Steam needs to lock per windows user account not per windows installation (for multiseat users/2gamers 1 PC)

[Dj_Zorbas]

So since my reddit post on the steam sub got a somewhat positive reaction (80 to 100 upvotes depending on when you visit the topic) https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/jx4v54/please_allow_multiseat_when_using_steam_we_are/


And since I already contacted steam support about this and they told me they will forward that to the appropriate department but wont be able to update you with any changes (although I am afraid that this might be a polite way to say "I am going to ignore your ticket :P )

I have decided to post my issue (and as it seems many other as well) here in the suggestions too in hopes that it might get better exposure to some sort of steam employee relevant to the issue .


So I mentioned the problem in detail in the reddit topic linked above but here it is again:

I use a multiseat scheme to use a single physical computer tower and split it into two stand alone clients so that I can use the computer simultaneously with my daughter.

Each of us logs into windows with a seperate windows account (e.g user 1 and user 2) we do NOT share screens each one has his/her own screen and personal folder etc.

Our mice keyboards etc dont conflict with each other

And we are perfectly able to play together simultaneously stand alone games (not steam games) e.g I have a copy of Age of mythology and we both can start the game and play via lan multiplayer (each of us has a different IP)


But we cant play steam games together (i am NOT talking about family sharing each of us has a seperate steam account e.g steamuser1 and steamuser 2)

each of us has his/her own license which I paid twice for each game one liecense for steamuser1 and an other for steamuser 2

but we cant play games on steam together because steam doesnt like to start twice on the same windows installation.


So e.g if I log into portal 2 (which both of us have a seperate license of which I paid twice) two things will happen at random

1) either my daughter will log off steam if I run the game first

2) or my daughter will stay on steam but wont be able to play any steam game

and vise versa. (obviously if only one logs into steam he or she can play his/her games and the other can do whatever else he/she wants even play a non steam game its just that we cant play steam games at the same time!)

We cant even play different games on steam on the same time (e.g me trying to play counter strike and her trying to play e.g Bioshock - and again licenses exist in both steam user 1 and 2 libraries and bought separately)

But any other stand alone game that hasnt steam DRM we are able to play no issue (infact even with only 1 license in that case unless its an online game)


And we are paying customers too and think this needs a fix if only steam was locking into a windows user account instead of windows OS in general it would be a simple sollution!

Essentially what we have here is like a 2 PC on a lan situation (separate accounts separate ips) which would work fine with steam.

But technically both windows users run from the same hardware and OS.

We use a program called Aster v7 to achieve this it's a program that divides hardware resources and windows accounts among multiple users but there are other ways to make this work

And if you google it you will find lots of people using one or an other mutliseat scheme and who are not able to play steam and I believe this needs to get fixed.


Thanks for your time reading this big post but I assure you our inconvenience is even bigger

[Mad Scientist]

The up votes Vs 5 comments in 14 days. I wouldn't say that's very popular compared to the entire user base.

To fix something it must be broken, what you want is moreover an additional feature. You'd likely need a much larger amount of people where they'd consider it, else it's just a pit of coding.

[Dj_Zorbas]

Orion původně napsal:

The up votes Vs 5 comments in 14 days. I wouldn't say that's very popular compared to the entire user base.

To fix something it must be broken, what you want is moreover an additional feature. You'd likely need a much larger amount of people where they'd consider it, else it's just a pit of coding.

I can be sophomoric too but I really do not see the reason for such a negativity

First of all I said "somewhat" and by judging on the first page of the sub most posts (and for tabs to go) have a single digit upvotes so it is not an exaggeration furthermore I dont see why you have to be so negative so you want me and my daughter keep on having this issue and hence you belittle it? what is in it for you for this not getting fixed?

"to fix something it must be broken" this is the suggestion section last time I checked not the bug report section

Last but not least there is absolutely 0 reason for steam not to work in that way so even on a "technically correct" level using the word "fix" isnt the issue here.

