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Valve Releases Counter-Strike 1.6 Installer

Posted by simoniker on from the all-steamed-up dept.

Thanks to Blue's News for pointing out that Valve has released the Counter-Strike 1.6 installer for Steam, the broadband delivery platform for which "over 200,000 new accounts have been created" since its official launch on Friday. The 379mb install, helpful for those who can't get swift downloads from Steam itself, is available from Gamer's Hell, Worthplaying, and FilePlanet (reg. required).

41 comments

  1. After a rough start... by preric · · Score: 2, Interesting
    which included release delays and (still) major lag in Steam downloading, updating and general functionality, I am pleased that those problems have leveled out to a point where Steam is actually usefull.

    While frustrating to the rest of the non-broadband world, I think this is the real future, just as downloading a movie to your TV will (hopefully) circumvent movie rental stores. And with over 200,000 accounts on Steam, it looks like I'm not alone!

    1. Re:After a rough start... by BigKato · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Downloading movies will never be as popular as going to the theater or renting, especially if the system is anything like Steam. How many people have fast enough broadband to download movies in the amt of time it takes to run down to the local Blockbuster or Hollywood. There is no reliability in the delivery via broadband. Anyways I would prefer Netflix.com over a downloaded movie that would probably be only viewable once.

      I think you're also excluding a lot of people if you don't have rental stores. This may shock some of you but there are people out there who have no use for the internet and are getting by in life without it.

      --
      So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
    2. Re:After a rough start... by preric · · Score: 5, Informative
      Um, it doesn't shock me at all that people don't have broadband (let alone internet) but I believe (just as newspapers have seen a steady decline in sales since (at some level) enough readers can find what they need online), as Valve does, that this new system will be a money saver for both them and the consumer.

      Will broadband systems for software and entertainment take over the traditional systems tommorrow? Probably not. In ten years? Maybe.

      A perfect example would be the shipping company UPS. Last month, they decided to switch from their 'traditional' system of filling out paperwork for each box (lame when you ship a dozen or so random boxes each month) to a computer system. So basically, the consumer walks into a branch, logs in using his precreated account (works anywhere) types in the receivers name and zip, and then clicks 'print'. He sticks the label onto his box, and takes it up to the cashier. While this is a total timesaver for me, I watched as an older lady (mid 70's) came into the store, was told to make an account (after she asked a clerk for paperwork), and promptly stated that it was ludicrus, leaving to walk across the street to the Postal Annex, which uses the same system except addes an additional charge.

      Okay, while that isn't the greatest analogy, you see where I'm going. Are there plenty of people who won't be using Steam for purchasing Half Life 2? Totally, just as there are plenty of people who purchase CD's in stores instead of using iTunes or something. But it's not like the online systems are starving for consumers. They ARE growing, and that can't be bad!

  2. What a mess! by BigKato · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Valve doesn't seem to know what they're doing at all with steam. It's a headache for me so I don't think I'm gonna use it til I have to. I'll stick to CS 1.5 because it's just funner (and easier to get in a game) than CS 1.6. I guess I'll have to live without those stupid riot shields but oh well, life goes on.

    --
    So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
    1. Re:What a mess! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No kidding... this is by far the worst roll out I have ever had the misfortune of participating in. And the damn things as some serious threading issues.

    2. Re:What a mess! by u-238 · · Score: 0

      yeah, it's a lot "funner" isn't it?

      go make another online anti steam petition, numbskull

    3. Re:What a mess! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah no shit. It's almost like they didn't use threading at all.

      Try and press Games/Monitor ... wait 5 minutes ... keep trying to press Games/Monitor ... wait 5 minutes ... Games/Monitor button finally activates.

      C'mon Gabe we're talking CS 102.

    4. Re:What a mess! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      More than 17000 have signed a petition against Steam. You can do so too.

      Valve better gets its act together with Steam.

    5. Re:What a mess! by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

      I think WON is shutting down at the end of the month.

      Was REALLY looking forward to this release, but the assholes slyly added "Removed Bots" to the CS 1.6 changelist *TWO DAYS* after the entry was put up. They removed a part that was vital to my group of friends (since bots amuse until the others show up) so BUH-BYE VALVE! You fucked us and had us testing code for Condition Zero, not CS. Then you dishonestly added the fact you'd removed bots to the changelist...

