The Coffee House

Before we begin, I'd like to explain two things right off the bat:

1) I haven't used Steam in more than four years up to this point, so it is possible that the concerns I'm raising here are no longer valid (in which case, you can smack me with with your tool of preference).

2) My computers have always been good, but never beefy. If you have an all-powerful gaming rig (or a decent enough PC), you are likely to not even consider the following a problem or annoyance... for us in the budget PC department, however, is a bit on an issue.

With that out of the way, let's actually dive into the topic.

I consider Steam to be a wonderful thing indeed. I really like how it rendered some of my most common issues with gaming useless upon its arrival... gone were the days of misplacing and/or destroying CDs; gone were the days of relying on cracks to operate a game I have bought legitimately just to avoid wearing my CD drive out. And gone were also the millions of little twitches required to run some of my favorite games because they had fallen out of favor with whatever version of Windows I happened to be using.

That's honestly all great, but unfortunately... gone were also the days of playing my games without taxing my computer's resources.

My biggest issue and bone to pick with Steam as a program is how it launches itself alongside my games, effectively handcuffing my rig while gaming is to be done. And it's not like it does it just to tie an over-sized DRM checker --although, I'm sure that's more than a bit of the reason why this happens--, and there's something to be gained from having to deal with the program being opened.

I really like how easy it is to take (and share) screenshots with it, and how I can both play and chat at the same time without that much of a hassle. But trying to do all of that with a PC on the lower-end of the spectrum... yeah, that was challenging to say the least. I mean, I could still run my games fine, but my computer needed vacations after we were done.

Honestly, that alone made me want to avoid Steam and do most of my purchases through GOG instead. I feel that a simple installer, no questions asked, and that's also modified so it can actually run all my games without needed to be tweaked was much more appealing than Valve's offering.

But let me ask you... have you ever thought of Steam (the program) as a handicapping thing for your gaming experience? Wouldn't be surprised if it were just me, but I'm curious now

PS: Oh, and also gone were the days of not getting my games back after I let someone else borrow them. Screw that

I have had an account since 2013 or 2014. I love the random sales that they do. I picked up The Sims 3 for £5 and was buying expansion packs for £2.50 each. I also like how it logs how many hours you have played a game for and the whole cloud idea. It’s also cool that old games are on it too.

As for Steam slowing my computer down, it never has and all games run. I have a beast of a computer and even my laptop has an i7 processor (even though I haven’t got an much memory as I would like on it). I understand what you mean about games running slowly or other programmes being slowed down, especially when the graphics and processing of some games becomes more demanding. When they improved the graphics of Dust 2, the map would lag on my older brother’s laptop but he ended up getting a new one anyway. Technology is constantly improving.

I, overall, like Steam as there’s a large variety of games that are in the same directory. I think my account is worth like £200 or something. I like how you can also look at guides on it too but some members in the community can be toxic.

Edit; I also like how you can use the web browser in game. I think there should be an option to not have the Steam app open though maybe.

I've had Steam since 2010, and I've never had any issues with it slowing my computers down. Sure, I've had games that have run slowly, but that's not because of Steam: it's because I was an idiot playing AAA games on a low-end machine which didn't quite meet the system requirements ! 

In any case, I think Steam is great. The sales are wonderful: they've enabled me to get some great games at knock-down prices, but then, they've also clogged my inventory with impulse-buys that I never ended up playing . 

One thing I do take issue with, however, is Big Picture Mode. I've never found a use for it, and it's very annoying when I open it by mistake .

(11-20-2018, 11:54 PM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ]I've had Steam since 2010, and I've never had any issues with it slowing my computers down. Sure, I've had games that have run slowly, but that's not because of Steam: it's because I was an idiot playing AAA games on a low-end machine which didn't quite meet the system requirements ! 

In any case, I think Steam is great. The sales are wonderful: they've enabled me to get some great games at knock-down prices, but then, they've also clogged my inventory with impulse-buys that I never ended up playing . 

One thing I do take issue with, however, is Big Picture Mode. I've never found a use for it, and it's very annoying when I open it by mistake .

Absolutely same - I haven't found any problems with the client itself with regards to slowing down my machine. I also use GOG, as well as its (optional) client Galaxy.

That being said, the Steam client itself does have minimum spec requirements.

The specs it lists now for Windows only requires a modern OS, but back in February, the following specs were given:
 

Quote:Windows XP, Vista, or 7
512 MB RAM
1 Ghz or faster processor

I imagine it's roughly the same now (or more demanding). If these specs are difficult to meet for a machine, it's probably not a machine that can run many games to begin with.

Its games barely run on my laptop, so it's a meh program.

(11-21-2018, 12:36 AM)Nick Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-20-2018, 11:54 PM)Kyng Wrote: [ -> ]I've had Steam since 2010, and I've never had any issues with it slowing my computers down. Sure, I've had games that have run slowly, but that's not because of Steam: it's because I was an idiot playing AAA games on a low-end machine which didn't quite meet the system requirements ! 

In any case, I think Steam is great. The sales are wonderful: they've enabled me to get some great games at knock-down prices, but then, they've also clogged my inventory with impulse-buys that I never ended up playing . 

One thing I do take issue with, however, is Big Picture Mode. I've never found a use for it, and it's very annoying when I open it by mistake .

Absolutely same - I haven't found any problems with the client itself with regards to slowing down my machine. I also use GOG, as well as its (optional) client Galaxy.

That being said, the Steam client itself does have minimum spec requirements.

The specs it lists now for Windows only requires a modern OS, but back in February, the following specs were given:
 

Quote:Windows XP, Vista, or 7
512 MB RAM
1 Ghz or faster processor

I imagine it's roughly the same now (or more demanding). If these specs are difficult to meet for a machine, it's probably not a machine that can run many games to begin with.  

I completely missed your message, dude. Apologies for that.

It's not that the requirements are too hard for my machine, and I mostly buy old-school games on Steam anyway, but I don't really appreciate having Steam opened alongside my games... feels like an unnecessary way of taxing one's machine.

That said, I own Deus Ex in both GOG and Steam releases -I love the game that much- and, while both run smoothly enough, there's a noticeable difference in performance when it comes to playing on Steam.

Couple that with the fact that there don't seem to be any achievements for the game on that platform, and you have got yourself a game I wouldn't wanna touch again bar complete disaster (like me forgetting my GOG password ).

It's one of my favorite programs to have. I like to take advantage of the steam sales which can save me some cash. It wasn't taxing to my PC's performance though.

When you say it is taxing your machine what exactly do you mean? Like is your processor somehow being used more? Your graphics card isn't even touching steam.  I mean steam uses hardly any resources. 

(12-06-2018, 03:21 AM)Oscar Wrote: [ -> ]When you say it is taxing your machine what exactly do you mean? Like is your processor somehow being used more? Your graphics card isn't even touching steam.  I mean steam uses hardly any resources. 

I couldn't tell you exactly, only that it feels like it's dragging its feet after using the program, which doesn't happen with anything else I run.

(12-06-2018, 03:21 AM)Oscar Wrote: [ -> ]When you say it is taxing your machine what exactly do you mean? Like is your processor somehow being used more? Your graphics card isn't even touching steam.  I mean steam uses hardly any resources. 
 

I thought this was weird too, because like, he says "it's not that the requirements are too hard for my machine", and then says "feels like an unnecessary way of taxing one's machine". These two statements are kinda contradictory; the only way it could possibly be noticeably taxing on your machine is if it struggled to meet the requirements.

I wonder if it has something to do with the Steam overlay...?

When you have the Steam client running in the background, does your machine only seem to slow down when you're gaming? Or always slow when you have the client running?