Problems with Steam.

[Motorbreath]

Well, I have been exploring PC gaming recently and so I decided I could as well spend my time looking at games and stuff (although I don't think my computer can handle the newest games).

I have downloaded Counter Strike: Source in my computer and it runs decently expect that it still has some glitches and I had to download a program named "Steam". According to a friend, it will help me to find better servers and hopefully the program could fix such glitches. UPDATING PROBLEM: Well, it did updated and I already created my account, but my friend's server list reaches +4000 servers and mine reaches 40 at most and when I try to enter a server, it says that I don't have a 3rd-party mod installed, er...help?

Also, I'm not really good with PC troubleshooting, so building my own PC means that I'm capable of fixing it for myself (not completely true but still...), so in the near future I plan to buy a gaming PC (XPS, Alienware, etc...), what do you guys recommend?

 

[Hex]

[font="Calibri,Arial"]meh. I don't go in for digital distritubution. My internet is so slow, I can't download games. Unless there was like a €20 price difference, I couldn't justify the time required to download the game. Also my download limit is pretty low so I'd be limited to maybe 3 games a month. (The joys of living rural, in the country with the worst broadband in the EU).[/font]

 

[Fire2box]

this is WHY you should get Steam and buy directly from it. The company that owns Steam also made CS:S the game that you mentioned.

Also Steam will not do anything remotely bad to your computer. Its sort of like Itunes for video games but a LOT more better. Also Steam is completely free.

 

[Chris H]

Steam used to be a giant steaming pile, but now it's not so bad. It's still glitchy and tends to not work with linux-based OS's (won't work on Ubuntu I know for a fact). Even still, it's kind of like the myspace of computer games. You can set it to allow you to use the steam community on any game that you have, which allows you to chat in-game between games to other people.

As for getting a new computer, buying a pre-built computer will all ways be more expensive than doing the research and building your own. If you've got a friend who's computer savvy, I'd say enlist his help on finding and buying good parts and assembling yourself a kick-ass gaming computer.


Back to your problem: There's a file in your steam folder (commonly C:\Program Files\Steam) called "ClientRegistry.blob". If you delete that, you'll have to re-update steam, and it's a common curall for a lot of steam's problems. As for it telling you that you don't have the third party mod... Well, you probably don't have the mod that the server was made for. This is assuming you just clicked "find servers" without filtering it to any specific game. Or you tried to join a game that your friend was playing, it was a mod, and you don't have the mod.

If you could give more specifics on the matter, I could try to help more.

 

[Walter]

:educate: what he said.

 

[Motorbreath]

If you could give more specifics on the matter, I could try to help more.

Yeah it's kinda weird but I need to know which tools do I need to download. This is how it goes:

I start Steam and then I click on the "Servers" option (it's the icon that looks like a sphere/planet). The server list starts searching for any avaliable game but I have gotten 40 servers at most. My friend doesn't quite remember how to fix that, but he remembered that he downloaded a "dedicated server", but I don't want to download a file as big as that one for nothing, there are for HL: DM, Team fortress 2, Left 4 Dead but there's nothing for Counter Strike, there is a file named "Source dedicated server" though, nonetheless I really don't know if it's really for "Counter Strike: Source", so I want to confirm which files should I download. Anyway, so far I have played just twice in those servers but in the rest a little dialog box appears and just says "You don't have a 3rd party mod installed.", and then that server turns it's status to "<Not responding>". It's really confusing, but now I know that the only problem could either come from not downloading some files or could as well come from one of the Apps.

