Valve sucks

[chiablo]

I haven't bashed Valve for anything more than the original point in this thread: dropping the already working mixed mode DX9 path.

Then perhaps the title of your thread should reflect this instead of "Valve Sucks." What would happen if I went to a console-related forum and posted a thread intitled "NINTENDO SUCKS!" just because a certain game won't run in progressive scan mode on my 3 year old TV? Yea, I'd have to equip my "flameproof vest +3" to not get burned.

But back to the point... Steam is unreliable. 4 times in the last week there were outages lasting longer than several minutes.

Stay far FAR away from World of Warcraft or any MMORPG if you can't stand outages that last a few minutes. Considering what they are doing with Steam, outages are to be expected. I'm sure they've got Terabytes worth of data being streamed through their servers on a weekly basis. Just be lucky that they can recover from a crash in a few minutes instead of having the entire system be down for days while they troubleshoot.

 

[pxc]

Then perhaps the title of your thread should reflect this instead of "Valve Sucks."

I didn't create this thread.

Considering what they are doing with Steam, outages are to be expected.

At least we agree that Steam's concept is horrible. That a remote server with continuing problems is required to play the game is a bad design. Just activate it once (single player) and let each server do multi-player authentication. Sure there will be rogue servers, but those can be shut down as they pop up. The activate once and local server authentication models work great, unlike unreliable Steam.

 

[rcolbert]

Step back from the details and most would agree that the Steam model is a better one than what most games are doing today. Having said that, it's not a better model for cheaters and pirates. It also has not been implemented perfectly yet. Either way, using the Internet instead of a CD-ROM drive just makes sense. The Steam infrastructure just isn't as failsafe as it needs to be at this point in time. Given time I think most games will be delivered in the same way. Build a better mousetrap, and the first thing you notice is that a lot of the mice like to sit in the peanut gallery and tell you what a schmuck you are.

 

[obs]

Step back from the details and most would agree that the Steam model is a better one than what most games are doing today. Having said that, it's not a better model for cheaters and pirates. It also has not been implemented perfectly yet. Either way, using the Internet instead of a CD-ROM drive just makes sense. The Steam infrastructure just isn't as failsafe as it needs to be at this point in time. Given time I think most games will be delivered in the same way. Build a better mousetrap, and the first thing you notice is that a lot of the mice like to sit in the peanut gallery and tell you what a schmuck you are.

There is no way steam is even close to a better model than what already exists. Not even remotely. Want to sell something online? Fine, take the game, toss it on your servers, and allow those with valid cd-keys to download and install it. There, a model better than steam. Don't use accounts for the sole reason of making the user agree to a service agreement.

 

[Optimus]

I don't know why people attack Valve and Steam so much...

It is always easier to attack someone for a mistake rather than give constructive suggestions for repair of the mistake. I prefer the latter, however few listen to either.

1: They have brought to us two of the greatest games of all time (Half Life 1 and 2)
2: The Steam system updates your games to the newest version with no work on your part.
3: Steam has eliminated the need to re-install any of the games from their library off of CD's or DVD's.

All true. Although, I found HL2 a bit short and a bit bereft of explanation within the story (unlike HL1 on both counts).

4: Despite how buggy the game was upon release, within 3 months they have turned Half Life 2 and CS:Source into a near flawless product. Few companies can claim this.

Unfortunately, neither can Valve. They have only recently even mentioned work on re-implementing VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat), one of the best things to ever happen to an online multiplayer game. Seeing as they already had VAC in HL1, this indicates that HL2 is far from finished. I agree, many bugs have been fixed, but I conssider bad performance on capable hardware a bug, thus "flawless" does not apply in this case IMHO.

Who cares if your 3 year old Nvidia card runs like crap in HL2.

I do, <biting_sarcasm>but clearly since those who own ATI cards are the only people who play HL2 and are the only people that matter, you are correct in suggesting that no one cares.</biting_sarcasm>

My brand new ATI card runs like crap on Doom3. But you won't see me posting a "OMG! My c4rd Runz 1ike p00 in D00m!! ID SUX MY BAWLS!" on the HardForums.

