Steam vs disc

When playing any steam games does it lag more when playing sp and mp then playing the game bought on disc?

 

If anything, you'll have less lag as everything is being read from the Hard Drive and not a slow DVD

 

Should be the same. All content on disc is installed on the hard drive like Steam. Its only function after that is a disc check for whatever DRM the game uses when launching it.

 

All data is read from the hard drive. The disc just expands and copies the files to your hard drive, and then is used for an DVD activation check all times after.

I'd be more inclined to say that games bought through the Steam service would be less likely to run as well as a hard copy of the same game, considering that the Steam service continually runs in the background (is a memory hog sometimes), and the overlay can really mess some things up.

 

Having purchased a few games then replaced them with Steam versions during sales I have to say there is absolutely no difference.

 

I personally say that I find steam overlays sometimes annoy you with their pop ups at times ._. Especially when you need to click something at the bottom right. There are even times when the overlay lags you for no reason

 

Have to side with the pros on this one, I have steam and I am and have been aggrivated with Steam's pervasive setup. Yeah, it's great if you want a community to co-op with, but I think I am going back to hard copies. At least then I can somewhat control what goes where.

Rooster

 

I think you can change the settings in your user account to lower the priority on it to use less resources(especially ram) and to also prevent the ridiculously annoying popups for games that 90% of people never buy anyways. On the steam -vs- disc situation I would say there really isn't much of a difference anymore, every game I've bought in the last year hasn't required the disc to even be in once installed and a lot of the games require steam to "verify" when you install them anyways. So long as you tweak steam to your liking I prefer steam as it also makes it so you don't have to kick yourself if you lose the disc

 

Disc if you live in Canada. Downloading off steam costs too much.

 

Thought I would say that I am downloading a game(CivIV) from amazon as I type this just see how that works out.
Yeah, you can tweek the settings, but I already have enough to tweek as it is.
on a side note Amazon will keep a copy in your account to download anytime once you buy it. We'll see how that works out.

Rooster

 

How? Disc you deal with the the huge delays cause we are horrible, wicked pirates up here. The dollar is at par you know, maybe you live in the sticks somewhere? When you look out the window do you see polar bears?

 

What the hell man. I live in a remote place in one of the lesser known states in Australia and I can still download games through the Steam service with no problem.

I've gotta say...I'm kinda confused. I thought Canadian internet was pretty decent.

 

The have a cap per month on downloads. Say this steam sale, they buy six games at $5 each, but those games all have 5-10 gb to download. they're cap per month is, say, 25 gb, they pay a premium per download. unless they wait until the end of each month and download what they can, disc is cheaper.

 

Same over here in Australia, but if you go over the limit your speed gets slowed to 56K instead of being charged extra. My cap is 50GB per month, which strangely enough, I have never gone over.

 

I would have definitely gone over 50 GB this month... haha. too many good steam sales

 

you can turn off the steam overlay completely if you dont like it. steam has equal performance to the retail disc.

another point is that a lot of retail games are bundled with securom, and the steam versions have it removed (not always, but many cases)

 

You can always turn the in-game overlay off, which I do, it has caused more problems, and don't always have time to chit chat while deep in a game of BFBC2 or Starcraft 2.

 

I have 70 Steam games.

Have fun keeping track and storing all your discs.

 

Getting charged $1.50/GB hurts much more than having your connection slowed, trust me, and 50GB can get eaten quickly with 4 people using different computers. I've had to pay $10 extra to my ISP for them to increase my bandwidth cap from 50GB/month to 130GB/month.

And our speeds are good (however they may be throttled if the ISP decides there's too much traffic in the system), it's just that recently, ISPs started getting the notion of bandwidth caps and started applying them to users. I remember 3 years ago or so we didn't have these sort of caps. They lower the caps every year which is just shocking.

 

also steam usually gives you the DLC's (some not all) for free. plus, I have 40 steam games. keeping track of all those discs would be impossible.

 

Nah, its more like paying $100-$120/month for mediocre internet if you wanna download lots from steam.

 

I lived in a rural section of Canada with no Cap and no speed throttling. It was great, I could download a steam game and watch a movie on netflix.

Now I've moved into town and have 60gb cap and massive bandwidth throttling. It's crazy.

I would add that now I'm undecided I'll probaly still buy games on steam for the convince of not managing discs, but its really up in the air now.

 

I'm from Canada, and I don't have a cap on my internet usage. But then I've had my contract forever. I'd hear about it for sure if I was getting chaged extra for bandwidth. I'm with Shaw if that matters.

 

TekSavvy which uses Bell and Rogers lines and offers their own plans has 200GB/month and unlimited plans, but I don't know for how long since a recent CRTC ruling gave powers to the ISPs to impose caps on wholesalers like TekSavvy. It's a shame the internet is going down to pieces here.

 

I cannot think of a single example where steam was the differentiating factor that made DLC free, ever.