      Back to UT it is...

  3. BitTorrent link by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 4, Informative

    steaminstall_cs-exe.torrent

  4. I've had the opposite experience by fireduck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Downloaded the steam non-beta client right after the original story was posted to slashdot. the beta client wouldn't uninstall through window add/remove. eventually found the correct unwise.exe command line to get it out.

    Installed steam and pretty much left the computer while it updated itself, I'm guessing it took several hours (what with the thousands of other people doing it simultaneously).

    Then it died at some point while trying to transfer my existing content (HL and whatever mods I had installed through regular means). So we had to re-install steam and go through it all over again. (where it didn't want to transfer existing content anymore, for some reason)

    After several more hours, I finally have steam working properly, so I try and play HL. Does nothing after pressing the install button over and over (install, wait 10 minutes to see if it's doing anything, no? click HL again and repress install). Eventually, half a day later (literally), it finally opens the progress window. Have to download it (400+ MB). So, after what it predicts to be 140 minutes, apparently it has HL. (I went to bed at this point). Get up, try to run HL, steam crashes with some memory address is can't access or whatever. Reboot, retry several times, same problem. Steam is crashing on load (far before it gets to loading HL)

    The stupid client seems to keep corrupting itself. So for now, I've given up. Steam FAQ doesn't address this, and they've taken the steam forums down temporarily.

    I seriously can't see how they can distribute HL2 through this method. Regardless of how much cheaper it is to purchase HL2 through steam, I'm buying the retail version, simply because I want a freaking executable I can run. (this presuming they don't hide the HL2 executable behind steam; and only use steam as the cd-key verification tool. which is a big presumption at this point).

    Steam beta eventually worked for me (after a few initial corruptions of the client requiring re-installs), but I don't have 13 hours to install steam, update steam, install HL only to have it corrupt itself again.

    1. Re:I've had the opposite experience by Anil · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I had similar problems. Steam tried to copy over my existing content and just didn't do anything - then it wouldn't even give me an option to try and fix what it farged up.

      I've only got a 128k line though, so I wasn't about to sit and wait for steam to re-update itself again on a re-install.

  5. Cache download by BrookHarty · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Steam makes the static cache file, but doesnt display the percentage of the download. So you look at your HD you have a 360 meg file, but its just a container.

    At least now you can download a complete cache file, which should include all the basic levels... (Bitch when you join a server and you dont have that level, and you have to wait for the download.)

  6. Smelly Pile of Steam by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've talked to a lot of clan folk in IRC lately for some CS and TFC clans I know - a LOT of people are not happy with Steam.

    And to be honest I can't blame them. The close to 400 meg download apparantly only has CS 1.6 but doesn't include TFC 1.6. Plus Steam also shot up the system requirements for Half Life from a 133mhz machine with a decent 3D video card to at least a 1ghz CPU with lots of ram and NTFS Partitions.

    I just pray they don't use STEAM with Half Life 2 - who need's STEAM to auto patch your installation whether you agree to it or not.

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
    1. Re:Smelly Pile of Steam by randomdef · · Score: 1

      I think it was annouced days ago that Half Life 2 would use steam, and really, good, why else introduce this now? so, keep praying.

    2. Re:Smelly Pile of Steam by rpillala · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure Valve has announced that STEAM will certainly be used with Half Life 2. I even read a speculation (?) somewhere that STEAM would be one way to purchase HL2. I'm at work here so I can't visit any game-related sites to check this.

      Ravi

      --
      When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
  7. Steam is crap... by cronostitan · · Score: 0

    I mean..

    this was in testing phase for almost a year and still they have major problems.

    Friends of mine are trying to play CS 1.6 since Friday but to no avail.

    Lockdown, Shutdowns, strange error messages, endless downloads and much more..

    Maybe it should be marked as a virus.... fits better than steam.

    --
    Spelling errors were made for your amusement only...
    1. Re:Steam is crap... by sardiax · · Score: 1

      installed non-beta client w/o cache. didn't work quite right, uninstalled, cleared directory, reinstalled, uninstalled, reinstalled cache version from bittorrent, runs the game now, friends system has been up and down. network is a little shaky but its under pretty heavy traffic. i've been through worse, and i'm sure plenty of you have too so quit yer complaining.

