Valve Releases 'Counter-Strike: Source' for Mac OS X

Valve Software today issued an update to its popular Counter-Strike: Source game, bringing Mac OS X compatibility and a number of new features and fixes. To celebrate the release, Counter-Strike: Source is priced at $6.80, a 66% discount, until Friday.

Like other titles from Valve and third-party publishers on the company's Steam game distribution platform, Counter-Strike: Source is available under the Steam Play program, which allows users to play on multiple platforms while only being required to purchase the game once.

Valve has been releasing titles from its library at a regular rate over the past month or so, debuting Steam back in mid-May with Portal before releasing Half-Life 2 and its sequels in late May and Team Fortress 2 earlier this month.

While Mac users have been experiencing relatively stable releases through Steam, gameplay has been somewhat hampered by framerates below that of corresponding Windows releases. Valve has reported that it is working with Apple and graphics card companies NVIDIA and ATI to update drivers to improve performance. In addition, Valve has warned users that Mac OS X 10.6.4 has been causing performance issues for high-end games on Macs using NVIDIA graphics cards, and impacted users are encouraged to hold off from upgrading their operating system until the issues are addressed.