The All New Gabriel Newell's Digital Wonder Emporium, aka, The Steam Update Thread

It's a DX10 (or DX11, it's not DX9 as the requirement is Vista SP2 or higher) mode. It's essentially playing a game which launches other games (and it stays in the background while the game is playing).

Scratched wrote:

Software is now available on steam: http://store.steampowered.com/software/

Game Maker has 24 steam achievements. I don't know how I feel about this.

Norfair wrote:

So for big picture mode, would it be possible to use remote desktop log in? I have an HTPC that can't run games (I didn't even put a graphics card in it) but both it and my pc are networked together.

Would I even want to try this? Would lag be unbearable?

I'm fairly certain that the video lag would make this unfeasible for most games, even on a fast wired LAN. RDC just wasn't designed for low-latency video.

Oh! CameraBag! By the a$$holes that made then abandoned Silo before even updating it to a stable commercial build, yet took our money anyway with promises of regular updates! They claimed that a version 2.2 software with constant memory errors and incomplete promised features had already "matured." I know what I won't be buying! 3D Coat, on the other hand...

I checked out Camerabag...not much to it really. Overpriced.

psoplayer wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Software is now available on steam: http://store.steampowered.com/software/

Game Maker has 24 steam achievements. I don't know how I feel about this.

They're just keeping with the times. Visual Studio now has a plugin that adds achievements to the IDE.

shoptroll wrote:
psoplayer wrote:

Game Maker has 24 steam achievements. I don't know how I feel about this.

They're just keeping with the times. Visual Studio now has a plugin that adds achievements to the IDE.

I can just imagine what would happen if they had some meta-achievement reward thing during a sale for all the software titles. People would be oh so very productive, even if they produce a few million more tower defence clones. There's now the potential for steam to become a perpetual self-feeding machine.

Hmm, anyone know how ArtRage stands up against something like Photoshop or Painter? I've been keeping my eye out for a cheap alternative to Photoshop, I've not heard of ArtRage before.

Redwing wrote:

Hmm, anyone know how ArtRage stands up against something like Photoshop or Painter? I've been keeping my eye out for a cheap alternative to Photoshop, I've not heard of ArtRage before.

Paint.net works for me. Never tried ArtRage.

I wonder if more of these apps will get limited or demo versions, similar to how gamemaker does it.

Scratched wrote:
Redwing wrote:

Hmm, anyone know how ArtRage stands up against something like Photoshop or Painter? I've been keeping my eye out for a cheap alternative to Photoshop, I've not heard of ArtRage before.

Paint.net works for me. Never tried ArtRage.

I wonder if more of these apps will get limited or demo versions, similar to how gamemaker does it.

What ever happened to Gimp? I've never used it but was lead to believe it was a free Photoshop alternative.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Redwing wrote:

Hmm, anyone know how ArtRage stands up against something like Photoshop or Painter? I've been keeping my eye out for a cheap alternative to Photoshop, I've not heard of ArtRage before.

Paint.net works for me. Never tried ArtRage.

I wonder if more of these apps will get limited or demo versions, similar to how gamemaker does it.

What ever happened to Gimp? I've never used it but was lead to believe it was a free Photoshop alternative.

It still exists and remains as powerful as ever. Still needs a substantial UI overhaul

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Redwing wrote:

Hmm, anyone know how ArtRage stands up against something like Photoshop or Painter? I've been keeping my eye out for a cheap alternative to Photoshop, I've not heard of ArtRage before.

Paint.net works for me. Never tried ArtRage.

I wonder if more of these apps will get limited or demo versions, similar to how gamemaker does it.

What ever happened to Gimp? I've never used it but was lead to believe it was a free Photoshop alternative.

The most recent version (2.8 a few months ago) introduced a single window interface option that is closer to what you get in Photoshop. It still only supports 8-bit channel depth, so many professional photographers still don't take it seriously no matter what else it can do.

In May, GIMP had a huge update. http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.8.html

Amongst other things, it now supports single window mode. Personally, I can't wait for 2.10 release, that will FINALLY bring us 16/32-bit colour support.

Redwing wrote:

Hmm, anyone know how ArtRage stands up against something like Photoshop or Painter? I've been keeping my eye out for a cheap alternative to Photoshop, I've not heard of ArtRage before.

