Why Steam is bad for you

[jihe]

Too many Steam zealots on these boards arguing for the merits of Steam. But just yesterday I encountered something that just reinstates the obvious fact that extra uncalled for software is bad for you:

Having played the demo I was uninstalling it to make room for the real thing. I uninstall steam as well. Then my internal microphone stopped working, well it works but the sound level is so low that I have to yell at it, no matter how high I set it. After much frustration I finally got to the root of the problem, turns out uninstalling Steam somehow downgraded my Connexant driver as well. I reinstalled the driver (which I already did when I installed windows the first time) and all is well.

Now I can just imagine someone with less PC knowledge would just be pulling their hairs out with this. And I still don't know what else Steam did to my system

And to anyone else with a thinkpad x200t, make sure you reinstall your sound driver after uninstalling the piece of trash that is Steam.

 

[dannythefool]

Yeah, Steam uninstall includes an old version of the driver for your specific audio hardware... true fact.

 

[mattavich]

Is the world ending? Stop being so negative, the + points far outweight the negative, if ANY negative.

 

[jihe]

Yeah, Steam uninstall includes an old version of the driver for your specific audio hardware... true fact.

Do you know windows 7 comes with its own standard HD audio driver? That is what you get when you remove your specific driver, unfortunately the windows driver almost works except the low mic levels.

 

[ChaplainDMK]

Thats why? One simple oversight?
I agree, Steam is compleatly annoying and un-needed, but thats not one of the reasons...

 

[jihe]

Thats why? One simple oversight?
I agree, Steam is compleatly annoying and un-needed, but thats not one of the reasons...

The reason is, bugs and oversights will always be in any software, when you introduce unneeded software to system, especially something like Steam which wants to be low-level, you are more likely to screw up your system.

 

[Booshaka]

Ive used steam since it came out, I was big into the Half-Life and its mods back in college so thats when I started using it, I like it, never have problems with it, I run over a dozen games on it. The overlay is sweet, I even add shortcuts for non steam games to it so I can use the overlay and talk to my friends.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

Having played the demo I was uninstalling it to make room for the real thing. I uninstall steam as well.

Why...? So you can reinstall it again?

 

[jihe]

Why...? So you can reinstall it again?

So that I could start from scratch? I have the physical copy.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

So that I could start from scratch? I have the physical copy.

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of doing that.

What I'm saying is that, even if you have the physical copy, once you have it tied to a Steam account you will always be able to download it from Steam as long as Steame exists. Seeing as how Steam has done nothing but grown exponentially over the past 8 years or so, I don't see it going away.

But... what is the point of reinstalling Steam again?

 

[BrknPhoenix]

Right, despite the fact that millions of people use Steam regularly without issue, watch out, because jihe claims the uninstall screwed a driver on his thinkpad.

The battle you're trying to fight was lost a long time ago.

 

[RRtexasranger]

Lol, why the heck are you uninstalling Steam only to have to reinstall it when you install Civ 5. Did you think just cause you had the physical copy it wasn't tied to Steam?

 

[Zaimejs]

I hate Steam as a way of controlling licenses, but I love it for the practicality. I had always wished there were a way to install games from the Cloud rather than trying to find a CD or DVD that might be scratched or ruined after upgrading a computer or a hard drive crash. It's nice to have this now. I'm a Mac User, so I just got it last year... I haven't really used it much, but I like what I see.

It is weird that it would do that driver thing... I wish I had more control over what it is and is not doing. I did have to uninstall and reinstall it on a separate hard drive so I would have room for games. You can't tell games where to go... Steam just takes over.

 

[Tarkhan]

I use steam, a lot. Must have 50+ games on the thing (though a lot of em are stuff like the ID pack).

I don't go around championing the thing across forums though, but I also don't go slamming it for every little bug. However that sounds like an odd issue, and probably deserves to be posted on the steam forums. It's possible they didnt test Steam on your hardware setup.