[oldblackvet]

I wouldn't mind a solution/feature like that. Just being honest and not trying to get into a big blownout conflict.

[Gwarsbane]

What you want can not be done by Valve or Steam. What you need is to have is virtualization. This can only be done by the OS and you need a decently powerful PC to do it.

Here is an example of what you are looking for though you only need 2 games 1 CPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI


I'm not sure about Linux or MAC but I know windows can't tell when you have 2 different keyboards and 2 different mice. It will treat them as 1, so no matter which mouse you use, the 1 pointer will move, if you type on both keyboard, it will show up at the same spot.

Unless you use virtualization. That however splits up the CPU, and I believe requires a second video card and a second monitor. Depending on the cards and the monitors you might as well just spring for a second, less powerful system for your daughter.

Again this is not a Valve or Steam thing, this is something you have to setup on your end.

[Dj_Zorbas]

Gwarsbane původně napsal:

What you want can not be done by Valve or Steam. What you need is to have is virtualization. This can only be done by the OS and you need a decently powerful PC to do it.

Here is an example of what you are looking for though you only need 2 games 1 CPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI


I'm not sure about Linux or MAC but I know windows can't tell when you have 2 different keyboards and 2 different mice. It will treat them as 1, so no matter which mouse you use, the 1 pointer will move, if you type on both keyboard, it will show up at the same spot.

Unless you use virtualization. That however splits up the CPU, and I believe requires a second video card and a second monitor. Depending on the cards and the monitors you might as well just spring for a second, less powerful system for your daughter.

Again this is not a Valve or Steam thing, this is something you have to setup on your end.

Thanks for you suggestion but I am afraid that is a workaround and not a solution.

I am aware of virtualization but a) it is too complicated to implement by me b) has lots of issues and decreases the performance of the system (since the way it runs now with Aster the resources get shared much more efficiently while by virtualization I have to hard lock share them near 50% all the time no matter if the 2nd client is using them or not + the virtualization software need to reserve some resources too in order to operate)

e.g By using a multiseat program such as Aster I have a i9 9900k (8c 16t) I can use them all for my windows account (windows user 1) if the 2nd user (windows user 2) doesnt log in, essentially windows CPU governor decides how to dynamically share the "horsepower"

In a virtualization setup, no matter what, I have to share the resource since boot e.g 7 threads for me 7 threads for the other user (even if the other user doesnt log into the machine) and 2 threads (if not more) for the virtualization software.

Gwarsbane původně napsal:

What you want can not be done by Valve or Steam.

I beg to differ the only reason steam won't (not "can't") do that is because its coded not to run the same instance on the same windows OS .

There is no physical or software limitation to run multiple instances of programs on the same OS (since windows 95 and even further back) and even steam can run multiple times on the same OS with workarounds that are limited though to offline mode (e.g sandboxie)


A simple solution would be to change the code to make the steam client lock at 1 instance to a windows >>user account<<(such as admin, guest, user1,user2 etc) so each account could run a separate instance of steam (with separate login info for each steam account of course) per windows user.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Gwarsbane původně napsal:

What you want can not be done by Valve or Steam. What you need is to have is virtualization. This can only be done by the OS and you need a decently powerful PC to do it.

Here is an example of what you are looking for though you only need 2 games 1 CPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI


I'm not sure about Linux or MAC but I know windows can't tell when you have 2 different keyboards and 2 different mice. It will treat them as 1, so no matter which mouse you use, the 1 pointer will move, if you type on both keyboard, it will show up at the same spot.

Unless you use virtualization. That however splits up the CPU, and I believe requires a second video card and a second monitor. Depending on the cards and the monitors you might as well just spring for a second, less powerful system for your daughter.

Again this is not a Valve or Steam thing, this is something you have to setup on your end.

Thanks for you suggestion but I am afraid that is a workaround and not a solution.

