reached the point where Steam is pretty much a requirement if you are a PC Gamer. Many millions of gamers have been using it for years and while its not perfect its the best at what it does.

If you're new to steam wait till you see the amazing discount/packages they occasionally have. Especially the xmas deals, where you can buy like $400 worth of awesome games for like 50 bucks.
 
Drexion said:
It has reached the point where Steam is pretty much a requirement if you are a PC Gamer. Many millions of gamers have been using it for years and while its not perfect its the best at what it does.

If you're new to steam wait till you see the amazing discount/packages they occasionally have. Especially the xmas deals, where you can buy like $400 worth of awesome games for like 50 bucks.
Click to expand...

Meh, I have been an avid gamer for many years and I avoided Steam until a few months ago, and thats only because I wanted to play CS and L4D2 online. Aside from that, Im not big on steam as a required thing. Though, the men of war deal the other day was very sweet indeed.
 
Some older games have issues. I had to download a custom DLL made by a fan to play Dark Forces with 3D acceleration.

The Dark Forces expansion pack required that I have a CD drive installed in my computer. I installed a virtual drive using a tool I found online.

Before downloading an old game (IE, pre-vista) I recommend viewing the steam support forum for that game. Both of my issues were solved quickly after I went there.
 
Droc said:
Thats a very important point I wish I knew before I started using steam.
Click to expand...


Just back up ypur steam apps folder, then uninstall steam and reinstall to your other drive. Then just put your steam apps folder back. Into the new install and blame, steams mvoed over.
 
Drexion said:
It has reached the point where Steam is pretty much a requirement if you are a PC Gamer. Many millions of gamers have been using it for years and while its not perfect its the best at what it does.

If you're new to steam wait till you see the amazing discount/packages they occasionally have. Especially the xmas deals, where you can buy like $400 worth of awesome games for like 50 bucks.
Click to expand...

I love the Xmas sales also, but they have a bad habit of keeping prices high until the big sales - so it is kind of a trade-off, great if you don't mind waiting.
 
the gist of it is that you can basically do anything you want with steam games, besides trade or resell them. which is worthless to me since I don't sell my games, and not a problem when you get them for next to nothing on sale. the real value here is the community, which also works for any other games you have, whether or not you bought them from steam.

best tip imo is just never to buy anything at launch, unless you gotta have it right away, or they have some kind of preorder freebies. publishers like to capitalise on their popularity by price gouging when it's hot, especially if you live outside the states, so wait for sales when you can. people blame valve on this for some reason, but they actually have zero control over the sale price of a game. and they charge publishers nothing for steamworks itself, all they really do is take a cut from whatever sales go through them.
 
Steam is awesome. I have so many games from steam its not even funny. When a game is on sale I will buy it even if I don't play it because well.....its on sale! I just can't pass a cheap sale ever.
 
Another great (or shitty?) thing about Steam is that you will buy games that you wouldn't otherwise buy because they are on sale for $5-10.
 
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