Valve to Face Antitrust Lawsuit Over Steam Gaming Platform

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Actually wondering why everyone else has such high usage.
It is a known issue, it balloons based on friends lists, game catalogue size, animated animations, notification settings, blah blah blah. It’s been an issue since Valve launched the updated interface back in 2018, the added features they crammed in created a number of memory leaks. The more features you use or leave on the worse it gets.
But like many memory issues it’s not a precise thing, lots of factors at play there.

Windows doesn’t get hit as hard as Linux does because Microsoft has spent decades cleaning up after poorly coded software so the Windows Garbage collection process is pretty good. That’s also why if you watch the webhelper processes in windows they come and go. As they leak memory garbage collection cleans up after them they crash one of the processes and another pops up to take its place.
 
I get your point here, but what's the CPU utilization of those processes? The memory's probably swapped out. (Oh, and below is my system, while running Terraria. No idea why it's using so much less RAM.)

While idle? Anywhere between 0-15%. While playing games? Some steamwebhelper/steamservice threads sometimes eat up an entire CPU thread at 100% and start causing performance issues in games.

That is also the working memory set, not what's in the pagefile. Both Windows and Linux try to keep data out of the pagefile/swap whenever possible because it slows the system down. If a process has its address space dumped into pagefile/swap, it is not allowed to perform any action that requires use of that data unless it is brought back out into main system memory, which takes time. A process has to be completely idle and doing absolutely nothing to be thrown into pagefile/swap, and steamwebhelper is not in that category.
 
I like the hilarious denial from all of the Steam die hards "oh because I don't have a problem means nobody else should either" while simultaneously offering known solutions to reduce memory usage because high resource usage in Steam is a known widespread problem. I don't need to post more examples, you can look them up by the thousands on the Steam Community message boards and forums all over the internet. The fact that users have to expend significant effort to curb bugs and high resource usage in Steam, plus people here offering solutions to reduce memory usage vindicates my original point that Steam is a bug ridden pile of trash software that eats excessive system resources.
I get that you are upset. Maybe install steam fresh on a different pc, then see what resource utilization you observe. Try logging out and login use a different or new steam account, see if anything changes.

As far as any other suggestions to solve your problem, not really feasible for me to try and attempt to solve for you as I have no familiarity with the issue you are observing other than your couple of posts regarding it.
Thanks for letting us know you were not a beta tester, because Small Mode has been a feature since the very first releases. The larger full page mode wasn't a thing until Steam 2.0, and Big Picture mode came even later.
If you are going to call me a liar, I am afraid you are on your own for figuring out why your shit doesn't work right.
That is a setting I've never bothered changing until just now to see what it looked like. I'm in Large mode, and use 377Mb, 0% Cpu. Moving it back and forth between view modes doesn't change the Ram usage.
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Looking at small mode, I think you are incorrect that initially this was the only option Steam had. I do not remember it ever looking like this:
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Try again? Or don't, I think I am done replying to you. Cheers!
 
I get that you are upset. Maybe install steam fresh on a different pc, then see what resource utilization you observe. Try logging out and login use a different or new steam account, see if anything changes.

Reading comprehension is important, because you've missed the fact I have already stated more than once this is both a Windows and Linux problem, and across various hardware configurations over 20 years.

If you are going to call me a liar, I am afraid you are on your own for figuring out why your shit doesn't work right.

I never asked you for help with Steam's high resource usage. I made a statement that it exists as a problem and you and others entirely took it upon yourselves to use logical fallacies, ignoring evidence and other nonsense under the guise like I asked for help in the first place. I did not because this section is for discussing news, not asking for software help.

Looking at small mode, I think you are incorrect that initially this was the only option Steam had. I do not remember it ever looking like this:
View attachment 473423 Try again? Or don't, I think I am done replying to you. Cheers!

Not my problem you entirely missed the image I posted on the last page of the original Steam 1.0 UI, which has the original small mode games list in the bottom left. And just because the UI theme changed, doesn't mean the option never existed. "Small Mode" describes the games sorted in a list in a small window, it does not describe themes and extraneous UI elements.

