Counter strike source beta

[Soap Mactavish]

one of the groups i joined on steam has a couple people in the CSS beta. they put up some screenshots if anyone is interested.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/originalmacgamers/announcements/detail/181449049012120875

according to one of the participants in the beta they have CSS running at 90fps which is really good.

[aeria.]

The official version of CSS was very low spec. You can run it on Motherboard Graphics, believe it or not. Gabe Newell's PC can run it at 1600p at 150-170 frames. Considering they're moving the engine 2-4 Major Updates from its original state, I'm a bit surprised that people are still getting 90 FPS. I'm assuming that graphically, it wasn't updated much. Pity.

[Soap Mactavish]

do you think left 4 dead 2 will be an "okay" port to mac based on the ported games we have got so far? I mean, as far as i can tell all the ports mac has gotten so far has been good. No lag on my computer so far.

Usually they release updates increasing performance tho right ag? even tho the port is bad right now it will only get better? maybe?

[aeria.]

At the state they are right now, not really. I mean Portal has a good amount of lag if you turned up all the settings on my Radeon HD 2600 (old), however with the same settings I would have a major performance increase in Windows and possibly Crossover.

You've reported good performance on your Mac, however there's still performance problems with Macs that were released 2-3 years ago, which is was about the same time they were originally released (Portal/TF2 three years ago, Half Life 2 six years ago).

Crossover was VERY BUGGY when I used it back when the latest version was Crossover Games 7. It crashed every 30 minutes in-game and the settings weren't even turned up. While they have reported that their games are finally stable, I doubt that they are anywhere near perfect.

The native port right now is very stable and is integrated into a stable release of Steam so I am very happy about that. I just don't think it's optimized as much to run newer games like Left 4 Dead.

Portal's performance:


Left 4 Dead/Left 4 Dead 2 have major engine updates applied to it so there's certainly more features and graphics that are acceptable on HD-consoles. With that said, I think they're taking the extra time to make sure that the performance will be playable. The Source engine isn't even optimized for the xbox 360, seeing how The Passing DLC fails to run at a fluid framerate during tense situations on that console. At the same time, we got beautiful looking games like Final Fantasy 13 and soon Crysis 2 on the xbox. On the contrary, Valve is taking mac's priority as a Tier-1 platform, unlike consoles. It's a bit confusing but my main point is that I don't know what the performance will be, I can only assume.

Other notes:

As for Team Fortress 2, like any other MP game, it's recommended for it to have 60 frames and better to have optimized gameplay. While some people still find 30 frames to be playable, 60 frames feels the most fluid so that's very important.

Portal was the least system demanding game due to it being mostly walls and a companion cube, however game like Left 4 Dead have a lot of zombies and broken body parts on the screen.

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Well, that's my thoughts on it, feel free to tell me what you think.

[Soap Mactavish]

so far even tho people have been telling me that mac has had horrible frame rate issues yet i havent experienced any. However, i havent turned my settings up so that may be why i am not experiencing any issues. Granted, Valve hasnt actually released a "demanding game" per say.

[aeria.]

so far even tho people have been telling me that mac has had horrible frame rate issues yet i havent experienced any. However, i havent turned my settings up so that may be why i am not experiencing any issues. Granted, Valve hasnt actually released a "demanding game" per say.

Yeah they haven't released any game that looked anywhere near Crysis but during 2004, Half Life 2 was probably the most photo-realistic game released... ever.

[Soap Mactavish]

yea, had no problems with hl2 on medium settings.

[aeria.]

Also remember that this is still a 6 year old engine, just moderate revisions were made. It's not like the change from Half Life 1 to Half Life 2:

Half Life 1: http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/70/0000002354.1920x1080.jpg?t=1270602383
Half Life 2: http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/220/0000001866.1920x1080.jpg?t=1275597119
Left 4 Dead 2:http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/550/ss_67275710127ce20b62015718dbf84147fde7fc17.1920x1080.jpg?t=1274219326
Not much of a change in five years...
Modern Warfare 2: http://i49.tinypic.com/2wnzpdv.jpg
See the left side of that last screenshot? lol...

[Soap Mactavish]

just from my 1 month old knowledge of the steam engine it seems to me that the engine makes the games seem a little too....cartoon-y to be taken seriously as a war game. dont get me wrong! i have tried both l4d 1&2 and CSS on PC and they are excellent games. i just dont get the same...vibe that i get from other FPS like CoD.

i can understand that tf2 was meant to present itself as a cartoon-like game but im sure valve didnt intend to give it's customers that same effect with cs and l4d

[aeria.]

just from my 1 month old knowledge of the steam engine it seems to me that the engine makes the games seem a little too....cartoon-y to be taken seriously as a war game. dont get me wrong! i have tried both l4d 1&2 and CSS on PC and they are excellent games. i just dont get the same...vibe that i get from other FPS like CoD.

i can understand that tf2 was meant to present itself as a cartoon-like game but im sure valve didnt intend to give it's customers that same effect with cs and l4d

The idea behind the art design of Team Fortress 2 was for it to make the gameplay still violent and gore-filled as Valve always was, however it doesn't take itself too seriously, as Valve always was. Emphasis was put towards visuals that would compliment the gameplay. TF2 has little sense of realism because it was more designed to be a fun, however it was still very strategic and not too over the top gameplay. Teamwork and objective is very important in this game.

L4D is a game where you shoot zombies over and over. Not much to do unless you're playing with your friends.

Counter Strike is a very outdated FPS game so a lot of vital features aren't there, however compared to "real life" shooters these days, counter strike seems more realistic which is really sad. I mean weapons actually have recoil and grenades don't kill you immediately if you're in smallest portion of the radius. Knifing doesn't kill in one hit and you can't sprint like a L4D zombie when you're holding your weapons... it makes sense!

[aeria.]

That's actually terribly unrealistic. And the point of a knife in real life is to kill in 'one hit' by slitting the throat, not to lacerate your enemy's rear 37 times in a row.

If you're hit by a frag you're either dead or badly wounded, and frag nades have an approx kill range of 15 meters from what I remember.

Grenades in call of duty is notorious for being spammed too much. Ok fine I sorta exaggerated the frag grenade part, but it's better in counter strike than in call of duty. Also, ability to knife at any part of the enemy's body in a split second, expecting them to be killed, and also being able to lunge at a seemingly fast rate... is broken.