Are Valve And AMD About To Ruin PC Gaming?

HardOCP ^ | Monday October 14, 2013 | Posted by Steve 10:55 AM (DST

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Tech Report crew seems to think that SteamOS and Mantle could ruin PC gaming. I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion but I'm sure you guys will have plenty to say on the topic.

Now, all of a sudden, next year's gaming landscape looks to be shaping up very differently. Instead of three major platforms based on a common hardware architecture, game developers will face two monolithic platforms and a fragmented one—the PC—that will have two starkly different operating systems and three different APIs—Direct3D, OpenGL, and Mantle.

[perez24]

I’ve only purchased on game on Steam (Fallout: New Vegas) and the DLC. Haven’t had a problem with it.

[Advil000]

Steam does anything BUT suck. They’ve been the best thing for PC games in a decade.

I own over 100 games through Steam. I never need to find my discs. I can install or uninstall whenever I want.

And best of all, they run REAL sales several times a year. I pick up anywhere up to a couple dozen games a year and only spend around $100-150 tops.

As much as I have fond memories of the old days of going to a local software store and buying a boxed game, how many of us play games that are 15 years old? I like being able to get titles that are over a year old for $15.

[jeffc]

Your opinion is noted. I felt the same for years, until I had a billing issue with them. Do NOT ever have a billing problem with them. They still show me as having a -$41 balance, preventing me from purchasing anymore games from them.

They also toss out updates that they obviously never test. It's all up to the owners of the games they screw up to find and fix the problems they create.

Everyone has their own story to tell about Steam, but a quick check of the Steam Users Forum will show a multitude of complaints. Granted, Steam is way better than that POS from EA, but they could very easily do a lot better on their customer service.

[JerseyHighlander]

I present to Freepers this product, developed by a disabled vet, and possibly the coolest steam box product to come to market in the next few months:

http://www.roundsdownrange.com/?p=1438

[Ueriah]

I love Steam. It’s a great service and it’s made it so that I don’t have to hoarde discs anymore and then manually apply patches for the games as they come out.

I think that PC gaming will be alive and well for a good long time.

I enjoy strategy games and I agree that the best games come from competing against other people compared to beating a predicatable AI.

Huge fan of Hearts Of Iron 3, War of the Roses, Crusader Kings 2. PM me if you enjoy any of these and would like to play sometime!

[KC_Lion]

Fallout New Vegas was an Amazing Game.

But One of the most Glitchiest games I have ever played.

At Least on the Xbox 360, Maybe it was better on P.C.

[perez24]

I didn’t get it until there were a couple of patches out. The nice thing about the game, at least on PC, is that there is a TON of free mods so you can continuously do new things.

[KC_Lion]

I got New Vegas for Free when I.....Liberated it from a friend of friend who was helping them remove trash from their literally trashed house. (long story)

I am SO glad I did, it was just the basic game, not even a case, but worked just fine, When I played New Vegas I love it so much I even downloaded it's DLC, something that I almost never do.

I have never had too many bugs on consoles though until New Vegas.

It was still an Amazing Game, Hands Down the Best Game I played in 2012, so made up for Mass Effect 3.

I wanted more so I got Fallout 3 and Skyrim, and they are still in progress.

[Vince Ferrer]

Well, the Source Filmmaker filmmaking engine is the game engine itself, with a different interface to take advantage of all its features. When you make a "film," you are setting up characters, lights and cameras in a game space, and letting action happen in 3d, while recording. The cameras record and create the film. All 3d environments basically do this, but Steam has put a movie making engine onto their game engine. Here are some of the movies they have made with the engine:

Meet the Spy a game trailer for one of their games

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Trailer Another trailer

[Rebelbase]

As far as I’m concerned computer gaming was ruined when EA changed the Command and Conquer games to the Generals platform.

[Windflier]

Oh, and Steam sucks big time!

It bugs me that Steam creates files that can't be defragged on my wife's Windows XP computer, and I use Auslogic, which I think is a better defragging tool than the Microsoft version.

[jeffc]

Hey, I use Auslogic defragger, too! Awesome tool, and yes, better than MS’s defragger. I don’t understand MS’s defrag graphic. What’s with the vertical lines? Not that I actually watch a defrag, but you can’t really tell how much is defragged, you have to “trust” MS on that, LOL!

[Windflier]

Hey, I use Auslogic defragger, too! Awesome tool, and yes, better than MS’s defragger.

I love it. Like most new things I adopt, I found out about it through a post on FR. This place is priceless!