And congratulations on your 18 year old steam account, it doesn't prove anything, especially since there's no listed account name. It could literally be anyone's account, Steam accounts have been bought, sold and stolen since the beginning of the platform. Not sure why you bothered posting the Steam beta executables either, because those can also be downloaded by anyone. They've been available on archive.org since 2002, and various mirrors.
 
I guess I'm the weirdo but Valve has done far more good than bad for this industry. Their API work alone allows developers to hit platforms far easier than it ever was before.

Playing games on Linux is a snap and I imagine it's better for Mac users as well.

I like competition too but most competitors aren't even trying. Epic could have done the same work that Valve did, but never did.

This makes me think of "pulling the plug" only to spend far more than before.
 
Microsoft like Epic just wants a bite at the pie. You think this is altruism? They see a massive game market that they could be making a percentage sale off of and they’re simply using whatever tools they can do to do so. However like your EGS example, don’t expect prices to ever drop. Publishers will just want to make more money rather than ever pass on a discount.
Maybe the discount is that prices haven't gone up? Sony is charging $70 for their games and it doesn't seem to have caught on.
It matters since if you actually invest in them, and EGS dies, you’ve lost your game library.
Stop thinking like that. Nothing lasts forever and when Steam does die you can back up your games onto a hard disk.
I care about it because with each progressive buyout, companies like Blizzard and iD, have become less Mac and Linux friendly. The market has shrunk by multiple OS’s due to Bethesda, Activision, etc until eventually Microsoft’s buyouts.
You use Linux or Mac? I'm using it now, and gave up on Windows. If not then why do you care?
Also, there is precisely nothing preventing Microsoft from pressing their monopoly once they have all of these studios. Much like Origin did. Origin only failed because people refused to buy titles on it. But if Microsoft has all the titles? They stand to make 100% of the profit and cut everyone out while also forcing their methods down the consumers throat.

Which more or less we can expect to be a Windows only Xbox only future.
Yea, and we support this by supporting dominant stores. There's a reason why United States vs Paramount Pictures removed exclusivity of movies to be played by specific theaters. It was anti-consumer. Can you imagine to watch the new Doctor Strange movie we need to go do Disney theaters to watch it? That's Disney+, and Steam, and Epic, and Xbox, and Nintendo when it comes to exclusive content. Rather than improving the Epic store buying experience, instead they decided to buy as many games as they can and hope that's enough to get people hooked on their service. As much as people like Nintendo's Switch, you still need a phone to talk to players within the game. Nintendo doesn't have to make a good working console because they have Mario, and Zelda, and many exclusive games. This works, because if it didn't then Microsoft and Sony wouldn't be buying up games studios right now.
You’re having to take a lot of long leaps to arrive here. But my very short response is that if that is what you fear, you should move to another OS and hope and pray that Microsoft’s 20 year stranglehold on the PC gaming market would die.
Already made the switch to Linux Mint 20.
Heck, macOS is more open than Windows even without Windows 11 being on the table.
Microsoft has actually ported Edge and even DX12 to Linux. I don't remember seeing Apple's Metal API or Safari browser being open sourced. Not that this gives Apple or Microsoft any brownie points.
You’re fighting a losing battle. Enjoy techno-feudalism until enough people wake up and get tired of it to move to something else. More or less meaning that people will have to stop caring about their “beloved franchises” enough to abandon them for totally different OS’.
Nah, I'm just avoiding crap like Windows and Apple products.
 
I guess I'm the weirdo but Valve has done far more good than bad for this industry. Their API work alone allows developers to hit platforms far easier than it ever was before.

Playing games on Linux is a snap and I imagine it's better for Mac users as well.

I like competition too but most competitors aren't even trying. Epic could have done the same work that Valve did, but never did.

This makes me think of "pulling the plug" only to spend far more than before.

