Steam -- How Bad Can It Be?

[Envergure]

Hey guys.



For a long time (say, a month or two) I've wanted to get CS:S + GMod10 but I've heard a lot of negative things about Steam - compatibility, stability, expensiveness - and if these complaints are true (which I have to believe they are) then it seems most of Valve's games would be very difficult to play.


I would like to hear first-hand, from Steam users (instead of vague "developer reviews," which are just ads) just how useful or difficult to use it really is, and how this affects the games themselves.

How expensive can having an account get?
How often does it crash?
How often does it just not work?
Is it frustrating? Confusing? Difficult?
Does it reduce the fun-ness of games?

Just wondering; I don't expect to get CS:S any time soon (I've had absolutely no luck at all getting a job).


Thanks in advance.

 

[sghiznaneck]

Steam is usually loaded during the installation process of a purchased game, either in CD-ROM or DVD format.
The account is free. When asked, you insert your username and then a password to connect to your account.
As far as compatibility and stability, I've never had a problem. I played the heck out of Half Life 2 and SIN: First Episode and never had it crash. Of course, I didn't play multi-player with those games either. Still, I haven't heard or read anywhere on the net that there were problems with Steam or many people complaining, other than slowdown. The program is set for automatic game updates/patches, so you don't have to worry about manually having to search for them and downloading them.

 

[TimeParadoX]

I never have problems with steam, It's usually my Pc that is to blame for most of my problems I have with games

Steam is a great program since it started, the only people who are giving it 0/10 ratings and stuff are just stupid and do not know how to use a computer

 

[beef_jerky4104]

Steam is a great program. The reviews based on steam are generally people who don't know about PCs or who have dial-up internet. However I consider steam adware because it displays ads about new games that are now avaible. But truthfully I've never had trouble with steam. If you have dial-up stay away, because steam auto updates your games and won't let you play until they're all updated.

So in conclusion Steam works fine.

 

[sllewe]

I really like steam. I like the integration of programs and settings, as well as the friends list. It puts it all the games in one place. Bugs? Eh rarely.

 

[mopar man]

As said before, STAY AWAY if you have dial up. I made that mistake, but my only problem is the fact that it takes FOREVER (possible days) to download the updates, so I just backed them up to dvd's and now I just take them off of the cd's instead of downloading them. It can also cause problems with playing online. I have Bellsouth (AT&T now) dial up and get 44kb/s, but I can play great with 3-4 players on a smaller map, but because my graphics card (fx5200), I wouldn't be able to go much farther anyway. The downloads usually cap at 5 kb/s, and I didn't take the time to find the size of the updates.

 

[Envergure]

As said before, STAY AWAY if you have dial-up.

I've heard that a lot. Fortunately I have 256k DSL.

I... get 44kb/s... The downloads usually cap at 5 kb/s.

You're getting 44 kilobits bandwidth; The downloads run at around 5 kilobytes. Yeah, it took me a while to figure that out too .

 

[mopar man]

I have no clue what you meant by that...lol. I have yet to see the difference between bits, bytes, and what bandwidth even is.

 

[Envergure]

A bit is the smallest unit of computer data. It's either one or zero; true or false; positive or negative; etc.

A byte is the next-smallest unit of computer memory. A byte constitutes eight bits on modern computers (really old computers can have almost any number). It holds eight yeses and/or nos, and holds numbers up to 256 (2^8).

Next up is data words. Data words are sets of bytes (usually 2, 4 or 8 of them) that can hold larger numbers. They can get surprisingly complicated, though.

Bandwidth is a measure of how fast your internet connection is, measured (usually) in kilobits per second (a kilobit, or kb, is 1024 bits). Downloads, however, tend to be clocked in kilobytes per second (kB, or 1024 bytes (8192 bits) per second.


Your 44kb internet, therefore, moves at 44*1024 = 44 056 bits per second.
Your 5kB downloads go 5*8192 = 40 960 bits per second.



