Steam Client Webhelper using over 1GB RAM?!

[EliTe]

Why is my Steam Webhelper using more than 1GB, it's insane!

There are 47 processes for Steam Webhelper alone.

Any tips/ideas?

[sebo]

Welcome to Steam

As memory increases past 1gb, restarting Steam periodically is about all you can do.

[Bing Chilling]

mine atm is only using 380mb + 22mb + 0.2mb (there's three processes for some reason)
there shouldn't be more then like 5-10 processes at most unless you are using the in game overlay with the browser (each tab is another process,chrome does the same but groups them)

if your steam is using over a 1gb of ram it's probably because you've been browsing alot of forums/community hubs,the store page and using the browser.

it doesn't really matter how much it uses as steam is just caching it so it loads faster if you go back, if your system needs the ram windows will force steam to only use what it actually needs. similar to what chrome or any other application does

if it really is a problem you can turn steam into performance mode by going to
steam>settings>library
enable : "low bandwidth mode"
enable : "low performance mode"
enable : "disable community content"

that should free up a decent amount of ram

[Haruspex]

Steam is, in essence, a browser based on Chromium. It's true browsers today are more RAM hungry than they used to be, but also computers today have enough to handle it.

I just opened Firefox and navigated it to the Steam forums. Comparing it to Steam right now, Firefox is using about 600 MB of RAM, while Steam is using about 800 MB. Sometimes when I check, Steam is using more, or less. Earlier today I can say for a fact Steam was using 1.4 GB, and now it's using 800.

Opprinnelig skrevet av sebo:

As memory increases past 1gb, restarting Steam periodically is about all you can do.

This suggests that Steam has a memory leak problem. The definition of a memory leak is when memory is allocated, but not deallocated. As I said before, for me Steam was using well over 1 GB earlier. Now it's using 800 MB. I'm sure it will continue to go up and down as I use my PC. I'm not alarmed or concerned about it, and unless you have a system with a distressingly small amount of RAM for 2024, like 4 GB or less, neither should you.

There are folks who are weirdly anxious about how much RAM is free in their system at all times. I find this a bit odd, personally. Modern systems have very good memory management for the most part, and if I have RAM, I want it to be utilized. Unused RAM is wasted RAM, and things are much more responsive and snappy when loaded from RAM, rather than from drive storage or the Internet. Some people panic about Steam using > 1 GB of RAM like that RAM has been utterly consumed by Steam and they'll never see it again, and no program will ever have access to it. This just isn't the case.

Steam, and your PC, knows what to do with your RAM, and as long as you have a reasonable amount of memory or more and you aren't currently experiencing performance problems, you're really not helping anyone by fretting about the number in task manager.

Edit:
And OP's profile says he has 48 GB of RAM. I don't think he'll be running into memory issues any time soon, even if Steam starts using several orders of magnitude more RAM than it is now.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

47?

There should be around 6-8 maximum.

Restart Steam

[N3tRunn3r]

1 GB? You lucky one xD

We compain about 6 GB and 12 GB !!

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/11/6516193260170046133/?ctp=11#c4030224296642930307

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/5540052310300845065/#c4030224296642934090

[pasa]

They converted the library tab into full bloatware without ability to disable the parasites. If you just click on every game the memory usage goes to the sky and apparently is not released unless restart. (That is on top of everything else).

[nullable]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kick | eliteap:

Why is my Steam Webhelper using more than 1GB, it's insane!

There are 47 processes for Steam Webhelper alone.

Any tips/ideas?

1. tip: Restart Steam if you have a particular issue with RAM/processes
   
2. idea: Don't bother fussing over how a program functions, you can't control it, and your opinions aren't going to change much. RAM is plentiful and we're past the age of trying to work around limited RAM constraints, so while it might be more RAM than you expect, it's not really a problem. After all how much RAM do you have? If it's a low amount, well you're gonna need to upgrade someday, welcome to PC's. And if it's a high amount, why are you fussing over a small fraction being used?

[ThorF]

Opprinnelig skrevet av nullable:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kick | eliteap:

Why is my Steam Webhelper using more than 1GB, it's insane!

There are 47 processes for Steam Webhelper alone.

Any tips/ideas?

1. tip: Restart Steam if you have a particular issue with RAM/processes
   
2. idea: Don't bother fussing over how a program functions, you can't control it, and your opinions aren't going to change much. RAM is plentiful and we're past the age of trying to work around limited RAM constraints, so while it might be more RAM than you expect, it's not really a problem. After all how much RAM do you have? If it's a low amount, well you're gonna need to upgrade someday, welcome to PC's. And if it's a high amount, why are you fussing over a small fraction being used?

it's a launcher for games not your daily browser (even my Opera with 50-60 tabs open don't take more then 2Go of ram) so yhea i don't want steam to take my ram for "nothing"

[Crawl]

Opprinnelig skrevet av pasa:

They converted the library tab into full bloatware without ability to disable the parasites. If you just click on every game the memory usage goes to the sky and apparently is not released unless restart. (That is on top of everything else).

If that is true for you then something is up with your system. Webhelper uses about 1GB if I'm actively doing stuff in the client, if not it drops down closer to 600MB. I do see spikes if I click around a bunch in the library but it stayed well under 2GB and as soon as I stopped clicking around it dropped back down to previous usage levels.

I also really don't understand why people pay for hardware and then panic when its actually used.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Steam is essentially a browser now
There are a number of options in the settings that can limit the usage but thats about it.. Only thing you can really do is restart steam when usage becomes an issue.

[nullable]

Opprinnelig skrevet av ThorF:

it's a launcher for games not your daily browser (even my Opera with 50-60 tabs open don't take more then 2Go of ram) so yhea i don't want steam to take my ram for "nothing"

I understand what you're saying and how you're feeling. But again, regardless of how much RAM you arbitrarily think a program ought to use or assume should use is moot.

Keep in mind Steam isn't Opera, so even though they're both Chromium based your assumptions that you can compare their RAM usage is oversimplifying things and you're ignoring the different purposes and goals between Steam and Opera.

Forgive me, I've just seem people wringing their hands over RAM usage for various programs for decades. I mean people were wailing and crying when Firefox was using 100MB of RAM because that was more RAM than IE6 used. "A web browser shouldn't be using that much RAM." Well they were wrong and they were fussing over nothing. Twenty years later, people are still fussing over small amounts of RAM like it matters. And all I'm saying is it's still a waste of time.

And nothing is going to change the fact if 1GB of RAM causes a significant impact on your system you need more RAM. And if it doesn't, you're wasting your time fussing over it.

And in 2043 Steam is gonna use 10GB of RAM and people will be throwing fits over that too even though they're running 128/192/256GB of RAM.

[EliTe]

Just an update, I've read everyone's comments etc. and thanks for everyone's feedback.

The reason it seemed unusual was not because I don't have an understanding of apps using a certain amount of RAM, I mean, I use VMs part of my daily job role so I consume about 20GB+ just on those alone.

I have 48GB RAM installed so I don't have an issue with how much it's using, I had as issue as to why it was using that much RAM with the amount of processes it were handling at the time of this post @nullable. Steam has never acted the way it has like it did and was very unusual behaviour, unresponsive and hanging.

It seems to have settled though now. I have disabled the hardware acceleration part of things where it uses all the fancy animations on everything in the store and that has brought the processes down to 4-7 with no ridiculous spikes of RAM usage.

Will continue to monitor