r/valve

Hey everyone, running into a weird issue and hoping someone can explain what's going on.

My laptop specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7535U

iGPU: AMD Radeon 660M

RAM: 16GB DDR5

Newer, more demanding games run surprisingly well on this setup, but older Valve titles (Half Life 2, Portal 2, Half Life Source, etc.) stutter and lag for me. Feels backwards, shouldn't the older/less demanding games run better?

Anyone dealt with something similar on an integrated Radeon 660M setup? Is this a known issue with Valve's engine (Source/Source 2) and AMD iGPUs, a driver thing, or something else entirely? Would appreciate any pointers before I go down a rabbit hole of tweaking settings.

We need to stop buying games on Steam, PSN, Nintendo, and other services once and for all to force developers to sell games on disc.

I’ve been doing this on PC for years—ever since Steam killed the PC gaming market—and now I’m doing the same for PlayStation: I simply won’t buy the games if they refuse to release them on disc.

All of the mystique and mysticism around it, the hype surrounding it, the far-reaching jokes and memes about it (that are well into other communities, not just early PC Valve gamers)? Since everyone is aware of the jokes around its non-existence, if it were released there would no doubt be a huge audience that’d be receptive to looking into it.

More importantly, there could become a huge natural campaign about how well it lived up to the hype. For example, Slay the Spire 2 recently had a huge conversation around how great it was, particularly as a sequel. A lot of people who never played the original Slay the Spire, or never took interest in its eventual sequel, wanted to take part in the “moment” of the new release, particularly in it being an unexpectedly great sequel. Critics and fans (except steam reviewers) ubiquitously rated it highly, and the original Slay the Spire is almost uniquely well loved in the Roguelike genre.

The foremost prestige Slay the Spire has in its genre reminds me of the unique reach of Half Life 3 jokes; but the real comparison remains to be GTA VI. “We got X before GTA 6” jokes are everywhere, and if Rockstar never released it, that would be an even bigger joke. Well, I feel the same way about Half-Life 3 never being released: it’s just a colossal missed opportunity financially. So, I refuse to believe it isn’t coming at some point, because money talks. Valve is not publicly traded but obviously that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to follow the money… re: cs2/csgo cases

TL;DR:
All the time, people bandwagon the hype around a band releasing their sophomore or otherwise long awaited album that totally bangs/fucks. Since the whole internet has heard the joke about HL3 not having a release, when it comes out and is a genuinely good installment?-
The whole internet will already have a basis for understanding that it is long-awaited, and how much it means for it to then be a good game, which is a special marketing position for Valve.

One final comparison: how much interest could George R R Martin drum up by actually releasing The Winds of Winter, and it being great after all?

For me, I only knew them as that CS game platform until they started making Dota 2, which is 2011.

With the recent industry reports that Microsoft is looking to sell or spin off Undead Labs, Valve has the perfect opportunity to make a massive power play.
The State of Decay franchise has a legendary, deeply dedicated community on Steam. Forcing State of Decay 3 into a flat subscription model is exactly what is putting the studio's budget and profit margins at risk under Microsoft corporate pressure.
Why Valve should buy Undead Labs:
Massive Financial Return: Premium traditional sales at $60–$70 a copy would easily allow Valve to recoup development costs immediately from millions of eager fans.
The Ultimate Steam Deck Showcase: Built on Unreal Engine 5, this would be a premier, system-selling co-op survival title for the Steam Deck and SteamOS ecosystem.
Total Creative Freedom: Valve doesn't push arbitrary quarterly studio liquidations. They would give the developers the exact breathing room they need to hit their 2027 window.
I already emailed Gabe, but we need to show Valve how much demand there is on the PC side. If you want to see this franchise saved from corporate cancellation and given the polish it deserves, upvote this and keep it bumped!

I've been looking at old posts about people who wish to work at Valve, and it only makes sense that most of them are in the business of making games. I'm a 20 year old Brazilian who dreams of working abroad, and I believe my highest ambition would be to one day work at Valve, seeing as I find them to be a revolutionizing company that will succeed in changing the future of gaming hardware as much as they've changed the market of games itself, and keep doing.

My question is, what should I be on the lookout regarding career opportunities to one day make it to Valve as a mechatronics engineer? I'm already looking for companies focused on hardware for my internship but I want to do the utmost possible to get the knowledge needed to provide valor to Valve, and thought maybe some of you would have ideas as to what they need, some more specialized studies I could focus on.