  8. NTFS requirement? by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 1

    I hadn't heard about the NTFS requirement... is that because of the FAT32 2GB filesize limit? I really do not look forward to having to convert my HD just to play HL2...

    1. Re:NTFS requirement? by domninus.DDR · · Score: 1

      That's because he made it up.

  9. How about this: by colinramsay · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Don't complain about software if all you're going to do is continually spam the network even though you know there's not enough bandwidth.

    Don't whinge about problems with said software until said spammers stop doing their spamming thing.

    Why do you all think that Valve would spend thousands of dollars providing content servers for a free game? A free game which has some of the most immature and ungrateful players the online community has yet seen?

    --
    Free iPods - now in the UK!
  10. Steam is Crap and here to stay by Jthon · · Score: 0, Redundant

    It turns out that Valve will be demolishing the WON server network and will require all customers who wish to play online to use steam. From the HLDS_ANNOUNCE list valve runs: Q: Is WON going away? A: Yes, once we have completed the rollover we will slowly remove parts of the WON system as they become obsolete. Not only that steam has really high system requirements. Min 1GHZ machine as opposed to halflife's 133mhz requirement. That's 10 times faster than you need for the original! Even the boxed version of CS only required 333mhz. You also need a 'net connection to play halflife in any capacity after the upgrade. This includes playing single player or on a lan. It also turns out the players are not the only people inconvenienced. Steam is a pain to setup on a dedicated server. Since there is no full server binary many ops can't get it updated. The version of DoD distributed for steam doesn't work and you have to roll back to the old one. It also turns out the cpu usage is insane for the server. CPU usage on 2ghz dual xeons running 16 player games are up to 60-70% this is for a game that came out in 1998 when 400mhz was amazingly fast. Since I run my server on an old 600mhz Athlon which worked great until now I guess I'm out of the server op business. I'm getting about 200 e-mails a day form the hlds_linux mailing list and most of them are people who can't get steam running. Many ops are dropping their halflife servers and switch to other games such as Mohaa or UT. A few are holding out with the current version of HL and hoping valve doesn't force an upgade.

  11. Steam is crap and here to stay - formatted by Jthon · · Score: 1

    It turns out that Valve will be demolishing the WON server network and will require all customers who wish to play online to use steam. From the HLDS_ANNOUNCE list valve runs:

    Q: Is WON going away? A: Yes, once we have completed the rollover we will slowly remove parts of the WON system as they become obsolete.

    Not only that steam has really high system requirements. Min 1GHZ machine as opposed to halflife's 133mhz requirement. That's 10 times faster than you need for the original! Even the boxed version of CS only required 333mhz.

    You also need a 'net connection to play halflife in any capacity after the upgrade. This includes playing single player or on a lan. It also turns out the players are not the only people inconvenienced. Steam is a pain to setup on a dedicated server. Since there is no full server binary many ops can't get it updated. The version of DoD distributed for steam doesn't work and you have to roll back to the old one.

    It also turns out the cpu usage is insane for the server. CPU usage on 2ghz dual xeons running 16 player games are up to 60-70% this is for a game that came out in 1998 when 400mhz was amazingly fast. Since I run my server on an old 600mhz Athlon which worked great until now I guess I'm out of the server op business.

    I'm also getting about 200 e-mails a day form the hlds_linux mailing list and most of them are people who can't get steam running. Many ops are dropping their halflife servers and switch to other games such as Mohaa or UT. A few are holding out with the current version of HL and hoping valve doesn't force an upgade.

  12. Re:Steam is crap and here to stay - Diskspace by Jthon · · Score: 1

    It also turns out steam takes an amazing amount of harddrive space. I gave the install a try and steam now consumes 1.5 GB of diskspace. With the EXACT same mods installed my original HL folder is only 806MB. So steam stuck another 700MB of data on my computer.

    It seems as if steam doesn't allow the mods to use data from the original half-life. It replicates all of it for each mod. This means I have several copies of some of the basic hl.wads on my computer.

    Valve has done away with all the .pak files which were really .zips. So what compression there was is now gone. I don't really need a ton of uncompressed wav sound effects on my computer.

  13. Can anyone verify if steam == spyware? by cyranose · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I found this link today claiming steam is possibly collecting info on kazaa usage.

