The Age of Steam Begins Today!
in [UK Mac]
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From: Ian McCall on 14 May 2010 06:29 On 2010-05-14 11:17:22 +0100, Ian McCall <ian(a)eruvia.org> said: > Why oh why oh why do people produce HTML interfaces and then remove the > ability to view them in tabs? iTunes drives me wild like this, Steam > now does too. I typically pick all things I'd like to look at by > opening each choice in a tab, then start reading them after each one is > open. I -hate- navigating back to some central screen and then trying > to remember what it was I'd though was interesting two minutes ago. > Goldfish memory perhaps, but it's annoying especially when if they're > using WebKit then tabbing is easy. ....and why do they want my name, address and telephone number when I'm paying via Paypal? The whole point is that I don't want/need to give you that. Cheers, Ian
From: Jaimie Vandenbergh on 14 May 2010 06:34 On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:21:57 +0100, Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> wrote: >On 2010-05-14 11:01:10 +0100, R said: > >> Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> wrote: >> >>> It seems to be a webkit-based UI. There's hints of google chrome in the >>> open files... >> >> Hmm :) >> >> A selection from 'strings vgui2_s.dylib' | grep -i chrome | c++filt': >> >> com.google.chrome.shmem. >> application/x-chrome-extension >> /Users/rackadmin/buildslave/steam_rel_client_osx/ >> build/src/vgui2/src/chromehtmlwindow.cpp >> Mozilla/5.0 (%s; U; %s; en-US; Valve Steam Client; %s) >> AppleWebKit/532.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/3.0.195.24 Safari/532.1 > >The smoking gun... > >One amusing glitch is when you have the Steam window (sorry, I keep >thinking of the Onion's "Steam Room" here) over another white window, >and then wave the mouse over some objects with "tooltips" that are >obviously extra windows but done wrong. The shadow on the whole window >subsequently flickers on and off rather distractingly. Oh yeah - the tooltips regularly get stuck on the screen, too. You can lose them by showing the Steam.app again, and causing tooltips to come up and then make sure they're all gone before minimising/closing the window. Cheers - Jaimie -- Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness. -- http://xkcd.com/169
From: chris on 14 May 2010 06:36 On Thu, 13 May 2010 22:27:46 +0100, T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:48:40 +0100, usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk (Woody) > wrote: > > >>> This was interesting: >>> >>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_windows_part3&num=1 >> >> Yes, I would have expected the windows setup to be much further ahead >> than the unixes for single app performance than it is. > > Is that the predicted outcome then? Maybe another reason why I don't > have any issues with Windows ... I don't use it in many multitasking > roles. ;-) > > I thought I took from the review the Windows graphics drivers were > more advanced. Would that fact have any impact on it's ability to > multitask? No. But as Windows is a popular gaming platform where speed freaks abound, nVidia have an incentive to optimise the driver to the hilt. In linux and OS X there isn't the same demand. I'd imagine that Apple also tweak the driver for their own reasons (i.e. not gaming). It'll be interesting to see if there's a flurry of complaints regarding gaming performance on the Mac (and linux in future) and now nVidia et al respond.
From: Jaimie Vandenbergh on 14 May 2010 06:44 On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:36:33 +0100, chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On Thu, 13 May 2010 22:27:46 +0100, T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > >> On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:48:40 +0100, usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk (Woody) >> wrote: >> >> >>>> This was interesting: >>>> >>>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_windows_part3&num=1 >>> >>> Yes, I would have expected the windows setup to be much further ahead >>> than the unixes for single app performance than it is. >> >> Is that the predicted outcome then? Maybe another reason why I don't >> have any issues with Windows ... I don't use it in many multitasking >> roles. ;-) >> >> I thought I took from the review the Windows graphics drivers were >> more advanced. Would that fact have any impact on it's ability to >> multitask? > >No. But as Windows is a popular gaming platform where speed freaks abound, >nVidia have an incentive to optimise the driver to the hilt. In linux and >OS X there isn't the same demand. I'd imagine that Apple also tweak the >driver for their own reasons (i.e. not gaming). > >It'll be interesting to see if there's a flurry of complaints regarding >gaming performance on the Mac (and linux in future) and now nVidia et al >respond. It will - Apple's history of updating each particular video driver once (or never) will probably change, for a start... there might even be a move towards vendor-supplied drivers, though I can't see that getting Jobsian approval! I've played through Portal on the iMac now, and while the 4850 does a bang-up job of playing at full res (better framerate than in Windows) the visuals aren't as good - surfaces don't have the same quality of bump mapping, specularity, and straight texturing as in Windows. Which probably explains the framerate. Cheers - Jaimie -- Never sleep with anyone crazier than you are.
From: T i m on 14 May 2010 07:21
On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:36:33 +0100, chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On Thu, 13 May 2010 22:27:46 +0100, T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > >> On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:48:40 +0100, usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk (Woody) >> wrote: >> >> >>>> This was interesting: >>>> >>>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_windows_part3&num=1 >>> >>> Yes, I would have expected the windows setup to be much further ahead >>> than the unixes for single app performance than it is. >> >> Is that the predicted outcome then? Maybe another reason why I don't >> have any issues with Windows ... I don't use it in many multitasking >> roles. ;-) >> >> I thought I took from the review the Windows graphics drivers were >> more advanced. Would that fact have any impact on it's ability to >> multitask? > >No. But as Windows is a popular gaming platform where speed freaks abound, >nVidia have an incentive to optimise the driver to the hilt. For nVidia I should also read Intel in the case of the GMA950 in this Mini? > In linux and >OS X there isn't the same demand. Or market to produce that demand. > I'd imagine that Apple also tweak the >driver for their own reasons (i.e. not gaming). Ok. > >It'll be interesting to see if there's a flurry of complaints regarding >gaming performance on the Mac (and linux in future) and now nVidia et al >respond. It will indeed. However, I'm still not quite sure what the goal is here. On the grounds that Windows is traditionally a better games platform than OSX(Linux) and given that many people already Bootcamp their Macs into Windows for other reasons (or have Winboxes) then doesn't it make sense to just run stuff like Steam, on Windows? (Would this sorta thing be as fast (or faster?) in a WinVM?)? I guess the goal for many would be to get away from Windows but for the average Mac I think that might be a long way off (ie, not an especially fast machine and considering how many games are unlikely to ever go native Mac). FWIW I couldn't get past the opening screen in Portal on OSX (it just locked solid with an all white screen) and get 'Unsupported video card, Windows Version Unknown" when I start and nothing when I click the 'Show minimum hardware ..' link on the same box', yet it seems to play ok, on the exact same hardware under XP (first go). That was last night. I've tried again this morning and it offered an update but after applying it I couldn't connect (Server Busy) so am installing on Vista on the A300 lappy just to se how it compares (Ok, 2G C2D but still Intel 'mobile' graphics). Cheers, T i m p.s. In a similar vein (suitability) a guy I know has just upgraded his phone because he wanted 'apps' but didn't get an iPhone (I think it was an LG of some sort. I asked why he didn't and he said they weren't offered on 3). Anyway, I asked him if he was after anything in particular and he said he'd seen the scales app for the iPhone and thought it might come in handy (I didn't ask). I couldn't see how you could use an iPhone as some scales but I think he's seen some scales that look like an iPhone and thought it was just an app (bless). I can see the appeal though if it was an app on a real iPhone ... money no object, only one thing to carry, nice hard glass front for cutting up stock, easy to use when you aren't thinking straight and probably an app like Grindr to help you locate all yer 'contacts'. ;-) |