Portal "One-Fifth As Likely to Crash on a Mac" as on PC

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
45,698
1
0
Portal "One-Fifth As Likely to Crash on a Mac" as on PC


A week after rolling out Steam for the Mac, Valve says that Portal [http://orange.half-life2.com/portal.html] is one-fifth as likely to crash on a Mac as it is on Windows.

Things have apparently been going swimmingly since the Mac version of Steam was unleashed upon the world. Portal, which Valve started giving away [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100633-Steam-for-Mac-Sets-Portal-Free-UPDATED] to mark the launch of the Mac client, has been downloaded approximately 1.5 million times since May 12 and in a sign that maybe there were a few more underserviced Mac gamers out there than anyone thought, over the past week more than 11 percent of all purchases made on Steam have been for the Mac.

But the most interesting statistic is this: According to Valve, "Portal (with the same code base across platforms) is one fifth as likely [http://store.steampowered.com/news/3837/] to crash on a Mac than on Windows."

How did Valve come up with that number? No idea, although in all likelihood "crashes per platform" is just one of the many numbers tracked through Steam and forwarded to the studio. On the other hand, I suppose it's possible that some bored Valve guy just threw it out there to see how many arguments he could start. Whatever the case, the studio promised to put out a more complete report on Mac figures sometime next month.

In the meantime, Valve has released another set of new games for the Mac including Killing Floor, Hearts of Iron 3, Simplz Zoo and Windosill, all ready and waiting for you at store.steampowered.com [http://store.steampowered.com/browse/mac].




Permalink
 

xHipaboo420x

New member
Apr 22, 2009
1,592
0
0
Killing Floor is an odd choice for what is basically a launch line-up, I'd have assumed they'd go with Team Fortress 2.
 

thiosk

New member
Sep 18, 2008
5,410
0
0
That portal isn't crashing doesn't interest me.

I'm waiting to see the Hearts of Iron 3 statistics. If mac escapes that crashy nightmare, perhaps we'll be on to something.
 

whaleswiththumbs

New member
Feb 13, 2009
1,462
0
0
Wow, well Valve, Portal has never crashed for me, so does that mean Portal on Mac suffers some sort of mathematical error?
 
Aug 3, 2008
496
0
0
MaxChaos said:
Killing Floor is an odd choice for what is basically a launch line-up, I'd have assumed they'd go with Team Fortress 2.
The thing Valve are showcasing this week is Mac vs PC gaming. I was really hoping for TF2 but i guess i'll have to wait a bit longer
 
Feb 13, 2008
19,430
0
0
Andy Chalk said:
A week after rolling out Steam for the Mac, Valve says that Portal [http://orange.half-life2.com/portal.html] is one-fifth as likely to crash on a Mac as it is on Windows.
Probably because Macs can't make an orange portal ;)
 

Marter

Elite Member
Legacy
Oct 27, 2009
14,276
19
43
Lucky Mac owners I guess. Less crashing is always a good thing. I wonder why it crashes less though.
 

Elementlmage

New member
Aug 14, 2009
316
0
0
Yeah, Portal also looks like crap on Mac AND you take a 50 percent performance hit:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance

Also, statistics are quite dubious. It is quite possible that "One fifth as likely to crash" isn't averaged out and that it is a direct comparison between the number of crashes meaning; Portal crashed 5k times under Mac and 25k under Windows. But, since there are 19 times more Windows PCs than there are Mac PCs, that is not very good for Mac?
 

Hurr Durr Derp

New member
Apr 8, 2009
2,558
0
0
marter said:
Lucky Mac owners I guess. Less crashing is always a good thing. I wonder why it crashes less though.
My guess is that it's because Mac hard- and software is more standardized and less varied than PC, which means there's less chance for combinations that cause unexpected problems.
 

sunami88

New member
Jun 23, 2008
647
0
0
Did you know that nine-tenths of all statistics are made up on the spot?

It's a widely-believed fact!
 

Marter

Elite Member
Legacy
Oct 27, 2009
14,276
19
43
Hurr Durr Derp said:
marter said:
Lucky Mac owners I guess. Less crashing is always a good thing. I wonder why it crashes less though.
My guess is that it's because Mac hard- and software is more standardized and less varied than PC, which means there's less chance for combinations that cause unexpected problems.
That makes sense I suppose. Not all that familiar with Macs. Thanks for the explanation.
 
Apr 28, 2008
14,634
0
0
MaxChaos said:
Killing Floor is an odd choice for what is basically a launch line-up, I'd have assumed they'd go with Team Fortress 2.
I'm betting they're saving that for the Engineer Update.

That way its a perfect storm. Engie update, free weekend, big discount, and Mac release.
 

Nigh Invulnerable

New member
Jan 5, 2009
2,500
0
0
Hurr Durr Derp said:
What's one-fifth of nothing?
That was my thought exactly. Let me think. I've loaded it on two separate PCs and had to wipe and reinstall it on one of them and yet have never had any problem with it. The closest I've come to Portal crashing was just Steam being entirely unavailable for a few hours for some reason.
 

MrGFunk

New member
Oct 29, 2008
1,350
0
0
The_root_of_all_evil said:
Andy Chalk said:
A week after rolling out Steam for the Mac, Valve says that Portal [http://orange.half-life2.com/portal.html] is one-fifth as likely to crash on a Mac as it is on Windows.
Probably because Macs can't make an orange portal ;)
...because it makes an apple portal..?

OP: Does this mean I get to play Portal II on my wife's UberMac?
I will download free for a tasty reminder.
 

Senrab

New member
Mar 22, 2008
226
0
0
The_root_of_all_evil said:
Andy Chalk said:
A week after rolling out Steam for the Mac, Valve says that Portal [http://orange.half-life2.com/portal.html] is one-fifth as likely to crash on a Mac as it is on Windows.
Probably because Macs can't make an orange portal ;)
DIS IS A GOOD JOKE.


In other news, I agree that Killing Floor was a very odd choice. WHERE IS MY TF2? I demand the ability to play TF2 whilst being a pretentious Macfag in a coffee shop!