    Steam gets tricky by siN For those of you metalheads who are also online gamers, it has come to the attention of the gaming community that Steam by VALVe software, the program that is used for the mod Counterstrike, has been (and still is) gathering huge amounts of information off of personal computers that have Steam installed. To quote: "1) Browse to steam dir 2) Search for gcache.gcf 3) Open the 400+ meg file in a hex editor 4) Search for 'kazaa' and 'mp3' ---- 5) Ponder 6) Curse and uninstall steam" The question is why is Steam looking at Kazaa user names, mp3 contents, HTM records, and more? Those suspect of these activities are pointing fingers that these actions might somehow be linked to the RIAA and it's attempt to browse through users files and folders in a vain attempt to see what people are downloading. Just a heads up.


    I don't have steam installed yet, so I can't verify personally. But maybe someone here can, and hopefully reply if they find the kazaa and mp3 strings in said steam files. True of false?
    1. Re:Can anyone verify if steam == spyware? by cyranose · · Score: 3, Informative

      Answered my own question with a little more searching. Apparently, Valve knows about this and reports it's due to the filesystem reusing old blocks, not their code.

    2. Re:Can anyone verify if steam == spyware? by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To be honest Cyranose I do not trust VALVE's answer on this. I suspect they ARE doing something in the background that could possibly be spyware related and are just trying to use some "good feeling answers" to quiet the masses.

      Maybe I am right - maybe I am not, who knows. The point is VALVE has effectivly ticked off a lot of hardcore half life players whether it was TFC/CS or some other mod with this STEAM crap.

      --
      You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
  14. No Valve products for me by Mike+Hawk · · Score: 1

    I am just going to post in every Valve article on here that I am not buying Half-life 2 nor patching any Valve product until Steam goes away. I don't need any of their games so much as to be forced to use one of their other products.

    This stinks too much of Microsoft bundling IE with Windows. Hey, didn't the Valve founders come from MS?

    1. Re:No Valve products for me by fireduck · · Score: 1

      Yes and no... I can see how forcing one to use Steam to play a game could be viewed as troubling. On the other hand it is a wonderful tool to keep your game up to date. No more waiting in line at fileplanet or hunting for the obscure european site that doesn't require membership or figuring out the odd upgrade patch scheme (lessee, i have 1.0.0.4; so I need the 10041008 upgrade then I can get the 1008 to 1010 patch. or i can uninstall and simply get the 10011010 patch.). You're online, and your game will be kept up to date. Nice, for programs that routinely have patches upwards of 10 to 100 MB. (plus the ability for mod makers to distribute their mods in a centralized location, giving them lots of visibility).

      At this point in time though, I don't think we know what exactly Valve has planned for Steam with respect to HL2. Obviously verification of cd-keys. But whether one has to use it exclusively to get patches, or join games isn't known (or at least i haven't seen it announced as a mandatory feature)

      My experience with it so far though, has been anything but pleasant. As I describe above, I've yet to actually be able to play a game using the non-beta client. Maybe it's just growing pains and in a week or 2, things will be perfect.

  15. The NTFS Requirement by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 1

    According to the system requirements for STEAM - it will work on a FAT32 partition but VALVe recommends a NTFS partition for much better performance. Now try telling "Joe Blow with a 6 pack" that he needs to reformat with a NTFS partition (assuming he's running a Windows version that supports it) and he'll just stare at you..

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
  16. NTFS Optional by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 1

    Sorry DDR I didn't make it up. Take a look at this Forum Topic Here and you will see a post by a fellow named Ford_Prefect. In it he states the system requirements that VALVE put out.

    Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP
    500 MB HD space
    256 MB RAM
    1.0 Ghz processor
    1GB HD space (strongly recommended)
    Broadband Internet connection (128kb/s or
    higher
    strongly recommended)
    It is also recommended that Steam be installed on a hard disk formatted using NTFS. Fat32 drives will work, but performance will be slower.

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
    1. Re:NTFS Optional by Catnapster · · Score: 1

      What I find amusing is that a fellow by the screen-name "Ford_Prefect" essentially told a large number of gamers that the world was about to end. (Convert to NTFS or SLOW HL2!)

      --
      The world can be wrong today for once.
  17. Bleh! by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 1

    Blah I forgot that you have to register to see the public forums on that Forum topic link. No need to since I posted the system requirements that the fellow Ford_Prefect had posted anyway.

