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Shajirr Dec 1, 2019 @ 11:00am
Steam freezes games when taking screenshots
Sometimes the game can freeze for 4-6 seconds when taking a screenshot.
Usually happens when taking multiple screenshots in quick succession, like first and second ones will be fine, and third one triggers the freeze.

That said, even taking one screenshot freezes the game for around half a second every time.

Very annoying in games when you want to take screenshots in a cutscene, game freezes, time in the cutscene passes despite screen being frozen, and then the cutscene cannot be rewatched again.

Any way to fix this?
Reading about this issue showed that reinstalling Steam did nothing to fix this.
Last edited by Shajirr; Dec 1, 2019 @ 11:01am
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Originally posted by Lord_Shadow:
So I went ahead and filed a support ticket. They responded that it was indeed probably the cache file.

The solution is to *copy* the pictures out of the folder, then delete them using the Steam screenshot manager / uploader, which you can find by right-clicking on a screenshot and clicking "Manage screenshots".

I tried it, and while it took ... uh... a while... but it actually worked! I can now take screenshots without any lag. I can take 10 in a row no problem.

There might be other ways to solve this, but ultimately, you need to make sure your screenshots.vdf file is small. Also games are sorted by id, so games with high ids can be laggy if games with lower ids have a lot of screenshots - it's best to clear out all screenshots periodically.

I'm not sure if this will solve everyone's problems. You might have other causes, but for me - this worked.

tl;dr: Backup all screenshots by copying them to another folder, then delete screenshots using the Steam screenshot manager / uploader.
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Showing 1-15 of 75 comments
Big Silly Guy Dec 1, 2019 @ 12:32pm 
maybe your computer just bad
#1
Zekiran Dec 1, 2019 @ 12:49pm 
Steam can't fix your slow computer disk speed.

That's 100% of why that happens. Happens to me, happens to many people. It's not something that can be 'fixed' externally in any way. It's system dependent.
#2
Iceira Dec 1, 2019 @ 1:00pm 
maybe use nvidia record overlay ?
#3
Shajirr Dec 1, 2019 @ 1:36pm 
Originally posted by Zekiran:
Steam can't fix your slow computer disk speed.

That's 100% of why that happens. Happens to me, happens to many people. It's not something that can be 'fixed' externally in any way. It's system dependent.

Steam installed on the 7200 RPM disk that can achieve up to 300MB/s writing speed. This is not slow. Most people have discs worse than that, so by extension this problem should be happening to most people? I haven't heard of that many cases.
Besides, pretty sure other screenshot taking tools should not have this problem, only Steam.
#4
Shajirr Dec 1, 2019 @ 1:37pm 
Originally posted by Iceira:
maybe use nvidia record overlay ?
Sure, but this doesn't fix the Steam's problem.

Originally posted by MAYO:
maybe your computer just bad
Nah, if steam surveys is anything to go buy it would be better than 80-90% setups.
Last edited by Shajirr; Dec 1, 2019 @ 1:39pm
#5
Zekiran Dec 1, 2019 @ 1:45pm 
It happens when the drive hasn't been written to and needs to spin up.
#6
Shajirr Dec 1, 2019 @ 2:19pm 
Originally posted by Zekiran:
It happens when the drive hasn't been written to and needs to spin up.

But why would a drive that runs Steam ever spin down? This seems unlikely
#7
Shajirr Dec 1, 2019 @ 4:48pm 
Originally posted by Zekiran:
It happens when the drive hasn't been written to and needs to spin up.

I just tested this - set HDD spindown time to 60 min.
Took one screenshot, then took another one 20 min later - game still froze.
#8
Zekiran Dec 1, 2019 @ 4:52pm 
The drive where your screenshots may not be the same as the one the game files are on?

I don't know the details of how your computer is laid out, but for me it's always been the case that if I'm on a game, any game not just on steam, and haven't really done anything other than play that game, a screenshot WILL pause things just a bit. From a second or so to quite a long while. Not recommended for online play...

Does it behave badly *after* the screenshot is taken? Like does the game get more laggy or jerky? Or is it *just* while the screenshot is being saved?
#9
Lord_Shadow Nov 18, 2020 @ 4:08am 
Every time I look into this problem, there's an army of people posting they don't have this problem, which is very frustrating.

Anyway, I too have this problem. I *think* it's because I take too many screenshots, but I don't know.

It seems like each screenshot makes the next one worse. Some games lock up when I hit a screenshot, other games just lock up Steam itself. Sometimes I can't take a screenshot for a solid minute after taking one.

Even transferring the files to another disk doesn't help, which is frustrating. I've emptied out the folders a ton of times. Maybe there's some cache file somewhere.

I've had this problem on two computers now, so I think it's somehow related to my account. The first computer was fine for a while, but the new one started out bad.

I wish I could say something to help more than just I have this problem too. :(

Edit: So as I suspected, there's a file called "screenshots.vdf" in the 760 folder. In my case, it's 24MB because I'm insane. Anyway, every picture is numbered. So as I thought, it's probably counting from 1 whenever a new picture is taken to find out what number it needs to be.

The problem is deleting this file and then taking a new picture will just restore the full file.

This sucks.
Last edited by Lord_Shadow; Nov 18, 2020 @ 4:35am
#10
Mr Fantastic Nov 18, 2020 @ 6:45am 
This problem is game dependant, I've had no trouble getting screenshots in some games while it's a nightmare in others, it's likely due to weak steam integration into some games. Some games won't even allow you to have or use steam overlay.
#11
Shajirr Nov 18, 2020 @ 10:06am 
I've gave up trying to find a fix for this.
Basically just moved to using ShareX in cases where Steam screenshotting function fails
#12
crunchyfrog Nov 18, 2020 @ 10:35am 
Originally posted by White Spirit:
I've gave up trying to find a fix for this.
Basically just moved to using ShareX in cases where Steam screenshotting function fails
Because Zekiran gave you the answer right at the outset. It IS disk speed.
#13
Shajirr Nov 18, 2020 @ 12:14pm 
Originally posted by crunchyfrog:
Originally posted by White Spirit:
I've gave up trying to find a fix for this.
Basically just moved to using ShareX in cases where Steam screenshotting function fails
Because Zekiran gave you the answer right at the outset. It IS disk speed.
No its not. Same happens on SSD.
Also you can take as many screenshots as you want on HDD with other programs and have no issues.
Last edited by Shajirr; Nov 18, 2020 @ 12:14pm
#14
crunchyfrog Nov 18, 2020 @ 12:16pm 
Originally posted by White Spirit:
Originally posted by crunchyfrog:
Because Zekiran gave you the answer right at the outset. It IS disk speed.
No its not. Same happens on SSD.
Also you can take as many screenshots as you want on HDD with other programs and have no issues.
And what about the other points here?
#15
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Date Posted: Dec 1, 2019 @ 11:00am
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