 

This just proves that internet service providers are one sector of the economy where free market doesn't work. That much is obvious by the fact that the value you get for what you pay seems to get worse over time, not better.

 

I prefer discs as they make me feel as though I'm more in "control". I always worry about having my steam account get hacked or having some terrible atrocity come over it. I've just heard so many stories of people losing their steam accounts to hackers and valve not doing anything to help the individuals who have lost their accounts. Steam is also buggy and annoying. Dumb updates, suddenly losing connection, and a bunch of weird bugs. And I always have the feeling that valve is going to ban my account for some random reason. Like if I accidentally find a glitch in tf2 or if one of my css skins are considered violating the terms of agreement. Well then I would get banned and lose my account goodies. Whether being in control with discs is true or if it's just an illusion of safe-keeping you're money I prefer it.

 

Do they really shut down your account, or just ban the online portion?

As an off topic free market in my opinion is not working for cell phones in Canada and is only just begining to work for landlines.
In the 4 years I've had my phone and 2 I've had a rogers rocket stick (which is not what I referining to when talking about internet) prices have increased with opitions decreasing if you look closely.

Telus went from my fav 10 unlimited data, to my 5 and I believe 1gb of data (on my plan anyways) I still pay the same but the differnce between having unlimited nationwide phone/texting/email to 10 to 5 people. and unlimited data to 1gb a month is a big differnce

 

It's an illusion..especilly if you have large dogs, kids, live in hurricane country or like me..all three

If it was not for the likes of Steam, I would be out of more than the hassle of damaged disk exchange.

Also, we have the option to play in offline mode which keeps you from having to maintain a live connection if your out in the "sticks" for single player games..

 

I'm confused about the paranoia people have about having their Steam account "stolen". The fact is, if it gets stolen, one email to Steam and you get the account back.

Be smart, verify your email and have some verifiable record of your purchases and you have absolutely no reason to fear your account will be "stolen".

 

You can take off the tinfoil hat. VAC only bans for known cheats. Custom skins, in-game glitches and config tweaks will not trigger a VAC ban. The only exception so far has been earlier this year when a corrupt file triggered VAC bans for a bunch of MW2 players. In this case, Valve figured out what had happened and unbanned everyone the next day, and gave them all free copies of Left 4 Dead 2.

As for "hackers" (the proper term is phishers, because there's really no hacking going on), in 99% of cases it is entirely preventable, and compromised accounts are pretty much the direct result of carelessness on the part of the account holder. Valve makes it very clear that you are responsible for your own account security, as it should be.

Valve is not Big Brother. The only reason they will ever manually disable a Steam account is if you file a chargeback on your credit card for a game purchased on that account, which they are within their right to do.

 

quick question. I've never bought a steam game and i was wondering. I go out of country frequently and am unable to use the internet for 3 or 4 months at a time. say i buy a bunch of games off steam, will the games stop working because i havent gotten online in awhile or anything. i only ask cause its a hassle to carry all the disk for games.

 

Your steam account is forever unless you delete it (can you even delete it?).

you could also play in offline mode on most games.

 

I'm not trying to argue against steam and say that they're a bunch of commies lol. I just don't like dealing with the connection issues, the bugs, and the constant updates. All of which I experience on steam every so often, but not in my non-steam games.

 

Play most games in offline mode? What do you mean by that? Thanks for the help by the way.

 

I love steam.

 

Some games (very few) will require an internet connection to be launched. Only certain games with restrictive DRM will require an internet connection to run (see Assassin's Creed 2, etc), most games can be opened when the Steam client is in "Offline Mode".

The only requirement is that the first time launch for each game is launched while Steam is connected to the internet. If a game has been downloaded but not launched yet on that computer, then it will not do so unless connected to the internet for it's first time.

 

Dammit!!, and I wanted the first post of 2011 on NBR

 

Yeah, that's kind of annoying. Especially when it's the one right after you start a game about being able to access the Steam community. I already know that, I wanted to click the "Start game" button in the lower-right! (Civ4).

The updates are a minor annoyance, too, as is the fact that startup is slower than games that are purely on the hard drive after being installed from CD - although I suppose it is still quicker than a game with a CD check if you don't have the CD in your optical drive already.

The amount of money I save on games through Steam sales makes it worth it, though. I have occasionally seen games that I could get cheaper (except during Steam holiday sales) on Amazon with Amazon Student free shipping, but most of the time Steam has the best deals if you're willing to wait for them. Installation speed is a mixed bag - while at university Steam was quicker, but at home CD installation is quicker and CD images on HDD are quickest almost regardless. Usually though, the monetary difference is worth it with Steam.

Data caps would change the picture, though. I've never experienced a data cap, but something like 5 GB/month would seem ridiculously low - a single game can exceed that! That is the type of policy that, unless the cap were triple-digit gigabytes (far above what I'd expect to use even during a good Steam sale/Linux ISO month), would single-handedly cause me to choose an otherwise inferior or slower Internet provider out of principle.

