Too many Steam processes

[mcolton1]

When I start Steam and look at Task manager, there are 8 processes running called "Steam Client Webhelper". Why?

It's almost as bad as Chrome which has 22 processes called "chrome.exe"

[eram]

Why is it too many when that's how many are needed for steam to run? Too many makes no sense when you have no idea how many are needed.

Say it was 100 processes, and?

[mcolton1]

It's using up too much memory. I'm playing DOS2 and I can't alt-esc or alt-tab out of the game to check something. That doesn't happen with non-steam games

[eram]

How much memory is too much? It doesnt use a lot. Mines under 300mb ram. i'm sure your issues are not related to how much memory the steam client is using.

[mcolton1]

about 500mb here

[Yasahi]

Go to View -> Settings -> Library and enable Low Bandwidth Mode and Low Performance Mode. You could also run Steam in Small Mode. Go to View -> Small Mode.

The client uses Chromium, that's why you're seeing several processes. It works in a similar fashion to Chrome that you mentioned in your OP.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by mcolton1:

It's using up too much memory. I'm playing DOS2 and I can't alt-esc or alt-tab out of the game to check something. That doesn't happen with non-steam games

That doesn't happen to any of my Steam games either, though.

My Steam usually hovers between 350-500Mb at the most. It used to be 200-350mb, so it did grow in size, but it hasn't impacted performance in any way on this old laptop.

You might want to check out the game though, I've had games in the past which refused to properly alt-tab or even do it at all.

[nullable]

Sounds like you need more RAM on your machine if it's not currently sufficient to run the software you want to run. Expecting the software to be re-engineered to fit your hardware specs has never gotten terribly effective results...

Alternatively you could try using the web browser in the overlay depending on what you're trying to check.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

A bit of an explanation...

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/616187204015705442/#c1696043806576878680

[Overseer]

Originally posted by mcolton1:

It's using up too much memory. I'm playing DOS2 and I can't alt-esc or alt-tab out of the game to check something. That doesn't happen with non-steam games

Also RAM being used is a good thing. If you have trouble with a games behaviour, don't simply assume it is caused by something you think you know about. That can easily be an illusory correlation, which you would have to test with a Steam and a non-Steam version of the SAME game.

[Chariots of the Gods]

Originally posted by mcolton1:

When I start Steam and look at Task manager, there are 8 processes running called "Steam Client Webhelper". Why?

It's almost as bad as Chrome which has 22 processes called "chrome.exe"

im surprised they didnt delete this or hide it already, and they wonder why people are complaining about the client. They cant even create a decent client for its users.. it just eats RAM

[Kargor]

Keep in mind that processes aren't necessarily "bad".

For starters, a process that's not doing anything takes no CPU. This is why your task manager shows all those processes with 0% CPU usage -- they are just sitting there, waiting for something to happen.

Now, as for the processes themselves, the code segment is shared -- so, whatever code they are executing is only loaded into RAM once. Beyond that, however, depends on what these processes do: they may or may not share some of their data.

In extreme cases, like the aforementioned "something" not happening for ages, their code might even be unloaded and their data might be placed on swap, leaving only a few bytes of actual RAM use.

Using processes is generally more complicated than threads (unless you're actually launching a separate application, but I don't think that's what's happening here), so there's probably a good reason for doing it.

[pasa]

Originally posted by Yasahi:

Go to View -> Settings -> Library and enable Low Bandwidth Mode and Low Performance Mode. You could also run Steam in Small Mode. Go to View -> Small Mode.

The client uses Chromium, that's why you're seeing several processes. It works in a similar fashion to Chrome that you mentioned in your OP.

Small mode does nothing with the process spam, even when it only displays the list it still has 7 processes and sits on all the memory.

Clearly shows the devs don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about the client and have no sense of "reasonable". :(

[nullable]

Originally posted by pasa:

Originally posted by Yasahi:

Go to View -> Settings -> Library and enable Low Bandwidth Mode and Low Performance Mode. You could also run Steam in Small Mode. Go to View -> Small Mode.

The client uses Chromium, that's why you're seeing several processes. It works in a similar fashion to Chrome that you mentioned in your OP.

Small mode does nothing with the process spam, even when it only displays the list it still has 7 processes and sits on all the memory.

Clearly shows the devs don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about the client and have no sense of "reasonable". :(

I'm always amazed at how bad all these professional developers are, if you're going by every layman's opinion...

[River Nachtegaal]

i have the same question! i dont understand if things were orgnized and tested . i dont think they would need so many helpers for google or chrome. it is out ragouse that we have more processes in our task manager these days than in 98 se. there is no need for this it is flat out a failior in the school systems they dontteach orgnization comprehention or how to finish a product if i had turned in papers in school that are as unfinishged as most games and search engins and even windowds these days i would have flunked . i just want to know what each web helper does what does it do why are they hiding what it does . and as the poster ask why do we need 22 processes for something that looks almost exactly like it did 30 years ago but it doesnt work as good. you should not need so many scripts to help a app not crash and my understanding is that webhelpers ect are there to keep the app from crashing. well if oyu have to have external processes to understand or get things to work ..it dont work thats like writing a paper and not putting in your bibliography

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by nachtegaal74:

i have the same question! i dont understand if things were orgnized and tested . i dont think they would need so many helpers for google or chrome. it is out ragouse that we have more processes in our task manager these days than in 98 se. there is no need for this it is flat out a failior in the school systems they dontteach orgnization comprehention or how to finish a product if i had turned in papers in school that are as unfinishged as most games and search engins and even windowds these days i would have flunked . i just want to know what each web helper does what does it do why are they hiding what it does . and as the poster ask why do we need 22 processes for something that looks almost exactly like it did 30 years ago but it doesnt work as good. you should not need so many scripts to help a app not crash and my understanding is that webhelpers ect are there to keep the app from crashing. well if oyu have to have external processes to understand or get things to work ..it dont work thats like writing a paper and not putting in your bibliography

It's just how Chromium works. Every separate tab/function has its own process, so when something crashes only that process crashes and not the whole program.

Been for years now with the Chromium browsers, obviously client software build on Chromium will have the same behaviour.

You're literally trying to paint normal behaviour as a "problem".