Valve bringing Steam to Mac | Hacker News Reader

Valve bringing Steam to Mac

wired.com

177 pointsblazamos78 comments

I love that the mac is going to be treated as a tier-1 game device by valve and that you don't need to buy both a mac version if you have already purchased the PC version.

This could be the catalyst that the mac world was looking for to be more gamer oriented and not an afterthought.

This also means a lot more games will be developed with OpenGL rather than just DirectX, which might bring many more future games to Linux as well.

Now there's a moving target. Given the amount of testing that is required just to get modern games to work across most hardware without problems (on Windows), Linux (which distros?) as a tier-1 platform is wishful thinking. The mass gaming market exists on stable, more or less predictable platforms.

He didn't say anything about Linux as a "tier-1 platform". I don't think there are many of us fooling ourselves about the worthiness of that kind of investment; there's just not enough money in Linux gaming to hold up a release on Mac/Win for Linux issues.

The guy said OpenGL-based games might be good for Linux, which is indeed true; it's much easier to go from an OpenGL Mac game to an OpenGL Linux game than it is to go from DX Windows to OpenGL Linux.

Games on Mac are good news for Linux because if the game is made sanely, it shouldn't be much work to get it to at least compile on Linux, as both systems are more or less POSIX compatible. This is good! Even if there are problems with the Linux build after a successful compilation, we're still much further ahead than we are with a DirectX Windows game as the target.

Furthermore, making the OpenGL renderers available under Windows may greatly improve the experience in WINE, especially for non-flagship games. Again, there's no guarantee that this renderer will be exposed in Windows, but even if not, there's at least a tangible possibility that it might happen sometime.

The bottom line is that the investment required to port a Mac game to Linux is almost always going to be much less than the investment required to port a [DirectX] Windows game to Linux. Therefore, previously Windows-only games coming to Mac is great news because at the very least it makes the possibility of a Linux release that much closer.

wine also works considerably better on OpenGL, as I understand it. A movement toward OpenGL usage would bring immediate benefits to Linux gamers.

Right, but there's no guarantee that the OpenGL renderer will be exposed to the Windows games.

Maybe not linux, but Ubuntu ?

That would be awesome. The only game I play is Call of Duty 4 because it's too annoying to reboot my Mac Pro in Windows mode.

What's even better I think is the expansion of Steam Cloud into savegames altogether. The ability to sync progress on a game seamlessly and automatically across multiple machines is going to be a real treat.

It's already useful for hardcore gamers now - go to a gaming cafe, log into your Steam account, and all of your control schemes and settings are just the way you like 'em.

Now if only it were possible to buy a good graphics card on an Apple computer. I say this as a proud owner of a Macbook Pro, by the way.

The mid-range "customizable" Mac Pro has always been a pipe dream for me :(

I hope this kicks off the gaming peripheral market for macs. It would be lovely to have a a handheld controller to play this stuff. Macbook Pro keyboards are not very good for gaming :) The tiny arrow keys are pissing off.

I hear the ps3 controller already hooks up with snow leopard easily, so that's good news.

EDIT: Google search for "ps3 controller snow leopard" shows a bunch of hits, just to confirm what I said. http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS368US368&so...

I never use the arrow keys when gaming. A friend showed me the setup I use to this day: look with the mouse, right mouse walks, left mouse fires, shift/c strafe left/right, z secondary fire, x duck.

AFAIK the canonical FPS setup is wasd for up/strafe left/down/strafe right, left click for fire, right click for secondary fire, x for duck and z for prone. Or, anyway, it's what I use. I think it allows for more flexibility in movement, but sometimes cheap keyboards don't support strafe+forward+duck together too well without using modifiers (ctrl/shift).

Actually shifting wasd over to the right is a more natural stance if you do any typing. WSAD => EDSF etc. If you're not already used to wasd then definitely consider it.

It is also useful to have an extra set of keys to the left other than tab/caps/shift

Interesting. If only I'd been shown that 15 years ago when I still had some ability to rewire my neuronal pathways.

I can't imagine being too old to get used to a new control scheme. It's like being too old to switch to standard instead of automatic.

It is more like a well established touch typer switching from qwerty to dvorak, it can happen just takes will to change and a good amount of time.

how do you walk backward?

Mouselook around, or whip it around if you're playing an FPS. I can't think of too many times where actually walking backwards would be advantageous since it usually makes you move more slowly.

shooting while retreating would be one scenario I can think of. Someone else said it but the typical fps setup is wsad space jump, ctrl or shift =crouch or run with mouselook.

Alt key, right under my left thumb.

The Wiimote can connect to the Mac as well. I current use one with Remote Buddy (http://www.iospirit.com/products/remotebuddy/) to control a Mac as a media center computer. The buttons work great, but I haven't had good luck with the motion sensor though.

If playing Meteor Blitz is any indication, the iPhone/iPod Touch can make a very nice game controller. (You'd probably want all of the CPU and other resources devoted to just controlling.) It might be worth Apple's while to hire 2 or 3 devs and have them cranking out iPhone interfaces to Steam games.