I am aware of virtualization but a) it is too complicated to implement by me b) has lots of issues and decreases the performance of the system (since the way it runs now with Aster the resources get shared much more efficiently while by virtualization I have to hard lock share them near 50% all the time no matter if the 2nd client is using them or not + the virtualization software need to reserve some resources too in order to operate)

e.g By using a multiseat program such as Aster I have a i9 9900k (8c 16t) I can use them all for my windows account (windows user 1) if the 2nd user (windows user 2) doesnt log in, essentially windows CPU governor decides how to dynamically share the "horsepower"

In a virtualization setup, no matter what, I have to share the resource since boot e.g 7 threads for me 7 threads for the other user (even if the other user doesnt log into the machine) and 2 threads (if not more) for the virtualization software.

Gwarsbane původně napsal:

What you want can not be done by Valve or Steam.

I beg to differ the only reason steam won't (not "can't") do that is because its coded not to run the same instance on the same windows OS .

There is no physical or software limitation to run multiple instances of programs on the same OS (since windows 95 and even further back) and even steam can run multiple times on the same OS with workarounds that are limited though to offline mode (e.g sandboxie)


A simple solution would be to change the code to make the steam client lock at 1 instance to a windows >>user account<<(such as admin, guest, user1,user2 etc) so each account could run a separate instance of steam (with separate login info for each steam account of course) per windows user.

There is very little incentive for Valve to do so. What you're wanting to accomplish is gonna be in such a minority of users that Valve likely won't see it as even worth looking into. The changes that have been brought about have been features that a large amount of the userbase clamored for(and then a smaller subset complaining about said feature implementation).

Now i'm not trying to imply I'm against to a feature addition, especially one that would have no effect on me. I'm just looking at it from a "but how many people actually want/would use" perspective.

[Dj_Zorbas]

Fiddle původně napsal:

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Thanks for you suggestion but I am afraid that is a workaround and not a solution.

I am aware of virtualization but a) it is too complicated to implement by me b) has lots of issues and decreases the performance of the system (since the way it runs now with Aster the resources get shared much more efficiently while by virtualization I have to hard lock share them near 50% all the time no matter if the 2nd client is using them or not + the virtualization software need to reserve some resources too in order to operate)

e.g By using a multiseat program such as Aster I have a i9 9900k (8c 16t) I can use them all for my windows account (windows user 1) if the 2nd user (windows user 2) doesnt log in, essentially windows CPU governor decides how to dynamically share the "horsepower"

In a virtualization setup, no matter what, I have to share the resource since boot e.g 7 threads for me 7 threads for the other user (even if the other user doesnt log into the machine) and 2 threads (if not more) for the virtualization software.








I beg to differ the only reason steam won't (not "can't") do that is because its coded not to run the same instance on the same windows OS .

There is no physical or software limitation to run multiple instances of programs on the same OS (since windows 95 and even further back) and even steam can run multiple times on the same OS with workarounds that are limited though to offline mode (e.g sandboxie)


A simple solution would be to change the code to make the steam client lock at 1 instance to a windows >>user account<<(such as admin, guest, user1,user2 etc) so each account could run a separate instance of steam (with separate login info for each steam account of course) per windows user.

There is very little incentive for Valve to do so. What you're wanting to accomplish is gonna be in such a minority of users that Valve likely won't see it as even worth looking into. The changes that have been brought about have been features that a large amount of the userbase clamored for(and then a smaller subset complaining about said feature implementation).

Now i'm not trying to imply I'm against to a feature addition, especially one that would have no effect on me. I'm just looking at it from a "but how many people actually want/would use" perspective.

well it does have a linux client doesnt it? (I mention that for the limited group of people you are refering to)

Also multi seat users are not such a minority as you might think especially in not so wealthy countries. and they may not have a strong forum presence (having said that I can find posts asking similar question even in this forum)

But we all are steam customers and paying the same amount of money (actually double that in my case) for our steam games.

