Steam client webhelper RAM usage

[Barsik_The_CaT]

I've noticed that Steam Client Webhelper process is using over 1Gb of RAM. Is it normal? I don't remember steam every using this much. And what does it suddenly need it for anyway?

[wuddih]

leave group chats with many users.

[Barsik_The_CaT]

Originally posted by wuddih:

leave group chats with many users.

I don't have any though

[nullable]

The same reason Chrome or Firefox may use 1GB+ of RAM and laymen don't understand why. Steam is a web browser, it's based on Chromium the OSS project Chrome is based on. So you'd kind of expect some of the behaviors (like using RAM to improve performance) to persist.

[RedLightning]

Knowing why and accepting it are two different things..

Who cares WHY.. the fact is .. there is zero excuse for a game launcher to be using over 1GB of ram when it is left 'IDLE'

It is .. first and foremost.. a GAME LAUNCHER.. I want that 'performance' to go to my games.. not the launcher.

[Barsik_The_CaT]

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

The same reason Chrome or Firefox may use 1GB+ of RAM and laymen don't understand why. Steam is a web browser, it's based on Chromium the OSS project Chrome is based on. So you'd kind of expect some of the behaviors (like using RAM to improve performance) to persist.

Thing is, I have to go out of my way to make chrome consume over 1Gb. Steam casually consumes over 1Gb while not even opened.

[~y~[NBK]~u~D.~b~Jamell~u~]

mine just takes 3mb

[Detabonator [MD]]

Since a week or so ago, my Steam Client WebHelper has been getting to ~2GB and more on zero usage (just staying in the background while I do other stuff, not gaming), sometimes with concurrent CPU spikes. I have to exit steam and restart it to return it to 'normal'. In the time I was typing this message it went up from ~350MB to 430MB 440MB 450MB and keeps rising :/

[Sasori Kigaru]

Originally posted by Detabonator Pinosol MD:

Since a week or so ago, my Steam Client WebHelper has been getting to ~2GB and more on zero usage (just staying in the background while I do other stuff, not gaming), sometimes with concurrent CPU spikes. I have to exit steam and restart it to return it to 'normal'. In the time I was typing this message it went up from ~350MB to 430MB 440MB 450MB and keeps rising :/

Well, since I had nothing better to do I opted to test mine a bit. https://i.gyazo.com/6374b830f2ddc2c3d2323b5941383317.png

The first of the 7, is the highest and was previously somewhere in the 300-400 mark or so before I closed it through the task manager. Doing so, made the steam launcher 'reload'. IE, the tab of my library (as my games library was open at the time) went black and came back.

I'm assuming the memory is high cause I have a lot of games, and a lot of them are installed though I am currently up-to-date. The launcher also has the store page so.. that could also have something to do with it.

The second of the 7th, closed and reopened my friends list along with the chats connected to it.

The third, didn't seemingly close or reload anything I could see so I got nothing for that.

The fourth, reloaded this very chat page so THANKFULLY I saved this before I did it.

The chat named one is obviously for chats.

The sixth did the same as the third.

The seventh closed, and didn't come back on its own. Doing so has made my chat/friends list completely black, so I'm gonna have to reopen it.

I am not at all sure if this will give you the answer you're looking for, cause anything more in depth than this would require knowledge I don't particularly have.

I also do not suggest doing what I did, since there is a chance that if you stop something important it could potentially break a bit. Luckily for me, this is steam so at most, if I did screw up something I'd just reinstall and that'd be the end of it.

By the way, closing the friends list happens to get rid of all of those tabs except for 3 of them. I do have some group chats I might still be connected to.

[CopperPipe]

mine is runing idle 888mb the hole time

[Dura_Ace]

Originally posted by RedLightning:

Knowing why and accepting it are two different things..

Who cares WHY.. the fact is .. there is zero excuse for a game launcher to be using over 1GB of ram when it is left 'IDLE'

It is .. first and foremost.. a GAME LAUNCHER.. I want that 'performance' to go to my games.. not the launcher.

Steam is now becoming bloatware.

[RiO]

Originally posted by nullable:

The same reason Chrome or Firefox may use 1GB+ of RAM and laymen don't understand why. Steam is a web browser, it's based on Chromium the OSS project Chrome is based on. So you'd kind of expect some of the behaviors (like using RAM to improve performance) to persist.

If I open up the legacy VGUI/Chromium hybrid Steam client, leave it at the library pane and do nothing with it. It already consumes 250 MB of RAM. (Note: I have not configured any shelves that are eating up RAM either.)

If I open up the full-Chromium Steam client and do the same, it consumes 500 MB of RAM off the bat. Interacting with anything will steadily let it run into the multiple GBs of consumption.

My current Firefox instance has 11 tabs open and is running an additional ad-blocker extension; traditionally one of the most memory-heavy type of extensions to use (if not for the fact that actual ads tend to consume more). It is currently consuming ~440 MB of RAM for those 11 tabs. Three of those tabs are Steam Community tabs. If I close them, I go back down to ~230 MB.

Conclusion: Not only is the Steam client a resource-thirsty piece of under-performing trash; the Steam website content it loads into itself is equally bloated.



Further deliberations:
I'm a software developer by trade. And one of my most-used development environments is Visual Studio Code. You know; that one IDE which is based on ::gasp!:: evil-evil Electron! And is entirely written in JavaScript! (Actually: TypeScript, but sure...) Oh the horror!

Except... if I open the on average 250,000 loc C# solution that is my current mainstay in it, the thing that's consuming 2GB of RAM is in the native code parts - namely: the C# compiler and language analysis tooling added to VSCode via plugin.

The IDE itself -- all the menus; inspection panels; source tree; document tab well; and all the open editors -- aka all the stuff implemented through Electron and JavaScript? 325 MB.



Even further deliberations:
"This isn't particularly efficient. Too bad!"
"Yes, this causes a memory leak. Too bad!"
"My hope is that this code is so awful I'm never allowed to write UI code again."
etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k238XpMMn38



It's a fairly safe bet that the issue here isn't Chromium; isn't CEF; isn't JavaScript; and isn't even in the ReactJS app framework. (And believe me; I love to hate on React.)
It's a fairly safe bet that the issue here, is specifically Valve.

They're supposed to be the market leader. The titan of the digital distribution industry.
But the client they've turned out and handed their user base to use is more akin to what one might expect from a freshman startup. It's downright embarrassing, really.