Author Topic: ?? Steam ??  (Read 758 times)

Offline SPKmes

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?? Steam ??
« on: August 30, 2010, 02:38:22 PM »
What can this do?   I have had ping rate issues so I called my ISP told them I wanted more than front desk help and they sent me out a diagnostic app which gets sent straight to their Tier 2(well so they say)...In any case I ran the diagnostic and when finished it said that the test was done but the connection was under load...so I disconnect all other PC's and run the test again and all is back to normal.....I plug in the cable to the kids switch and it starts to rise up again....I spoke to the only one who had their PC on and he wasn't on it or downloading anything....I tell him to shut down steam and ping drops back to normal again..

my usual ping to AH is 172ms.....when his PC is on I'm looking at 200 -1500 ms and very erratic.
Last month our bill said we used 37GB which caused all sorts of issues for the kids as they used to be downloading willy nilly and we thought 15GB was rough but didn't worry too much just thought ok their games quite heavy handed and upped our usage rate to 25Gb...but then to get that statement well......

Can/does steam use PC's as a hop.....does having it on allow people in to take stuff continually?  I will be checking my usage now that it is off but he does use it for making maps or something..

I would like to know if I should get rid of it totally, is it actually bad...I thought it was the new way to get games and upgrades but if it was all just a ploy to allow rubbish I will knock it on the head. 

Cheers
« Last Edit: August 30, 2010, 02:48:15 PM by SPKmes »

Offline Skuzzy

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2010, 02:43:03 PM »
I have seen Steam bring down entire networks.  Nothing unusal about that.
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
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Offline Ack-Ack

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2010, 06:50:10 PM »
Steam is constently receiving and sending data when you're signed on.  It's best not to have it auto-start with Windows and only log into Steam when you're going to play and then sign off when you stop.

ack-ack
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Offline Tigger29

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2010, 08:24:21 PM »
Steam is constently receiving and sending data when you're signed on.  It's best not to have it auto-start with Windows and only log into Steam when you're going to play and then sign off when you stop.

ack-ack

Yes.. what he said... Steam is kind of like the 'napster' of video games... except in the fact that it is slightly more legal.  Yes, you have to install it and run it and all that to play those games, but when you do so, it adds your computer to their 'network' and uses your network as part of their P2P (peer to peer) downloading network.

Maybe I can put this in a better way.  Lets say you want to play a game called... oh I dunno... "Skuzzy Hero", but you have to install steam to play it.  When your computer downloads it, it is actually downloading "Skuzzy Hero" from the three other people that already have it, and not from steam directly.  Now that you now have "Skuzzy Hero", and since it is becoming such an AWESOME title, now a thousand people are downloading it, and since you are part of the Steam network you computer has to handle some of the bandwidth as a result.

It's kind of crummy, and IMO should be illegal, but it's a way for the developers to save money by not having to actually host and run the servers to handle all of these downloads.  For free software I understand... but if this was for something I pay for... well I'd rather not resort to profanities!

But Ack has a good point.  Almost every piece of software has an option to stop it from "running when windows starts", and as a result, EVERYTIME I install anything.. I reboot and check my running processes.  If I see it on the list then I go through all of the options (sometimes it is hidden in there pretty good) and I turn it off at bootup.  If that option doesn't exist, I'll usually just uninstall it at that point.  Then I reboot and make sure it didn't come up that time.  You should make a habit of doing this.. not only when you install a program, but also anytime it updates, as they will often reset all of these settings back to 'default'.

Any file sharing program, instant messaging program, media program (yes including Microsoft).. and of course, Java and Flash... are bad about this.  It sucks, but it's pretty much the norm these days.

Offline SPKmes

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2010, 09:17:50 PM »
Cheers guys..I had told Daniel that he would have to turn it off and change the settings..I will keep an eye on this from here out...It's pretty rough considering for some of these games it is the only way to get/play them...schisters...smart but, schisters all the same...

Offline Ghastly

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2010, 09:43:56 PM »
A point of clarification, which is that last I knew, Steam was still not P2P, excluding the voice portion of the application.  They maintain(ed) their own content servers.

You might argue that this is an unimportant distinction, and if so, I will not disturb your ignorance. But I will tell you that the moment it goes P2P for content, I'll have a very unhappy son, because it will be banned. And NOT due to security concerns over players manipulating the content on their own systems prior to your download, although that alone would be a valid concern.