Doing some calculations, a 56k connection could transfer 17 GB per month if left on constantly at 56 kbps, so more like 10 GB expected. Thus there may be scenarios where a 56k connection would actually make more sense than a broadband connection with a very low cap assuming you could get cheap unlimited local phone service for the dial-up and didn't need really fast connections for anything. Or perhaps in addition to the broadband as a "dedicated Steam line". I'd probably just go to the store for the physical copy, though.

 

This exactly. then there is the games that are multiplayer only (Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike, Left for Dead if you want it to be any fun...) that of course, you will need an Internet connection for.

 

I used to be a disc person, but after having lost disks or had them damaged I have never lost a digital copy of my game.

Probably at least $300 worth of games I have lost on disk. Never a single digital game lost.

Then there is the fact that say I have a game at home on disk, its installed on my desktop and I go out of town for a week with my laptop. I suddenly get the urge to play the game I left at home... I am screwed, no disk = no game.

But with steam, I just log onto my account and download the game. I also have not yet seen any kind of limit to how many computers you can have your games installed onto at once.

This is another big bonus for me to use Steam.

Last is probably just the price and convenience. With steam I get most stuff on sale very cheap. Only in rare occasion can you get the disk version of the game so cheap (like import from another country or on sale because its not new)

Not having to go to a store or pay tax just seals the deal and is why I buy 99% of my games from steam now.

 

I went all digital several months ago and have never looked back. The only times I will buy disc games are for older titles or games that can be activated on Steam. IMO, the latter is the best of both worlds. The game gets tied to your Steam account and is always kept up to date. Also, you have installation media handy so you need not have to waste bandwidth downloading it again if you need to reinstall and don't have the steamapps folder backed up.

 

Thank you both. I believe I'll get a steam account now and try it out. That was the only thing stopping me.

 

I hope you enjoy your discless experience.

 

Left my case full of discs in a hotel room in 2002. There went $500 worth of games.

Um, in my opinion, not really a point to either side for the original poster's argument...I have several disc games installed on my m1710 that don't need the CD/DVD to run...if I would have been smarter in 2002 (actually if HDD space would have been more readily available), I wouldn't have had the disc case with me then...

This is a huge point in favor of Steam for me...if I purchase the game on Steam, I can install it on my m1710 and my m11x at no additional cost...and if the game has a Mac version, guess what? No additional cost to put it on my wife's iMac so my son can play Gratuitous Space Battles or Madballs or Swords and Soldiers...if you only have a single computer, then no point awarded...

Agreed...and another point for Steam...along with (and probably the second biggest point for me after the point awarded for multiple machine installs) keeping your game catalogue up to date with the latest patches and making it easier to include DLC into your original game...I initially purchased Borderlands from a brick and mortar store, and integrating the first DLC was challenging (I won't go into details, and yes, I accept the mocking for being an old(er), stubborn internet user)...I subsequently purchased Borderlands from Steam, and like most updates and DLC, the installation/update was essentially mindless...

And my external HDD (where Steam resides) recently ate itself...paid $80 for a new external HDD and installed Steam and then just let it download for a couple of days...voila...my entire Steam game catalog ready to play again with the save games and settings still in the 'My Documents' folder on the C: drive...it brought a tear to my eye...

The only reason that I clung to boxed games for so long was the box itself and the instruction manual (good bathroom reading), but as everyone has probably noticed, boxes are cheesy now (even the collector's editions, except for Halo:Reach...that box was over-the-top) and instruction manuals are non-existent...

The last game that I may buy in a box is Starcraft 2 (unless it comes to Steam first)...

 

When you register starcraft 2 on battle.net (required), you are given permanent access to a digital copy of the game. You could throw away the box and CD and everything and you would be fine as long as you keep your battle.net login information.

 

Yeah bliz wont give rights to anybody to have there game, but they have there own digital download service for some of there games.

I actually get older games like SC1 from there instead of using the disk since like you said its all up to date and easy to manage.

I got the box of SC2 because I got the collectors edition for $75.00 at release, but even with that fancy stuff its just stuffed in the closet somewhere taking up space I do not really have so I would have been fine with a cheaper digital version.

 

I got the box because I got a deal, I think on amazon... I had a game credit and maybe a better preorder price anyway. something like that.

 

I choose Steam because of the auto update, no disc check, and far more quicker to reinstall the games (instead of putting one disc at a time). Time is the only reason why anyone would choose steam, IMO. The ISP is the only bottleneck here when it come to Steam.

I used to think that I need to control my contents, I don't need anyone holding my hand, and would prefer the box copies just to have something. But time have change and I do not have time to manage the updates/fixes (fixes are subjective), buying from the store (consoles are dominant), or have storage space for box contents.