Cheat Code Central - GOG & Abandoning DRM

I play Steam games offline all the time, when I travel I'm not connected, yet I can play Steam games.

Another Steam feature I'm using recently is Steam streaming. My desktop computer is powerful, with a dedicated video card, etc. I can play any game in my cheap laptop using my desktop computer as host, with all graphics on, antialiasing, shadows, etc. Something that if I enabled in my laptop would make the game run at like 1 FPS.
 
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Another Steam feature I'm using recently is Steam streaming. My desktop computer is powerful, with a dedicated video card, etc. I can play any game in my cheap laptop using my desktop computer as host, with all graphics on, antialiasing, shadows, etc. Something that if I enabled in my laptop would make the game run at like 1 FPS.

Wow, that's an amazing feature. I had no idea you could even do that.
 
Wow, that's an amazing feature. I had no idea you could even do that.

yes, it's surprisingly easy, just enable it under 'settings->in-home streaming', and when you do that, just open Steam in the client computer (can be a laptop, a Mac, a Steam machine, whatever that can run Steam) and where the button that normally says 'install' (if you haven't installed the game) or 'play' (if it's already installed), now you have a dropdown where you can select instead to stream the game from the host.

I've only used it with Age of Wonders 3 (works fine), Europa Universalis 4 (works fine) and Crusader Kings 2 (has problems when moving mouse to the edge to scroll the map). It's just recently out of beta so once in a while my laptop loses connection with the host (could be a router issue too), but you don't lose anything since the game is still running in the host, you just have to reconnect to it.
 
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yes, it's surprisingly easy, just enable it under 'settings->in-home streaming', and when you do that, just open Steam in the client computer (can be a laptop, a Mac, a Steam machine, whatever that can run Steam) and where the button that normally says 'install' (if you haven't installed the game) or 'play' (if it's already installed), now you have a dropdown where you can select instead to stream the game from the host.

I've only used it with Age of Wonders 3 (works fine), Europa Universalis 4 (works fine) and Crusader Kings 2 (has problems when moving mouse to the edge to scroll the map). It's just recently out of beta so once in a while my laptop loses connection with the host (could be a router issue too), but you don't lose anything since the game is still running in the host, you just have to reconnect to it.

That's awesome! Thanks for the rundown.
 
I play Steam games offline all the time, when I travel I'm not connected, yet I can play Steam games.

Another Steam feature I'm using recently is Steam streaming. My desktop computer is powerful, with a dedicated video card, etc. I can play any game in my cheap laptop using my desktop computer as host, with all graphics on, antialiasing, shadows, etc. Something that if I enabled in my laptop would make the game run at like 1 FPS.

So I was going to buy a new gaming laptop for Christmas this year so I can play TW3, does this mean I could be a even better desk top and play it on this 2 year old gaming laptop?

Or even can my Son use his cheap home lap top off of my stream account this this higher end computer and play games on it. Or would that stop me from being about to use this with a different game at the same time.

Now you have me thinking.
 
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So I was going to buy a new gaming laptop for Christmas this year so I can play TW3, does this mean I could be a even better desk top and play it on this 2 year old gaming laptop?

Or even can my Son use his cheap home lap top off of my stream account this this higher end computer and play games on it. Or would that stop me from being about to use this with a different game at the same time.

Now you have me thinking.

it's basically a remote desktop setup, Steam sends the video/audio from the host to the client and the mouse/keyboard from the client to the host via the network, so you can't play two games at the same time. I use it to comfortably play from my bed using my laptop but at full graphic settings instead of the 'low graphics' I usually have to select when using my laptop.

As for the Witcher 3, it should work fine if you connect the laptop via ethernet, but via wi-fi I'm not sure as I haven't tried action games yet, guess it would depend on your wireless router, interference, etc. But you can try it yourself with any actiony game you have, see if it works ok.
 
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Eh i haven't had steam on my comp in a year or more and I'm not feeling I'm missing something.
Most things cited here as plus either don't interest me or are even a negative to me.
Though biggest reason for just abandoning it was the hoops i had to jump through to buy or activate some games as german.
It was a good lesson to not buy anything that can be taken away from me without notice.
 
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Steam going out of business is not as impossible as you might think. All it would take is all the big publishers to decide that they wont be using steam any more to force you onto their distribution platforms.

There are already several publishers that do not put their games on Steam, and Steam does fine. The same way there are record labels that refuse to work with Apple / iTunes.

In fact, there have been publishers that once worked with Steam but later pulled some or all of their titles - Steam no longer allows you to purchase said titles, but if you have them in your library you can continue to download and play the game indefinitely. The first game that comes to my mind in this boat is a Russian RPG called A Farewell to Dragons.

I vastly prefer Steam's policies here. If you purchase a game on Steam, and Steam no longer owns the rights to it in the future, you at least can continue playing it. You cannot buy another copy of the game for a friend, but your account will forever have a license for the software you purchased and you do not have to archive the downloaded game on DVD out of fear of Steam no longer hosting the actual files.
 
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