From: Mouse [#1]
12 Mar 9:52
To: ALL
So they've announced Steam for Apple based computers. And control configuration and game saves are saved to the cloud so you can skip between PC and Mac. That's good that, makes me 5% more likely to buy a Mac at somepoint in the distant future.
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From: MrStevens (BOFF) [#2]
12 Mar 9:58
To: Mouse [#1] 12 Mar 9:59
What's it up to now?
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From: Mouse [#3]
12 Mar 10:00
To: MrStevens (BOFF) [#2] 12 Mar 10:07
I'd say roughly 5%.
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From: Dave!! [#4]
12 Mar 11:10
To: Mouse [#1] 12 Mar 11:14
I have a Mac. Well, 2 Macs actually. And this announcement will not make me want to game on them any more than I currently do. Still, it'll please those rabid Mac fanboys that refuse to touch anything related to Bill Gates I suppose!
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From: Mouse [#5]
12 Mar 11:15
To: Dave!! [#4] 12 Mar 11:52
Course Apples products being as penned in and hard to upgrade is going to be somewhat of a brick wall for Valve at least in the future. Maybe it will make them make games that scale well though graphically which is no bad thing.
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From: Dave!! [#6]
12 Mar 11:53
To: Mouse [#5] 12 Mar 12:04
They certainly used to. When Half Life 2 came out, it had DX9, DX8 and DX7 code paths to cope with old kit. The problem for a lot of developers is that it's just not worth the effort to code for especially old cards which are only being used by about 5% of the market.
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From: Mouse [#7]
12 Mar 12:06
To: Dave!! [#6] 12 Mar 12:37
Hmm, does Steam do fancy things where it knows everyone member's hardware spec? If they did then they could easily target game builds to the optimal audience. If they don't do that they should, unless Apple's patented it.
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From: Matt [#8]
12 Mar 12:09
To: Mouse [#7] 12 Mar 18:12
Steam do regular hardware surveys, but it's an opt-in thing and not done automatically. Steam should prompt you to complete the survey occasionally.
Linky:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Reply
From: milko [#9]
12 Mar 12:37
To: Mouse [#5] 12 Mar 18:12
reckon if this does well, Apple might get a bit better at doing upgrades. Trouble is, most of their computers are iMacs and laptops which aren't really likely to be ever possible to change a graphics card in.
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From: Dave!! [#10]
12 Mar 12:40
To: Matt [#8] 12 Mar 12:43
There are a few interesting figures there, such as AMD having a larger share of the CPU market than ATI does of the graphics card market. And ATI having the top DX10 card, despite the lower market share. Aye, always interesting to have a dig through those surveys, even if they might not be a completely accurate representation of gamers' systems.
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From: Voltane [#11]
12 Mar 16:43
To: Matt [#8] 12 Mar 17:22
Ooh, how do I tell them what my PC has got? Can't find a link anywhere.
And it's a pity it doesn't give OS install dates. (see attached)
Image Attachments:
OS.jpg
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From: Matt [#12]
12 Mar 17:24
To: Voltane [#11] 12 Mar 17:28
It will occasionally ask you to complete the survey. Not sure if users are randomly selected or if it's everyone.
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