Clarification on how much CPU steam is actually using when idle.

[masterchef341]

First off, yes, steam is using too much CPU when idle. Now that that's out of the way, let's move on.

How much CPU is steam actually using? If you're on a quad core mac, you may look at activity monitor, see the report of 25%, and start panicking because it's apparently maxing out an entire core, or taking up 1/4 of your total processing power.

However, this is not right. Here's how activity monitor works:

In the lower left, %User, %System, and %Idle describe how much of your overall processing power is being used by applications like steam, by the operating system, and how much is idle. This section reads the same (out of 100%) no matter how many cores you have.

However, in the main section, where you can see process IDs, names, and % CPU, things are being reported differently. If you have a single core mac, % CPU is out of 100%. If you have a dual core mac, it's out of 200%. If you have a quad core, it's out of 400%, etc.

So, if you're running a quad core mac and activity monitor is reporting steam at 25%, it's actually just using 25% of one of your cores. If you're running a dual core mac, activity monitor is still going to report about 25%, because it's still using 25% of one of your cores.

This might be obvious to some people, but there are enough people confused about this to warrant an explanation.

Here's hoping valve gets around to reducing this down to some marginal amount, but I have do have one comment on the matter. When (good) professionals write code, the highest priorities are to generate code that is manageable, readable, maintainable, and accurate. Performance is not anywhere near the top of the list. That's just the nature of software development. It's definitely about time for valve to fix the CPU bug, but overall I'm actually happy that steam is at least operating pretty smoothly, and that they made it this far.

[Minamimoto Sho]

So, if you're running a quad core mac and activity monitor is reporting steam at 25%, it's actually just using 25% of one of your cores. If you're running a dual core mac, activity monitor is still going to report about 25%, because it's still using 25% of one of your cores.

Doesn't the percentage indicate the CPU time being used out of the rated clock speed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz

Just saiyan.

[Earthling84]

When I run a torture test with Prime95, Activity Monitor says that it's using ~746% CPU. So OP is right.

[MarcBook]

Yes, this is all well and true, but it's still a significant enough amount of CPU power being used to make my Mac (and many others', mostly notebooks) have to increase the fan speed quite a bit to a noticeable level.

This symptom is pretty irritating in a quiet room and prevents me from leaving Steam open in the background, which I'd like to do sometimes during my free time.

I agree, however, that the issue isn't as bad as some might think, but it's still a pretty bad problem with the Mac client.

[masterchef341]

Originally Posted by MarcBook

Yes, this is all well and true, but it's still a significant enough amount of CPU power being used to make my Mac (and many others', mostly notebooks) have to increase the fan speed quite a bit to a noticeable level.

This symptom is pretty irritating in a quiet room and prevents me from leaving Steam open in the background, which I'd like to do sometimes during my free time.

I agree, however, that the issue isn't as bad as some might think, but it's still a pretty bad problem with the Mac client.

duly noted.

[apdonato]

cool beans

[apdonato]

Originally Posted by Earthling84

When I run a torture test with Prime95, Activity Monitor says that it's using ~746% CPU. (I have an i7 processor.) So OP is right.

umm... yeah 746% cpu has nothing to do with having an i7 processor...

i7 processors range in number of cores.

[Skoopman]

Sorry masterchef341, but your explanation is wrong. It doesn't matter if it is a single, dual or quad core processor, it depends how many threads it can use. The dual core sandy-bridge processors mostly use 4 threads while the quad cores have 8 threads. So if you have one of these, Steam uses 25% of a total 400% or 800%. Still too much as every idle application should use <1%.

[apdonato]

Originally Posted by Skoopman

Sorry masterchef341, but your explanation is wrong. It doesn't matter if it is a single, dual or quad core processor, it depends how many threads it can use. The dual core sandy-bridge processors mostly use 4 threads while the quad cores have 8 threads. So if you have one of these, Steam uses 25% of a total 400% or 800%. Still too much as every idle application should use <1%.

You just blew my mind...

[Earthling84]

Originally Posted by apdonato

umm... yeah 746% cpu has nothing to do with having an i7 processor...

i7 processors range in number of cores.

Oops, sorry. For some reason I had just assumed they were all quad-core with hyperthreading. Nevermind.

[apdonato]

Originally Posted by Earthling84

Oops, sorry. For some reason I had just assumed they were all quad-core with hyperthreading. Nevermind.

Most are, but not all. I have a quad core i7 as well but I've read an article about how it depends... oh wait, here it is:

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/articl...ore_i3_i5_i7_/

Well, now that I have re-read the article, maybe they are all quad cores... idk ...It isn't very clear.

[rossip]

Originally Posted by masterchef341

How much CPU is steam actually using? If you're on a quad core mac, you may look at activity monitor, see the report of 25%, and start panicking because it's apparently maxing out an entire core, or taking up 1/4 of your total processing power.

However, this is not right.

Thanks for spreading the word on this. When I posted on the cpu thread about this, I didn't realize how many people thought steam was using up a whole core of their CPU! The client is inefficient, but it's not that bad!