There's no doubt Valve has done a lot of good for the gaming industry. But don't let anyone fool you into thinking their Linux support is altruistic. When Microsoft created the Microsoft Store for Windows it was a massive threat to Steam. Microsoft's end goal was for EVERY piece of software to be installed through it similar to an iPhone. Fortunately that didn't happen, but ever since the threat became obvious Valve really started pushing for Linux. They released Steam PCs running linux, and now they released the Steam Deck. Everything Valve does is to make more money and keep making money.
It's completely understandable Vavle charges developers way more than other services. They're a market leader so they have the user base to be able to get away with it. And Valve is going to do anything they legally can to maintain their profit margins and market dominance which includes things NOT good for consumers or developers.

Things are pretty good because of what Valve has done, but that does not mean they can't be better. Competition from EGS has already made things better, and competition from EGS and other stores will continue to do so. More of it is definitely improving things and if Valve does things to prevent competition that's only making things worse for developers and consumers.
 
Maybe the discount is that prices haven't gone up? Sony is charging $70 for their games and it doesn't seem to have caught on.
It will. We're in inflation land. Any excuse to push the price up that customers will accept, publishers will do.
Stop thinking like that. Nothing lasts forever and when Steam does die you can back up your games onto a hard disk.
Not sure what world you're living in, but unless those games all of a sudden don't require Steam to operate then it's not a solution. That certainly will not work with 100% online games. If you're primarily playing CoD, Fortnite, and Apex (or whatever the equivalent of those titles are in the future), if your client dies, those games are toast.
You use Linux or Mac? I'm using it now, and gave up on Windows. If not then why do you care?

..........

Already made the switch to Linux Mint 20.
Why do you care? You're questioning why I care while harping about these platforms, all the while you're on Linux. You can't have it both ways.
Yea, and we support this by supporting dominant stores. There's a reason why United States vs Paramount Pictures removed exclusivity of movies to be played by specific theaters. It was anti-consumer. Can you imagine to watch the new Doctor Strange movie we need to go do Disney theaters to watch it? That's Disney+, and Steam, and Epic, and Xbox, and Nintendo when it comes to exclusive content. Rather than improving the Epic store buying experience, instead they decided to buy as many games as they can and hope that's enough to get people hooked on their service. As much as people like Nintendo's Switch, you still need a phone to talk to players within the game. Nintendo doesn't have to make a good working console because they have Mario, and Zelda, and many exclusive games. This works, because if it didn't then Microsoft and Sony wouldn't be buying up games studios right now.
There was a lot that happened in Hollywood at the turn of the (20th) century.
First they broke studios top down monopoly making it so that film producers couldn't also own theaters.
Then they made it so that film studios couldn't force theaters to buy entire rounds of films (this allowed film studios to package together smash hits with duds and still more or less guarantee a profit on entire portfolios).
And then they did the thing you're talking about.

In certain ways I think that the government meddled too much in Hollywood. As them owning theaters wasn't necessarily bad for the consumer per se. They still had to price things in a consumer favorable way, and making trash films would still net them losses.

Theater exclusivity isn't necessarily terrible either. Honestly all that does is limit ticket sales - which if current situation says anything is more or less a bad idea. It at minimum means that the capital investment into theaters has to be doubled. You'd need your theater to be placed near your competitors theater in order to not experience a loss. Otherwise the only other option is make the most incredible movies ever, enough to entice viewers to be inconvenienced to see it. Which again, would be a net positive for movie goers.

There's too much competition now for this all to matter. Both in terms of movie content and the games industry.

The one thing that gives me "hope" is that basically every time one of these studios gets terrible, all the talent quits and more or less makes their own new studio. And every time that happens it's another opportunity to work outside of these systems. That and obviously there is more game creator talent than ever before and more people going into the games industry than ever before. The only thing this requires giving up is previously established franchises. And at this point, I'm a grumpy enough man to not care if they all burn. Good games matter. Franchises don't.

Microsoft has actually ported Edge and even DX12 to Linux. I don't remember seeing Apple's Metal API or Safari browser being open sourced. Not that this gives Apple or Microsoft any brownie points.
Apple doesn't really need to. All of their stuff is fully documented. But as you note, is obviously closed source.
Nah, I'm just avoiding crap like Windows and Apple products.
Apple has been fantastic. I wouldn't say it's for everyone, but for my industry there isn't anything better.
 