It's good! Simple, easy to use, great paper and medium effects (pencils go on the paper like actual pencils, etc). Has a palette mixer much like Painter, and a layer system like Photoshop if you get the Pro edition (which is what's on Steam). I'd say go for it! I mean, it's not good for photo manipulation (never intended to be), but for straight-up drawing and painting, it's very simple and pretty powerful.

So I remember a few months back, Steam converting games to a new file format. I either had to run down my list clicking play, or click properties>local files>verify integrity and get the files to convert to the new format.

Now I see this Sanctum weekend, click on it, and it has to be converted. Thought I did this with everything?

Now I'm going through my list and already ran across 3 other games that still need conversion.

The one constant I've noticed is that checking Properties>Updates, the games that still need a conversion are switched to "Do Not Automatically Update This Game" instead of "Always keep this game up to date." So far it's been 100% on those getting updated.

Very weird. And I'm wondering why there wasn't some kind of "check all" or "convert all" as this got rolled out. Going 1 by 1 through 100 or so installed games is a pain...

Wait, what? I never did this?

I've had maybe 2 games say they need to be converted. One of those was The Walking Dead which just got converted this week. I didn't think they actually converted over every game.

Just depends when you installed things. I had a ton of HD space, so I probably have some games from the 2010 holiday sale or 2011 summer sale that I've had sitting there installed but maybe not played yet.

Ended up being about 35 games or so that I converted today. But I know I did 10-20 a few months back when one game did it to me and I started checking others.

They haven't converted every game. They're doing them in waves, I believe. I'm assuming the reason it's defaulted to manual is because they don't want people to have games start updating for seemingly no reason. Having to start the game to do the conversion allows users to understand why. Many don't like it when a game begins downloading out of the blue, because (poor souls) they have limited bandwidth.

It's not like it takes very long, usually.

I don't really understand... most of the files in the games directories themselves are just normal files (e.g. gifs and jpegs). Changing their format would make them unreadable, no?

It's not like once they're downloaded the games are stored in some sort of encrypted format or something...

Duoae wrote:

I don't really understand... most of the files in the games directories themselves are just normal files (e.g. gifs and jpegs). Changing their format would make them unreadable, no?

It's not like once they're downloaded the games are stored in some sort of encrypted format or something...

Quite right, the files (should) stay the same, what's being converted is how steam manages them.

It sounds similar to how I restore my backed-up games - I just drop the files in place, tell it to install the game and it checks the files and it downloads what it needs (which should be very little). In the conversion I think it drops the old install managed by the old content system but leaves the files in place, and replaces it with a new install with the new content system, checks the files, downloads what it needs.

Malor wrote:

It's not like it takes very long, usually.

Usually, yes, but any game that hasn't been converted also can't be patched, so once you start the process, you might be downloading a gigabyte or more, which can be a significant amount for some.

Yeah for Star Trek Online it converted and then apparently downloaded 3.9 GB.

Stele wrote:

Yeah for Star Trek Online it converted and then apparently downloaded 3.9 GB. :shock:

I think it forces a re-validation of the content when the conversion takes place. I've also seen it muck games up a little (as with my Portal 2 installation) and required a manual validation. Last I heard they've only got about 50% of the existing catalog updated but new games are on the new system.

Stele wrote:

Yeah for Star Trek Online it converted and then apparently downloaded 3.9 GB. :shock:

Yeah, but what about games people actually want to play.

So, does anyone know what actually got changed, and why?

Malor wrote:

So, does anyone know what actually got changed, and why?

I don't think they've talked specifically about the internal changes, but the known benefits are:

1) Flexible installation locations (there's that hidden "install folders" beta feature that was unearthed alongside Big Picture mode)
2) Content delivered over HTTP (lowers network load at the ISP level due to the content being cachable)
3) Updates are delivered using file diffs instead of sending out the entire file (no more downloading 150 mb file everytime Valve adds a new hatte to TF2)
4) Developers can issue updates without going through their Steam rep

Ah, good info, thank you.

I've been interested to give Big Picture a chance, but I feel that the PC will look horribly out of place in the living room.

Assuming I can haul a 50ft (or 100ft, I don't know) cable from my man-cave to the living room going through the walls, what would I need to get a Wireless Keyb+Mouse or a Wireless XBox Controller to PC to work at that distance? Another 50 ft (of a100ft) USB cable?

The other option is to get a second PC hidden somewhere inside the living room. This could work, since I'm considering setting up a media center using Plex. The problem is getting both PCs running on the same Steam Account, or worse, buy again any game I'd be interested in playing on th eBig Picture PC.