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Try the DRM-free online gaming platform.

<span class="bold">GOG Galaxy</span>: our truly gamer-friendly, DRM-free online gaming platform. As we shared our vision with the world, we promised auto-patching, social functionality like chat, friends lists, and achievements. We promised our own multiplayer support and cross-play with Steam. Most importantly, we promised truly optional.



Today we deliver.
The <span class="bold">GOG Galaxy</span> client enters beta, open to anyone, with the most important functionality ready to try, test, enjoy (and break) at your leisure. We're proud to have gotten this far, and we know that we couldn't have done it without you all - that's everyone who spent months in alpha testing, that's those of you who talked to us about your needs and expectations, and it's every single one of you that has supported us since ever. So thanks, GOG Galaxy is for you!

With the <span class="bold">GOG Galaxy Beta</span>, you can install your games in one click and keep them up to date automatically, the beta currently supports this feature in all but a couple of titles available here. You can also perform backups easily by downloading a standalone installer through GOG Galaxy. The beta features a friends list, game time tracking, achievements, and chat. You can now talk to each other, connect with your group of friends, and see what everyone is playing. You can also try out our online multiplayer & matchmaking solution that, in select titles, includes cross-play: platform-independent multiplayer between gamers on GOG.com and Steam. If you download a patch that breaks something or if you just change your mind, the app will soon feature a unique rollback option to restore a previous version of your game.

Best of all, GOG Galaxy is optional. If you don't want to use any additional software, your experience with us won't change at all. If you only want to take advantage of select conveniences, you can toggle them on and off. It's all totally up to you.

You can sign up for the <span class="bold">GOG Galaxy Beta</span> and find out more on <span class="bold">gog.com/galaxy</span>, where we tell you about the features and answer many of the questions you may have. We'll be watching the forums carefully, so feel free to leave a comment if there is anything else that you'd like to know!
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amarthar: I also didn't get an email, but the installer did appear in my library.
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deshadow52: Really? I don't see it.
It replaced the alpha installer.
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awalterj: Technical question before I install this: How much RAM does the client hog?

I like it lean on my not-so-mean machine Win 7 laptop (2 GHZ dual, 4 GB RAM)
Consider yourself disappointed then, because it eats up around 250MB right now (that's what you get with WebKit clients - Steam has the same problem)
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IAmSinistar: Interesting. So it is probably appearing in my Galaxy client as an artifact from the alpha install which didn't get removed by the beta update. I'll stop worrying about why it does nothing, then.
Should be gone in the inevitable next Beta update as I also momentarily saw it the last time I opened the alpha version of Galaxy.
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skeletonbow: Achievements are something that individual game developers will have to decide whether they want their games on GOG.com to have or not, and if so they'll have to update their game to add support for Galaxy achievements and issue a game update for this new feature. If a game developer does not add the feature to their games then they wont have that on the GOG version of their games at all.

I suspect that as the Galaxy infrastructure matures and comes out of beta that we will see some of GOG's game publisher partners updating their games to add support for achievements and/or other features if their games have similar features on Steam or elsewhere, but it is ultimately something that is up to the developer/publisher of the game to decide whether or not to include support for it to their games.

The only games I'd expect to potentially see such features with on Galaxy directly from GOG would be the 3 Witcher games as those are the only 3 games they own (well, their sister company CDPR anyway) excluding the 2 new old DOS games they acquired the rights to, but I don't expect to see any ancient classic games having modern gaming client features added to them for a variety of technical reasons.

In short, it's up to the game developers/publishers to add these features to their games and push updates to GOG. I imagine that is or will be happening but I wouldn't expect much until the service is out of beta.
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crnisokol: I was going to buy Witcher 3 on Steam just because of achievements, but now I hope they'll have them on Galaxy too, so I can buy directly from developers (kinda).
It will:

http://www.thosegamers.com/the-witcher-3-to-be-the-first-aaa-release-for-gog-galaxy/

“With GOG Galaxy, we can start bringing new, big games to GOG.com,” says Piotr Karwowski, VP of online technologies. “The first major release will be The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which will offer automatic updates, achievements and stats. We’re getting ready to release and fully support even more AAA titles in the future.”
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awalterj: Technical question before I install this: How much RAM does the client hog?

