What is steam?
Steam is the program that allows you to use Valve's games.
This is including the:
Half life
Counter-strike
Counter-strike Condition Zero
Opposing Force
Team Fortess Classic
Deathmatch Classic
Ricochet
Codename Gordon
These are the main selected mods from the Half Life game.
Steam is the new program taken over from WON servers. Future releases from Valve will also go through steam!
The Steam program makes all people sign up to the program before they are allowed to access any servers. The main reasons why Steam was made :
· The amount of updates and bug fixes from the mods
· The vast amount of mods
· To lower the amount of hackers
· Making all members that wish to play the game. Having to register their cd keys online, to their account.
· Making sure that everyone owns a copy of the game!
Steam has many highs and very many lows.
Highs:
People are able to update without having to look for the patches!
They are able to see where their friends are playing through the steam messager!
Look at what mods are avaible and buy through steam if necessary!
Able to download maps, sound files from the server very well!
Lows:
Many lag problems and fps problems
A lot higher specs
Not able to load due to the network down
Lots of timeouts
Uses all of your cpu resources possible even on high cpus like 3ghz
Of course there is gonna be problems. But the main problem is they have upset fans as it is not working correctly, and for a game that is 5yrs old it is taking up much of the pc power. Unlike the won versions of the game!
The intentions of Steam are very handy, no more need for looking for the updates or any new mods released, because I can download through Steam. Also downloading from servers generally works well.
But for me this is still in beta testing. It is not reliable enough and keeps using a lot of resources. On some maps i get less than 30fps, then on others 100fps (max it can go) on a 9800pro. Obviously it will happen but it is a dramatic increase, believe me from the days of Charlie or Omaha! The lag increase is enormous and happens often on many pc's. Its not even the internet playing up. Its just Steam's capabilty and what it wants.
I have this program, because I enjoy all of the Half Life mods, and WON servers no longer exist!
I am unable to find any Steam specs available. But I can tell you this, 56kers are gonna have a problem to play this game and download.
Dave's recommended specs:
1ghz+
256mb ram+
32 gf 4+
256k+
Go get the program from
www.steampowered.com
Also if you have a problem visit their forums.
Note: a Half Life cd-key gets all games except Condition Zero. CZ gets Counter Strike and Counter Strike Condition Zero. Opposing Force key doesn't seem to work. You can only get it to work if you take jpg of a receipt, cd-key and cd. Like we keep every receipt.
Any mods that you had. Most can be installed via Steam.
Note: Steam will not update the mod if it is a 3rd party game. You will have to download them yourself!
Any Half Life mod you wish to put through Steam use the following directory!
C:\Program files\valve\steam\steam apps\your account or e-mail\half life
Then next time you restart Steam it should be there.
Here what it looks like
Well I hope this program improves! But I also hope to see you lot in game sometime!
Discussion >>