No, it's because you CANNOT turn off a P2P "server" and stop the traffic if it's overwhelming your connection, or causing you other problems. Right now, you CAN stop the Steam service, and because it's all "pull" technology from their content servers, the traffic stops.

But on every P2P system I've seen to date, in order to provide robustness while using a hacked together hodgepodge of whatnot that was never meant to be whole, the directory service as well as other nodes who have cached your IP address as a source do not drop the listing for an extended period of time, and other systems do not stop pounding on your connection until the cache clears, which is some times DAYS after you've disabled the P2P server.

<S>
« Last Edit: August 30, 2010, 09:50:07 PM by Ghastly »
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Offline Krusty

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2010, 12:15:18 AM »
I agree that Steam itself isn't going to be a completely evil thing. What is killing your network and your bandwidth is probably that it's downloading hundreds of MB a second for days on end. Some games are pretty hefty nowadays, so STALKER Call of Pripyat (my latest offline addiction) is 9.8GB.

However, most of these are 1-time downloads. The question you have to ask your kid is "what exactly are you downloading?" -- and this might play into content concerns you have, or possibly budgetary concerns you have (since there's only so much free content on STEAM, he could be racking up ccard charges like phone aps do).

I've been using Steam since day one (since I was forced to by Valve) and it's no saint, it's terrible sometimes, but it's not going to kill your gaming experience unless you LET it kill your gaming experience.

Because, let's face it... Valve's online play may suck horribly since HL2, but their offline play and storytelling is excellent! Steam's the only way to get those games.

Offline zack1234

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2010, 12:42:34 AM »
Where do I get a copy of Skuzzy hero please ?
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Offline guncrasher

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2010, 03:16:37 AM »
Where do I get a copy of Skuzzy hero please ?

its included with your subscription to ah.

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Offline Skuzzy

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #9 on: August 31, 2010, 10:06:52 AM »
Trying to be delicate here as I know the Steam zealots are a sensitive bunch, but Steam can bring a LAN to its knees, even when it is not downloading anything at all.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2010, 10:11:19 AM by Skuzzy »
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Offline Ghastly

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #10 on: August 31, 2010, 10:53:20 AM »
Skuzzy, what have you seen it do, that I should be on the lookout for?

My experience to date has been that as much as I dislike and distrust the darn thing, I can kill it by stopping the processes associated with it from starting, and restarting the system where he loaded it, so I've grudgingly permitted him to use it, as long as he accepts the fact that it ain't gonna be running unless he starts it.   

And "zealot" is a good word - he feels about some regarding the Steam-delivered games as I do about AH.   

<S>

 

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Offline Skuzzy

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #11 on: August 31, 2010, 11:01:41 AM »
Just a generic TCP ACK DOS attack.  That is what it will appear like.  Under certain circumstances, it appears to flood a network with requests on the order of thousands of requests per second.

Certain network topographies appear to trigger it more often than others.  A non-routable IP address behind multiple routers really pisses it off.
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
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Offline Krusty

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #12 on: August 31, 2010, 06:10:08 PM »
Why the heck would STEAM want to do that??

No, honest question! The entire point of STEAM is downloading content and social networking (friends lists, etc) why the heck would it do that kinda thing?


I only use it when I want it and don't let it run any time I don't, but this is worrying news indeed.

Offline Ghastly

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #13 on: August 31, 2010, 06:46:42 PM »
Why the heck would STEAM want to do that??

No, honest question! The entire point of STEAM is downloading content and social networking (friends lists, etc) why the heck would it do that kinda thing?


I only use it when I want it and don't let it run any time I don't, but this is worrying news indeed.

Krusty, I doubt they would write it to do so intentionally.  It wouldn't be the first piece of software to go off the deep end if it doesn't understand what's happening in the environment you are running it in.

Skuzzy, thanks for the info.  I now no where to look first if things go haywire...

<S>
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Offline prono

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Re: ?? Steam ??
« Reply #14 on: September 03, 2010, 10:58:57 AM »
Check your router if you can use QOS (Quality of Service). Set highest priority to AH servers and you are good. I have old cheap TP-link and QoS helps a lot in my multi PC network. Better yet is to kill Steam  :rock

http://www.watchingthenet.com/how-to-view-and-kill-processes-on-remote-windows-computers.html