The Steam Thread

[Barkeep49]

I have a Defense Grid key that I don't need and am happy to give to somebody.

[EagleFan]

That is a great game.

[Grover]

Portal 2 for $5? Hell yes.

[mckerney]

Pro Cycling Manager 2012 is $19.99 for another 3 hours.

[bhlloy]

Couldn't pass up on Pro Cycling Manager at that price, but the manual is corrupt through Steam which is annoying as hell. Anyone had any luck getting to the manual/downloading it? I get a ton of Adobe Acrobat errors and then crash.

[weegeebored]

I checked to see if I could download and view it. Works fine for me, but I'm using PDF Xchange and not Adobe as my reader. PM me with your email and I can send it if you'd like.

[mckerney]

The manual opens fine for me in Chrome's PDF viewer. Any luck opening this link with Chrome if you can.

[bhlloy]

That worked fine, thanks. Seems to be a different link from the one in Steam.

[bhlloy]

A newb question that I didn't see covered - how do you make money/avoid bankruptcy?

I've started a few test games and been in the red after a couple months each time. Is it purely rewards for winning races/meeting your sponsors goals or am I doing something horribly wrong? Seems like I usually start with just enough balance to cover one month of rider salary and after a preseason training camp I'm in trouble by the time February rolls around

[DaddyTorgo]

you guys who just bought PCM will want to hit up pcmdaily.com for real-name databases and tips

[Qrusher14242]

anyone play Driver SF? been reading theres some freezing issues having to do with the DRM.

I passed on Driver...lots of bad DRM with that one. I got Burnout Ultimate Box instead but cant play it

Seems Valve ran out of cd keys and a lot of people can't play it. Sucks

[whomario]

I jumped on it with 30 seconds to go

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

you guys who just bought PCM will want to hit up pcmdaily.com for real-name databases and tips

can you (or anyone) tell me if i´m missing sth or if it isn´t possible : I want to sim ahead a couple weeks or even a full season but can´t find a possibility to do it, all i can do is sim 1 day


Also, i downloaded the expansion pack with mirrors and the files seem messed up. I then seem to have fixed them and installed them but can´t choose the Database in the options I can however choose the different variants for the TDF when doing a stage race, so the install seems to have worked .


@ bhlloy : What team do you go with ? And did you start on easy, normal or hard ? On "hard", you´ll loose money unless you get pretty good prize money (on normal the budget should at least cover the salary, on easy you have extra to spend)

Unfortunately you can only see the prize money for stages in the calendar, not for the whole race

[Ryan S]

Are there any decent tutorials or beginners guides for Pro Cycling Manager?

[Qrusher14242]

Well i just finished buying my last game of the sale. Here's the damage heh

Portal 2 $5
Crusader Kings II $9.99
Crusader Kings II Sword of Islam $2
Binding of Isaac Wrath of the Lamb $2
Hard Reset: Extended Edition $3.74
Toy Soliders $3
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic $2.75
Left 4 Dead 1+2 $10
Europa Universalis III $7
Railworks 3: Train Simulator 2012 $4
The Longest Journy $2.75
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit $5
Burnout: The Ultimate Box $4
Dungeon Defenders Lost Eternia Shards Complete DLC $3.75
Galactic Civilizations II $5
Divine Divinity $3.99

Total $71.98

Not bad...was hoping for some other games to go on sale, but there were so many repeats in this sale. I liked the Chrismas Sale better, i miss the achievements

edit: forgot about portal 2 heh

[Thomkal]

My damage was Legend of Grimrock and then just now Galactic Civilizations II. Great deal on that one-two or three expansion packs plus the original game.

[Scoobz0202]

My wallet

[Scoobz0202]

dola -

I really want to bite on Bioshock today as I have never played it. But I think I have too much.

[rjolley]

Has anyone played Airline Tycoon 2? Doesn't look like it's a good buy at $20, but at $7, it might be...