And as technology advances so will the multi users group grow (e.g intel is about to introduce a technology called GVT-g in which intel graphics and i/o can be shared on multiple monitors for multiple users on the same physical machine)

Last but not least its not about rewriting the entire steam binary code its merely adjusting an obsolete (anti cheat measure I suppose to lock it per windows installation) "feature" that has to adjust to the modern reality.

Having said that I agree that from what I am reading steam more often than not doesnt seem to care about user feedback but this is the only thing I can do (posting and asking for help) so that is what I am doing.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Fiddle původně napsal:

There is very little incentive for Valve to do so. What you're wanting to accomplish is gonna be in such a minority of users that Valve likely won't see it as even worth looking into. The changes that have been brought about have been features that a large amount of the userbase clamored for(and then a smaller subset complaining about said feature implementation).

Now i'm not trying to imply I'm against to a feature addition, especially one that would have no effect on me. I'm just looking at it from a "but how many people actually want/would use" perspective.

well it does have a linux client doesnt it? (I mention that for the limited group of people you are refering to)

Also multi seat users are not such a minority as you might think especially in not so wealthy countries. and they may not have a strong forum presence (having said that I can find posts asking similar question even in this forum)

But we all are steam customers and paying the same amount of money (actually double that in my case) for our steam games.

And as technology advances so will the multi users group grow (e.g intel is about to introduce a technology called GVT-g in which intel graphics and i/o can be shared on multiple monitors for multiple users on the same physical machine)

Last but not least its not about rewriting the entire steam binary code its merely adjusting an obsolete (anti cheat measure I suppose to lock it per windows installation) "feature" that has to adjust to the modern reality.

Having said that I agree that from what I am reading steam more often than not doesnt seem to care about user feedback but this is the only thing I can do (posting and asking for help) so that is what I am doing.

Can't really compare the 2 as the number of Linux users may be significantly lower than Windows uers but it was still a high enough base for Valve to see merit in a client for it and much like Linux if multi-user sees a high enough rise in users then the odds of the client having features implemented to support it will rise also.

[Mad Scientist]

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

I can be sophomoric too but I really do not see the reason for such a negativity

If you think that's 'such negativity', I would not recommend online interactions for you.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

First of all I said "somewhat" and by judging on the first page of the sub most posts (and for tabs to go) have a single digit upvotes so it is not an exaggeration

Never said it was, but it's an insignificant reactionary base to assign an entire team of programmers.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

furthermore I dont see why you have to be so negative

You haven't had many interactions with people online, have you?

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

so you want me and my daughter keep on having this issue and hence you belittle it? what is in it for you for this not getting fixed?

If you want me to belittle your efforts it would be along the lines of "git gud and use a second system", but I'm not going to do that. If you're just going to get overly upset about the smallest, slightest bit of resistance it's hard to take your matter seriously.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

"to fix something it must be broken" this is the suggestion section last time I checked not the bug report section

It's not a bug, it's just not a feature.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Last but not least there is absolutely 0 reason for steam not to work in that way so even on a "technically correct" level using the word "fix" isnt the issue here.

In your opinion, there's no reason. Though again, that would also likely require assigning an entire team of programmers, for an overly specific setup that almost no one realistically uses.
1 billion accounts, 90 million active users. 23.6 million people online today.

I have a workstation and I wouldn't do what you're suggesting.

Also I notice you have two systems you can easily use, per your RUST review:

The game just busted my balls to make it running on two computers (Predators helios 300 and a i7 GTX 1070 desktop)

Your review complained that it was basically too difficult and too few resources when you played on Facepunch small, which is to be entirely expected. It seems you overall expect things to match what you want, but you don't go or use what's needed to make it a reality - and when you have two systems that could easily resolve the issue you insist Steam change their stuff.

Also, no, we don't pay the same amount of money. Don't even try that here.

Steam cares about feedback, but they're usually very silent and also know what is too much work for basically nothing to gain from. We don't even get sale dates, so don't expect to hear much other than the daily/weekly fixes which is the more important part of the client.