I like it lean on my not-so-mean machine Win 7 laptop (2 GHZ dual, 4 GB RAM)
According to Task Manager:
GalaxyHelper.exe ~177,000K
GalaxyClient.exe ~56,000K

Minimal CPU usage on both processes when the client is sitting idle.
Hopefully, there will at some point be a way for people who've already downloaded the vast majority of their libraries in pre-Galaxy form to shift them to a Galaxy-compatible type without having to redownload every single installer again.
No desire whatsoever to spend an entire month downloading my library from scratch.
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awalterj: Technical question before I install this: How much RAM does the client hog?
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jamyskis: Consider yourself disappointed then, because it eats up around 250MB right now (that's what you get with WebKit clients - Steam has the same problem)
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Pseudoman: According to Task Manager:
GalaxyHelper.exe ~177,000K
GalaxyClient.exe ~56,000K
Oh my, I guess that's no problem on decent rigs but I think I might wait and try to fly without the client for the time being, anyway thanks for the info!

I do have the T-shirt already so maybe I don't need the real thing quite immediately.
Post edited May 06, 2015 by awalterj
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ShadowWulfe: Clarification, games are only recognized by Galaxy atm if they are directly installed by it? I've been playing Chroma Squad but Galaxy did not recognize it.
In your Galaxy client open your Library, click on the game and next to install button you have more options dropdown menu (don't remeber the exact name now, because I'm away from PC). Click on it and there you'll see Manage button. If you click on it, you'll have the chance of manually adding the Install Directory of your game into Galaxy without the need of reinstall.

Hope that this helps you.

Cheers.
The ''Add Friend'' system is horrible!
Please give option to add friends by e-mail and username!
Attachments:
Just finished downloading the beta,are the achievements available yet?
Man, oh man!

I am looking forward to receiving the invite, I've been using Steam for quite some time, and I am ready for a better option. From the sound of things... this will be epic.

:D
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CarrionCrow: Hopefully, there will at some point be a way for people who've already downloaded the vast majority of their libraries in pre-Galaxy form to shift them to a Galaxy-compatible type without having to redownload every single installer again.
No desire whatsoever to spend an entire month downloading my library from scratch.
I just redirected my install directory to directory where my GOG games wehere installed before. Then when you try to install game files are recognised and are beeing checkd, and if necessary, updated.

Some games are not recognized due to folder name mismatch

For, example "Heroes of Might and Magic 4 Complete Edition" is now named "HoMM 4 Complete". If you rename it to new folder name, it will work as described.
Post edited May 06, 2015 by Miljac
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StorkV88: The ''Add Friend'' system is horrible!
Please give option to add friends by e-mail and username!
Yes it is indeed, but I guess currently this is handled this way because the "friend-system" is not implemented for the website. And I also think this isn't their prime priority over usability, stability and stuff like updates :).
For now I cannot add any friend because no one ever posted/reviewd anything (afair).
Looking at Task Manager and WinPatrol, the Galaxy application is actually made of 2 parts : GOG Galaxy (32 bit application on my 64 bit system) uses about 14 Mb and GalaxyClient Helper uses about 76. That's a total of ~90Mb. Client Helper uses 0.1 to 0.3% of my CPU staying "idle" in the background.
EDIT : Even thought memory use have increased since i wrote this, i'm still only at ~110 Mb, much less than what was reported in another post while i was typing mine.

Installer will also add 2 services : GalaxyClientService and GalaxyCommunication but those are nicely set to manual start and even with the Client running, they don't run permanently (i think it was GalaxyClientService that started when i launched the Galaxy application, but it stopped itself soon after.

OTOH, when i installed 0.7.0.860 i didn't see a checkbox to run at windows start, but WinPatrol warned me that Galaxy wanted to auto-start, which i refused. There is an option to enable-disable auto-load after the application is installed but i would have prefered if auto-load wasn't the default option (if some GOG team reads this, at least make this option clearly visible during install for the final product)
Post edited May 06, 2015 by BobMorane
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awalterj: Technical question before I install this: How much RAM does the client hog?

I like it lean on my not-so-mean machine Win 7 laptop (2 GHZ dual, 4 GB RAM)
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jamyskis: Consider yourself disappointed then, because it eats up around 250MB right now (that's what you get with WebKit clients - Steam has the same problem)
I dont think 250mb is that bad, but i migth be spoiled with my 8 GB ram.
I think windows requires 1 GB ram so 4 GB ram migth be a bit to low.
Post edited May 06, 2015 by Lodium