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Steam = Successful

S

Sambo110

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 12, 2007
1,686
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Australia
In other Mac news, we're getting ready to add Mac numbers to our hardware survey. As longtime Steam customers are aware, our Steam Hardware Survey has become an industry benchmark for gauging what kinds of computers gamers are running around the world. We are in the process of updating this monthly report with Mac information and other new aggregate data. Here's a sneak peak at some of the preliminary findings we've gathered about Mac hardware since we launched on that platform just over a week ago:

- Roughly two thirds of all Steam Mac users are running on a laptop.
- Portal (with the same code base across platforms) is one fifth as likely to crash on a Mac than on Windows.
- And one week after launch, already more than eleven percent of all Steam purchases are for the Mac.

Eleven percent is pretty good, considering there aren't many Mac games out at the moment. Hopefully it inspires more developers to port over.
 
Eleven percent eh? Bet that'll level off after a while – probably a lot of people picking up the deals that Steam has. Who knows. I wonder how many of those users are brand-new to Steam?
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see the percentage increase steadily. It might obviously decrease instead, but there's not much choice yet and when the big hitters come mac users will lap them up.

The humble bundle stats showed mac users willing to pay more for games than windows users. Interesting. I'm happy people are supporting steam so early, it's great news for all parties. :)
 
The reason is simple, macs have quite a decent part of the market and all macs have gaming potential.
The slowest graphics you get is now the 320M, which is pretty capable, while many PCs have intel graphics.
 
cluthz said:
The reason is simple, macs have quite a decent part of the market and all macs have gaming potential.
The slowest graphics you get is now the 320M, which is pretty capable, while many PCs have intel graphics.
Click to expand...

The 320M can barely play SC2 on medium settings. For $799 you can get a Dell with a 1 GB 335M GT, better than Apple's most expensive laptop. You can't 1 GB of VRAM in ANY Mac computer, laptop or desktop.

IMO, the "gaming potential" for Macs is really weak, especially considering that games will always take a performance hit in OS X. I love Apple, but they seriously need to get their graphics together. I cringed when Steve said they chose "killer graphics over the latest processor" for the low-end MBP.
 
While the list of games isn't as extensive as it is on the PC side of Steam (obviously), I can confirm that I have never spend as much time on native gaming under OSX as during last week. :D
 
I'd be curious if downloading Portal while it's free was included in their 11% statistic. I can see it going either way from here: diminishing because all the people who just checked out Steam on launch day and downloaded Portal leave, or growing because it starts to catch on more and more. I'm hoping it will be the latter. I bet there will also be much bigger numbers for the Mac when Valve releases more of its own games.
 
Wait until Team Fortress 2 comes out. I'm beta testing it right now. It's a great game IMO. It's becoming more stable every day.
 
Cougarcat said:
The 320M can barely play SC2 on medium settings. For $799 you can get a Dell with a 1 GB 335M GT, better than Apple's most expensive laptop. You can't 1 GB of VRAM in ANY Mac computer, laptop or desktop.

IMO, the "gaming potential" for Macs is really weak, especially considering that games will always take a performance hit in OS X. I love Apple, but they seriously need to get their graphics together. I cringed when Steve said they chose "killer graphics over the latest processor" for the low-end MBP.
Click to expand...
Considering the fact that the current 512MB 330m on the MacBook Pro doesn't show any performance gains over the 256MB until you're running at a resolution as high as 2560x1600, I doubt the 1GB in that Dell will show any improvements either basing this solely on VRAM.

Oh, and for the record you CAN get 1GB cards for the Mac Pro:
NVIDIA GTX 285
 
I'm really liking Steam so far. My only issue is with the trackpad scrolling speed in the UI. I've downloaded almost all my Steam games that I can (17 so far) and tested most of them, performance is brilliant. Not as good as when booted into Windows with overclock utilities running, but still a huge leap forward from a month ago.
I emailed Zenimax to ask if they could get id to bring over their library, to which they said;
We have no announced plans for porting id/Bethesda/ZeniMax titles to Steam for Mac. If/when that changes, we'll let folks know.
Click to expand...
So fingers crossed they bring over the Dooms and Quakes we all love!

I don't like how you can't alt+tab (or similar) out of games though. I had to get back into Mail and Safari to fix a problem I was having with Altitude, so it was a pain having to quit the game continuously.

aiqw9182 said:
Oh, and for the record you CAN get 1GB cards for the Mac Pro:
NVIDIA GTX 285
Click to expand...
The GTX285 is overpriced and old. Apple really need to start including high-end graphics cards from this year, not 1-2 years ago. It's still a very capable card though.
 
