4 ms·

I must admit that the Steam client is quite slow and bloated. Having used it for many years, I often avoid launching it. Epic has replicated these same issues.

I must admit that the Steam client is quite slow and bloated. Having used it for many years, I often avoid launching it. Epic has replicated these same issues. Consequently, I end up using GOG instead.

blueflow 1y ago
Slow, multi-window and focus stealing. Every single window for steam steals the focus, so if startup takes a minute, go grab a coffee or something as anything else will be unusable.
cmcaleer 1y ago
Bloated is one word for it. The difference in the battery life of my MacBook when Steam is running (and doing nothing) versus Steam not running is incredible, it’s the difference between my battery sometimes lasting one working day and comfortably lasting two.
- spacemadness 1y ago
  The client is awful on MacOS. It’s even more power hungry and slower than XCode.
- 47thpresident 1y ago
  If you use an Arm mac, the mainline release is still using Rosetta. You can switch to the beta release which improves battery life and performance.
teamonkey 1y ago
Steam is your typical web-app-in-a-window. Interestingly, the Epic store is not, or rather it is but it uses Unreal to render it (or at least the Slate UI component of it). On my laptop it uses the discrete GPU to render instead of the integrated one, which has an impact on power use and battery life.
ekianjo 1y ago
its running Chromium under the hood, its like Electron on steroids
- const_cast 1y ago
  I think most of the UI is native, with web views shoved into various corners. I think the application might still be 32bit, but I'm not sure as I run it as a Flatpak.
  - ekianjo 1y ago
    The web views are using Chromium engine for sure, because you see it in the underlying processes.
Jotalea 1y ago
The Steam client is so bloated at the point it takes 40% of my computer's resources, leaving little to no resources for the actual game I want to play, and thus making the gameplay experience feel worse than it should. That is one of the reasons I would pirate or try to find a workaround to download the games from Steam and run them outside.

blueflow 1y ago

Slow, multi-window and focus stealing. Every single window for steam steals the focus, so if startup takes a minute, go grab a coffee or something as anything else will be unusable.

cmcaleer 1y ago

Bloated is one word for it. The difference in the battery life of my MacBook when Steam is running (and doing nothing) versus Steam not running is incredible, it’s the difference between my battery sometimes lasting one working day and comfortably lasting two.

spacemadness 1y ago
The client is awful on MacOS. It’s even more power hungry and slower than XCode.
47thpresident 1y ago
If you use an Arm mac, the mainline release is still using Rosetta. You can switch to the beta release which improves battery life and performance.

teamonkey 1y ago

Steam is your typical web-app-in-a-window. Interestingly, the Epic store is not, or rather it is but it uses Unreal to render it (or at least the Slate UI component of it). On my laptop it uses the discrete GPU to render instead of the integrated one, which has an impact on power use and battery life.

ekianjo 1y ago

its running Chromium under the hood, its like Electron on steroids

const_cast 1y ago
I think most of the UI is native, with web views shoved into various corners. I think the application might still be 32bit, but I'm not sure as I run it as a Flatpak.
- ekianjo 1y ago
  The web views are using Chromium engine for sure, because you see it in the underlying processes.

Jotalea 1y ago

The Steam client is so bloated at the point it takes 40% of my computer's resources, leaving little to no resources for the actual game I want to play, and thus making the gameplay experience feel worse than it should. That is one of the reasons I would pirate or try to find a workaround to download the games from Steam and run them outside.