A bad title, though poorly considered, does not make a point invalid.

Your posts say it clear, you can spoof the game into thinking it's an ATI card but it crashes after about 5 minutes.

Actually, as I have posted on countlessly ignored occasions, the only thing that this "spoofing" changes is that a single default setting is changed which fixes a water display issue. It is called "NoUserClipPlanes" or something similar and must be set to 0 or removed from the dxsupport.cfg file for NVidia FX cards.

This tells me that you are forcing the program to do something it wasn't meant to do. It'd be like me overclocking my processor to double the speed and complaining that windows won't stay up for more than an hour.

The program was meant to display water correctly. Thus making this change should not crash the PC. However, if modified as I have explained previously, it will not crash so this is a moot point.

So either grow up and quit complaining or get a job and buy a card worthy to play the Game of the Year.

Ever considered that we may have jobs but simply have more noble money holes than a computer upgrade that costs as much as 4 trips to the grocery store?

Step back from the details and most would agree that the Steam model is a better one than what most games are doing today. Having said that, it's not a better model for cheaters and pirates. It also has not been implemented perfectly yet. Either way, using the Internet instead of a CD-ROM drive just makes sense. The Steam infrastructure just isn't as failsafe as it needs to be at this point in time. Given time I think most games will be delivered in the same way.

Agreed. Except that so far, cheaters still get away with full out cheating in HL2.

Build a better mousetrap, and the first thing you notice is that a lot of the mice like to sit in the peanut gallery and tell you what a schmuck you are.

And a lot of people complain about the mice that are getting through your traps.

Why?
I happen to hate the FX series, and anyone trying to defend it.
I think Optimus deserves this title.

Oh, how I would experience absolute ecstacy to stoop to your childish level by name calling and maligning others with misinformation.
You wanna grow up and open your ears for a change? I have never defended the FX series, and while I can't say I hate them, as they outperform any previous generation in all but HL2, I dislike them as well.
Honestly, I prefer honest, open minded debate to childish, inane, ignorant drabble. But it is hard to have such a beneficial discussion when some will make childish insults rather than listen to valid points and counter points.

Sorry to drag you out in the open for this, Scali, but people who deflect insults, rather than dispute them head-on, have a tendency to get on my last nerve. Especially, when they deflect them at me.

 

[Scali]

Oh, how I would experience absolute ecstacy to stoop to your childish level by name calling and maligning others with misinformation.
You wanna grow up and open your ears for a change? I have never defended the FX series, and while I can't say I hate them, as they outperform any previous generation in all but HL2, I dislike them as well.
Honestly, I prefer honest, open minded debate to childish, inane, ignorant drabble. But it is hard to have such a beneficial discussion when some will make childish insults rather than listen to valid points and counter points.

Sorry to drag you out in the open for this, Scali, but people who deflect insults, rather than dispute them head-on, have a tendency to get on my last nerve. Especially, when they deflect them at me.

No offence, but to me it seems like you're doing pretty much the same. You see that your FX card doesn't perform properly in what is the most advanced shader game to date, and instead of accepting the fact that the FX card has weak shader support, you blame Valve for picking the 'wrong' solution around the weak shader problem... namely to use simpler shaders, rather than trying to reduce precision in the regular shaders, even though there is plenty of evidence that no matter how far you reduce precision, you will never get competitive framerates with ATi cards of the same pricerange.

 

[Jerunk]

I didn't create this thread.

At least we agree that Steam's concept is horrible. That a remote server with continuing problems is required to play the game is a bad design. Just activate it once (single player) and let each server do multi-player authentication. Sure there will be rogue servers, but those can be shut down as they pop up. The activate once and local server authentication models work great, unlike unreliable Steam.

How is Steams concept horrible? It's actually amazing. Content Delivery systems are great, for the end user and the companies. It's not supposed to be unreliable, as that was definately not the concept.

