I didn't use it up until just a month ago so I have no personal experience with it when it came out. But my experience over the last few weeks has been very good. All the 5 games played flawlessly with no crashes or problems (unlike Bioshock). And they ran pretty well on my 2 year old system.
Again, it seems from my limited experience the benefit is in the auto patching, integration with the community, and stability of the code. On Nov 10, 2007 5:20 PM, Hayes Elkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Steam was a steaming pile of dogshit when HL2 came out back in 2004. The > bloat was beyond any overhead previously encountered. I was given a coupon > that entitled me to a "free" verison of Half Life 2 stemming from an ATI > purchase, however that "free" game then had $15 "shipping and handling" fee > to get a disc shipped to your door. This was the one time, and ONLY time, I > have UNABASHEDLY endorsed the warez option. Sorry ATI, I found bittorrent's > shipping and handling fees much more reasonable. > > The hacked version of HL2, at least back in late 04 / early 05 was > completely stripped of steam code and was roughly 30% faster on the same > hardware. It involved a lengthy re-compiling process (one time only) but was > worth the effort. How much overhead do steam delivered games have today? > > ________________________________ > Help yourself to FREE treats served up daily at the Messenger Café. Stop by > today! -- Brian Weeden