There's no doubt Valve has done a lot of good for the gaming industry. But don't let anyone fool you into thinking their Linux support is altruistic. When Microsoft created the Microsoft Store for Windows it was a massive threat to Steam. Microsoft's end goal was for EVERY piece of software to be installed through it similar to an iPhone. Fortunately that didn't happen, but ever since the threat became obvious Valve really started pushing for Linux. They released Steam PCs running linux, and now they released the Steam Deck. Everything Valve does is to make more money and keep making money.
It's completely understandable Vavle charges developers way more than other services. They're a market leader so they have the user base to be able to get away with it. And Valve is going to do anything they legally can to maintain their profit margins and market dominance which includes things NOT good for consumers or developers.

Things are pretty good because of what Valve has done, but that does not mean they can't be better. Competition from EGS has already made things better, and competition from EGS and other stores will continue to do so. More of it is definitely improving things and if Valve does things to prevent competition that's only making things worse for developers and consumers.

The irony being is that Tim Sweeney and Epic Games were yelling about the MS store along with Valve back in 2012. Now all of a sudden Tim has no problem with exclusives on PC.
 
There's no doubt Valve has done a lot of good for the gaming industry. But don't let anyone fool you into thinking their Linux support is altruistic. When Microsoft created the Microsoft Store for Windows it was a massive threat to Steam. Microsoft's end goal was for EVERY piece of software to be installed through it similar to an iPhone. Fortunately that didn't happen, but ever since the threat became obvious Valve really started pushing for Linux. They released Steam PCs running linux, and now they released the Steam Deck. Everything Valve does is to make more money and keep making money.
It's completely understandable Vavle charges developers way more than other services. They're a market leader so they have the user base to be able to get away with it. And Valve is going to do anything they legally can to maintain their profit margins and market dominance which includes things NOT good for consumers or developers.

Things are pretty good because of what Valve has done, but that does not mean they can't be better. Competition from EGS has already made things better, and competition from EGS and other stores will continue to do so. More of it is definitely improving things and if Valve does things to prevent competition that's only making things worse for developers and consumers.
Have the receipts that show anything Steam has done was a direct answer to Epic?
 
You guys really think Valve announcing a price cut A WEEK before EGS's pricing was publicly announced is a coincidence? LOL.
 
And congratulations on your 18 year old steam account, it doesn't prove anything, especially since there's no listed account name. It could literally be anyone's account, Steam accounts have been bought, sold and stolen since the beginning of the platform. Not sure why you bothered posting the Steam beta executables either, because those can also be downloaded by anyone. They've been available on archive.org since 2002, and various mirrors.
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Cheers!
 
I have dozens, perhaps over 100 games on Steam, its my favorite launcher if the bunch. That said, I don’t remember the last time I bought a game through Steam. All the AAA titles have moved to their own publishers launcher/store. I didn’t even buy anything from Steam last holiday sale which is a first for me. It seems to be more of an oasis for indie games these days.
 
What's the point of the random log file? Are you still trying to prove original ownership of your account? I don't really care.

A plain text log is not proof of anything, it could have been made yesterday for all anyone knows. There's no way of verifying its authenticity.
Unless he made an NFT of it.
 
Again, this is Epics problem. They need to learn to fund new games instead of taking existing games away from other stores. You know, like how Microsoft and Sony are doing by buying up major studios like Zenimax, Activision-Blizzard, and Bungie.

When EPIC does that people will still say they are "stealing the games away from Steam". Yet somehow forget about all of the games in development and studios Valve purchased and then locked said games to Steam.

Competition from EGS has already made things better, and competition from EGS and other stores will continue to do so. More of it is definitely improving things and if Valve does things to prevent competition that's only making things worse for developers and consumers.

That is true. I prefer Steam but if EGS can offer more competition and refocus Valve on making games again that would be great. I don't like the idea of every publisher having their own store (example, Uplay only being Ubisoft, Rockstar only being Rockstar), but two competing clients that offer their services to all publishers/developers is a good thing.
 