The Logitech G13 game controller works flawlessly on Mac OS X and is a hell of a lot more comfortable if you want to game on your laptop. It can also store keymap profiles on the device itself so you can use it on any computer.

As a user who endured many crashes in Team Fortress 2 with the edge versions of Crossover Games, I'm happy that I'll become a first-class citizen soon...

I'm in the exact same position. The crashes are very random.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/3569/

"Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."

I think there is a difference between a blog post and a news article by an established site, such as Wired. Personally, I'd rather see Wired's news article than a company press release.

Wired did reporting beyond the press release itself. The part of the guidelines you quoted is, I think, more aimed at blog posts that add no value, just quote another news story verbatim.

I don't entirely disagree, but it should be presented as commentary instead of news. I guess I was just a little ticked that Wired didn't even link to the official announcement.

I think that's probably because the announcement wasn't up until after Wired had published, as Wired and several other news sources just got the release dropped in their inboxes directly.

Often times, we (journalists) get sent the news/releases directly. Most of the time we're not even sent the link, so that's what we work off of.

My experience with Steam on windows has not been entirely pleasant. Granted, the poor user interface, and the endless amount of intrusion into the startup and gaming process can quickly be forgiven in light of the fact that I got one of the most entertaining games I've ever played through Steam: Portal.

Still, as someone who really doesn't want to have to own a high-end windows box for the sole purpose of gaming, this announcement make me (cautiously?) optimistic.

They've just released an early version of the new UI, and it's MUCH faster and less intrusive (I think). That said, I can't really say it's all that bad when compared to most any other similar tool. Plus, SteamFriends and other things are just plain amazing for gamers -- frankly I don't know how I used to get by without them.

the current steam beta ui has been ported from ie to webkit (which was a hint that they were going to introduce mac support)

Last time I used Steam I spent a couple of hours trying to debug a game that crashed on startup. Eventually I figured out how to start the game without Steam interfering, and found that when I start the game without Steam I would get a very helpful error message, that told me exactly what the problem was. When I started the game with steam, the game would just crash with no error messages.

After that, I did a lot of cursing at Steam.

I did the same thing and have swore to never buy another game by them again. I never got the game to work...

I own 150 odd games on Steam. I'm possibly right in the "average" for a gamer, ~ 25 years old, lots of disposable income (corporate programming) etc. Most of my gamer orientated friends are sitting in the same category, and also own ~100 -> 200 games each. Perhaps steam just isn't orientated towards you? Did you jump on the forums (the quickest solution to a problem is to ask) or fire off a support request (can take ~ 10 days, but usually they will resolve it?). I personally love that I can see when a friend jumps into a game of TF2 (Team Fortress 2), and follow them in with 2 clicks (right click on name ==> join server).

Still, all the same, it's nice to have a high end windows box just for gaming. I also use mine for testing web sites (so it's a valid company purchase :)

Give this seamless integration with Front Row. (In the UI but have it be a modular add-on install.)

Why? So you can select the game with a remote control, and then walk over the the computer to play it?

Why not? Many games can be played with controllers instead of mouse and keyboard. If you're using your computer as a media center hooked up to your TV, then being able to select the game via remote could be quite convenient.

Exactly. Hide the "computer" aspect and just make it part of the entertainment center. Release an Apple controller with pre-configured button/key mappings for all of the Steam games. Have a "Widget" style window display these. Make the Mac Mini into even more of a multi-use device.

The thing could soon have enough horsepower to support a lot of the Nintendo Wii portfolio.

Most of the Steam games are wasd-based, which you really don't want to replicate with a controller. I played Portal on my XBox, which was OK, but TF2 sucks with a controller. The keyboard and mouse is a great control combination for serious games.

Even Peggle would be hard to play with a controller.

Most of the games are wasd-based by default, but many can be configured to use a controller, if desired -- especially the games that are also released on the PS3/360.

Whether a game is particularly suited to a controller is another matter, but this is in part a function of popularity; if more people played using controllers (as they might with a media center setup), companies will make more games that cater to them. Valve in particular is especially aware of the hardware hooked up to a player's machine, through their regular Steam hardware surveys and fanatical in-game tracking.

And while I agree that I can't see the appeal of playing a competitive multiplayer FPS with a controller against opponents with keyboards/mice, that doesn't stop a lot of people from trying: http://www.google.com/search?q=pc+counterstrike+controller&#...

I play on a computer because I prefer a keyboard and mouse.

Does this mean PC games on Mac? Pardon my ignorance.

Yes and no. Valve is porting some of its existing PC/Xbox game titles to run natively on the Mac platform, and most (or all?) of their new titles will be released simultaneously on PC, Mac, and XBox 360.

Further, Valve is bring it's "App Store for Games" to the Mac, which will encourage other game publishers to port to the Mac, and give them a solid sales-platform to do so on.