[frnk55]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

My wallet

It's good to be a PC gamer.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by frnk55

It's good to be a PC gamer.

The hardest part is figuring out which one to play

[Qrusher14242]

man, Super Meat Boy is fun. i forgot i got in a Bundle a while back

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

dola -

I really want to bite on Bioshock today as I have never played it. But I think I have too much.

One of my favorites games.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Qrusher14242

man, Super Meat Boy is fun. i forgot i got in a Bundle a while back

Interestingly enough I fired this one up randomly last night. I only really play it for 20-30 mins maybe every couple of months, but it's a great little time waster.

[cschex]

SMB is fun and really hard. Even though I had played that a lot, I hadn't picked up Binding of Isaac until this sale and I am now totally hooked. Love the twisted sense of humor of this game and it's definitely a challenge.

[Qrusher14242]

yeah Isaac is a great game, just wish it wasnt in flash. I suck at it, but its fun to play heh

[FrogMan]

just ended my spending spree with the addition of Jade Empire that never went lower than 50% off but that I really wanted to get...

In all, that's 15 games I got:
FM2012
Binding of Isaac Complete
Skyrim
Tropico 4
From Dust
Civilization 5
Left 4 Dead 2
Witcher Enhanced Edition
Shogun 2 Collection
Assassin's Creed director cut
Recettear
Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate
Risen
NFS Shift 2 Unleashed
Jade Empire

Total spent comes to 119.41 for stuff that's regularly price at 398.81, or all in all, 70% off. Not all bad and plenty to play for quite a while...

One that's getting me frustrated though is Skyrim. got it started the other evening, went throught the first 30 minutes without a glitch, up to where you pick a race for yoru character. Picked one and saved right after that. Since that time, every time I try to start the game, I'm getting a hang up and a message that says "failed to initiate renderer". Even if I go to "options" and ask the default so the game would pick graphic levels for me, it says the game has picked "high" level for graphics. I'm a bit frustrated by this, probably even more since that was the one game I spent the most money on.

My computer is a brand new laptop, Dell XPS15 with an i7 cpu, 8GB RAM and a GeForce GT540M for graphic card with 2 GB of VRAM.

Only thing I did after the time the game ran well is update my videocard drivers, which actually should help it, not make the game not work...

FM

[FrogMan]

dola, and for those who didn't know, FM2012 is selling for $7.49 in this last round of deals...

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Qrusher14242

Not bad...was hoping for some other games to go on sale, but there were so many repeats in this sale. I liked the Chrismas Sale better, i miss the achievements

I didn't pay much attention to the Christmas but while I liked the flash deals a lot early on in this sale, it turned out to take away a lot of my fun in the last few days for the regular deals. Same goes for the Community votes deals. many of the same games came back a few times in the rotation and when the fun 1pm time would come, they were all games I had bought when they first appeared in flash sales...

FM

[PilotMan]

Like I posted earlier. I had to stay out of this one for the most part. My PC's are already loaded with games that I have intended to get to but haven't and my PC's have been passed somewhere in about the last 12-18 months and can't play the newer games. Having said that, I added the DLC for Frozen Synapse, Portal 2, and Recettear.

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

just ended my spending spree with the addition of Jade Empire that never went lower than 50% off but that I really wanted to get...

In all, that's 15 games I got:
FM2012
Binding of Isaac Complete
Skyrim
Tropico 4
From Dust
Civilization 5
Left 4 Dead 2
Witcher Enhanced Edition
Shogun 2 Collection
Assassin's Creed director cut
Recettear
Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate
Risen
NFS Shift 2 Unleashed
Jade Empire

Total spent comes to 119.41 for stuff that's regularly price at 398.81, or all in all, 70% off. Not all bad and plenty to play for quite a while...

