Can I play games in OSX against Windows users?

[riptideMBP]

Hi,
I bought the valve complete pack from steam's summer camp sale, and I was wondering if I could play the games from OSX with my friends who have windows only PCs. I ask because I can only download them once this month (network cap) and it would be much more convenient to have the games on the mac side, but if I cant play across operating systems then I will just use bootcamp.

 

[0098386]

Yeah you can. Also Portal 2 owners on PC/Mac can play with PS3 owners. It's all a great big love-in.

 

[JamesCotte]

Hi,
I bought the valve complete pack from steam's summer camp sale, and I was wondering if I could play the games from OSX with my friends who have windows only PCs. I ask because I can only download them once this month (network cap) and it would be much more convenient to have the games on the mac side, but if I cant play across operating systems then I will just use bootcamp.

Yea you can, I used to play Counterstrike with my friends on steam. And he was using a Windows laptop tho.

 

[TheKnowledgeGuy]

Since you're tending to talk about Steam games or, more specifically, Valve games—I think that Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are the only non-cross-platform multiplayer Valve games.

Cheers.

 

[riptideMBP]

Alright, thanks for your help. I guess I'll start downloading in osx

 

[JamesCotte]

Alright, thanks for your help. I guess I'll start downloading in osx

Nice, way to go. If you play counterstrike, then tell me I'll join games with you

 

[Sambo110]

Since you're tending to talk about Steam games or, more specifically, Valve games—I think that Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are the only non-cross-platform multiplayer Valve games.

Cheers.

This is completely wrong. ALL Valve games on OS X can be played Mac>Windows.

 

[riptideMBP]

This is completely wrong. ALL Valve games on OS X can be played Mac>Windows.

Awesome! does anyone know if the performance increase for running valves games in windows instead of osx is significant? (i actually won't be able to download for 2 weeks)

 

[hamlin]

Why wouldn't they play together? Its all the same servers. Just you own a computer that costs more and is less powerful than the pc players.


The games will run better in Windows.

 

[deadwulfe]

It depends on the game. Not all games (beyond Valve's titles) will allow online play between Windows and Macs.

And I don't think all of Valve's games will run better in Windows. I'm pretty sure I recall Dagless or Huntn mentioning that Portal 2 seems to run better in OSX.

 

[Sambo110]

SOME games will run better in Windows. In this performance comparison, two games run better under OS X (on an iMac), and two ran better under Windows. The two that were made for Mac, and not ported, ran better under OS X (other than Starcraft 2, which is weird). Take from that what you will.

 

[roadbloc]

THE MAJORITY, IF NOT ALL games will run better in Windows.

Fix'd.

 

[0098386]

SOME games will run better in Windows. In this performance comparison, two games run better under OS X (on an iMac), and two ran better under Windows. The two that were made for Mac, and not ported, ran better under OS X (other than Starcraft 2, which is weird). Take from that what you will.

That's actually most games. There are few exceptions - Portal 2 and WoW, as that link points out. But most work better on Win, out of all the Steamplay games I have only Portal 2 (out of 40 titles) works equal or better on OSX.

 

[JamesCotte]

I think they are the same but only problem that OS X have less game to play than Window

 

[MinuteBracelet]

Hi,
I bought the valve complete pack from steam's summer camp sale, and I was wondering if I could play the games from OSX with my friends who have windows only PCs. I ask because I can only download them once this month (network cap) and it would be much more convenient to have the games on the mac side, but if I cant play across operating systems then I will just use bootcamp.

Of course!
I'm pretty sure almost all Mac Source games are Cross-platform multiplayer.
For a while, while my windows partition was unavailable, I used my mac to play Source games. Mac is perfect for it (except when you need to use the function keys; go to system preferences > keyboard and check the box that says something like "use function keys normally")
I play with windows users all the time, and some even flame me for being on a mac because they doubt it's capabilities.
The only problem is that certain games like Garrysmod, and occasionally TF2, are less stable on the mac multiplayer than PC. Other than that they run just as if they were windows apps.