 

[Romtos]

Steam is far from teh evil. It's just that far superior services are available, which do everything Steam does, but better. From a customer perspective it's very reasonable to complain about Steam, since it's more intrusive than strictly necessary.

 

[wilebill]

Jihe, the DVD is not the real thing. What you bought was a registration code. You must register your game on Steam. So you will need the Steam client up for that. It does not matter who you bought the DVD from. Similarly, if you buy it from another digital distributor such as D2D, all they will provide you is a registration code that you will then plug into Steam.

To play Civ V, you must have the Steam client installed and active. Otherwise, it will not run. To get updates, you must get them through the Steam client. They are not available otherwise.

You can set Steam to run in Offline Mode, but the Steam client must still be active or Civ V will not start. The game is 100% tied to Steam.

Thus, it made no sense at all to uninstall Steam! Either reinstall it, or you are not going to play Civ V. Steam now owns you! Steam now controls you! There is no escape from the all powerful omnipresent Steam!

Although you can exit Steam and run non Steam programs, this is probably only temporary. Once Steam attains total world domination, you will need to have Steam active to boot Windows and probably to start your car!

Welcome to the Steam Cooker Jihe, Mua-ooo-Wah-Hah-Hah-Hah!

 

[Hustapha Thool]

sTEAmed party

 

[GoRy]

Too many Steam zealots on these boards arguing for the merits of Steam. But just yesterday I encountered something that just reinstates the obvious fact that extra uncalled for software is bad for you:

Having played the demo I was uninstalling it to make room for the real thing. I uninstall steam as well. Then my internal microphone stopped working, well it works but the sound level is so low that I have to yell at it, no matter how high I set it. After much frustration I finally got to the root of the problem, turns out uninstalling Steam somehow downgraded my Connexant driver as well. I reinstalled the driver (which I already did when I installed windows the first time) and all is well.

Now I can just imagine someone with less PC knowledge would just be pulling their hairs out with this. And I still don't know what else Steam did to my system

And to anyone else with a thinkpad x200t, make sure you reinstall your sound driver after uninstalling the piece of trash that is Steam.

Ok So speaking as someone who hates steam from having to suffer through 5 years of their failed Steam Cafe releases (For lan centers) - Steam doesn't fart about with your hardware.

So you're pretty far off the mark. The other reasons to (validly) hate steam are how it crashes, when it closes without terminating the process ("YOU CAN ONLY RUN ONE COPY OF STEAM AT ANY ONE TIME !!!ONEONE!"), random speed drops during updates/downloads (1.4mb/s down to 173kb/sec...wha?), Introducing counter-strike source to the world (CSS was the only game on the Steam beta) and many other random problems.

But yours wasn't steam. Try your volume control?

 

[Arrogant]

I don't use Steam and I am not thrilled when I see so many people flaming it. Where there's smoke, there must be fire too. If Steam is so great, is should be optional. In fact Steam is what has been keeping me from buying the game.

But let's say that I am prejudiced. What I would like to know is this: In previous Civ versions it has often happened that people would like to play a specific update of the game. This could be because they had no time to get used to major changes in the latest update, or perhaps because the latest update introduced a bug, or perhaps they experienced crashes with the update etc. Many times they would try the latest update and then return to the previous version for the above reasons.

Is this possible with Steam ?

 

[rickb]

Yeah there's a setting in Steam to not keep the app updated. The best course of action if you are concerned about that would be to create a Steam backup after every new update. I'm firmly in the pro-Steam camp, it's reasonable DRM, but more importantly they actually provide you with value for that. Automatic updates, easy to install on any machine, very non-intrustive DRM, register online once then you can switch to offline mode and never connect again if you don't want.

I believe they've also publicly stated that if they were ever to shutdown, they would unlock all the games. Not that I would really lose any sleep over that possibility. It's not like I really care if I lose my old games anyway; I will have had enjoyment out of them for a reasonable price. I'm not that much of an entitled brat.