One that's getting me frustrated though is Skyrim. got it started the other evening, went throught the first 30 minutes without a glitch, up to where you pick a race for yoru character. Picked one and saved right after that. Since that time, every time I try to start the game, I'm getting a hang up and a message that says "failed to initiate renderer". Even if I go to "options" and ask the default so the game would pick graphic levels for me, it says the game has picked "high" level for graphics. I'm a bit frustrated by this, probably even more since that was the one game I spent the most money on.

My computer is a brand new laptop, Dell XPS15 with an i7 cpu, 8GB RAM and a GeForce GT540M for graphic card with 2 GB of VRAM.

Only thing I did after the time the game ran well is update my videocard drivers, which actually should help it, not make the game not work...

FM

FM, have you tried going into NVidia Settings, Manage 3D Settings, Add the executable for Skyrim, select High-performance NVIDIA Processor.

I have the same video card on my ACER Aspire 4750G.

For some reason, a lot of the Steam Games detect the GT540M and set their settings accordingly, but the one that's actually running is the Intel Integrated Graphics Chip.

This should force the Laptop to switch to the NVIDIA processor whenever you load the game. I do this for all my games, essentially.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

FM, have you tried going into NVidia Settings, Manage 3D Settings, Add the executable for Skyrim, select High-performance NVIDIA Processor.

I have the same video card on my ACER Aspire 4750G.

For some reason, a lot of the Steam Games detect the GT540M and set their settings accordingly, but the one that's actually running is the Intel Integrated Graphics Chip.

This should force the Laptop to switch to the NVIDIA processor whenever you load the game. I do this for all my games, essentially.

yeah, I'd read about this, the Optimus technology in the GT540M not managing the GPU the right way, and I tried it last night. Still not working though

Kinda pissed and tired of trying. Will play some of the other games for now and will get into it at some point.

Thanks for trying.

FM

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

I didn't pay much attention to the Christmas but while I liked the flash deals a lot early on in this sale, it turned out to take away a lot of my fun in the last few days for the regular deals. Same goes for the Community votes deals. many of the same games came back a few times in the rotation and when the fun 1pm time would come, they were all games I had bought when they first appeared in flash sales...

FM

I liked the Christmas sale better myself, and have the same feelings about the flash sales kind of cannibalizing the daily deals by the end. There are rumors that some achievements will appear once the sale ends (so later today, I suppose), based on clues and hints that have appeared in the daily images and news releases. I guess we'll see. I'm happy to have acquired my King of the Fort badge regardless

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I liked the Christmas sale better myself, and have the same feelings about the flash sales kind of cannibalizing the daily deals by the end. There are rumors that some achievements will appear once the sale ends (so later today, I suppose), based on clues and hints that have appeared in the daily images and news releases. I guess we'll see. I'm happy to have acquired my King of the Fort badge regardless

Yeah, I could do without the Flash deals as well. Just give me the deals for each day and give me 24 hours to spend my money. Didn't feel like it added anything and in some cases made me frustrated that I missed something. When your customers get frustrated rather than having a blast like they usually do, you're going down the wrong path. I didn't buy nearly as much as I usually do solely for that reason.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Yeah, I could do without the Flash deals as well. Just give me the deals for each day and give me 24 hours to spend my money. Didn't feel like it added anything and in some cases made me frustrated that I missed something. When your customers get frustrated rather than having a blast like they usually do, you're going down the wrong path. I didn't buy nearly as much as I usually do solely for that reason.

I don't know, I can't say I was ever frustrated by the flash sales, especially because everything seemed to come up at least 2 or 3 times by the end of the entire sale. Pretty hard to completely miss something. And I only bought less than the Christmas sale simply because I still have so many 'leftovers' from that exact Christmas sale that I couldn't justify adding too many more games to my backlog at this point.

I mostly just missed the achievements and the coal and presents and stuff. They were just an element of fun that was gone this time around.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

just ended my spending spree with the addition of Jade Empire that never went lower than 50% off but that I really wanted to get...