[Dj_Zorbas]

I would not bother to spend time debacling your entire post since it is obvious you just want to create contradiction for the sake of it I will just respond to this:

Orion původně napsal:

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

In your opinion, there's no reason. Though again, that would also likely require assigning an entire team of programmers, for an overly specific setup that almost no one realistically uses.
1 billion accounts, 90 million active users. 23.6 million people online today.

How do you know how many programmers have to be assigned for this?

Last but not least from Steam's update notes https://store.steampowered.com/news/?feed=steam_client

Steam Overlay
Fixed a crash when switching between Direct3D 11 and 12 or vice versa in Serious Sam 4

How many people play serious sam and also are switching between DX11 and 12? .. yet steam fixed it.

Fixed runaway memory usage in steamwebhelper process when a corrupt proxy auto-config script is encountered

How many people could possible use steamwebhelper and run a corruct proxy auto-config script while doing so? yet steam fixed it....

Fix OS detection when running on macOS 11 beta. Steam will currently treat it as macOS 10.15.

How many people game on Macs? (even less than on linux) and from those how many had macOS 11 BETA? yet steam fixed it.....

team Input
Fixed hang enumerating some rare USB devices on Windows

It has "rare" in the description I dont even need to elaborate... yet steam fixed it...

Steam Input
Fixed compatibility issues with Thrustmaster’s Thustmapper software

What is Thrustmaster to begin with? never heard of that game... how many people play it? .... and it had issues with a specific feature of it (so an even smaller margine of that game's users ) ... yet steam fixed it... Edit: its an accessory for a game that a small group of people plays.. so a minority of a minority .... yet steam fixed it...


And I could go on and on those are just in the first page of Steam's client update notes.


Further more there is a variety of multiseat software https://www.geckoandfly.com/23654/virtual-desktop-software-multiple-users/ aster v7 only being one solluition and the variety means that the userbase is atleast a 4 digit number


So yea I believe that there is nothing more to say to your "arguments" which are just negative in purpose to contradict my post with no other intend or reason other than for the sake of it.

[Nx Machina]

You have two PC's. You have a solution.

You choose a different route, Steam needs to conform to your wants whilst not seeing the potential abuse such an implementation could cause.

[Dj_Zorbas]

Shogun Blade původně napsal:

You have two PC's. You have a solution.

Buy me the second one.

[Gwarsbane]

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Thanks for you suggestion but I am afraid that is a workaround and not a solution.

I am aware of virtualization but a) it is too complicated to implement by me b) has lots of issues and decreases the performance of the system (since the way it runs now with Aster the resources get shared much more efficiently while by virtualization I have to hard lock share them near 50% all the time no matter if the 2nd client is using them or not + the virtualization software need to reserve some resources too in order to operate)

e.g By using a multiseat program such as Aster I have a i9 9900k (8c 16t) I can use them all for my windows account (windows user 1) if the 2nd user (windows user 2) doesnt log in, essentially windows CPU governor decides how to dynamically share the "horsepower"

In a virtualization setup, no matter what, I have to share the resource since boot e.g 7 threads for me 7 threads for the other user (even if the other user doesnt log into the machine) and 2 threads (if not more) for the virtualization software.

If you want to setup steam so that you can run 2 of it, along with running 2 games at once controlled by 2 different people, with 2 different keyboards and 2 different mice... thats what you need to do is virtualization.

Its ALWAYS going to split the system resources in 2.

Again Windows will not use 2 keyboards and 2 mice at the same time to do 2 different things at once.

It will only focus on 1 thing at a time, meaning if both of you type into the keyboard at the same time "abcdefg" it will show up as "aabbccddeeffgg" on what ever screen was last clicked on.

Virtualization is the only way around that as far as I know.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Gwarsbane původně napsal:

What you want can not be done by Valve or Steam.