 

[Fire2box]

Yeah it's kinda weird but I need to know which tools do I need to download. This is how it goes:

I start Steam and then I click on the "Servers" option (it's the icon that looks like a sphere/planet). The server list starts searching for any avaliable game but I have gotten 40 servers at most. My friend doesn't quite remember how to fix that, but he remembered that he downloaded a "dedicated server", but I don't want to download a file as big as that one for nothing, there are for HL: DM, Team fortress 2, Left 4 Dead but there's nothing for Counter Strike, there is a file named "Source dedicated server" though, nonetheless I really don't know if it's really for "Counter Strike: Source", so I want to confirm which files should I download. Anyway, so far I have played just twice in those servers but in the rest a little dialog box appears and just says "You don't have a 3rd party mod installed.", and then that server turns it's status to "<Not responding>". It's really confusing, but now I know that the only problem could either come from not downloading some files or could as well come from one of the Apps.

those dedicated serve things on the Steam tools tabs are pretty much only for making your own server.

I wish I could help ya but I don't own any CS game. TF2 has the arena mode anyways which is one life per game just like CS.

 

[Jon]

You have to actually run the game first, then access the server list from within the game itself.

 

[Fire2box]

You have to actually run the game first, then access the server list from within the game itself.

Well you can right click on the Steam icon in the bottom right of windows and click servers. I just did that and got maybe 70-130 servers in the first 20 seconds or so. Most of them are Counter Strike servers but you could find any server running a steam game on it I think.

Of course its better to just look at them from the game your playing.

 

[Chris H]

You have to actually run the game first, then access the server list from within the game itself.

That is one thing.

You downloaded CS:S independant of Steam? Did you buy it? If you did, you should have gotten a CD-key, which you can use to register the game with steam. Then, you'll be able to run CS:S on steam, then once you run the game, you should be able to click the "Find Servers" button inside there.

If you have the game less-than-legally, or lost/didn't get the cd-key, you may be SOL.

 

[Motorbreath]

There you go! It is really working! =D Sorry if I haven't replied but I have been playing a lot and don't worry, I did buy it =). Thanks a lot.

 

[Chris H]

Happy to help

 

[recovery]

I thought the standard was if you buy and Valve games for PC, they come with some form of steam on disc and Its madatory that you create an account and log in with it at least once to unlock the game. Think of DRM. But I've only really downloaded the games through it.

Steam on Linux? I've had sucess with linux. I was playing TF2, it was some what stable. However, it had a few major problems. It wasn't pratical. My CPU wasn't strong enougth as it has to work double time, A) to run the game and B) convert DirectX to OpenGL. And because of that the graphics didn't quiet look the way they were suppose to and had a few weird effects and got like 8FPS at most no matter what the graphics was set to. 3D acceleration wasn't the bottleneck. As on my XP install it runs at 40-50 no problems and looks a hell of a lot better!

 

[Fire2box]

and don't worry, I did buy it =).

Thats what they all say..


Anyways if you like CS:S try out TF2, in fact, you should really just buy The Orange Box. 5 games for 50 bucks seams like a great deal to me.

 

[Point]

Maybe if you wouldn't boil all that friggin' water you wouldn't have a problem with steam.

 

[Motorbreath]

Anyways if you like CS:S try out TF2, in fact, you should really just buy The Orange Box. 5 games for 50 bucks seams like a great deal to me.

Exactly, this is the next game I'm buying (have been buying a lot of games but I have ignored this vulgarly). Plus, I have seen the graphics of both HL: EP2 and Portal, they look outstanding. Thing is that, I will need to buy it for the Xbox 360 =(, I have HL: 2 installed on my computer but it runs SLOW, my guess would be that the Orange box would just run slower. Thanks for the suggestion though =).

 

[Fire2box]

Exactly, this is the next game I'm buying (have been buying a lot of games but I have ignored this vulgarly). Plus, I have seen the graphics of both HL: EP2 and Portal, they look outstanding. Thing is that, I will need to buy it for the Xbox 360 =(, I have HL: 2 installed on my computer but it runs SLOW, my guess would be that the Orange box would just run slower. Thanks for the suggestion though =).

HL2 and its episodes don't look that good if you want to see games that look that good check out Fallout 3 and Crysis.

Also the orange box is MUCH better on the PC so i would recommend upgrading your PC hardware or just building a new one altogether. Plus you don't need to pay for updates on the PC versions unlike you will need to do on the 360 one.