Suspend / Resume options

[Bel]

Steam can "suspend" the whole system at the moment, but it would be cool if they could sorta copy the Xbox idea of suspending and resuming games in the background so you could instantly get back in them without having to fully boot them again. There is currently a Github project called Nyrna that can suspend one program at a time using Windows' own suspend functionality:

https://github.com/Merrit/nyrna

If Steam extended that sort of program into a feature in Steam, it could potentially be used to manage multiple Steam games at a time and quickly jump between them like Xbox can, while saving system resources (aside from RAM). It would have the limitation of taking up RAM in the background, but would still be cool to have.

I'm imagining that in the Steam overlay, they could add a section for active games and suspended ones, and you could switch between games and you could click one to instantly resume and load into, whilst suspending the current game (if it supports it). Although if it could somehow be expanded to do the Xbox method of loading games from RAM and into an NVME to store game data, that would be nice because then game states would be more protected, and less at risk of losing data by forgetting to save multiple games.

[Start_Running]

With Xbox the functionality is built intio the OS and thats more or less the level it'd have to be done at.. Theoretically you could have steam snapshot and simply reload into memory but that adds complications.

[nullable]

I typically just use alt-tab, which works pretty well for most games. So I'm not sure what the incentive is. Of course there are some differences between consoles, which have full control over the OS and implementation, compared to PC where Steam is just an application and not an OS. So I don't think Steam will be managing games like that because games already don't run within a Steam sandbox that they can control and that's not really the design philosophy of Steam.

I'm not sure issues with saving your game is serious enough to warrant this feature either. I'm not against the convenience it might offer. I'm just saying as a selling point, hitting F5 or hitting esc -> save game is not really a burden or something I have trouble remembering. And I'm not convinced I'm an outlier in that regard.

[Satoru]

Only the OS has that ability. Steam has no capacity to “suspend” a game

[Start_Running]

If STeam were set uup differently it might but the simple truth is Steam has no access to a game's memory area. either in pagee or in active memory. And to say nothing of the associated third party libraries, etc and drivers that the game calls.


For it to work the game itself would need theto do the suspending which then begs the case... if the game is needed to suspend and resume, the game itself needs to remain in memory and if the agme is still in memory...then what was the point of suspend?

[Bel]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Only the OS has that ability. Steam has no capacity to “suspend” a game

Surely if some single guy on Github can do it, Steam could make it work for a currently focused Steam game.

[cinedine]

I don't want Steam rummaging my RAM and interfere with other programs. It's a launcher. And a bloated one that already does too much as it is.

Also what's the point? You can already alt-tab with most games. Something you could not do on console for a long time.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by belmonkey:

Originally posted by Satoru:

Only the OS has that ability. Steam has no capacity to “suspend” a game

Surely if some single guy on Github can do it, Steam could make it work for a currently focused Steam game.

Yes. because random dude on Github can get away with use at your own risk. Also no guarantee that it will work. Valve does not have that luxury.

Its easy to do a thing when you don't have to be particularly concerned with the cinsequences of the thing not working or the thing screwing up something else.

And lets be frank. All you're really doing is swapping the launch time for the pack and unpack time. Chances are they'll probably be about the same. (especially if you're one fo thsoe people who always disable start up screens)

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Also what's the point? You can already alt-tab with most games. Something you could not do on console for a long time.

Because even when alt tabbed the game is still occupying memory. both virtual and real.. Might also be eating a few cpu cycles. Suspend would essentially be just taking a snap shot of the active ram and closing everything down. Thusly you windup with say a 4gig (maybe more maybe less) packed file on you hdd.

Then restarting it by simply loading up the snapshot back into memory, theoretically the system would be none the wiser. The file on the hdd would be eating up space but not occupying virtual or real memroy, nor would it be eating cpu cycles.

That's a bit of a difference. You could see it as the difference between a savegame and a savestate., but there's even more differences.

The real question is whether or not the time saved would work out to anything. Since you'd have to take the time to pack the game to the file, then unpack it from the file into ram. Whether or not that time would be greater or less than the time require to start a game from scratch is debateble Then there's the inherent stability aspect.

Not counting the splash screens (which can be disabled) the start up time required would be more or less the same...since its the same amount of memory that would need to be grabbed and filled.

[Bel]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by cinedine:

Also what's the point? You can already alt-tab with most games. Something you could not do on console for a long time.