I beg to differ the only reason steam won't (not "can't") do that is because its coded not to run the same instance on the same windows OS .

There is no physical or software limitation to run multiple instances of programs on the same OS (since windows 95 and even further back) and even steam can run multiple times on the same OS with workarounds that are limited though to offline mode (e.g sandboxie)


A simple solution would be to change the code to make the steam client lock at 1 instance to a windows >>user account<<(such as admin, guest, user1,user2 etc) so each account could run a separate instance of steam (with separate login info for each steam account of course) per windows user.

Its not as simple as you think, windows itself can only seem to focus on one thing at a time. You can have things running on their own in the background, but the second you click on something else, that program/game loses focus.

And even if something did allow you to focus on 2 things at the same time with 2 different keyboards and 2 different mice on 1 instance of computers, its still going to split the resources, it would have to.


Yes some/many programs can run more than once instance, but those are programs that can run things in the background while another instance of it is doing something else while its focused on.

Just open up 2 different games with steam (I've opened up many games via steam, super easy to do), now go and try to play both of them at the same time. Its not going to happen and its not because of steams limits, and its not because its from the same steam instance.

Its a windows thing. Either find 3rd party software that will allow it, which I don't think there is, or learn how to turn virtualization on in windows 10.

https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ei=ad_JX9jLKZKs5wK6n7joDA&q=virtualization+windows+10

[Nx Machina]

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Shogun Blade původně napsal:

You have two PC's. You have a solution.

Buy me the second one.

You have already have two.

Your Rust review: Posted 4th November 2019.

The game just busted my balls to make it running on two computers (Predators helios 300 and a i7 GTX 1070 desktop) crashes blurred graphics while setting were on high and various other error codes...

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Orion původně napsal:

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

I can be sophomoric too but I really do not see the reason for such a negativity

If you think that's 'such negativity', I would not recommend online interactions for you.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

First of all I said "somewhat" and by judging on the first page of the sub most posts (and for tabs to go) have a single digit upvotes so it is not an exaggeration

Never said it was, but it's an insignificant reactionary base to assign an entire team of programmers.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

furthermore I dont see why you have to be so negative

You haven't had many interactions with people online, have you?

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

so you want me and my daughter keep on having this issue and hence you belittle it? what is in it for you for this not getting fixed?

If you want me to belittle your efforts it would be along the lines of "git gud and use a second system", but I'm not going to do that. If you're just going to get overly upset about the smallest, slightest bit of resistance it's hard to take your matter seriously.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

"to fix something it must be broken" this is the suggestion section last time I checked not the bug report section

It's not a bug, it's just not a feature.

Dj_Zorbas původně napsal:

Last but not least there is absolutely 0 reason for steam not to work in that way so even on a "technically correct" level using the word "fix" isnt the issue here.

In your opinion, there's no reason. Though again, that would also likely require assigning an entire team of programmers, for an overly specific setup that almost no one realistically uses.
1 billion accounts, 90 million active users. 23.6 million people online today.

I have a workstation and I wouldn't do what you're suggesting.

Also I notice you have two systems you can easily use, per your RUST review:

The game just busted my balls to make it running on two computers (Predators helios 300 and a i7 GTX 1070 desktop)

Your review complained that it was basically too difficult and too few resources when you played on Facepunch small, which is to be entirely expected. It seems you overall expect things to match what you want, but you don't go or use what's needed to make it a reality - and when you have two systems that could easily resolve the issue you insist Steam change their stuff.

Also, no, we don't pay the same amount of money. Don't even try that here.

Steam cares about feedback, but they're usually very silent and also know what is too much work for basically nothing to gain from. We don't even get sale dates, so don't expect to hear much other than the daily/weekly fixes which is the more important part of the client.

Fixing something rare that causes already supported features/software to malfunction is normal. Implementing something new is a different situation but if it becomes popular enough to represent a large enough user base I'm sure Valve would impliment/look into the feasibility of implementing it.