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Steam Community -- NOW.

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EphemeralDream

Member
As mentioned previously in this thread, my laptop has pretty terrible specs (playing original DoD online would often bring me down to <30 fps). Well I bought a 512 RAM stick hoping that it'll give more room to Steam and any games (I previously had 256). Well the laptop uses shared memory so I went and bumped up the video memory buffer from I think 8 MB (I didn't know that you could alter the shared memory prior to getting the memory) to now 32. I think the BIOS had a setting for up to 128, but so far the difference from changing this setting has been negligible to me. The general RAM boost has given me better frame rates, but for whatever reason, it always seems like my fps starts to gradually go lower and lower as I play more online. I might start out somewhere around 50ish and by the end I'm struggling to keep it at 30 (this is after maybe 20 minutes). Any idea what's behind this?

Also what other settings could I change to get better performance? I'm using OpenGL for rendering instead of Direct3D as it seems to run better (the laptop has an ATi Mobility chip IIRC). Is it worth bumping the video memory buffer all the way up? Also is it possible the pagefile is slowing everything down? Now that I have more memory, I could decrease the pagefile but if it isn't the problem, it wouldn't really make a difference. I'm thinking the bottleneck is probably processor-side now but it's difficult to tell. Playing something like Opposing Force offline gives me typically >50 fps.
 
S

saelz8

Member
perryfarrell said:
I gots no DOD.

We should keep some evenings free for when Team Fortress 2 comes! It will be huuuuge
Click to expand...
When TF2 comes out it will be played every day, "Free evenings" will be a concern for other games. : )
 
D

Daigoro

Member
cant wait for TF2!

it will be nice to have a new multiplayer game out that everyone plays regularly (hopefully).

most of these nights start and end too early for me. im looking forward to everyone staying up all hours of the night all playing the same game.
 
F

fallout

Member
So, do all GAF Steam Community events always have such high turn-outs? This was the first one I've been able to attend and I'd hate to think that in 2 weeks, the interest had been killed off. I can't imagine any other explanation, unless everyone is just sick of DoD (or BIOSHOCK could be another explanation, I guess).
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"So, do all GAF Steam Community events always have such high turn-outs? This was the first one I've been able to attend and I'd hate to think that in 2 weeks, the interest had been killed off. I can't imagine any other explanation, unless everyone is just sick of DoD (or BIOSHOCK could be another explanation, I guess)."


This is the lowest one out of all I've witnessed. I was caught off guard a bit by a wonky clock, though I think the forum's PC contingent is currently getting BIOSHOCK'D by the demo.
 
S

saelz8

Member
fallout said:
So, do all GAF Steam Community events always have such high turn-outs? This was the first one I've been able to attend and I'd hate to think that in 2 weeks, the interest had been killed off. I can't imagine any other explanation, unless everyone is just sick of DoD (or BIOSHOCK could be another explanation, I guess).
Click to expand...
More people usually show up

I'm of the belief that DOD 1.3 just isn't popular with GAF. Bioshock could also be a contributing factor.
 
O

Oreoleo

Member
fallout said:
So, do all GAF Steam Community events always have such high turn-outs? This was the first one I've been able to attend and I'd hate to think that in 2 weeks, the interest had been killed off. I can't imagine any other explanation, unless everyone is just sick of DoD (or BIOSHOCK could be another explanation, I guess).
Click to expand...


Would have loved to have played the server you were on but unfortunately it was full.
 
S

saelz8

Member
Steam Review reports on some interesting finds


It seems like this gets at least one mention every month. It&#8217;s a bit of relief to see that it still exists! The Steam Community&#8217;s voice chat is carried over Steam&#8217;s new BitTorrent-based P2P network, and the separation of the binaries that work that little bit of magic (into bin/p2pcore.dll and bin/p2pvoice.dll) strongly suggests that we&#8217;ll be seeing more applications of the technology at a later date.

Some further findings from Steam&#8217;s new files:
Use the VGUI Editor (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+B) on the Downloads page in Settings and you&#8217;ll find an empty CSubPanelOptionsP2P, waiting to be filled with controls.

A #Steam_P2P_SharingColumnLabel_hidden label for the current Media tab is to be found in config/dialogconfig.vdf. For sharing mod trailers, right?

The public/P2PDetailPage.res dialogue includes a tracker field. Could refer either to community trackers for mod content, or official regional trackers that can be switched between.

&#8220;VST&#8221; appears in public\P2PMetaDataPage.res&#8217;s CP2PVstKeyValuesListPanel. Sitting alongside VMT, VDF, VCD and other keyvalue-based Valve file formats, it somehow seems unlikely that this three-letter acronym starting with V has anything to do with Virtual Studio Technology. &#8220;Valve Sharing Tracker&#8221; perhaps?
Click to expand...

Link
 
M

Metalmurphy

Member
P2P network? You mean i'm uploading stuff to other people?

I sure as hell hope i can disable that cause my crappy ISP lags my connection like mad every time i upload anything over 5KB/s.

Not to mention that i have bandwidth limits.
 