I hope that helped. If you want to know more about computer data types, try these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_data_type
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point
The "floating point" one is about non-integer data types (how computers store fractions and decimals).

 

[Myzz617]

I have no clue what you meant by that...lol. I have yet to see the difference between bits, bytes, and what bandwidth even is.

A Byte is 4 digits( 2 pairs of them, or 2 character sets, or simply a pair(2) nibbles put to gether) put togeather to make 8 digits. Computers know two things, negatives and positives( 0,1) 0 1 0 1 makes a nibble in which i am referring to as 4 digits. <0 1 0 1 > <0 0 1 1 > <---- Both of those together make all total to a byte. May b confusing, visit wikipedia.org if your still wondering.

Bandwidth is the amount of packets you PC send s and recieves. It simply the connection speed of your PC. Slow bandwidth occurs when alot of computers are connected to a network (Domain) and slow up internet connection speeds.

Hope that clears the smoke in the air.

Damn did not notice the post above mine, but hey i dont wish to waste time lol

8bits= Byte Half a byte=Nibble or Nybble

1024 bytes= 1 kilobyte
1024 Kilobytes= Megabyte
1024 Megabytes= Gigabyte
1024 Gigabytes= Terabyte
1024 Terabytes= Petrabyte

 

[beef_jerky4104]

A Byte is 4 digits( 2 pairs of them, or 2 character sets, or simply a pair(2) nibbles put to gether) put togeather to make 8 digits. Computers know two things, negatives and positives( 0,1) 0 1 0 1 makes a nibble in which i am referring to as 4 digits. <0 1 0 1 > <0 0 1 1 > <---- Both of those together make all total to a byte. May b confusing, visit wikipedia.org if your still wondering.

Bandwidth is the amount of packets you PC send s and recieves. It simply the connection speed of your PC. Slow bandwidth occurs when alot of computers are connected to a network (Domain) and slow up internet connection speeds.

Hope that clears the smoke in the air.

Damn did not notice the post above mine, but hey i dont wish to waste time lol

8bits= Byte Half a byte=Nibble or Nybble

1024 bytes= 1 kilobyte
1024 Kilobytes= Megabyte
1024 Megabytes= Gigabyte
1024 Gigabytes= Terabyte
1024 Terabytes= Petrabyte

A bit is the smallest unit of computer data. It's either one or zero; true or false; positive or negative; etc.

This thread had nothing to do with my bits and bytes. This thread was created with the intention of discussing Steams pros and cons.

Please, stay on topic.

 

[Barnezz]

As stated before if you have dial-up steam is sooooooooooooooo bad. I guess that its depressing you have to login to steam to play HL2 but if you really like buying and downloading games online (direct2drive?) steams a great way to get games . Before I had DSL I used steam with dial-up and It took me like 3 hours to login to steam because of all the steam updates but now I have DSL and I like! Also the cool thing about steam games is that they are updated every time you play! Check out ---www.lost.eu/42bbb---

 

[Myzz617]

Someone had a question, was only providing an answer.

I have no clue what you meant by that...lol. I have yet to see the difference between bits, bytes, and what bandwidth even is.

Also the creator of this thread addresses this issue........

 

[Envergure]

I have no problem with explaining what bits and bytes are to someone in this thread. Lots of threads here have veered off-topic, and sometimes it gets really interesting!

 

[nickslick74]

I've had Steam since it came out and have never had any big problems with it. Like anything new there were few bugs in the begining and occasionally a new update causes problems, but nothing big.

As far as gameplay goes it runs flawlessly! I like the fact that Steam handles all of the updates so you don't have to go somewhere and wait in line to download (used to have to do this).

 

[TimeParadoX]

However I consider steam adware because it displays ads about new games.

Actually you can disable that, Go to the steam icon thing in your toolbar > Settings > Messages and uncheck both of the boxes

 

[beef_jerky4104]

Oh well thats cool. I wish I had known that.