Annoying, yet worrying

Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2006
Posts
16,867
Location
Amsterdam, NL
My memory isn't the greatest, I have been experiencing a ton of little bugs recently on my rig and to solve me any further hour or so headaches sorting them. I'm going for a fresh install. Nice Secure erase of my SSD and a install of Win 7 :)

Anyway, anything outside of steam... Is lost haha, such as ACIII, Far Cry 3, BF3, Shift 2... Starcraft, WoW...

So annoying now having all of these online suppliers that hold there games in so many places! Don't even get me started on uplay!

Anyway, just a rant as I'm having to create a list of what games are with who so if I want to play them again (which I will, I paid for them). I need to remember who I got them through!

Obligatory "there must be a better way gif".

wSrFc.gif
 
You'll also need to be wary of DRM using activation counts.
If you've not revoked the in use copy prior to wiping everything then you may have issues reinstalling depending on how many activations you have.

Seperate HDD for games is the way, then when you reinstall OS just reinstall steam/ubi/Origin and point them to the correct location :) Far easier
 
I think that's pretty much why people get so rabid about having everything on steam, and I have to say it is damn convenient. I guess you could at least keep hold of all your save data by using something like Gamesave Manager.
 
Or just have the game save/mydocs directory remaped to the same drive as yer games ;)
Literally, reinstall OS tell steam where the folders are, everythings fine.
 
Yep separate drive for steam works great. Origin doesn't seem to like it as much. I tried it with BF3 yesterday and it refused to admit that BF3 existed on my drive already. I had to "download" it again at which point it jumped to 70% and presumably from that point was installing a patch ( haven't played in almost a year ).

Steam cloud is *supposed* to keep your savegames between machines so technically even if you wiped the drive they should be there but I've yet to see a single game that that actually worked with!
 
Literally, reinstall OS tell steam where the folders are, everythings fine.
I've done this, I did encounter problems with one or two games after moving the folder. It was telling me there was files missing but I deleted the local content and set it to download again, instead of downloading it just used the files that were already there and worked fine. I gather steam doesn't actually delete the files straight away... Or something...
 
I think I know what the OP is on about. I regularly have wrack my brains for which games site I bought Viva Pinata from for like 25p all those years ago. I then remember it was Microsoft. Then I have to remember how to get at the game hidden in confusing layers of Games for Windows live clients. Then I remember I only bought it on a whim in the first place, only played it for like half an hour the first time, then completely forget about it again until the next time something jogs my memory about some game I bought which wasn't on Steam.

edit: I then remember I also bought Age of Empires III from the same site and am only reminded of this fact when I suss out how to view my purchase of Viva Pinata on Microsofts game site, and see it there next to Viva Pinata.
 
Last edited:
Well this all started a few weeks back when I couldn't for the life of me find AC III! I knew I had bought it, not on steam. I had uninstalled it, and uplay doesnt have a actual client! Only launches if you run the exe. Anyway, very annoying!
 
Seems like a nice place to have a min-rant

I wasn't particularly bothered about all of these clients, but since I started using big picture mode a bit more it has got a bit annoying when, for example, I sit back on my sofa and launch Splinter Cell Conviction or an AC game through Steam only for it to launch Uplay which i need to use the keyboard to navigate. Kind of defeats the object really. Same with any game launcher. I have to get up again to go to the keyboard to navigate it....Is this really the 21st century:mad:

:p
 
Some might suggest that using a controller to navigate a PC application is arguably more backward than using a mouse :)

uPlay is a load of crap in my experience but a necessary evil.
 
Some might suggest that using a controller to navigate a PC application is arguably more backward than using a mouse :)

It certainly is, but Steam Big Picture mode is set up very well to navigate your game catalogue with a controller, so every game having a launcher which doesn't respond to a controller doesn't really fit. Hitman Absolution is another one....Hardly the end of the world though, just seems odd.
 
It certainly is, but Steam Big Picture mode is set up very well to navigate your game catalogue with a controller, so every game having a launcher which doesn't respond to a controller doesn't really fit. Hitman Absolution is another one....Hardly the end of the world though, just seems odd.

I do the same, I'm a SP sort of gamer, not one for online games these days. Lost it at CSS a couple of years ago.

So, I use big picture a lot with my controller with the PC just outputting to my AV and 50" plasma (sooooo nice!). But.... Still not easily done haha.
 
I think that's pretty much why people get so rabid about having everything on steam, and I have to say it is damn convenient. I guess you could at least keep hold of all your save data by using something like Gamesave Manager.

It's convenient but at the same time a worrying thought. No singular digital distribution platform should have such a massive market share. Valve have most PC gamers wrapped around their little finger :rolleyes:.

It certainly is, but Steam Big Picture mode is set up very well to navigate your game catalogue with a controller, so every game having a launcher which doesn't respond to a controller doesn't really fit. Hitman Absolution is another one....Hardly the end of the world though, just seems odd.

I'm sure there's a piece of software around that lets you map mouse/keyboard to a controller, e.g. mouse movement to joystick, left/right click to left/right bumper.
 
I think i tried something that let me map my mouse to a 360 pad and the input lag was horrific.

maybe just me :/but barely usable
 
Back
Top Bottom