3 ms·

I've noticed similar stupid problems playing Portal 2 with a friend. Downloading the maps takes a really long time, but I've got a decent internet connection an

I've noticed similar stupid problems playing Portal 2 with a friend. Downloading the maps takes a really long time, but I've got a decent internet connection and so does my friend. It appears that when his machine is loading, my machine has no network activity whatsoever, and then once he's loaded the maps, then my machine will start loading them and his machine has no network activity. The game has a number of other weird issues like this. After you've played a map, it asks you to rate a thumbs up or thumbs down, but the hit areas don't match where the button is drawn, for example. Sometimes the mouse doesn't cause my character to turn. I can quit and restart the game and it's the same. But if I open a different game, quit it and then restart Portal, it works fine. WTF? I realize this is an old game so they aren't updating it (I have to boot into a 32-bit OS to even play it!) but it's a little depressing that such egregious issues went unnoticed for so long that we're now probably past the point of fixing them.

Laforet 4y ago
I had to do a double take when reading your comment before realizing that you were probably referring to the Mac version of Portal 2. If that is the case then it's not unexpected, for OSX routinely break compatibility between major versions unless the developer is able to keep up with the changes. This is not to say things are that things are that much better on the windows side. While most 32bit binary run fine in WoW64, driver issues become more common as the games get older. Another major issue is 3rd party services bundled with the games that are no longer available. I can name more than a dozen of games published around 2010 that are no longer available for purchase because the original build depends on the deprecated Games for Windows Live service and would refuse to launch without it installed. Microsoft abandoned GFWL around 2018 and turned off the online installer at a later date so you would have to download an offline installer from some dodgy non-official website. Thankfully it still works with current versions of windows as long as you still have the physical copy of the game, and the backend of GFWL is partially working with achievements still being synchronized with Xbox Live accounts. But who knows how long that's going to last?

Laforet 4y ago

I had to do a double take when reading your comment before realizing that you were probably referring to the Mac version of Portal 2. If that is the case then it's not unexpected, for OSX routinely break compatibility between major versions unless the developer is able to keep up with the changes. This is not to say things are that things are that much better on the windows side. While most 32bit binary run fine in WoW64, driver issues become more common as the games get older. Another major issue is 3rd party services bundled with the games that are no longer available. I can name more than a dozen of games published around 2010 that are no longer available for purchase because the original build depends on the deprecated Games for Windows Live service and would refuse to launch without it installed. Microsoft abandoned GFWL around 2018 and turned off the online installer at a later date so you would have to download an offline installer from some dodgy non-official website. Thankfully it still works with current versions of windows as long as you still have the physical copy of the game, and the backend of GFWL is partially working with achievements still being synchronized with Xbox Live accounts. But who knows how long that's going to last?