Because even when alt tabbed the game is still occupying memory. both virtual and real.. Might also be eating a few cpu cycles. Suspend would essentially be just taking a snap shot of the active ram and closing everything down. Thusly you windup with say a 4gig (maybe more maybe less) packed file on you hdd.

Then restarting it by simply loading up the snapshot back into memory, theoretically the system would be none the wiser. The file on the hdd would be eating up space but not occupying virtual or real memroy, nor would it be eating cpu cycles.

That's a bit of a difference. You could see it as the difference between a savegame and a savestate., but there's even more differences.

The real question is whether or not the time saved would work out to anything. Since you'd have to take the time to pack the game to the file, then unpack it from the file into ram. Whether or not that time would be greater or less than the time require to start a game from scratch is debateble Then there's the inherent stability aspect.

Not counting the splash screens (which can be disabled) the start up time required would be more or less the same...since its the same amount of memory that would need to be grabbed and filled.

I can't imagine it taking longer to resume a game than start it from scratch, even with the fastest NVME available. Assuming the "savestate" is being written to an NVME.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by belmonkey:

I can't imagine it taking longer to resume a game than start it from scratch, even with the fastest NVME available. Assuming the "savestate" is being written to an NVME.

You'd be suurprised. and when you take into account that I said, to pack and unpack. . If you trade a 30 sec startup time for a 15 second start up time and a 20 second packing time. you've basically traded down.

If a game is taking up 4 gigs of ram. then resuming means that the system is still gonna have to load 4gigs of ram from a disk file back into memory. So either way you're loading 4 gigs from disk. Why would you expect it to be faster to do it from a resume file as opposed to a straight startup?

Now granted its not just loading thinsg from file, theirs loading in thridparty ♥♥♥♥♥ and stuff and that might add a few extra seconds, especially if your CPU is being burdened. but again which is another thing. The suspend app might not properly link the memory spaces that are being called by the drivers, and thrid party stuff.

Your best bet is to essentially just modify the game start up to cut out the intro movies. That'll usually bring the loading time down to 30 secs or less.

[Bel]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by belmonkey:

I can't imagine it taking longer to resume a game than start it from scratch, even with the fastest NVME available. Assuming the "savestate" is being written to an NVME.

You'd be suurprised. and when you take into account that I said, to pack and unpack. . If you trade a 30 sec startup time for a 15 second start up time and a 20 second packing time. you've basically traded down.

Why would it take that long to "unpack" though when Xbox could do it in seconds?

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by belmonkey:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

You'd be suurprised. and when you take into account that I said, to pack and unpack. . If you trade a 30 sec startup time for a 15 second start up time and a 20 second packing time. you've basically traded down.

Why would it take that long to "unpack" though when Xbox could do it in seconds?

Because teh Xbox is doing it at the OS level and it has a signifiantly less complicated memory space.

There are only 2 things running on a consoles memory space. The OS and the GAme. and the OS is basically a scaled down version of a PC OS. It'd be like comparing a gocart to a regular car.

In the case of resume. TRhe first thing it will have to do is grab a block of memory big enough, which means tanking the time to shunt other apps from active to virtual memory. The time this requires depends on the speed of your drive, your ram, your cpu, and how much load is on anyone of those at the time of resume.

On the XBox. There is no suuch issue. There is just the os, and the game so it it doesn't have to worry about what amounts to tetrising memory space.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by belmonkey:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

You'd be suurprised. and when you take into account that I said, to pack and unpack. . If you trade a 30 sec startup time for a 15 second start up time and a 20 second packing time. you've basically traded down.

Why would it take that long to "unpack" though when Xbox could do it in seconds?

Because XBox works like an Alt-Tab. The game isn't suspended like when going into hibernation with Windows but simply resides in RAM without focus.

PS3 and XBox360 worked differently and only one application was allowed to run and occupy system ressources.

[Kicer]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Also what's the point? You can already alt-tab with most games. Something you could not do on console for a long time.

It would be cool if I could save the game in the middle of boss fight when i have no time to continue.
In many games if i quit at that moment, I would have to start a level from the beginning.

[Kicer]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

If STeam were set uup differently it might but the simple truth is Steam has no access to a game's memory area. either in pagee or in active memory. And to say nothing of the associated third party libraries, etc and drivers that the game calls.


For it to work the game itself would need theto do the suspending which then begs the case... if the game is needed to suspend and resume, the game itself needs to remain in memory and if the agme is still in memory...then what was the point of suspend?

I'm not 100% sure and I did not do any reaserch but I believe all major OSes provide more or less such functionality already.