When EPIC does that people will still say they are "stealing the games away from Steam". Yet somehow forget about all of the games in development and studios Valve purchased and then locked said games to Steam.
In the case of the studios they have acquired so far, they are stealing games from Steam. Psyonix with Rocket League, and MediaTonic with Fall Guys. It's not the standard MO for publishers to pull games already sold on another platform after they change hands, and yet here we are.

They have a publishing deal with Remedy for Alan Wake II, and I have absolutely no issue with that.
 
What Steam does, it acts like group purchasing power. It can shoot down dumb vendor ideas that abound aplenty. Like ridiculously intrusive spyware, rootkits, etc. I look forward to gaming slitting its own throat much like Movies, Comics, etc.
 
What Steam does, it acts like group purchasing power. It can shoot down dumb vendor ideas that abound aplenty.

Steam does none of this. There are hundreds of trash games and dozens of trash publishers on the Steam platform. The "Greenlight" feature that was supposed to help indie developers be seen, instead turned into a dumpster fire rife with trash publishers pushing garbage tier games like asset flips and sequels of asset flips. They'd use bot accounts, and abuse the trading card and item market to get people to vote for their crap to get it pushed to the top of the list. It got so bad that Valve ended the Greenlight program in 2017. The barrier for entry is still incredibly low, with a $100 fee, you can get any garbage on the platform.

Like ridiculously intrusive spyware, rootkits, etc.

You mean like Denuvo, SecuROM, Arxan or Starforce? Still plenty of games on Steam that use those. They're known to behave like the worst kinds of viruses because they install kernel level drivers that give them virtually unlimited access to your system and have been known to heavily abuse it to the detriment of your system. It's also a massive security hole, because you're trusting dishonest companies to make secure software. And good luck removing those programs, because even the developers themselves have trouble making uninstallers for their viruses.
 
In the case of the studios they have acquired so far, they are stealing games from Steam. Psyonix with Rocket League, and MediaTonic with Fall Guys. It's not the standard MO for publishers to pull games already sold on another platform after they change hands, and yet here we are.

That isn't true. You just cannot purchase it from Steam anymore but anyone who owns Rocket League on Steam still has it on Steam.
 
You mean like Denuvo, SecuROM, Arxan or Starforce? Still plenty of games on Steam that use those. They're known to behave like the worst kinds of viruses because they install kernel level drivers that give them virtually unlimited access to your system and have been known to heavily abuse it to the detriment of your system. It's also a massive security hole, because you're trusting dishonest companies to make secure software. And good luck removing those programs, because even the developers themselves have trouble making uninstallers for their viruses.
The current situation will be mild to what comes next.
 
That isn't true. You just cannot purchase it from Steam anymore but anyone who owns Rocket League on Steam still has it on Steam.

Yes but you must have an Epic account linked to your Steam account to still play the game. From the Steam forums for the game:

"Starting with v1.79, all players will require an Epic Games Account to play Rocket League. Existing Steam players will not need to download the EG Launcher, but can continue to launch the game through Steam.

During your first time launching the game after the update, you'll be prompted to sign into an existing Epic Games Account or create a new one with no name, email or password needed.
Should this fail, please try signing up / logging in again, restarting your game or - if necessary - verifying your game files."
 
The memory leak under Steam is very real. I run KDE Neon on a system with 48GB of ram, and steamwebhelper will just keep sucking memory until before you know it you're up to about 25GB of memory used up for steamwebhelper alone. As soon as you kill steamwebhelper, memory usage drops to about 4GB (EDIT: that's 4GB overall memory usage, not 4GB used by steamwebhelper alone), steamwebhelper starts itself back up and within days you'll be back at 25GB memory usage again.

People probably don't notice it as they probably power their PC off when they aren't using it, I leave my PC running all the time. Adding -no-browser to the startup command rectifies the issue, but then you get no GUI.

Personally, I love Steam. Valve are the one company to take all PC based platforms into consideration, they're the one company pushing for Linux support and the work they are doing is amazing, and I believe in one game launcher as opposed to multiple game launcher's - I also think Tim Sweeney is a knob.

