Welcome to Steam, the digital distribution client that's been in the PC gaming sphere for around seven years now. Steam allows you to purchase and download Valve and third-party games online with PayPal or a credit card. Once the game is downloaded, the game title stays tied to your user account forever, so you can play it on virtually any system that has the Steam client installed--including that PC you have locked in the basement. Additionally, the client makes it so you never have to pay for that game again, even if you lose all of the data off of your hard drives and misplace the game's original discs.  

Though most of Valve's popular games have been on the market for quite some time, Steam itself offers over 1,100 downloadable games for the computer gaming market from top tier gaming companies like Electronic Arts, Activision, and LucasArts. Fortunately for Mac users, that means that a boatload of games should be well on their way--here's to hoping, anyway. Until then, read on, and take some time to acquaint yourself with this powerful content delivery tool and brush up on your first-person fragging skills.

Before we delve into the grim and gritty of the game client, you might want to check out our last feature story on Steam: The Mac users guide to cool things you can do with Steam.

Preparing your system for Steam

Before you get started with Steam, you've gotta make sure that you have all of the system specifications required to even run the application on your Mac.

Note: The system requirements were pulled for the PC operating system and could differ once Steam is officially launched for Mac OS X. At press time, there was no information available for Mac users. We will update this information once the client is officially released, but  the hardware requirements should be on par with what Mac users will need to be able to handle running Steam on their Macs.

To install and run the Steam client, you'll need a minimum of a 1.2 GHz Intel processor with 256MB of RAM. However, because these minimum system requirements don't always garner maximum results, we'd suggest that you only venture into Valve territory with the "preferred" system configuration. This includes a 2.4 GHz Intel processor and 512MB of RAM, which means that most Mac computers produced after 2007 will be able to run Steam.

It's also important that your main gaming machine is hooked up to a broadband internet connection via Ethernet, rather than through a Wi-Fi connection. This is to ensure that there is no lag when you're playing an online multi-player game like Team Fortress 2.

Preparing to play your Steam games

No game is complete without a keyboard to play on. If you're more of the first-person shooter type of game player, than you'll love the ease of the WASD key system, and the Mac chiclet keyboard is still the best keyboard to use for Mac gaming. However, if you'd rather use a different keyboard, remember that they're all technically compatible with the Mac OS X operating system, though those that come equipped with macro buttons may not work at full functionality because of the lack of drivers. If you're looking for a Mac compatible gaming keyboard that comes with extra macro buttons, we suggest using a Logitech G110.

Now, unlike the chiclet keyboard, the standard Apple mouse will not do wonders for your gaming endeavors. Instead, invest in something like a Razer DeathAdder, which actually comes fully equipped with Mac OS X drivers and can definitely aid you in zooming through your virtual adventures. Also, you'll need a nice, smooth mousepad on which to glide on--SteelSeries makes some pretty large sized mousepads that are perfect for gaming or just simple, everyday browsing.

All games have different system requirements, but there's a great way to ensure that they have at least a chance at running smoothly on your Mac. The target speed for the game--and whether or not it runs on high resolution or low resolution--really depends on the monitor that you have. Apple Cinema Displays will typically run anywhere from a 1600x1024 to a 1920x1200 resolution at a 60Hz refresh rate, which means that your game should run at a healthy 60 frames-per-second, or close to that, for optimum performance.



Some in-game settings can also be detrimental to game performance. The biggest hit is screen resolution--if you don't have the game calibrated to the correct size of your desktop, your game could run at a very slow speed. Typically, 17-inch LCD monitors run at 1280 x 1024, while widescreen runs at 1280 x 960. Anything lower than these two resolutions, and you will probably see some lag in your game play. MacBook Pro owners, your resolution will be defaulted to 1024 x 768. For those running on high res monitors, it would be a good idea to turn off shadows and anti-aliasing, and set the texture to minimum so that your graphics card isn't working overtime to figure out how to render all of the extra stuff in the game. All the necessities of the graphics within the game should already be present, and Valve's games are so light so that they don't need any heavy screen resolution options to properly function.



In regards to the frame rate, it's really important when you launch a game that you don't have any memory hogging processes running in the background--mainly, applications like Photoshop, Firefox and Word. Additionally, Valve suggests that you don't run any anti-virus applications (hey, some Mac users have 'em), P2P and bit torrent clients, or any download accelerators.

Of course, we shouldn't forget to mention that if you have a Mac Pro, you can actual swap out the graphics card to get the maximum performance out of your set up. Apple has this nifty page for upgrading your Mac for games. Head on over and check it out.

Playing your Steam games

The games that will arrive with your new Steam for Mac account are very basic--start off slowly with a game like Portal, then ease gently into first-person shooters with Half-Life 2. When you feel confident enough, a run through the perilous, zombie-ridden streets of Left 4 Dead will help you get acquainted with the fast paced world of online multiplayer. When you feel ready and your brain has been conditioned, it's time to fire up Team Fortress 2 and die a bunch of times.

If you're already a conditioned gamer, well then, we salute you. And we graciously ask you to come join our Steam group.

Getting Stats and Achievements

Stats are one of the features of the Steam community that add another element to the seemingly one dimensional multi-player games. Your individual playing statistics will be tracked by the Steam client while you play games, including your best play time and the last time you've even been online. Stats differ depending on the game you're playing and they're tracked for a lifetime in your personal profile.



Achievements are rewards for completing game objectives that are specific to the title you're playing; for example, killing every single Antelion you encounter in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 will earn you a reward that you can proudly display in your Steam user profile. The idea behind achievements is that there are things you can do in-game to help you receive extra kudos for a game well played. Other players can also receive these achievements if they so desire, or they can simply hone their skills on sniping other players from the perfect distance. We should note that if you are an anti-social gamer and tend to play games offline, achievements will not get counted.

Making friends

Of course, using Steam is also all about making friends in the virtual world. Read on for a quick play-by-play of how you can interact with friends in this versatile gaming client.

Surely you've found a few friends lurking around Steam by now--at least you have the editors at Mac|Life. Say you want to create a group for you and a dozen of your close friends. Go to Community tab, click Groups and then select create a new group. You can also check out groups that your other friends belong to and get invited into their own exclusive club. The best thing about groups is that you can always find people to play with when you're in the mood for a round of Team Fortress 2, without having to add them to your friends list.

Speaking of friends lists, your own friends list gives you information on what your friends like playing and if they're in game, as well as who from your groups is currently engaged in combat. It's also a nifty instant messaging tool and a great way to have private chats. We can guarantee that your most devoted gaming friends will only be reachable by Steam chat.

Perhaps the best thing about Steam is that playing campaign games with your friends in Left 4 Dead 2 actually strengthens your bond. You'll see a side of your friends you never thought you'd see before, like what kind of curse words your friend blurts out at the first sign of a Spitter zombie.