I did the same, and as always buying something is a sure way to get something to go on sale. Sure enough, the never on sale Jade Empire is 75% off for $3.75 today.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by mckerney

I did the same, and as always buying something is a sure way to get something to go on sale. Sure enough, the never on sale Jade Empire is 75% off for $3.75 today.

Save 75% on Jade Empire™: Special Edition on Steam

[Matthean]

JE is kind of odd that it falls in the area of the worst Bioware title but yet, that's like saying the worst Pixar movie. It's a rarity of a game for me since I actually completed it. I liked it. I just wanted more.

[Scoobz0202]

I've never played JE, but is it really worse than Dragon Age II?

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Matthean

JE is kind of odd that it falls in the area of the worst Bioware title but yet, that's like saying the worst Pixar movie. It's a rarity of a game for me since I actually completed it. I liked it. I just wanted more.

So it's the Cars 2 of BioWare games?

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

I've never played JE, but is it really worse than Dragon Age II?

No, much better than Dragon Age 2. Not up to Bioware's previous level of standards, but not a bad game.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

yeah, I'd read about this, the Optimus technology in the GT540M not managing the GPU the right way, and I tried it last night. Still not working though

Kinda pissed and tired of trying. Will play some of the other games for now and will get into it at some point.

Thanks for trying.

FM

I've got a 540 in my laptop and had the same problem back in November. Specifying it explicitly like this in the Nvidia console solved the problem.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by mckerney

I did the same, and as always buying something is a sure way to get something to go on sale. Sure enough, the never on sale Jade Empire is 75% off for $3.75 today.

well, that's annoying. Sure, it's only $3.75 we would have saved, but heck, it's annoying. And as you called it, "the never on sale Jade Empire". Have had it on my wishlist since some long time ago Steam sale and I never really saw its price drop until I saw this 50% on the sale... Oh well.

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Matthean

JE is kind of odd that it falls in the area of the worst Bioware title but yet, that's like saying the worst Pixar movie. It's a rarity of a game for me since I actually completed it. I liked it. I just wanted more.

the whole theme of Jade Empire appealed to the martial artist in me VERY much. Looking forward to playing it a great deal...

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Drake

I've got a 540 in my laptop and had the same problem back in November. Specifying it explicitly like this in the Nvidia console solved the problem.

didn't work for me and frankly, I'm stumped... everything says my laptop should be able to run this game, and it did run it, for a good 30 minutes without one hint of glitch but now something is keeping it from starting the game

FM

[jaygr]

I actually had a different problem with the flash deals. I didn't mind them in theory, it was just that with games coming up 3-4 times between flash deals and daily deals it kept giving me chances to buy them- and not in a good way. What I mean is I would talk myself out of buying a game I didn't really need only to have it show up again in a day or two and I had to debate getting it all over again. Fortunately I remained mostly strong but I did get Left4Dead 2 after talking myself out of it twice (not that the $4.99 was that bad of a hit).

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Grover

So it's the Cars 2 of BioWare games?

I said in the area. I didn't play DA II either. It is worth for it less than $4 though. The one tournament you enter was fun to play.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

didn't work for me and frankly, I'm stumped... everything says my laptop should be able to run this game, and it did run it, for a good 30 minutes without one hint of glitch but now something is keeping it from starting the game

FM

Honestly, I'd revert back to the old drivers if they worked.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

Honestly, I'd revert back to the old drivers if they worked.

that's the thing, I don't know which driver version was in there when I got the laptop and didn't think about making a restore point.

Anyway I could find old Nvidia drivers I could install instead of the one I have now?

FM

[FrogMan]

I tried to run teh secondary installers mentioned in this thread The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - S - Knowledge Base - Steam Support and rebooted and tried it again, same result

FM

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

I've never played JE, but is it really worse than Dragon Age II?

Dragon Age II was a pretty good game. Not as good as the first and it had some story structure issues, but it's underrated. Same with Mass Effect 3.