I run Origin as well as Epic and Blizzard on my system because I have to in order to play a couple of very select titles I bought back when I used Windows, I don't run these launchers because I want to. I find multiple launchers messy and irritating.
 
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The memory leak under Steam is very real. I run KDE Neon on a system with 48GB of ram, and steamwebhelper will just keep sucking memory until before you know it you're up to about 25GB of memory used up for steamwebhelper alone. As soon as you kill steamwebhelper, memory usage drops to about 4GB, steamwebhelper starts itself back up and within days you'll be back at 25GB memory usage again.

People probably don't notice it as they probably power their PC off when they aren't using it, I leave my PC running all the time. Adding -no-browser to the startup command rectifies the issue, but then you get no GUI.

Personally, I love Steam. Valve are the one company to take all PC based platforms into consideration, they're the one company pushing for Linux support and the work they are doing is amazing, and I believe in one game launcher as opposed to multiple game launcher's - I also think Tim Sweeney is a knob.

I run Origin as well as Epic and Blizzard on my system because I have to in order to play a couple of very select titles I bought back when I used Windows, I don't run these launchers because I want to. I find multiple launchers messy and irritating.
Not to absolve valve of all fault, but web browsers are notoriously bad about memory leaks. I can't wait until someone develops a (good, full featured) web rendering engine that doesn't leak memory.
 
The memory leak under Steam is very real. I run KDE Neon on a system with 48GB of ram, and steamwebhelper will just keep sucking memory until before you know it you're up to about 25GB of memory used up for steamwebhelper alone.
Buy more memory
 
Not to absolve valve of all fault, but web browsers are notoriously bad about memory leaks. I can't wait until someone develops a (good, full featured) web rendering engine that doesn't leak memory.
Very true. Valve's software store GUI is based on Chromium and Chromium is a renowned memory hog...When it's running.

The problem is Steam is simply running in the background, there is no GUI open at all, and yet huge amounts of memory are still sucked up by steamwebhelper.
 
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Yep, stupid low usage on my system as well. Never have seen it be a problem.

Yeah, but how long do you leave your PC running for? As stated, I never turn mine off. Is it possible that you reboot every day and thus never experience the issue?

Here's a screenshot of the problem in the past (KDE Neon):

S2peT00.png


Here's a screenshot I just took after restarting Steam and removing the -no-browser argument. We'll see what it's reading tomorrow:

camcmIq.png
 
Yeah, but how long do you leave your PC running for? As stated, I never turn mine off. Is it possible that you reboot every day and thus never experience the issue?

Here's a screenshot of the problem in the past (KDE Neon):

View attachment 475097

Here's a screenshot I just took after restarting Steam and removing the -no-browser argument. We'll see what it's reading tomorrow:

View attachment 475098

I can confirm I've had that issue as well, as a person that leaves their system running 24/7/365. Though my main issue is that somehow it (somehow) starts hogging more and more CPU... I don't think I've ever seen it hit 25 GB RAM... that's like wtf levels lol.
 
I can confirm I've had that issue as well, as a person that leaves their system running 24/7/365. Though my main issue is that somehow it (somehow) starts hogging more and more CPU... I don't think I've ever seen it hit 25 GB RAM... that's like wtf levels lol.
It's almost like it's cacheing something, just what's being cached I'm not 100% sure. But if you add -no-browser to the startup argument the issue is 100% resolved, except you have no GUI.
 
For you all having memory issues,
Thought this was a low-key dig at first. XD

Worth a shot, but will probably just reduce the severity. Other things which probably exacerbate the issue: ad cycling, slideshows+videos in game pages, periodic page refreshes, embedded pages (in the UI, which is browser based, and never gets closed, so never gets fully GC'd).
 
Yeah, but how long do you leave your PC running for? As stated, I never turn mine off. Is it possible that you reboot every day and thus never experience the issue?

Here's a screenshot of the problem in the past (KDE Neon):

View attachment 475097

Here's a screenshot I just took after restarting Steam and removing the -no-browser argument. We'll see what it's reading tomorrow:

View attachment 475098
yep, 24/7 365 except for update reboots.
 
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