Dagless said:
The GTX285 is overpriced and old. Apple really need to start including high-end graphics cards from this year, not 1-2 years ago. It's still a very capable card though.
Click to expand...
I never said it wasn't old. He stated that there were no 1GB cards available on any Mac, so I showed him a card that 1GB of VRAM that you can get on the Mac. The card being old/overpriced had nothing to do with it.

But I'm expecting a 5870 in the new 6 core Xeon Mac Pro's (whenever Intel decides to make their new Xeon chips widely available).
 
11% on a "non gaming" platform after one week, with few games available yet is fantastic.

Hope these stories keep coming out, and maybe, just maybe force Apple's hand in giving more attention to the gaming market.
 
Well, hopefuly all the work in creating the ports of the games will work out financialy for the steam, and the developers. Hopefully, an 11% increase in revenue will encourage other developers to put out games for the Mac.

I know I have not purchased a game in about a year, and last week I picked up Torchlight.
 
Heres hoping HL1 Source and HL2 come out soon, i would happily pay for HL1 and look forward to being able to play HL2 again.

If Steam brings more games with rich engaging stories i am happy to buy them, until then Portal it is.
 
Will need to find out how to disable and remove achievements in Steam, can't seem to find the option to turn them off.
Anyone know the bug report url for Steam?
 
Eidorian said:
The Steam Cloud is becoming very annoying. I don't want my settings being carried across the platforms.
Click to expand...
It depends on the game. Most Steam Cloud games have the option hidden somewhere (I know TF2 and L4D do).

babyjenniferLB said:
Will need to find out how to disable and remove achievements in Steam, can't seem to find the option to turn them off.
Anyone know the bug report url for Steam?
Click to expand...

You can't disable or reset achievements. Which is a bit annoying.
 
babyjenniferLB said:
Will need to find out how to disable and remove achievements in Steam, can't seem to find the option to turn them off.
Anyone know the bug report url for Steam?
Click to expand...
You can't turn them off.

Eidorian said:
The Steam Cloud is becoming very annoying. I don't want my settings being carried across the platforms.
Click to expand...
I believe that ability to do that varies from game to game.

EDIT: gah jimmi I knew I shouldn't have taken a couple minutes to read another forum instead of replying. :p
 
aiqw9182 said:
Considering the fact that the current 512MB 330m on the MacBook Pro doesn't show any performance gains over the 256MB until you're running at a resolution as high as 2560x1600, I doubt the 1GB in that Dell will show any improvements either basing this solely on VRAM.

Oh, and for the record you CAN get 1GB cards for the Mac Pro:
NVIDIA GTX 285
Click to expand...

Well, the 335M is slightly better than the 330M anyway. It has more pipelines than all of Apple's laptops, in a computer that costs $200 less than Apple's lowest-end.

I missed the GTX 285 because it isn't an upgradable option, you have to buy it separately, which is odd. But to get a Mac with 1 GB of VRAM you have to pay over $3,000, which is ridiculous.

It's 2010. The middle/high end Apple computers should have this year's graphics cards, 512 MB VRAM standard and 1 GB upgradable. Anything less just looks cheap.
 
Eidorian said:
The Steam Cloud is becoming very annoying. I don't want my settings being carried across the platforms.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And that is my only gripe. It should be made an optional service. It has totally messed up my Portal and Monkey Island saves.

I'm so happy that Steam has come to Mac, and I think Valve are doing a brill job (for Valve that is.)
 
Dagless said:
It depends on the game. Most Steam Cloud games have the option hidden somewhere (I know TF2 and L4D do).
Click to expand...
True there is that checkbox.

The problem being I have specific setups for each platform. I was unable play Portal unless I accepted the changes from the Cloud or uploaded my local changes.

The largest benefit of Steam on Mac is that I can chat with my Steam friends without rebooting into Windows.
 
Cougarcat said:
The 320M can barely play SC2 on medium settings. For $799 you can get a Dell with a 1 GB 335M GT, better than Apple's most expensive laptop. You can't 1 GB of VRAM in ANY Mac computer, laptop or desktop.

IMO, the "gaming potential" for Macs is really weak, especially considering that games will always take a performance hit in OS X. I love Apple, but they seriously need to get their graphics together. I cringed when Steve said they chose "killer graphics over the latest processor" for the low-end MBP.
Click to expand...

so? if you bought a Mac just for gaming.. your weird.

Its about buying a Mac and ALSO being able to game on it... not that its the only reason your using it. I wouldn't use that Dell if it was given to me for free... I'd just sell it.... its useless. I'm sure it works fine for someone who just wants to game.
 
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