Hey guys.

I'm thinking of finally getting CS (slow, I know) along with some other Steam games that to the best of my knowledge can't be bought on CD/DVD. Problem is, I don't want to bust my download limit and Steam doesn't tell you file sizes. Does anyone know where I can find this information?

inb4 looking at torrent file sizes, sometimes they're missing files and not a good indication.

Also, does anyone know if it is possible to install a game from someone else's DVD and then buy a new license?

can you list some games you will be downloading

Counter-Strike Source, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. The rest will probably be mods off the Internet and I can tell the size of those.

However, I know people who own these games and hence I'd like to know if I can use their backups to install and then buy an activation key. Someone mentioned that once to me, but they may have been BSing.

counter-strike source: 4438 mb
counter strike: 786 mb
orange box: 15.5 gb
Day of defeat: 786 mb
day of defeat source : 2712 mb
Half-life 1: 692 mb
half-life 1 source: 780 mb
Half-life 2: 864 mb
Half-life 2 deathmatch: 30 mb
Half-life 2 ep 1:2020 mb
Half-life 2 ep 2: 7234 mb
team fortress 2: 4654 mb
portal: 3708 mb

I recommend buying the orange box from a retail store for $30 usd.
I think you can install from a disc and buy a new license.

It may be $30 in the US, but in Australia our retail stores live in a parallel universe where that coverts not into $AU50 as you would expect but $AU100. Besides, I already have Portal. Buying from Steam would be the best, but looking at those download sizes it's not going to happen. I shall have to investigate buying a license off Steam.

Actually HL2's size isn't that bad.

Thanks anyway though.

Are you kidding?

Here in Sydney the Orange Box can be bought for $50AU.

well you can base it off percentages. Just download like 10 - 15% of something than stop for a day then continue.

as for portal, if you have the Serial number just go to activate product on stream.

Really? What store? Even JB scrounges me.

As for the quote below, I've already installed Portal off a retail disc, but can you tell me how I activate a product in case I do get a backup disc?

in the games tab it says activate product on steam, hit that and follow prompts.