Carrying that train of thought further, they should integrate with Apple's App Store. Everyone on a mac uses iTunes anyway, why should they have to install Steam separately?

Because Valve don't have to give Apple a cut when people buy through Steam.

Steam is more than just an app store, though. It's a social network, provides automatic updates for games, etc.

For the record, when I use OS X, I don't use iTunes.

One thing that I'm wondering is whether I'll be able to get the Mac version of Dragon Age, for example, through Steam without having to buy it again since I've already bought the Windows version through Steam. I'm sure there could be some licensing issues there, but if Valve managed to convince other game developers to allow them to do that with non-Valve games, it would make this even better.

Unfortunately, this is really up to the publisher of Dragon Age, EA/Bioware. Steam is just a distribution channel, like the App Store is for iPhone. They take a cut of each purchase and handle electronic downloads and DRM.

In order to get a copy for Mac for free, EA/Bioware would have to agree to allow their PC Steam customers to do this. Edit: I'm an idiot, they did release a Mac version

This isn't a magic bullet, but it's a great first step. Now that publishers have a known and trusted distribution channel on Mac, we may see more Mac versions of AAA titles.

"If players already own the PC versions of Valve games, they’ll get Mac versions at no extra charge through a feature called Steam Play."

Source: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/03/steam-mac/

Yeah, too bad that of the few games I own on Steam, a big fat zero come from Valve...

Already many students are using Apple laptops at school, and perhaps have a PC at home since you can also play games on it. If you could play all the new cool games on a Mac, instead of a home PC you could consider either getting a beefier Mac laptop or a Mac desktop system.

While there may still be a lot of people preferring a PC, I think their future number just went down a lot. Time to long AAPL?

Anyone with knowledge of the current generation of video cards know how recent models of iMacs and Macbook Pros will perform (assuming performance of Steam on Mac is comparable to its Windows counterpart).

I tried checking out the video card in my 27 inch iMac (by far the most expensive desktop I've ever purchased) and was a bit underwhelmed to find out the card was released in 2008...

My 2008 Macbook Pro (C2d 2.5ghz, 512MB Geforce 8600gt, 4GB ram) holds up pretty well with most Steam titles at reasonable settings and resolutions. I'm sure the newer ones fare even better. I wouldn't worry about your graphics card so much- even 'older' ones are pretty good still.

Will it play Crysis at full settings on a huge screen? No, but it does TF2 and Portal nicely at 1440x900.

That's the same laptop I have. Do you think it'll last for a while?

I don't really intend on getting another for a while. I might build a gaming system someday, but for daily coding- this is the best computer I've ever owned.

Any of the Source engine games should run great on the last few generations of MacBooks and iMacs. Half Life 2 actually ran fairly well on my old GMA950 based MacBook. I know Valve has added some bells & whistles to the engine since then however to target older Mac's they may simply disable some of those features when running on Intel GMA or X* hardware.

Don't expect much from a 9400M. I hope you went for the iMac with the better graphics chip.

Edit: hopefully this move helps prod Apple toward including better graphics chips by default, as paying three times as much for a computer vs DIY from Newegg shouldn't give one third the performance for games.

Hardware parity has never been a big priority for Apple. The Mac as a gaming platform may force a change that has been overdue for years. Gamers aren't going to put up with weak GPUs that run things "well enough" in medium settings or less. And they will want more than Cider ports of games, for sure.

I am able to play Half Life 2 at full settings on my older generation MacBook Pro with an 8600M when running Windows, on a 1080p monitor.

I would be interested in seeing how the 9400M does in the latest MacBook Pro's.

Some of the latest MBP's have a 9600 as well as the 9400. The 9600 runs mirrors edge pretty well on a 24" monitor at native resolution.

I played CoD: MW2 (Bootcamp) on my 27" Core Duo 2 iMac and it ran well. Not at highest quality settings, but about as well as the PS3 I'd say. No crashes either.

I really like the Steam Play concept and hope all the older Valve games I bought will use this feature.

Finally no more or at least less reboots to windows

How long before their achievements and other components are on iPhone too?

Steam does not even run well on windows why would they try to port it to mac before making it stable on windows?

I bet Apple will sooner or later throw rocks in their path. Why? That's just how Apple rolls.

Per the valve guys in an interview with AppleInsider, Apple provided quite a bit of support and help when they were porting Steam/Source to Mac.

It makes sense - Apple has been interested in Macs as a gaming platform for years, but has never been serious enough to put their considerable muscle behind it.

If someone else is willing to throw their money, time, and influence at the problem, all the better for Apple.

The interview: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/08/valve_apple_wo...

World of Warcraft has been running on OSX for several years, and Apple has helped them to get better performance over time.

Indeed, a couple of OS X updates have mentioned OpenGL changes made specifically to boost performance in WoW. For instance, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1525 "... improves the reliability of OpenGL-accelerated graphics in Blizzard's World of Warcraft".

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