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
  18. The Patching game by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Funny how people always thought with Half Life patches that they needed to download all the incremental version patches seperately (Ie 1004 to 1008 then to 1010 etc) when all people needed to do was install Half Life then DOWNLOAD the FULL upgrade patch (which last time was around 70 megs or so) and install it.

    Plain and simple. STEAM is aimed towards the AOL crowd who is often too stupid to unzip a zip file - never mind patching a game.

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
    1. Re:The Patching game by fireduck · · Score: 1

      STEAM is aimed towards the AOL crowd who is often too stupid to unzip a zip file - never mind patching a game.

      And what's wrong with making a system where patches are auto downloaded and applied?

      Patching Half-Life was a pain. In the early days, there weren't full upgrade patches. The first several patches were all incremental, REQUIRING you to get them and apply them in sequence. Then, if you stopped playing for a while, and came back to the game several patches behind, you were in the position of a) finding which incrementals you needed to get up to speed or b) uninstalling and then reinstalling and applying a full upgrade.

      Never mind that these patches were spread out all over the net, often at sites that either required registration, waiting in line to download, or were just damn slow. Finding a working link to download Steam was pain enough (first couple sites were saturated, I think I had to go through an australian site to get it). One shouldn't have to work to patch a game.

      A system to automatically distribute patches is a wonderful idea. No one has ever faulted Blizzard for battle.net auto updating their game, and steam sounds not so different (although it sounds like it will update whenever you are online and need an upgrade).

      I'm just not too happy with it's performance at the moment. tried to reinstall steam last night. I think it finally got it updated by this morning (after it froze at 60% overnight). and I still don't have any content downloaded yet...

    2. Re:The Patching game by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 1

      Perhaps I am too old fashioned in my ways but I don't trust games patching themselves - because Murphys Law eventually comes into it where something WILL go wrong. :)

      --
      You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
  19. System Requirements by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 1

    I don't think VALVE realized this is exactly why Half Life lasted over 4 years and *WAS* the most online played game on the net for a long time. It was because it had low system requirements - all you needed was a machine above 133 mhz and a decent 3D card.

    Heck even a Voodoo3 was good enough to run TFC and or CS with some tweaking and still enjoy the game. Now that STEAM has shot up the system requirements I know a lot of players - often those who are older game players or are satisfied with thier current systems that may be a few years old but serving them well will now have to abandon the game.

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
  20. Right to complain by xQuarkDS9x · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People have the right to complain especially seeing how VALVE has handled STEAM from the get go. Problems galore since the beta release and now the non beta release - plus the fact STEAM is so bug ridden and shoots up system requirements that it is killing off a lot of the players the TFC and CS community HAD to begin with.

    Besides STEAM won't be running free games forever - eventually they will want people to use credit cards to play "future" games on it.

    --
    You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
  21. Steaming by Little+Dave · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Phew... what a stinking turd Valve have laid on us. My attempts to "upgrade" my perfectly operational HL/CS installation has led to me now having two completely broken games. Steam is a hideous Frankenstein's Monster of a delivery mechanism, that only a mother could love. It locks up, goes quiet for hours on end, fails to keep you informed about what it's doing, crashes, doesn't terminate properly, hogs resources and ultimately, doesn't let you play any games.

    I wonder if I can get a refund for a five year old game? ;)

    Even more worrying is the fact that Steam has informed me that my HL key entitles me to one month free subscription. Erm, hold on? What does this mean? After the one month (by which time I might just have a working game again) I have to pay to play HL/CS? It doesn't say as much, but it also doesn't suggest otherwise.

    Bums I tells ya! No-good cads and bums, the lot of 'em.

    --
    http://www.davetansley.com - you proba
  22. Local mirros by __aafkqj3628 · · Score: 2, Informative

    For the transfer-limit imparied in NZ, there are local mirrors out there for you (see http://203.96.92.95/files/halflife/steam/).

    (I will still maintain that I will reluctantly download 400megs of stuff that I've already got installed!)

  23. Steam gives cheaters and lamers a free pass by xTown · · Score: 1

    The biggest strike against Steam is that server ban lists have been rendered obsolete. If you're a server operator, every single person you've ever banned can now come back.

    There's no possible reason for this. How difficult would it have been to leave the WONID in a registry key and allow the server to check that against a ban list?

    There was nothing wrong with WON.