Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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There were so many Valve/Steam related posts that I’ve decided to post them all (or almost) here:

Gabe Newell says no-one in the industry thought Steam would work as a distribution platform—'I'm not talking about 1 or 2 people, I mean like 99%'
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gabe-newell-says-no-one-in-the-industry-thought-steam-would-work-as-a-distribution-platform-im-not-talking-about-1-or-2-people-i-mean-like-99-percent/
Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary saw Valve doing a Valve: The game received a massive surprise update, adding new commentary and integrating the two episodes, alongside adding a whole bunch of enhancements. It also dropped a two-hour documentary about the making of the game, and the background of Valve's existential legal battle with Vivendi, which features all sorts of digressions into the studio's multifaceted thinking, and the possibly unforeseen consequences: Most notably, the creation of what would become the de facto PC gaming platform Steam.
Steam launched in 2003, initially as a way for Valve to automatically ship updates to players of its existing games. "Gabe [Newell] in particular, he had a pencil sketch of an idea in his head of what would become Steam," says Erik Johnson. "But it was clear with Team Fortress Classic and then Counter-Strike that fundamentally the thing we were really attracted to was the ability to ship content directly to our customers.

Steam has died its final death on Windows 7 and 8: Nearly a year after Valve ended support, new Steam updates will no longer function on the ancient OSes
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/steam-has-died-its-final-death-on-windows-7-and-8-nearly-a-year-after-valve-ended-support-new-steam-updates-have-stopped-coming-to-the-ancient-oses/
If you were still gaming on Windows 7 or 8 in 2024, almost two years after Microsoft itself abandoned its own children, it's definitely time for an upgrade: Steam's most recent client update is the first to not work on the old OSes, more than 11 months after Valve announced it would stop supporting them.
"This version of the Steam client will no longer run on Windows 7 or Windows 8," reads the accompanying documentation of the November 5 Steam client update. "Users on these OS versions will not automatically update to this new version of the Steam client."

Valve first came up with the Steam Hardware Survey more than 20 years ago because it wanted to know what specs it should target for Half-Life 2
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/valve-first-came-up-with-the-steam-hardware-survey-more-than-20-years-ago-because-it-wanted-to-know-what-specs-it-should-target-for-half-life-2/
The Steam Hardware Survey has become a critical resource for the games industry, allowing curious enthusiasts or practical-minded developers to get a sense of how the average PC gamer enjoys the hobby. To hear Valve senior engineer Jay Stelly tell it in Half-Life 2's new 20th anniversary developer commentary, the Steam Hardware Survey first came about because Valve itself had no other way of accessing the information.
>> But how reliable is the data it gets?

The origin of the Source engine's iconic neon fuchsia checkerboard texture, as told by Half-Life 2's new commentary mode
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-origin-of-the-source-engines-iconic-neon-fuchsia-checkerboard-texture-as-told-by-half-life-2s-new-commentary-mode/
It feels weird to say, , but the error texture on Valve's Source engine feels like an old friend to me. Its arresting, black and fuchsia checkerboard is a familiar face that shows up everywhere from Counter-Strike surf servers to bootleg Mario Kart maps in Team Fortress 2. It kind of rhymes with the similarly ugly-cute "FIREBLU" lava texture from Doom, a cheeky reminder of a beloved FPS. Now, in the 20th anniversary developer commentary for Half-Life 2, Valve has explained some of the reasoning behind creating the now-iconic error visual.

Valve zoomed in Half-Life 2's FOV from the gold standard 90 so you could see all those pretty Source engine faces better
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/valve-zoomed-in-half-life-2s-fov-from-the-gold-standard-90-so-you-could-see-all-those-pretty-source-engine-faces-better/
PC gamers love tweaking our field of view sliders⁠, the extent of your in-game peripheral vision that gets rendered. Real heads tend to adopt a "the higher, the better," mentality, with 90 degrees being a commonly-accepted sweet spot. So why did PC gaming grande damme Valve saddle us with a miserly, dare I say console-like 75-degree default FOV in Half-Life 2?
"In Half-Life 1, we used a 90-degree field of view, or FOV, which was fairly standard for first-person shooters at the time. But during Half-Life 2's development, we grew unhappy with it," explained Valve developer Kerry Davis in the new 20th anniversary commentary mode for Half-Life 2. "With our game's focus on characters, we'd put extensive effort into detailed facial and body animations, but the 90-degree FOV didn't allow players to get close enough to fully appreciate that detail.
"So, we began experimenting with a tighter FOV and ultimately landed on 75 degrees. It took some adjustment from both us and players, and it required an additional FOV for viewmodels, which are the player's weapon held at the bottom of the screen. Their models were originally built with 90 degrees in mind, so they looked distorted at 75. But this change succeeded in doing what we wanted: Putting our characters front and center in the game."