S

saelz8

Member
Metalmurphy said:
P2P network? You mean i'm uploading stuff to other people?

I sure as hell hope i can disable that cause my crappy ISP lags my connection like mad every time i upload anything over 5KB/s.

Not to mention that i have bandwidth limits.
Click to expand...
I doubt it would be forced, I guess we'll have to wait and see. It's interesting though.

Steam Community could be entirely self contained.
 
S

saelz8

Member
Tuesday, August 21th

The Steam Community Update Notes:
Updated battery meter design (seen when running on a laptop)
Stop polling the microphone for audio input every client frame when there are no chat/voice dialogs of any kind active
Fixed recent-players dialog to correctly request any information missing from users in the co-play list, and update on any name or avatar changes
Fixed case where friends list wouldn't update if the friends' name wasn't known on initial draw
Fixed checkbox in column header of add-non-Steam-games dialog not being centered correctly
Fixed changing views from mini-games list to full view causing the games list to draw with the wrong scheme setting
Fixed 'Browse media...' button not working
Added 'Add non-Steam games...' button to the bottom of the games list
Fixed input lag in the overlay
Correctly display when a Friend is running a third-party mod
Added simple resize control to multi-user chat dialog, so the user list can be expanded horizontally, and user-menus can be accessed for users with really long names
Improved game overlay performance
 
W

WHOAguitarninja

Member
Nobody started voting on 2k4 mods? I guess it's a bit too close to gametime to start votes. I'll be on a little bit late (maybe 9:15 or so instead of 9) but I'll definitely be there.

I guess we got Jailbreak, Carball, or maybe we could try again with Assault since that was a complete no go last night.
 
O

OatmealMu

Member
Joe Molotov said:
Well, I tried, but I never could get into a match. It just kept downloading and redownloading files over and over.
Click to expand...

I ended up having to re-download the entire Umod again to get it working. You didn't miss much, though. It wasn't long before the pros came in and cleaned up. :\

Anyway, about Killing Floor: I managed to get it working, and honestly, I don't think it's worth it. The whole process is a bit of a pain, and the mod's kind of boring. Maybe we should try the airship mod someone recommended a while back. Buccaneers something...?
 
S

saelz8

Member
I enjoyed Carball last night, GG guys.

Thursday, August 23th
The Steam Community Update Notes:
Fixed crash after launching certain games
Fixed odd input bug when double-clicking in 'Add non-Steam games' dialog
Removed 'administer this group' menu item
Added text to group panels in friends list to explain why members aren't being shown
Changed group panel link to be 'Show all members', linking to the members page for the group on the web
Fixed problems with microphone boost, recording levels, and microphone test
Improved 'Add non-Steam games'
Shortcuts data file is always saved after adding any new ones
Fixed crash re-adding the same item via the file browser
Changed re-adding a same exe file via the file browser to allow adding duplicate entries
Added context menu items to add/remove shortcuts from favorites
 
Joe Molotov

Joe Molotov

Member
OatmealMu said:
I ended up having to re-download the entire Umod again to get it working. You didn't miss much, though. It wasn't long before the pros came in and cleaned up. :\
Click to expand...

Heh, I saw that. I checked the server stats once, and I saw you guys with like 0 and -1's, and some other guys with 12 and 15 points. :D

Anyway, I downloaded the ZIP last time, so I'm going to delete all those files and try the UMOD.
 
F

FatalT

Banned
Ugh, stupid college classes are messing up my ability to play games. The first week always sucks anyways, so hopefully next week I'll be into the routine and able to get back into the GAF games.
 
Joe Molotov

Joe Molotov

Member
Joe Molotov said:
Anyway, I downloaded the ZIP last time, so I'm going to delete all those files and try the UMOD.
Click to expand...

Yep, that fixed it. Once I installed the UMOD, I was able to join a match, no problems.
 
S

saelz8

Member
Tonight is CS:S night, what do you guys think about Gungame?

Friday, August 24th

The Steam Community Update Notes:
Changed link in friends list from 'View SteamID' to 'My control panel'
Resized recent-players dialog to better fit at 640x480 resolutions, for in the game overlay
Added in-game / in-chat / online counts to group section headers in friends list
Fixed crash bug with add-non-Steam-games scanner and users with way too many files on their desktop
Changed scanner to filter out files earlier based on having the "lnk" extension
Added a cap of 1000 .lnk files added to the list of potential shortcuts to scan
Fix duplicate "foo is now playing bla" notifications
Changed invite-posting to ensure that only one notification per user/group invite is posted as a dialog per session
Fixed announcements not showing as client notifications
Changed announcement notification click action to take the user to the profile page of the group, instead of the events page
Fixed case where friends list could get screwed up, with items drawn in the top left corner
Fixed +/- section collapser control not being removed along with the section header
 
E

ezekial45

Banned
Quellex said:
Tonight is CS:S night, what do you guys think about Gungame?
Click to expand...

I'm not really up for it, imo. GG has players start out with weak weapons. Whenever they get get a kill, they level-up to a stronger weapon. 1 Level up per round.
 
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