Play While Downloading on Steam

[SilverHawk]

So, after 8 years on consoles and about 6 on Battlenet, Play While Downloading is coming to Steam. Shows how Steam is behind in regards to features.

[Hennix]

that is a really old feature

[🍋 Lemonfed 🍋]

you can kind of already do that since a long time ago , maybe not the game you're downloading but at least you can launch other steam games.

you click steam which is at the top left of your library , then settings , then download then click the box which say [allow downloads during gameplay].

but you also have to consider that download or update can also require CPU ressources since some games download are heavily compressed and need to be unpacked while being installed on your computer.

[( ( < < <🤖> > > ) )]

is downloading really that important... all my hours are spent playing the game..

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Rocker1920:

So, after 8 years on consoles and about 6 on Battlenet, Play While Downloading is coming to Steam. Shows how Steam is behind in regards to features.

It's an exceptionally low priority feature. Requires games to be designed around that and the code segmented in a way that they can actually deliver the code to allow it, and playing while its downloading actually slows your download.

Very little reason to ever use it, especially on PC.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Rocker1920:

So, after 8 years on consoles and about 6 on Battlenet, Play While Downloading is coming to Steam. Shows how Steam is behind in regards to features.

Note steam has always had this feature. MK11 had it

Almost no one dev uses it because if you actually look at most services that have it implemented, you have to download 95% of the game to even begin playing it. meaning that their implementations had little practical benefit

[SilverHawk]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Originally posted by Rocker1920:

So, after 8 years on consoles and about 6 on Battlenet, Play While Downloading is coming to Steam. Shows how Steam is behind in regards to features.

Note steam has always had this feature. MK11 had it

Almost no one dev uses it because if you actually look at most services that have it implemented, you have to download 95% of the game to even begin playing it. meaning that their implementations had little practical benefit

Consoles only needed 30% depending on the game.

[Daggoth]

Yeah Steam has technically supported play while downloading since I think the start. There was only a handful of games that utilised it though, too much effort segmenting the content and what have you.

So it's good that they're going to try to automagically set it up for as many games as possible.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Rocker1920:

Originally posted by Satoru:

Note steam has always had this feature. MK11 had it

Almost no one dev uses it because if you actually look at most services that have it implemented, you have to download 95% of the game to even begin playing it. meaning that their implementations had little practical benefit

Consoles only needed 30% depending on the game.

Depends on how the game is built. For it to work that way they have to seperate out the files in a way that it can be loaded that way, which isn't the best design.

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Daggoth:

There was only a handful of games that utilised it though, too much effort segmenting the content and what have you.

And after spending all that effort, which did not go into improving the game, only a few people are even noticing it, and even for them it will be useless after a short time...

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Originally posted by Rocker1920:

So, after 8 years on consoles and about 6 on Battlenet, Play While Downloading is coming to Steam. Shows how Steam is behind in regards to features.

Note steam has always had this feature. MK11 had it

Almost no one dev uses it because if you actually look at most services that have it implemented, you have to download 95% of the game to even begin playing it. meaning that their implementations had little practical benefit

MK X did it back in 2015.

You downloaded 3Gb and could play while it downloaded other parts of the game. In practise, it just started to download a bunch of other files that were packaged as DLC (all 23 of them!) - but the original download was only about 10% of the complete game.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Originally posted by Rocker1920:

So, after 8 years on consoles and about 6 on Battlenet, Play While Downloading is coming to Steam. Shows how Steam is behind in regards to features.

It's an exceptionally low priority feature. Requires games to be designed around that and the code segmented in a way that they can actually deliver the code to allow it, and playing while its downloading actually slows your download.

Very little reason to ever use it, especially on PC.

And then there's the question of what 'Play' is considered to be. I mean just having the title screen up for you to stare at would be considered play.

[SilverHawk]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by brian9824:

It's an exceptionally low priority feature. Requires games to be designed around that and the code segmented in a way that they can actually deliver the code to allow it, and playing while its downloading actually slows your download.

Very little reason to ever use it, especially on PC.

And then there's the question of what 'Play' is considered to be. I mean just having the title screen up for you to stare at would be considered play.

PS4 had part of game available for playing, like a small single player mode. But it required 30% downloaded at least to work. Even though with Standby download(which I don't know if Steam has), I don't use it much.

[Bagel]

Edit: Just read an article about it.

https://www.gamereactor.eu/new-patent-lets-you-play-steam-games-while-downloading-them/

It's a bit different than what the consoles do. Because on the PS 4 it only works with predetermined titles, but Valve wants to implement a technology that will allow to play and download all games. A system recognises which data will be necessary to play certain games and download them primarily. They've applied on a pantent on that.

[SilverHawk]

Originally posted by Donut:

Edit: Just read an article about it.

https://www.gamereactor.eu/new-patent-lets-you-play-steam-games-while-downloading-them/

It's a bit different than what the consoles do. Because on the PS 4 it only works with predetermined titles, but Valve wants to implement a technology that will allow to play and download all games. A system recognises which data will be necessary to play certain games and download them primarily. They've applied on a pantent on that.

PS4 works with all titles(at least all titles I have, except online-only games). The PS4 downloader estimates how much is necessary to play the game while downloading and downloads it.

[Kubrick]

Originally posted by Brian9824:

and playing while its downloading actually slows your download.

That doesn't make sense. You'd either need an exceptionally slow drive or bonkers download speed for it to throttle your download. Any reasonable drive writes and reads way faster than most peoples download speeds. Last time this would've been an issue is like 2010