Also, I havn't had any problems with steam.

 

[Optimus]

No offence, but to me it seems like you're doing pretty much the same. You see that your FX card doesn't perform properly in what is the most advanced shader game to date, and instead of accepting the fact that the FX card has weak shader support, you blame Valve for picking the 'wrong' solution around the weak shader problem... namely to use simpler shaders, rather than trying to reduce precision in the regular shaders, even though there is plenty of evidence that no matter how far you reduce precision, you will never get competitive framerates with ATi cards of the same pricerange.

While I don't disagree with the facts that you have stated (about me, Valve, or the FX series), I don't understand how my opinion is a childish insult?

In the computer hardware industry, as unfortunate and assinign as it may be, when hardware is designed improperly and it is possible to fix the problem in software, it is the responsibility of the software developer to fix the problem. I know, I know. It sounds stupid and IMHO it is stupid. But that is the way it has been for decades, nearly half of a century. That's probably why most of the game developers have been complacent with the NVidia TWIMTBP propaganda campaign.
The reasoning is that it is cheaper to fix a problem in software than it is in hardware. And in most cases it is. Consumer level video hardware is one of those rare cases where the industry norm has a tendency to bite you in the butt. The pricepoint at which most video cards that we buy are sold makes it so that there is a small window (that NVidia completely missed) where hardware errors can be repaired before they becaome to costly. This, of course, is magnified greatly by the fact that the system is not proprietary and therefore competitors will emerge offering solutions without the flaws.
I agree, it is a bit presumptuous of us to ask that a company with no ties to NVidia to fix a problem caused by NVidia's error, but we are limited to only that solution since complaining to NVidia did little to fix the problems.

And besides all this:
Everyone else put the effort into it. Why can't Valve?

 

[Optimus]

Also, I havn't had any problems with steam.

Try playing HL2 in offline mode. 50% chance it won't work. Doesn't for me.

 

[slowbiz]

um, yeah. valve does suck.

 

[jon67]

Try playing HL2 in offline mode. 50% chance it won't work. Doesn't for me.

Do you have any references, surveys or similar to back up this statement? Apart from "doesn't work for me"? I understand that you're angry since your vid card is insufficient for HL2, but don't make up "facts" that are clearly wrong.

 

[lopoetve]

Try playing HL2 in offline mode. 50% chance it won't work. Doesn't for me.

I don't know what you're talking about. Easiest way to force it is disable the network, then fire up the game. Boom, offline mode.

 

[Scali]

While I don't disagree with the facts that you have stated (about me, Valve, or the FX series), I don't understand how my opinion is a childish insult?

I never said it was.

In the computer hardware industry, as unfortunate and assinign as it may be, when hardware is designed improperly and it is possible to fix the problem in software, it is the responsibility of the software developer to fix the problem. I know, I know. It sounds stupid and IMHO it is stupid. But that is the way it has been for decades, nearly half of a century. That's probably why most of the game developers have been complacent with the NVidia TWIMTBP propaganda campaign.

Well I can give you a whole list of games that didn't work properly on ATi cards before the Radeon-age (or should I bring up Matrox/S3/XGI cards?). Those surely were never fixed either.
So basically this is nonsense. Slow cards were never given any extra attention before, so I don't see why there should be an exception just because the FX happens to be from NVIDIA, the one company that never made a slow card before.
The only software that should be doing the fixing is the driver, and that's NVIDIA's responsibility.

And besides all this:
Everyone else put the effort into it. Why can't Valve?

That's where you're wrong. Nobody did anything extra for the GeForce FX cards... except for ID that is, they originally had a specific FX path... but guess what? It never made it to the release either!
The only difference is what I already said before... because Valve chose to use ps1.x shaders, NV didn't have the opportunity to replace the ps2.0 shaders with handoptimized ones in the drivers. No big deal, since the game performs great anyway. NV couldn't do much better.